Hospital bed availability not yet improving in southwestern Illinois, officials say
The metro-east’s hospitals remain below the state’s threshold for bed availability set to avoid overwhelming the local health care industry amid the coronavirus pandemic, the Illinois Department of Public Health announced Saturday.
State officials say at least 20% of beds should remain open so that hospitals can reasonably handle a surge in patients.
In the metro-east, less than 20% of medical and surgical beds have been available for 11 days, and less than 20% of intensive care unit beds have been available for five days as of Nov. 27, state data shows.
The region includes St. Clair, Madison, Clinton, Randolph, Monroe, Bond and Washington counties.
A region’s hospital resources are among the metrics Illinois is using to decide whether to tighten or loosen restrictions on when and where people can gather.
Another metric is related to testing for the new coronavirus: the percentage of tests that are positive, which is known as the positivity rate. It gives an indication of the rate of transmission, according to state leaders.
That figure increased slightly from 13.6% on Tuesday to 14.2% on Wednesday in the metro-east. Positivity rates are delayed by three days, so Nov. 25 was the latest date available on Saturday.
The increase announced Saturday comes after eight days of decreases in the percentage of positive test results.
Statewide restrictions on businesses and social gatherings aimed at preventing the virus from spreading have been in place since Nov. 20.
To relax those restrictions, regions of the state would need to have a positivity rate of less than 12% for three consecutive days, hospital bed availability of more than 20% and a decline in hospitalizations for seven out of 10 days.
The Illinois Department of Public Health provides daily updates on each region’s progress at dph.illinois.gov/regionmetrics.
Concern about increased transmission from holiday
Local health officials and elected leaders have said they are concerned that the number of infections will soon increase because of Thanksgiving gatherings.
The virus spreads when an infected person coughs, sneezes, talks, sings or breathes around others, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Indoor environments without good ventilation increase the risk of spread, the CDC says. Face masks and distance are recommended to prevent exposure to the virus.
The effect of any holiday gatherings may not become clear for weeks. In the meantime, numbers could actually appear to decrease, but experts warn that does not mean the situation is improving.
Laboratories that process coronavirus tests were closed Thursday for the Thanksgiving holiday, according to Monroe County Health Department Administrator John Wagner. He said in a statement Friday that some labs are expected to remain closed through the weekend, so numbers “will not be a true indication of spread.”
Nationally, health officials said they saw an increase in the number of people getting tested before Thanksgiving as they decided whether to travel or gather, but the number dipped again as the weekend began, The Associated Press reported.
Updated Illinois coronavirus statistics
On Saturday, 7,873 more people across Illinois tested positive for COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the virus, and 108 people died from the disease.
A total of 712,936 Illinois residents have been diagnosed with COVID-19 and 12,137 people have died since the pandemic began.
As of Friday night, 5,775 people were hospitalized in Illinois, with 1,211 patients in the ICU and 686 patients on ventilators.
Symptoms of the virus can include fever or chills, cough, shortness of breath or difficulty breathing, fatigue, muscle or body aches, headache, or loss of taste or smell, but a person can be infected without showing any symptoms, according to experts.
Because a person can have the virus without knowing it, state and local officials have repeatedly encouraged people to get tested.
This story was originally published November 28, 2020 at 1:34 PM.
