Southwest IL COVID-19 positivity rate, hospital bed and ICU availability improve
The metro-east’s COVID-19 testing positivity rate saw a slight drop Monday as regional hospital and intensive care unit bed availability also continued to improve..
Region 4’s rolling 7-day average was 15.1% on Monday, down from 15.3% on Sunday. The new rate is based on tests recorded as of Dec. 4. A region’s positivity rate is its percentage of positive COVID-19 tests versus the number of tests taken over a 7-day period.
The Illinois Department of Public Health reported 82.5% of staffed hospital beds in the metro-east were in use as of Monday, down from 84% Sunday. Additionally, 20.1% of the metro-east’s staffed hospital beds were available for patient use, up from 18.6% Sunday.
IDPH has reported increased hospital bed and ICU availability in the metro-east for four consecutive days, according to the department’s latest available data.
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 and upcoming gatherings during the December holidays 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 13.6% on Monday, down from 17.5% on Sunday.
State of Illinois announces new cases, deaths
Meanwhile, the state of Illinois announced 8,691 new COVID-19 cases Monday, bringing the total to 796,264. The state health department also announced 90 additional deaths, bringing the total to 13,343 since the pandemic began.
Also, within the past 24 hours, laboratories have reported 77,569 new tests for a total of 11,178,783.
As of Sunday, 5,190 people in Illinois were reported to be in the hospital with COVID-19. Of those, 1,123 patients were in the ICU and 648 patients with COVID-19 were on ventilators.
The preliminary 7-day statewide positivity for cases as a percent of total tests from Nov. 30-Dec. 6is 10.3%.