Coronavirus is spreading across the state, the daily caseload is worst since early September

The state’s latest COVID-19 rise worsened on Friday, with the week’s numbers of new infections rising again, and public health authorities reporting the worst single daily case load since late summer.

The Illinois Department of Public Health on Friday announced an additional 28,280 new coronavirus cases over the past week.

The weekly case volume is an increase of 25% compared to last week’s seven-day total number, which marks the third week in a row where there are increasing cases.

On Friday alone, public health officials reported 5,720 new COVID-19 cases and 37 deaths, continuing a shocking trend as the state manages its fifth major resurgence of the deadly virus.

Friday’s number of new cases exceeds Thursday’s volume of cases as the most reported in a single day since 3 September.

The latest weekly total average is 4,040 cases per day. Last week’s seven-day total number of breads down to about 3,228 cases a day.

As of Thursday night, 1,759 COVID-19 patients were reported to be in hospitals across Illinois – the most since Sept. 30. Of this number, 350 were in intensive care units and 152 COVID-19 patients were on respirator.

Ashlee Rezin / Sun-Times fil

The state’s provisional seven-day statewide test positivity rate is 3.8%.

Once again, the state’s color-coded COVID-19 community transfer card is pretty much a sea of ​​red.

Only eight of the state’s 102 counties are not in the red category, the color indicating a high rate of virus transmission. Brown, Cass, Mason, Morgan, and Scott counties in western central Illinois and White and Pulaski counties in southern Illinois are currently colored orange, a step just below red indicating “significant transmission.”

Pope in remote southern Illinois is the only county marked yellow for “moderate infection.”

The card uses the date provided by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Illinois Department of Public Health

Public health officials warned last week that the state could be in the midst of yet another increase. And Chicago Public Health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady confirmed this during an online Q&A on Thursday, saying “the numbers are not good.”

“We are on an increase,” she said.

She added that it is not surprising as winter approaches, forcing people to retire, often without masks.

Ashlee Rezin / Sun-Times fil

Arwady and other public health officials are urging city and state residents to get vaccinated to help protect them from the virus.

Approximately 67% of the state’s total population has received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, and nearly 61% of the state is fully vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Since Friday, 434,995 shots of COVID-19 vaccine dose have gone into arms across Illinois.