CHICAGO — Illinois' COVID-19 death toll topped 11,000 on Wednesday, already meeting a projection the state's top public health official recently gave for the entire year.
Officials reported 140 additional deaths of people with COVID-19, raising the state-reported death toll to 11,014 over the course of the pandemic.
On Oct. 26, Illinois Department of Public Health Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike said the state was "on a path to see more than 11,000 COVID deaths in Illinois this year."
Officials also reported 8,922 newly diagnosed and probable coronavirus cases, the first time the daily statewide case tally has dipped below 10,000 since Nov. 5. That sent the statewide known and probable case count past 600,000, with 606,771 cases reported throughout the course of the pandemic.
The new and probable cases reported Wednesday come from a batch of 103,569 tests. The seven-day statewide positivity rate for cases as a share of total tests was 11.9% for the period ending Tuesday, a slight decline from a day earlier.
The state public health department reported a 12.5% positivity rate on both Monday and Tuesday. The rate surpassed 13% late week after climbing steadily for weeks. A month ago, the statewide positivity rate for cases was 5.3%, and it was 8% as of Nov. 1.
The number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 continues to rise. As of Tuesday night, 5,953 people across the state were in the hospital with the illness, with 1,146 in intensive care units and 547 on ventilators.
