When disasters or public health threats hit Knox County, its Emergency Management Agency sets up a Unified Emergency Operations Center. The center is commonly called the "Unified Command."
Its team is comprised of local health and safety agencies. They monitor and manage the crisis while following the protocols developed by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Illinois Department of Public Health.
On June 26, the Command’s dashboard shifted reporting COVID-19 data from a daily to a weekly basis. The Command’s lead, Randy Hovind, said they made the change because of the county’s low infection rates.
“We had talked about it several weeks before because the testing numbers were kind of dropping, and the positive rate was dropping. The hospitals just weren’t seeing any surges. They had a lot of open capacity. They were seeing the admissions drop, so the decision was made as a team that we should go ahead and deactivate,” Hovind said.
Knox County is in Phase 4 of Governor J-B Pritzker’s Restore Illinois plan. To enter that phase, the county met the requirement of reporting under 20% of positive cases.
Now, during the mitigation stage, the governor’s plan refines the metrics and breaks them into eight measures:
- Number of New Cases per 100,000
- Number of Deaths
- Test Positivity (%)
- Tests Performed
- Emergency Department Visits (%)
- Number of Admissions for COVID-19-like Illness
- Cluster of cases (%)
- ICU Bed Availability (%)
If the county fails to meet these metrics, it can be placed on a watch list. The state added Knox County to such a list this week because of its number of cases per 100,000 people. The county’s new cases are reported at 58. The mitigation threshold is under 50.
However, the test positivity average, which is another measure, is well below the state’s requirement of eight percent. Knox County’s current test positivity rate is reported as 3.8%. Since the Unified Command’s deactivation, the positive rates have remained under 5%.
Hovind said the Unified Command can reconvene at any time if the situation warrants it.
“We’re still in contact with each other and any member of the team—if they feel they need to activate the Unified Command—can do that. They just contact the rest of us and then we’re back reactivated again. I would say that the health department is still tracking daily. They’re just not posting it daily,” Hovind said.
Although Knox County’s infection rate is low, the health department is now reporting a total of 285 cases of COVID-19. And Knox County’s second COVID-related death was reported on Aug 6.
Hovind said residents need to continue practicing the established safety protocols.
“We just need to, more than ever right now, practice wearing the masks, washing our hands, social distancing if possible, and be very vigilant in that and I think we can keep our numbers down,” Hovind said.
Overall, one of Hovind’s main concerns is how people are treating each other. Masks have become a divisive issue. Hovind says he knows people have been under a lot of strain. He’s encouraging everyone to be kind to one another. He said we need to work together to get through the pandemic.
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