COVID-19 hospitalizations declining slowly, fewer in ICU too

State health officials are reporting COVID-19 hospitalizations dipped 5.4% from a week ago.

According to Illinois Department of Public Health figures released Friday, 1,099 COVID-19 patients were being treated in hospitals statewide, compared with 1,162 seven days earlier.

Of those currently hospitalized, 114 are in ICU beds. That's also down from the 131 COVID-19 patients reported in intensive care June 17.

Nationally, hospitalizations have been rising slightly, according to U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention records.

Two years ago, Illinois was three months into the pandemic and 1,614 COVID-19 patients were being treated in hospitals throughout the state. A year ago, just 442 were hospitalized with the virus.

Illinois also recorded an additional 82 COVID-19 deaths over the past week, bringing the state's death toll from the respiratory disease to 34,076.

Another 27,904 new cases were reported in the last week as well, according to IDPH records. Since the outset of the pandemic, Illinois has recorded 3,407,189 COVID-19 infections. However, health officials are quick to note the prevalence of home tests has made tracking new infections more difficult.

Vaccine providers nationwide began inoculating children under the age of 5 this week, but health officials said it will likely be a week before any data on uptake of the vaccine in that age group is made available.

Meanwhile, the CDC is reporting that 69.1% of the state's 12.8 million residents are fully vaccinated. Of those fully vaccinated, 53.2% have received at least one booster. Only 28.3% of those eligible for a second booster have received one, CDC records show.

The CDC's community risk level map shows Cook, DuPage and Lake counties at high, McHenry and Will counties at medium and Kane County at low. The risk levels are based on the number of new cases diagnosed each week per capita as well as per capita changes in hospital admissions.