Another 80 people have died of COVID-19 in Illinois as state health officials on Saturday announced 2,119 more people tested positive for the virus.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Dr. Ngozi Ezike, head of the Illinois Department of Public Health, also said 11,985 coronavirus tests were administered on Friday, marking the second consecutive day that Illinois surpassed Pritzker’s stated goal of running 10,000 tests per day.
The latest cases bring Illinois’ death toll to 1,874, among 41,777 total cases of COVID-19 that have been confirmed in 97 of the state’s 102 counties.
More than 201,000 COVID-19 tests have now been administered in Illinois since the pandemic first hit in late January, officials said.
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On Friday, Pritzker acknowledged the path to getting the record-high testing numbers was difficult, and the larger testing rate still “isn’t enough.”
“The idea here is we’ve got to keep going. And we will,” he said.
Pritzker credited the testing surge to many measures, including partnerships with universities, hospitals and commercial laboratories, as well as five drive-thru testing locations.
For weeks, Pritzker has stressed that more testing will make it easier for to identify people who should isolate and avoid spreading the virus to lower the overall infection rate. He said the goal is to increase testing understand how widespread the coronavirus is in Illinois and “gradually reduce our mitigation measures and get more people back to work.”
