Though still a far cry from spikes seen earlier this year, the rate of COVID-19 hospital admissions appears to be on the rise in Illinois according to the CDC’s COVID Data Tracker.

Across the state, the CDC’s most recent report saw 597 new admissions due to COVID throughout Illinois. This is up from the 166 admissions reported on July 15.

A previous report indicated 2,039 admissions at the start of the year and 1,076 at the second big peak in mid-February.

Locally, Monroe, Randolph and St. Clair counties each are reported to have a 38.9 percent increase in hospitalizations due to COVID in the past week.

Monroe County Health Department Administrator John Wagner confirmed there has been an apparent increase in cases recently, though the rate of spread is not currently alarming.

Wagner suggested that late-summer gatherings might be one reason for the increase in COVID cases.

“We have seen an increase about the past month,” Wagner said. “This is not based on any large study or anything like that, but there has been an increase in cases. Some of that might be due to the end of the summer, people getting together, stuff like that. Any time you have any type of respiratory illness that’s present in some form, as long as it’s out there, it’s gonna increase as more and more people get together.”

He also noted that this recent uptick in cases seems less worrisome given the cases themselves aren’t as severe.

“The good news is that hospitalizations are not increasing, and the death rate’s not increasing,” Wagner said. “There’s some good treatments out there now for COVID.”

Wagner further spoke about the potential spread of COVID in the future, with school and cold weather in general likely leading to additional increases in transmission rates.

He said, going forward, COVID transmission rates might increase or decrease similarly to the annual flu, though it will also be present throughout the year.

“It’s going to be similar to it, but it’s not going to be seasonal,” Wagner said. “The flu is seasonal, meaning it comes in the fall, throughout the winter, and then disappears during the summer to zero cases a lot of the time and then reemerges the next year as a different strain. COVID’s gonna be present throughout the year, just at lower levels.”

Wagner also said prevention of spread can often be challenging as many who catch the virus are most contagious before they show symptoms, making precautionary measures difficult.

Regarding the spread of COVID in schools, Waterloo Superintendent of Schools Brian Charron said his district has already encountered a number of cases during the first month of the fall semester.

“We’ve had a couple employees and a few students reported to have tested positive, but it’s nothing that has raised any level of concern for us at this point,” Charron said.

Relatedly, outside of Monroe County, the Red Bud School District recently passed a resolution outlining its policy on COVID procedures, as reported in last week’s issue of the North County News.

That story described how, at an Aug. 31 special meeting, multiple members of the Red Bud School Board expressed regret about masking and quarantine enforcement done in previous years during the height of COVID pandemic precautions.

The unanimously approved resolution establishes that the district won’t require students or staff to mask – nor will asymptomatic students or staff be required to stay out of school.

The article quotes Red Bud Superintendent of Schools Jonathan Tallman’s summary of the district’s policy.

“We weren’t authorized to do what we did last time, to require masks or deny healthy kids to go to school,” Tallman said. “So we’re making it clear that we don’t have the authority to do what we did and won’t do it again.”

When asked if the Waterloo School Board might implement a similar policy, Charron said that discussion about such a decision could come up if COVID pandemic precautions become an issue in the future.

Elsewhere in the area, Kendra Holmes, president and CEO of St. Louis nonprofit Affinia Healthcare, recently spoke about a surge in COVID cases.

As recently reported by FOX2, Holmes noted that some areas of St. Louis County were recently reported to be “about 30 percent positive,” though she added that, as many now rely on home testing, that percentage could be significantly higher.

Holmes further remarked that “vaccinations absolutely work at preventing severe illness and death,” adding that those who test positive should continue the typical procedure of staying home for five days with an additional five days of masking.

Additionally, as reported by Associated Press, the FDA recently approved updated COVID-19 vaccines in the hopes of reducing any surge that might come in the next few months.

The decision, as the article states, opens access to the newest shots from Moderna and Pfizer to most Americans regardless of whether or not they’ve had a COVID vaccine previously, part of an apparent shift to treat fall updates to the vaccine similarly to an annual flu shot.