MONROE COUNTY, Ill. — Monroe County health officials said state health officials are getting ready to place the county into the orange “danger” zone when it comes to COVID positivity in the county.
But Monroe County Health Department Administrator John Wagner said it’s not as bad as it looks.
“The problem is last Thursday I got a notification that Monroe County is going to orange as far as positivity, meaning we were in a danger level as far as positivity,” Wagner said.
Wagner said the issue is the reporting of positive test results.
“We know this because we’re contacted by people from Monroe County who say, ‘I tested positive.’”
Wagner said many Monroe County residents go to St. Louis to get tested for COVID, and their results are not being readily forwarded to the state of Illinois.
“And we’ll tell them, ‘We don’t have your test result,” he said. “’When and where did you get tested?’ Then we end up having to track down the positives, get hold of the hospital or facility that did the test and have them send the results to us, and we manually enter the positives into the system. But we have no idea how many negatives there are.”
Wagner said not knowing the number of negatives is what is skewing the numbers.
“And we’ve been working with the Illinois Department of Public Health for two-and-a-half weeks,” he said.
Illinois Dept. of Public Health Information Officer Melanie Arnold said the numbers are not skewed and issued this statement: “Test positivity is calculated using only those tests submitted through Electronic Laboratory Reporting (ELR). All tests submitted through ELR equals the denominator. Only positive results that are submitted through ELR are used in calculating the test positivity (numerator). If a positive test is not submitted through ELR, it is not included in calculating the test positivity.”
Wagner said it’s not a problem in other rural Illinois counties because not as many of their residents are going out of the state for their COVID tests.
“The percentage of Monroe County being tested in St. Louis is much higher than any other county around here because we have no testing here in the county,” he said. “We have no hospitals.”
Wagner is concerned about the perception it is creating.
“’What’s unique about Monroe County?” he said. “’Why are you at nine percent?’ Do you think there’s a magic wall around the county? That counties all around us are at four percent and we’re at nine percent positivity? No. It’s because of the testing numbers that are coming in.”