The state’s COVID-19 death toll surpassed 10,000 Thursday as the number of new confirmed cases smashed a one-day record by more than 2,000.
The 9,935 new cases were accompanied by 97 COVID-19-related deaths reported Thursday, the most since 116 deaths were reported on June 4. The 86,015 test results reported made for a one-day positivity rate of 11.6 percent and drove the rolling seven-day average case positivity rate to 9.1 percent.
Neither of those numbers had been that high since mid-May.
Hospitalizations for COVID-19 continued to surge as well, with 3,891 beds in use by those reported to have the disease. That’s the highest amount since May 21.
Of those patients, 772 were in intensive care unit beds, a decrease of four from the day prior, while 343 were on ventilators, an increase of 16 from the day prior.
That left about 32 percent of beds and 31 percent of ICU beds available throughout the state, along with 73 percent of ventilators. Health officials, however, have said that regions 1-6, which include all that do not directly touch or include Cook County, could see bed or staff shortages sooner because those regions are already meeting or passing the highs they saw in the first wave.
The new deaths reported Thursday included people aged from their 20s to older than 100 and the death toll reached 10,030 among 447,491 confirmed cases since the pandemic began. More than 8.1 million test results have been reported in the state.
While the whole state is under increased mitigations in an effort to slow the spread of the virus, the positivity rates in each of the state’s 11 COVID-19 mitigation regions continue to rise. They were all over 10 percent Thursday with Region 1 in northwest Illinois the highest at 15.8 percent and Region 7 in Will and Kankakee counties close behind at 13.4 percent.
While the state’s case positivity rate – which counts a case only as one positive rather than counting every single positive test a person received – is 9.1 percent, the test positivity rate – which includes every positive test and is the same metric used to measure regional rates – is 10.5 percent.
Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service covering state government and distributed to more than 400 newspapers statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.
