Local News

COVID-19 In Illinois: Slight Rise In New Coronavirus Cases, Positivity Rate, With 11,378 New Infections, 155 Additional Deaths

November 25, 2020 / 12:18 PM CST / CBS Chicago

CHICAGO (CBS) -- After four days of declining COVID-19 case counts in Illinois, the state reported a slight increase in new infections for the second day in a row on Wednesday, as the state's case positivity rate also inched upward. The state also announced more than 100 new deaths for the eighth time this month.

The Illinois Department of Public Health reported 11,378 new confirmed or probable coronavirus cases on Wednesday, as well as 155 additional deaths.

Illinois is averaging 11,242 new cases per day over the past week, down from an average of 11,847 daily cases the previous week, but more than five times higher than the 2,052 cases per day during the first seven days of October.

The state's seven-day average case positivity rate now stands at 10.6%, marking only the second time in the past week it has gone up. That metric is down from as high as 13.2% on Nov. 13, but still more than triple the 3.5% average case positivity rate at the start of October.

Wednesday was also the eighth time in the past 15 days Illinois has reported more than 100 deaths from the virus, after not reporting that many deaths between early June and early November.

Since the start of the pandemic, Illinois has reported a total of 685,467 coronavirus cases, including 11,832 deaths.

As of Tuesday night, 6,133 coronavirus patients were being treated in Illinois hospitals, including 1,208 patients in intensive care and 679 on ventilators. Until this past weekend, the state's hospitalization numbers had been climbing steadily for about a month, but have been relatively flat for the last few days.

Hospitalizations from the virus are still far higher than early October, and well above the peak of the first surge of the pandemic, when hosptializations topped out at 5,037 patients on April 28.

Illinois is averaging 6,119 coronavirus hospitalizations per day over the last week, more than four times the average of about 1,500 per day at the start of October. During the first wave of the pandemic, the state peaked at an average of 4,822 hospitalizations per day in early May.

Also From CBS Chicago:

Illinois Department of Public Health