COVID-19 In Illinois: State Sees Lowest Case Count And Positivity Rate Since The End Of October
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Public health officials reported 4,699 new confirmed and probable cases of COVID-19 in Illinois on Monday, the lowest daily case count since late October, as the state's average infection rate also continued to decline.
The Illinois Department of Public Health hadn't reported fewer than 6,000 new cases of coronavirus since Oct. 27, when the state reported 4,000 new cases.
The statewide seven-day average case positivity rate in Illinois now stands at 7.5%, the lowest it's been since Oct. 31. The state's positivity rate has been steadily declining over the past month, after reaching as high as 13.2% on Nov. 13. However it's still more than double the 3.5% positivity rate reported at the start of October.
In addition to the new cases reported on Monday, the state reported 98 additional deaths. Since the start of the pandemic, IDPH has reported a total of 905,069 cases of COVID-19, including 15,299 deaths.
As of last night, 4,460 virus patients were being treated in Illinois hospitals, including 981 in the ICU and 546 on ventilators.
While the overall number of coronavirus hospitalizations ticked up slightly over the past day, hospitalizations from the virus have been trending downward for more than a month after peaking at 6,175 on Nov. 20, though there are still far more COVID-19 patients in the hospital in mid-December than at the start of the fall surge in early October.
Illinois is averaging 4,675 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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