Illinois COVID-19 hospitalizations drop below 1,300 patients

State health officials today reported 1,277 COVID-19 patients are being treated in Illinois hospitals.

That's the first time hospitalizations from the respiratory disease have dropped below 1,300 since Aug. 7, according to Illinois Department of Public Health records.

Of those hospitalized, 323 are in intensive care.

The IDPH data shows that just 4% of all hospital beds in the state are occupied by COVID-19 patients.

Many of those hospitalized are in suburban hospitals, according to IDPH data. The state is broken into 11 health regions, which include four suburban regions.

IDPH records show suburban Cook County hospitals are treating 25% of the state's COVID-19 patients, while 6.2% are in hospitals in Lake and McHenry counties, 9% are hospitalized in DuPage and Kane counties and another 6.2% are in hospitals located in Will and Kankakee counties.

Less than 17% of the state's COVID-19 patients are being treated in Chicago hospitals.

The remaining 36.6% of the state's COVID-19 patients are in downstate hospitals.

Also today, IDPH officials reported 27 more COVID-19 deaths, as well as 2,969 new cases of the respiratory disease.

The state's death toll from the virus now stands at 25,590, while 1,680,908 infections have been diagnosed since the outset of the pandemic.

The state's seven-day case positivity rate is now at 2.0%, IDPH figures show. Case positivity is the percentage of new cases derived from a batch of tests. A seven-day average is used to smooth any anomalies in the daily reporting of those figures.

Meanwhile, another 36,720 doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been administered statewide. Illinois vaccine providers have now administered 15,203,716 first, second and booster doses of the vaccine throughout Illinois, according to IDPH records.

Of the state's 12.7 million residents, 56.5% are now fully vaccinated.