State sees slight uptick in COVID-19 hospitalizations, but not in suburbs

State health officials Wednesday reported 1,747 COVID-19 patients were being treated in Illinois hospitals, climbing for the second day in a row.

Of those hospitalized statewide, 425 were in intensive care, according to Illinois Department of Public Health records, also an increase over the past two days.

The patient increase is mainly contained to downstate counties, according to IDPH records.

Suburban hospitals have reported continuing declines in patients, the IDPH data shows.

Hospitals in suburban Cook County are averaging 27 fewer patients now than 10 days ago. Among the hospitals in DuPage and Kane counties, there are 10 fewer patients on average now than 10 days ago, according to state figures.

Hospitals in Will and Kankakee counties are also averaging 10 fewer patients. In Lake and McHenry counties, hospitals are reporting seven fewer patients on average than 10 days ago.

Comparatively, Illinois hospitals were treating fewer than 400 COVID-19 patients a day in early July before the latest surge caused by the delta variant, IDPH figures show.

IDPH officials also reported 54 more COVID-19 deaths, as well as 2,932 new cases of the disease.

That brings the state's death toll from the virus to 25,153, while 1,643,993 infections have been reported.

The state's seven-day case positivity rate is at 2.1%. Case positivity is the percentage of new cases derived from a batch of tests. A seven-day average is used to account for any anomalies in the daily reporting of those figures.

Meanwhile, 23,061 more doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been administered statewide, according to IDPH records.

That means 14,742,283 doses have now been administered statewide since they became available almost a year ago.

IDPH figures show 55.7% of the state's 12.7 million residents are fully vaccinated as well.