Coronavirus

Central Illinois native Dr. Aaron Rossi founded Reditus Laboratories in 2019. The lab is expanding as it ramps up COVID-19 testing.

A capacity crowd packed into the Illinois State Board of Education room on Wednesday as many more stood outside the building to protest the state’s new indoor mask mandate in all public and nonpublic schools.

Parents, neighbors, teachers and police officers cheered on students of Franklin Primary School as they entered the building on Wednesday.

The entire Tri-County area now has the “high” community transmission designation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as the region approaches 750 active COVID-19 cases.

Fewer than one-third of South Peoria residents were fully vaccinated as of Tuesday, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health.

More than 600 Tri-County residents currently have COVID-19, the most in three months.

Masks will be required at driver’s license facilities in Illinois starting Monday, Secretary of State Jesse White announced Wednesday, and Gov. JB Pritzker said he is “looking at all the possible mitigations” amid another surge of COVID-19 infections.

The number of active COVID-19 cases in the Tri-County has more than doubled in the past week, reaching the highest total in more than two months.

Reditus Laboratories said cases of the Delta variant of the coronavirus are on the rise in Bloomington-Normal and Peoria as they are in many states and regions.

Active COVID-19 cases in the Tri-County increased for a third straight week, albeit slightly, as the region inched closer to having 45% of residents fully vaccinated.