Weekend COVID-19 hospitalizations stable, 38 more deaths reported

COVID-19 hospitalizations were relatively stable over the weekend with 2,203 inpatients Monday, down slightly from 2,240 patients three days ago.

Of those hospitalized with the virus, 517 are in intensive care. That's up from 500 on Friday, according to Illinois Department of Public Health officials.

IDPH officials are using ICU bed availability as the chief metric for determining whether to tighten COVID-19 mitigation efforts after reinstating an indoor mask mandate that began Monday. Five of the state's 11 health regions, none of them in the suburbs, are reporting fewer than 20% of intensive care beds are available. In far southern Region 5, which includes 20 counties, just four of the 82 ICU beds are available for patients who need one.

Another 38 Illinois residents have died from COVID-19 over the past three days, according to IDPH figures. That brings the state's death toll from the virus to 23,927.

Also, 11,202 new cases have been diagnosed over the past three days. Since the outbreak began, 1,518,071 Illinois residents have been infected, IDPH data shows.

Illinois is averaging 3,784 new cases a day over the past week, up 6.9% from a week ago, according to IDPH records.

COVID-19 testing has also increased in recent days. The state is averaging 72,599 COVID-19 tests a day for the week.

The state's seven-day case positivity rate is at 5.2%, the same as Friday. The rate is the percentage of new cases derived from a batch of tests, which allows health officials to track the level of infection within a certain population. A seven-day average is used to account for any anomalies in the daily reporting of those figures.

IDPH also reported 76,714 more COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered statewide since Friday, bringing the total number of inoculations to 13,991,927 since the vaccine was made available in December.

State officials are reporting 59.5% of the vaccine-eligible population of residents 12 and older are fully vaccinated, and at least 76.6% have received at least one dose.

Residents whose immune systems are severely or moderately compromised have begun receiving booster shots of some vaccines, but IDPH has yet to account for those booster shots in the agency's data reporting. Booster shots for other fully vaccinated individuals are expected to begin in mid-September.