Illinois coronavirus daily death toll increase ties for lowest in seven weeks
The Illinois Department of Public Health on Monday announced 1,713 more people have tested positive for COVID-19 and 31 more people have died statewide, which ties for the lowest number of deaths reported since April 2.
Illinois has seen a total of 4,884 deaths across the state during the pandemic, officials reported Monday. A total of 112,017 people have been diagnosed with coronavirus.
An additional 21,643 have been tested for the virus, bringing the total number of administered tests to 769,564, the agency said in a news release.
The 31 coronavirus-related deaths announced on Monday matches the 31 reported on April 19 and April 5. These are the lowest daily toll announced since April 2 when there were 16 deaths.
The statewide rolling seven-day rate of tests coming back positive from May 16-22 was 12%, whiich was the percentage reported on Sunday.
The latest IDPH metrics showed that Southern Illinois is on track to start Phase 3 of the Restore Illinois plan at the end of the current stay-at-home order on Saturday. Phase 3 includes the reopening of manufacturing, offices, retail, barbershops and salons with proper safety precautions and groups of 10 or fewer will be allowed.
The requirements to reopen under Phase 3 are:
- At or under a 20% positivity rate of all COVID-19 tests and increasing no more than 10% over a 14-day period,
- No overall increase in hospital admissions for COVID-19-like illness for 28 days, and
- Available surge capacity of at least 14% of ICU beds, medical and surgical beds and ventilators.
As of Monday, Southern Illinois was on pace on the following metrics:
- A positivity rate of 4.4% and a decrease of 1.5 percentage points over a 14-day period.
- A 44% decrease in hospital admissions for COVID-like illness since May 1.
- A surge capacity of 41.5% of ICU beds, 45.9% of medical and surgical beds and 75.9% of ventilators.
This story was originally published May 25, 2020 at 3:04 PM.
