Illinois has recorded its second straight day of more than 1,000 new coronavirus cases for the first time since May, as officials Friday announced an additional 1,317 people have tested positive for the virus.
Another 25 people have died of COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, according to new figures released by the Illinois Department of Public Health, raising the state’s pandemic death toll to 7,144.
The latest cases account for 4% of the 32,987 tests done in the past day, leaving the state with its highest single-day positivity rate since early June. The number of new cases is also the most since June 2, and has pushed the state’s total case count to 151,767.
Daily caseloads have slowly inched upward since a nearly three-month low of 462 on June 22. But the state’s rolling positivity rate had largely remained unchanged as the state’s testing numbers have also risen.
Despite the higher single-day rate case total Friday, state health officials said the seven-day statewide positivity for cases as a percent of total tests is at 2.9%.
During Illinois’ peak month of May, an average of about 2,172 cases were being confirmed each day as about 20,270 daily tests were administered. So far this month, about 10,000 more tests per day have yielded an average of 858 new daily cases.
As of Thursday night, 1,436 people in Illinois were reported to be in the hospital with COVID-19, according to the state health department. Of those, 306 patients were in the ICU and 155 patients with COVID-19 were on ventilators.
