6,516 more COVID-19 cases; 68 new deaths the highest since Oct. 21
New cases of COVID-19 rose by 6,516 Tuesday, reflecting a 46.5% spike since last week, and Gov. J.B. Pritzker warned local leaders to enforce rules on gatherings or face overwhelmed hospitals.
Sixty-eight more died of the disease, health officials reported Tuesday.
The rate of positive results on COVID-19 tests is 8.2%, representing a steady upward trend.
Daily caseloads are surging with an average of 6,719 in the last seven days contrasting with 4,587 between Oct. 21 and Oct. 27.
At a briefing Tuesday, Pritzker was asked about large election-watching parties that could spread COVID-19 and defy rules about indoor gatherings occurring around the state.
“Local officials, local law enforcement should be standing up and enforcing the rules in the state,” Pritzker said. “Because weeks from now, when people will end up going to the hospital as a result of these gatherings that are being allowed and the failure of enforcement, those local officials will be coming to the state to ask us, ‘What are we going to do to add hospital space when the hospitals are full?'
“And of course, we're going to do everything we can but it's these local officials — if they don't do their job, then we're going to end up with hospitals having to turn people away,” Pritzker said.
Action is necessary, he added, “so that we don't end up with a terrible nightmare of a health care situation and people dying because they even can't get treated in their local hospital.”
Hospitalizations in Illinois reached 3,594 as of Monday night, the most patients since late May. The average hospitalizations this week comes to 3,210, a 25% increase from the previous week.
The latest update comes as the entire state falls under restrictions intended to stem rising infections, hospitalizations and positivity rates. Those include no indoor dining at restaurants and bars, and limiting gatherings, social events and meetings to 25 people or less or 25% capacity.
Those measures are likely to get tougher in DuPage and Kane counties (Region 8) and Kankakee and Will counties (Region 7) later this week unless their positivity rates dwindle to 6.5% or less, officials warn. The two regions went into mitigation Oct. 23 when their combined virus positivity rates surpassed 8%. DuPage's positivity rate was 10% Tuesday, and Kane measured 12.5%. In Will County, the positivity rate was 12.5% Tuesday and in Kankakee it hit 9.1%.
The stricter measures, known as Tier 2, include reducing the size of groups dining outdoors to six, and decreasing the size of indoor and outdoor gatherings to 10 or fewer people.
Total virus cases statewide stand at 430,018 with 9,878 deaths, the Illinois Department of Public Health announced. Tuesday's fatality toll of 68 is the highest since Oct. 21 when 69 Illinoisans died.
State labs processed 82,435 tests in the last 24 hours.