Another 136 people have died in Illinois from COVID-19, as the state nears 3,000 total deaths.
Officials on Wednesday reported 2,270 new cases out of 14,974 test results. That brings the state’s overall case tally to 68,232, while the additional deaths raised the Illinois’ toll to 2,974 since the coronavirus pandemic began.
The state has now seen 11 days in which more than 100 people have died from COVID-19. Illinois has also seen 13 days with more than 2,000 people testing positive.
The state’s positivity rate on Wednesday was 15%. In revealing his five-part plan to reopen regions of the state, Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Tuesday said a region must be “at or under a 20% test positivity rate and increasing by no more than 10 percentage points over a 14-day period” in order for the region to enter the next phase of reopening.
It must also show no overall increase in hospital admissions for COVID-19 symptoms for 28 days, and have at least 14% of intensive care unit beds, medical and surgery beds and ventilators available.
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The number of ventilators used by COVID-19 patients from Monday to Tuesday remained level and the number of coronavirus patients in ICUs dropped by 35, according to Pritzker’s office. But an additional 87 COVID-19 patients entered the state’s hospitals during that time frame.
According to the Illinois Dept. of Public Health, in the Northeast region — which includes Chicago, Cook County and the collar counties — 20% of ICU beds were available as of Tuesday.
Pritzker on Wednesday planned to address the pandemic’s effects on the Latino community. Despite making up less than a fifth of the state’s population, Latinos in Illinois last week surpassed all other racial and ethnic groups in the number of confirmed coronavirus cases.
State officials reported 12,979 cases of COVID-19 among Latinos on Friday, more than 200 cases above the number reported for whites and 1,200 more than African Americans. About a quarter of the state’s cases have not specified the person’s race or ethnicity.
