Illinois families struggling to navigate the COVID-19 pandemic received good news and bad news Friday, with the state health department reporting the number of childhood virus cases appearing to decline the week before, while the number of school outbreaks in Illinois continued to climb.

       While the Illinois Department of Public Health reported that school outbreaks across the state climbed from 128 to 206, surging 61% from last week, data tracking the overall number of cases per week among Illinois school-age children provided a more hopeful snapshot.

       The number, which unlike the school outbreak tracker doesn’t differentiate based on where the child may have contracted the disease, dropped to 6,737 cases statewide Sept. 11 from 8,029 cases Sept. 4.

       Still, the data appears incomplete, with key questions about how quickly and accurately state and local health officials are counting infections among school-age children, a month into the reopening of schools and amid a broader debate about how to keep kids in school while keeping them safe.

       The mixed messages in the state COVID-19 data for school-age children also offered perplexing data from Lake County, one of the largest counties in the state. Illinois health officials reported Friday that more than 1,300 children between ages 5 and 17 in Lake County tested positive for the virus during the first three weeks of the school year, while the county health department has yet to report a single school outbreak.

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       While the county is reporting 146 schools with potential exposures, the fact that zero outbreaks are being traced to schools in a suburban Chicago county with more than 700,000 residents might be attributed in part to a holdup in the data being reported, a spokesperson with the Lake County Health Department said Friday.

       “Short answer is that our administrative reporting is delayed. ... We are prioritizing the actual case investigation, contact tracing, and providing guidance to school nurses and staff,” Lake County spokesperson Buddy Hargett said.

       “We have reorganized to add staff to (the) team to get updates into the outbreak surveillance system soon,” Hargett said.

       Another county with no school outbreaks as of Friday, according to the state website, is Kankakee.

       Yet a surge in COVID-19 cases at one local school district has forced the entire freshman class — around 370 students — to quarantine next week, and prompted the district to shutter all of its school buildings to allow for a deep cleaning and tightening of other COVID-19 mitigation measures, said Beth Anderson, a teacher and union representative at Kankakee School District 111.

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       The two-day closure will demand that all of the roughly 5,000 students in prekindergarten through 12th grade pivot to remote learning Monday and Tuesday, Anderson said.

       Officials at District 111 and the Kankakee County Health Department were not immediately available for comment.

       But Anderson, a special education teacher in the district, where more than 83% of the students are from low-income families, said that given the growing number of students and teachers testing positive for the virus, “our health department is overwhelmed.”

       “We have to rely on our health department to report to us, and that’s where the lag happens,” said Anderson.

       Educators fear some parents who are unable to find day care or take a day off from work are sending students to school even after they’ve tested positive for the virus, she said.

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       “We’re really conflicted, because we know our students need our services and support, and we have very low vaccine rates in the county, only around 40%,” Anderson said.

       IDPH has said it relies on local health departments to determine when school outbreaks occur, and that reports to the public can be delayed as cases are investigated and processed.

       It’s not the first time IDPH has struggled to get accurate data on outbreaks in places of concern. Early in the pandemic, the state began posting data on long-term care facilities that at times was incomplete and inconsistent with what local officials were reporting.

       kcullotta@chicagotribune.com

       jmahr@chicagotribune.com

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