Region 6 Moves to Tier 1 Mitigations

The City of Urbana, as part of Region 6, has been upgraded to Tier 1 as a result of the Illinois Department of Public Health adjusting the metrics to allow more regions to lift strict mitigations.

This decision was made after a meeting with hospital leaders.

The IDPH said in a statement that hospital leaders and local health departments have communicated to IDPH that their primary capacity challenge is the need for additional staffing and stressed that state-facilitated staffing contracts will be critical in addressing this challenge. With this surge staffing program, IDPH and hospital leaders feel confident that metrics can safely move away from utilizing medical/surgical bed limits to move across mitigation tiers, allowing more regions to advance. The adjustment also recognizes the substantial progress the state has made since November 20, 2020 when Tier 3 mitigations were put in place.

"Hospital leaders have made clear the importance of staffing in their continued response to this pandemic and conveyed that staffing contracts will be extraordinarily valuable in their ability to meet the needs of their communities," said IDPH Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike.  "We are pleased to see most of our regions move out of Tier 3 mitigations with this change, and it is critical that we maintain this progress. With new variants of COVID-19 spreading, it is more important than ever to follow the public health guidance that keeps people safe - wear and mask and watch your distance."

For Region 6 met the following metrics to move to Tier 1 mitigations:

1) A test positivity rate between 6.5 and 8% for three consecutive days, as measured by the 7-day rolling average; AND
2) ≥20% available staffed ICU hospital beds for three consecutive days, on a 7-day rolling average; AND
3) No sustained increase in the number of people in the hospital with COVID-19 for seven out of 10 days, on a 7-day average.

City of Urbana Mayor Diane Wolfe Marlin was to the point when the news was released Monday.

"To be clear, the virus is still as dangerous as ever if you’re not vaccinated. Today’s news means we now have room in the hospitals, so continue your COVID prevention efforts and get vaccinated as soon as you can," The Mayor said.

See the graphic below to view how these mitigations will be applied.

Information about mitigation and resurgence metrics can be found on the IDPH website at http://www.dph.illinois.gov/regionmetrics.