Hospital bed, intensive care unit availability hits record low in southwest Illinois
The metro-east’s positivity rate saw a slight drop Friday, while regional hospital and intensive care unit bed availability hit record lows.
The Illinois Department of Public Health reported 86.6% of staffed hospital beds in the metro-east were in use as of Friday, up from 84.4% Thursday. Additionally, only 16.9% of the metro-east’s staffed hospital beds were available for patient use, down from 17.3% Thursday.
Meanwhile, the 7-day positivity rate for COVID-19 tests in southwestern Illinois has decreased eight days in a row.
The rolling average was 13.6% on Friday, down from 13.8% on Thursday. The new rate is based on tests recorded as of Nov. 24. A region’s positivity rate is its percentage of positive COVID-19 tests versus the number of tests taken over a 7-day period.
Under rules set by the Restore Illinois plan, if a region reaches or falls below the 20% threshold, the state may impose tighter restrictions to avoid the possibility of the region running out of hospital and ICU beds.
Tier 3 restrictions went into place statewide on Friday, Nov. 20. The third tier tightens restrictions on indoor dining, bars and social gatherings while adding restrictions to casinos, retailers, video gaming and museums.
Over the past weeks, officials have warned about the possibility of the region running low on hospital and ICU beds, prompting some area hospitals to temporarily cease elective surgeries. More recently, officials have publicly worried that the Thanksgiving holiday could lead to another spike in cases and deaths.
The state classifies the metro-east as Region 4, which covers seven counties: St. Clair, Madison, Monroe, Bond, Washington, Clinton and Randolph. County-by-county data is available on the state health department’s website.
Additionally, the region reported a daily positivity rate of 14.2% on Friday, down from 16.5% on Thursday.
State of Illinois announces new cases, deaths
Meanwhile, the state of Illinois announced 7,574 new COVID-19 cases Friday, bringing the total to 705,063. The state health department also announced 66 additional deaths, bringing the total to 12,029 since the pandemic began.
Also, within the past 24 hours, laboratories have reported 77,130 new tests for a total of 10,289,223.
As of Thursday, 5,829 people in Illinois were reported to be in the hospital with COVID-19. Of those, 1,215 patients were in the ICU and 698 patients with COVID-19 were on ventilators.
The preliminary 7-day statewide positivity for cases as a percent of total tests from Nov. 20-26 is 10.1%.