COVID-19 In Illinois: 8,691 New Coronavirus Cases, 90 Additional Deaths
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Public health officials reported 8,691 new confirmed and probable cases of COVID-19 in Illinois on Monday, as well as 90 additional deaths.
New cases in Illinois have gone up slightly over the past week, after a decline in reported cases following the Thanksgiving holiday. Illinois is averaging 9,994 new cases per day over the past seven days, compared to 7,955 cases per day over the previous seven days, starting the Tuesday before Thanksgiving.
However, testing also dropped off over the long Thanksgiving holiday weekend, so the state's seven-day average case positivity rate has gone down over the past couple weeks. As of Monday, the state's average case positivity rate stands at 10.3%, compared to 10.9% two weeks ago. The state's case positivity rate climbed as high as 13.2% during the second wave of the pandemic, which started in early October. The case positivity rate was at only 3.5% on Oct. 1.
Since the start of the pandemic, the Illinois Department of Public Health has reported a total of 796,264 coronavirus cases, including 13,343 deaths.
Gov. JB Pritzker said Illinois is averaging 152 COVID deaths per day over the past week, compared to a peak of 117 deaths per day at the peak of the first wave of the pandemic.
"I must ask you to please do everything in your power to save your loved ones from that same tragic loss," Pritzker said at his daily coronavirus briefing Monday afternoon.
As of Sunday night, 5,190 coronavirus patients were being treated in Illinois hospitals, including 1,123 in intensive care, and 648 on ventilators. It's the first time in more than a week that the total number of COVID hospitalizations in Illinois has increased. As of Saturday night, there had been 5,160 coronavirus patients hospitalized in Illinois.
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.
Illinois is averaging 5,484 coronavirus hospitalizations per day over the last week, nearly 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.
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