CHICAGO – Illinois on Thursday reported its highest number of new coronavirus cases in more than a week and the third-highest daily death toll since the pandemic began.
The high numbers come two weeks after the Thanksgiving holiday that health officials worried could be a COVID-19 superspreader event. One day’s numbers aren’t enough to indicate whether those fear came true but public health officials have said we’re entering the period when a possible post-Thanksgiving surge would begin to show up in the data.
The 11,101 new confirmed and probable coronavirus cases reported Thursday is the highest daily total since 12,542 cases were reported Dec. 1. It’s also the first time in six days that the case count topped 10,000. That’s partly attributable to the highest number of test results over the previous 24 hours since Dec. 1.
The case positivity rate — the percentage of cases as a share of total tests — averaged 9.5% for the week ending Wednesday, down from 10.6% for the week ending Dec. 1.
The 196 fatalities reported Thursday bring the statewide death toll to 13,861 since March. The only days with higher reported death tolls were Dec. 2, with 238, and Dec. 5, with 208. The record-setting total on Dec. 2 was due in part to delayed reporting over the long Thanksgiving weekend.
The state has average 148 deaths per day over the past week.
As of Wednesday night, there were 5,138 patients in Illinois hospitals with COVID-19, 1,081 of them in intensive care and 606 on ventilators. Those figures are all down from the start of the month.
