Illinois reported another 1,381 positive cases of COVID-19 statewide Monday, pushing the state’s total number of positive tests past 250,000 amid a summertime resurgence.
It’s among one of the lower caseloads in the past month, which has seen only three other days with fewer than 1,400 new cases.
The new caseload is also a dramatic decrease from Friday, when the Illinois Department of Public Health reported a record-high 5,368 new cases of COVID-19. The massive caseload, which blew away the previous May record of 4,014 cases, was attributed to a three-day data backlog.
Monday’s new cases were among 28,975 tests submitted to the state, health officials said. The state has processed more than 4.4 million total coronavirus tests.
Health officials also announced eight more deaths tied to COVID-19 in Illinois, raising the statewide toll to 8,179. About 96% of people in Illinois have recovered from the virus.
Illinois has seen a rise in COVID-19 cases since mid-June. Since July 21, the state has reported daily caseloads over a thousand. Eleven days since then have seen daily caseloads over 2,000.
Fatal cases of COVID-19 have fallen most heavily on people 80 years and older. Although that demographic is only about 5% of overall positive cases, they’ve accounted for 44% of total deaths statewide.
As of Sunday night, 1,484 Illinois coronavirus patients were hospitalized, occupying about 7% of all hospital beds statewide. Of those, 352 were in the ICU and 137 were on ventilators.
