1,532 new cases of coronavirus in Illinois as gradual increase continues

Governor JB Pritzker’s office on Friday selected four state counties for coronavirus outbreaks linked to “commercial and risky behavior,” as the state focuses on hot spots of COVID-19 in an effort to prevent a gradual increase. of the statewide case to intensify. Blown resurgence.

Those four counties spread across the state – Adams, LaSalle, Peoria, and Randolph – are at a “warning level” after officials tracked the outbreaks to lax masking requirements in bars, youth sports, and other high-risk gatherings. , according to the Illinois Department of Public. Health.

Many of his new cases have been confirmed in people age 29 and younger, demographic health officials said are behind the steady increase in cases in Illinois over the past month.

And they are among the last 1,532 confirmed cases statewide, marking Illinois’ third consecutive day with a four-digit case load. It is the eleventh time that July has seen more than 1,000 days, compared to only twice in June.

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The new cases were confirmed among 44,330 tests received by the state, keeping the positivity rate of Illinois continuous tests at 3.4% for the past week.

That rate increased from 2.5% two weeks ago, an increase that Illinois Director of Public Health Dr. Ngozi Ezike has stressed is not due to the state’s massive increase in testing capacity in July.

“Actually, if you do more testing, your positivity should drop,” Ezike said earlier this week. “So yes, we are seeing more transmission.”

Since the state hit a three-month low with 462 new cases reported on June 22, Illinois has averaged 976 new cases per day. Thursday’s total of 1,624 cases was the highest the state had seen in two months.

The health department sounded the alarm in the four “warning level” counties two days after Pritzker called the “virus deniers” and anyone who had not been using their protectors for the program.

“The enemy is not your mask. If you don’t wear a mask in public, you are putting everyone around you in danger, so the enemy is you, ”the Democratic governor said on Wednesday.

Anthony Vazquez / Sun-Times Archive

Troubled counties fall into three separate regions of Pritzker’s plan to target potential pockets of viral resurgence.

In Adams County, in western central Illinois, the state health department linked the outbreaks to major social events, places of worship, youth sports and trips to the critical states of Missouri and Iowa.

LaSalle County, in north central Illinois, was selected for social gatherings, youth flocked to bars and “inconsistencies with masking requirements.”

The July 4 holidays sparked outbreaks in downtown Peoria County, as well as travelers to Florida, Iowa, Texas and Wisconsin, state health officials said.

Randolph is located in the Metro East region near St. Louis, an area that Pritzker warned is “dangerously close” to state intervention, one that could lead to the closure of some businesses.

Scott P. Yates / Rockford Register Star via AP

“Numerous” bars there have failed to meet the guidelines for social distancing and masking, and more cases were linked to a party attended by more than 200 people, officials said Friday.

Chicago and suburban Cook County are not at the state’s warning level, though authorities have noted both relatively high case rates: 64 cases per 100,000 people in the city and 56 per 100,000 in the suburbs.

Overall, Illinois’ positivity rate is still less than half that of most nearby states.

And although cases have been increasing, daily death tolls have remained at a level. The state health department announced that 19 more deaths have been attributed to the virus, reflecting the July daily average.

The state averaged 98 deaths per day during its peak month of May and 51 deaths per day as the state’s pandemic curve eased through June.

Since mid-March, the coronavirus has claimed 7,385 lives in Illinois. It has been confirmed that a total of 168,457 people carry the virus among more than 2.4 million tested.

Ashlee Rezin Garcia / Sun-Times File

Authorities have said that youth account for the majority of new cases, but nursing homes and other long-term care facilities still account for more than half the number of deaths from the state’s coronavirus: 4,062 deaths among the 24,106 linked cases. to those centers.

In addition, the state updated its count of “probable” but unproven cases of the coronavirus on Friday: 192 more deaths and 1,242 non-fatal infections.

As of Thursday night, 1,471 people were hospitalized with COVID-19 statewide, 325 in intensive care units and 115 in ventilators.