January ends as Illinois' second deadliest month of pandemic
Nearly 3,000 COVID-19 deaths were recorded in Illinois in January, making it the second-deadliest month the state has experienced during the pandemic.
Illinois Department of Public Health figures show 2,996 COVID-19 deaths were recorded in January, the second-highest tally for one month only behind the 4,237 deaths recorded in December 2020.
Among the deaths last month were 1,200 suburban residents, IDPH records show.
“Last year, we hoped that we were on a path to finally put the pandemic behind us,” Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle said. “Unfortunately, what we're seeing on the ground today tells a different story and we mourn for those we have lost.
“The latest surge has been hard on Cook County residents, but we must trust what the science is telling us now more than ever. And the science points to the fact that it will take all of us to beat COVID — people of all backgrounds, ethnicities and faiths getting vaccinated and taking common-sense measures to stop the spread of the virus.”
Suburban Cook County residents accounted for 695 of the deaths in January, which amounts to 10.8% of all of suburban Cook's COVID-19 deaths throughout the pandemic, records show.
Will County had the second-highest COVID-19 death toll among the suburbs with 146 deaths recorded in January, which translates to 4.9% of all COVID-19 deaths in Illinois for the month.
DuPage County recorded 132 deaths from the virus in January, while 87 succumbed to the respiratory disease from Lake County.
There were 84 COVID-19 deaths from Kane County in January, as well as 56 from McHenry County, according to IDPH figures.
Records show 619 of the deaths were Chicago residents, and the remaining 1,177 were from 96 downstate counties.
“This has been a difficult winter for those who lost loved ones, became ill or cared for family members who were ill with COVID-19,” said Dr. Rachel Rubin, co-lead and senior medical officer at the Cook County Department of Public Health. “We know that unvaccinated individuals are many times more likely to become severely ill or die compared to those who are vaccinated and boosted, and urge all suburban Cook County residents to get vaccinated and boosted when they are eligible.”
IDPH officials said the deaths were predominantly among unvaccinated residents, but they didn't have a specific total.
IDPH records released every Wednesday on breakthrough deaths among the fully vaccinated population showed roughly 1,000 such deaths reported in January, but officials note some of those deaths could have occurred weeks or months earlier. It also does not break out the number of deaths among those who received a recommended booster dose of the vaccine.
However, a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study using data from 22 states and three large metropolitan areas showed “unvaccinated persons had 13.9 and 53.2 times the risks for infection and COVID-19-associated death, respectively, compared with fully vaccinated persons who received booster doses, and 4.0 and 12.7 times the risks compared with fully vaccinated persons without booster doses.”
Illinois is currently averaging 108 COVID-19 deaths a day over the past week, IDPH records show. That's down from a seven-day average of 132 daily deaths the state was seeing as recently as Jan. 25.
Last July, the state was averaging four COVID-19 deaths a day.