COVID-19 hospitalizations rise slightly in Illinois

State health officials on Tuesday reported 1,708 COVID-19 patients were being treated in hospitals throughout Illinois.

Of those hospitalized, 408 were in intensive care, according to Illinois Department of Public Health records.

The number of COVID-19 patients hospitalized in Illinois rose slightly for the first time in a week.

Hospitalizations are a key metric in state officials' COVID-19 mitigation determinations.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker said he is not yet ready to lift the indoor masking requirement put into effect statewide Aug. 30 because hospitalizations remain high from the virus. COVID-19 hospitalizations are more than double what they were June 11, when all COVID-19 restrictions were lifted for vaccinated individuals.

IDPH officials also announced 23 more COVID-19 deaths, as well as 3,058 new cases of the respiratory disease.

That brings the state's death toll from COVID-19 to 25,099, while 1,641,061 infections have been reported since the outset of the pandemic.

The state's seven-day case positivity rate is 2.2%, where it has hovered for most of the past week. Case positivity is the percentage of new cases derived from a batch of test results.

Meanwhile, IDPH officials reported 29,838 more doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been given statewide, bringing the total number of inoculations to 14,719,222 in Illinois.

IDPH reports 55.6% of the state's 12.7 million residents are fully vaccinated.