How many COVID cases has northwest Illinois had since the start of the pandemic? The Voice combined the positive test totals from 6 counties in the region: Stephenson, Jo Daviess, Carroll, Ogle, Lee, and Whiteside.
To give some background on why we chose these counties and left some others out (such as Freeport’s eastern neighbor, Winnebago County), we wanted to show the counties in northwest Illinois that are a mix of settled communities and rural areas.
While some counties in this group are predominantly rural (ex. Jo Daviess County) and some others feature relatively large towns (Freeport in Stephenson County, Sterling/Rock Falls in Whiteside County), the 6 counties sampled here are all less densely populated and less connected to the outside world by air and land transit than Winnebago County.
The Voice will periodically update this chart to show how trends in the northwest corner of our state change over time.
