State reports 23 more dead from COVID-19, another 724 infected

State health officials are reporting 23 more people have died from COVID-19 infections and 724 more Illinois residents have become infected.

That brings the state's death toll from the respiratory disease to 6,923 since the outbreak began, with 143,185 Illinois residents having been infected as well.

The state is averaging 766 new cases each day over the past week, according to figures released by the Illinois Department of Public Health. That's up 28% from a week ago when the state was averaging 598 cases a day.

The state is also averaging 29,065 tests a day this week, compared to 24,453 tests each day last week. However, that's only an 18.8% increase in testing comparatively.

Meanwhile, hospitals are reporting almost 60 new COVID-19 admissions in the past 24 hours. There are nearly 30 more COVID-19 patients in intensive care compared to the previous day.

IDPH is also reporting 4,152 tests were taken Monday at the 11 state-run testing locations. That's the highest single-day amount of tests administered at those sites during the past two weeks.

Still, that's just 58% of the tests that could have been taken that day.

Health officials are urging any residents to get tested because people infected with COVID-19 can be asymptomatic carriers of the disease and not know it.

In the suburbs, state-run facilities are in Aurora, Rolling Meadows and Waukegan. Each facility has a daily testing capacity of 750.

IDPH is reporting that over the past two weeks, only 57% of the available tests were taken at the Rolling Meadows site. Elsewhere, the figure was 46% of the tests in Aurora and 40% in Waukegan during the same period.

Statewide, only 40% of the tests available were taken at all 11 sites over the past two weeks, according to the IDPH data.

A list of testing sites, not just those run by the state, is available at dph.illinois.gov/testing. Tests at state-run sites are free.