Fewer than 10% of suburban ICU hospital beds are available
Illinois Department of Public Health officials are reporting fewer than 10% of staffed intensive care beds at suburban hospitals are available.
Of the 1,282 staffed ICU beds at hospitals in suburban Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry, Will and Kankakee counties, 121 were open Wednesday, IDPH figures show.
That includes just six of the 133 ICU beds in hospitals located in Will and Kankakee counties.
Only 56 of the 668 ICU beds at all of the hospitals in suburban Cook County were available, according to IDPH records.
Hospitals in DuPage and Kane counties have 36 open ICU beds, 11.1% of the total staffed. At hospitals in Lake and McHenry counties, 23 ICU beds are open from the 158 that are staffed.
IDPH officials reported 6,842 COVID-19 patients were being treated in hospitals statewide, 1,135 of whom are in the ICU.
ICU admissions for COVID-19 are up 15.3% from one week ago and account for 38.1% of all ICU patients statewide, records show.
IDPH officials also reported 79 more COVID-19 deaths Wednesday, as well as 32,279 more infections.
That's now the most new cases reported in a single day in Illinois, IDPH records show.
The state's death toll now stands at 28,156 since the outbreak began, with 2,295,445 total infections.
The Cook County medical examiner's office reported they have now recorded 13,000 COVID-19 deaths throughout the pandemic. Most were residents of Chicago and the suburban part of the county, but hundreds more were residents from other counties and other states who died at hospitals or long-term care facilities in the county, officials said.
Of those COVID-19 deaths handled by Cook County, 80% were over the age of 60, according to a news release from the medical examiner's office.
IDPH also reported the state's seven-day case positivity rate is now at 14.2%, up a full percentage point from the day before.
Case positivity is the percentage of tests that yield a new case of COVID-19. A seven-day average is used to smooth any anomalies in the daily reporting of those figures.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced he is working remotely after being exposed to a state employee who tested positive for the virus.
The governor, who is fully vaccinated and received a booster dose as well, tested negative for COVID-19 Wednesday, but is isolating out of an abundance of caution as cases spike across the state, fueled by the omicron variant.
IDPH officials also reported 59,891 more doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been administered statewide.
Vaccine providers in Illinois have now administered 19,417,187 doses since December 2020.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is reporting 64.4% of Illinois' 12.7 million residents are now fully vaccinated. Of those fully vaccinated, the CDC is also reporting 39.7% have received a booster dose as well.