COVID-19 update: Hospital bed, ventilator usage remains on decline
File photo of Illinois Department of Public Health Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike. (Credit: Blueroomstream.com)
6 straight days with fewer than 1,000 new cases reported
By JERRY NOWICKI
Capitol News Illinois
jnowicki@capitolnewsillinois.com
SPRINGFIELD — The Illinois Department of Public Health announced 766 new confirmed cases of coronavirus disease Thursday, along with 91 additional deaths.
The new cases were a slight uptick from the number announced Wednesday, but the number was still far off the highs of April and May and represented the sixth straight day of fewer than 1,000 new cases. The low count comes despite a continued high volume of completed tests, with 22,325 test results reported Thursday.
That made for a one-day positivity rate of 3.4 percent, while the preliminary seven-day statewide positivity rate from June 4-10 is 4 percent.
IDPH has reported a total of 130,603 cases in Illinois in 101 counties, including 6,185 deaths since the pandemic began. There have been more than 1.1 million tests completed.
The numbers for persons hospitalized due to COVID-19 as of midnight Thursday were all at their lowest amounts since the state began reporting them daily on April 12. There were 2,365 hospital beds in use by COVID-19 patients. Of those, 638 were intensive care unit beds and there were 379 ventilators in use.
There have been fewer than 1,000 ICU beds in use each day since May 28, fewer than 3,000 total beds in use each day since June 3, and fewer than 500 ventilators in use each day since June 4.
The state is also now reporting “probable” cases of the virus separately on the IDPH website, per U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance.
“Reporting probable cases will help show the potential burden of COVID-19 illness and efficacy of population-based non-pharmaceutical interventions,” according to a press release from IDPH.
Those numbers are updated weekly by the IDPH, and currently there are 724 total probable cases and 178 total probable deaths as of June 8.
According to the CDC definition of a probable case, the patient must have certain symptoms or contact with positive COVID-19 cases.
For health questions about COVID-19, call the state’s hotline at 1-800-889-3931 or email dph.sick@illinois.gov.
Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service covering state government and distributed to more than 400 newspapers statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.
Jerry Nowicki
Jerry has more than five years of experience in and around state government and nearly 10 years of experience in news. He grew up in south suburban Evergreen Park and received a bachelor’s degree from Illinois State University and a master’s degree online from Purdue University.
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