Illinois records 12,623 new COVID-19 cases and largest one-day spike in hospitalizations
Hospitals throughout the state added 333 more COVID-19 patients Monday, the largest single-day increase since the Illinois Department of Public Health began keeping track in early April.
By Monday's end, 4,742 COVID-19 patients were being treated in Illinois hospitals, up 7.6% from the previous day.
The state is averaging more than 4,200 COVID-19 patients hospitalized each day over the past week. At the height of the pandemic, hospitals were averaging about 4,800 patients, state officials said.
"Several regions are running just above the worst that they saw in the spring, with no sign of slowing," Gov. J.B. Pritzker said Tuesday. "We're now just hundreds short of our worst hospitalization numbers from last spring."
Of those hospitalized, 911 COVID-19 patients are in intensive care.
COVID-19 patients now occupy 13.5% of all the hospital beds and 24.1% of all ICU beds, according to IDPH records.
Hospital administrators throughout the state have expressed concerns about the growth of COVID-19 patients and the effect it will have on hospital resources. Unlike the initial surge the country experienced last spring, where large amounts of cases were seen in a few urban areas, most states are experiencing surges and rural areas are feeling the effects as well. Hospitals are less likely to find outside backup staffing to help care for infected patients like they did in the spring.
Additionally, state health officials reported Tuesday that 79 more residents died from COVID-19, while there were 12,623 new cases of the disease.
That brings the state's death toll to 10,289 and the number of people who are believed to have been infected since the outbreak began to 511,183.
The state is averaging 59 deaths a day from the virus over the past week, according to IDPH figures. That's up from a weekly average of 28 deaths a day just a month ago.
The Cook County medical examiner's office handled 28 of the deaths announced Tuesday. In April and May, the county agency would sometimes handle more than 100 COVID-19 deaths a day.
"We have known that there was a very real possibility of another surge in the fall and winter months and have been prepared to scale up our operations as necessary," said Natalia Derevyanny, a spokeswoman for the medical examiner's office. "Our surge center has remained operational and can accommodate as many as 2,000 decedents. Our hope is that we do not have to utilize it to that extent, but our job was to prepare for any eventuality, and that's how we've approached this virus since the beginning of this year."
Tuesday saw the state's infection rate climb to 12%.
The increase is bolstered in large part by the addition of "probable cases" IDPH is now including at the guidance of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The state's total number of cases and the number of new cases reported by IDPH each day also includes an unspecified number of "probable cases" stemming from "rapid result" antigen tests, state officials said. Probable deaths are not included in the state's totals.