Coronavirus In Illinois: State Surpasses 800,000 Total COVID-19 Cases
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Illinois surpassed another grim milestone on Tuesday, surpassing 800,000 cases of COVID-19 so far, as public health officials reported 7,910 new confirmed and probable cases of the virus, as well as 145 additional deaths.
Since the start of the pandemic, the Illinois Department of Public Health has now reported a total of 804,174 coronavirus cases, including 13,487 deaths.
The state's seven-day average case positivity rate now stands at 9.9%, the lowest it's been since Nov. 6, when it was 9.6%, which was also the last time it was below 10%. The state's case positivity rate climbed as high as 13.2% during the second wave of the pandemic, which started in early October.
Gov. JB Pritzker on Monday said he was "hopeful" that improving trends in new cases and positivity rates in recent weeks would continue, but noted it's still too soon to tell if there will be a post-Thanksgiving surge, and said Illinois still has a long way to go before it's out of what the governor called the "danger zone."
"So far we haven't seen our positivity rate start to creep back up, which is a good sign, but we also haven't seen it substantially fall; not a good sign. It may be that our mitigations are working to offset the expected surge in cases, but we won't know that for sure for at least two more weeks," Pritzker said at his daily coronavirus briefing Monday afternoon.
Deaths, on the other hand, are still trending higher than during the first surge of the pandemic in the spring and early summer. Illinois is now averaging 155 deaths per day over the past week, the state's highest average death toll since the start of the pandemic.
Illinois has reported at least 100 coronavirus deaths 16 times since Nov. 11, including six times in the past eight days. During the first wave of the pandemic, IDPH reported at least 100 deaths in a day 25 times between Mid-April and early June.
Meantime, as of Monday night, a total of 5,199 coronavirus patients were being treated in Illinois hospitals, including 1,071 in intensive care, and 626 on ventilators.
While hospitalizations seem to have started trending downward since peaking at 6,175 on Nov. 20, there are still far more COVID-19 patients in the hospital at the start of December than at the start of October, and hospitalizations have now inched back up two days in a row.
Illinois is averaging 5,393 coronavirus hospitalizations per day over the last week, more than triple 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.
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