Illinois reports 11,378 new COVID-19 cases, 155 more deaths
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - Illinois health officials on Wednesday said another 11,378 people tested positive for the coronavirus and 155 more people died.
The latest fatalities push November’s death count past 2,000 — but it’s still less than the 2,500 people who died during the same period in May during Illinois’ first peak.
The latest deaths included 25 Chicago area residents, including two men in their 50, and raise the state’s total death toll to 11,832.
The new cases are among 114,233 tests submitted to the Illinois Department of Public Health, raising the state’s testing positivity rate — which indicates the rate of the virus’ spread — to 10.6%.
As of Tuesday night, 6,133 people in Illinois were hospitalized with COVID-19, with 1,208 requiring intensive care and 679 using ventilators.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, 685,467 people statewide have tested positive for the coronavirus.
Just a few days earlier, Gov. J.B. Pritzker had said recent statistics offered a “glimmer of hope” in the state’s battle to slow the spread of the virus.
To help slow down the spread of the virus, the state late last week put into effect new COVID-19 restrictions, that include capping crowds in retail stores and temporarily closing museums and casinos. On Tuesday, Pritzker said he did not expect to see any reduction in the number of cases for about a week.
On Wednesday, the director of the state’s public health department, Dr. Ngozi Ezike, said it may be as long as a week or two before it becomes clear if Thanksgiving gatherings had any kind of effect on the number of cases or deaths.
Still, both she and Pritzker took the final chance before the holiday to implore people to stay home and avoid gathering with relatives and friends who don’t already live with them.
“Please, please, please reconsider,” Ezike said to those who have made plans to celebrate Thanksgiving with friends and extended family. “We don’t want anyone’s Thanksgiving dinner to turn into a COVID-19 superspreader event. ”
That was the same message in Chicago, where Mayor Lori Lightfoot and the city’s public health commissioner, Dr. Allison Arwady, voiced concerns that such gatherings would make worse an already dire situation. Arwady said concerns have only grown since a spike in Canada in the number of cases after last month’s Thanksgiving in that country.
In all, the state ’s health department has reported that there have been 685,467 cases and 11,832 COVID-19 deaths since the pandemic began early this year.
On Tuesday, Ezike said Illinois will receive far fewer doses of the COVID-19 vaccine than originally estimated, telling reporters that she expects the state to receive about 80,000 initial doses instead of the 400,000 doses that Illinois officials had anticipated, pending FDA approval of the vaccines.
She also said she expects still expects health care and emergency workers who could come into direct contact with coronavirus patients to be vaccinated first.
Associated Press contributed to this report.