The Illinois Department of Public Health is now reporting a total of 2,149,548 cases of coronavirus and 27,821 deaths across the state since the pandemic began. There were 14 positive cases reported last Thursday here in Lawrence County. There have been a total of 19,176,277 vaccinations administered at sites across Illinois since the vaccine rollout began. Of Illinois’ total population, more than 72% have received at least 1 dose of the vaccine and more than 64% is fully vaccinated according to the Centers of Disease Control (CDC). The CDC numbers show that 37.31% of the total Lawrence County population is fully vaccinated with 41% having gotten at least 1 dose of the vaccine. There have been 1,923 booster shots so far in the county. The IDPH did announced that they are adopting the CDC recommendation to reduce the number of days of isolation and quarantine for the general public. This past weekend, they announced a decrease in isolation for people who test positive from 10 days down to 5 if they do not have symptoms. But they still must continue to mask for 5 days after isolation ends. Quarantine was also reduced from 10 days to 5 days for those who are close contacts to a COVID-19 case and have no symptoms, but those people should continue to mask for 5 days after quarantine ends.