Southwestern IL positivity rate nears threshold for less business restrictions
The metro-east’s regional COVID-19 testing positivity rate continued to fall on Tuesday, nearing a 12% threshold that could ease restrictions on the region.
Region 4’s rolling seven-day average positivity rate was 12.7% on Tuesday, down from 13% on Monday. The new rate is based on tests recorded as of Dec. 12. A region’s positivity rate is its percentage of positive COVID-19 tests versus the number of tests taken over a seven-day period.
For Tier 3 mitigation metrics to be relaxed or to move to Tier 2, the region must experience a less than 12% test seven-day rolling average positivity rate for three consecutive days while also seeing 20% available intensive care unit and medical/surgical bed availability for three consecutive days.
The Illinois Department of Public Health reported 85% of staffed hospital beds in the metro-east were in use as of Tuesday, down from 85.5% Monday. Additionally, 23.5% of the metro-east’s staffed hospital beds were available for patient use, up from 22% Monday.
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.
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.
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.
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 11.3% on Tuesday, down from 13% on Monday.
Deaths remain higher in St. Louis
The St. Louis Metropolitan Pandemic Task Force on Tuesday announced the deaths of 25 coronavirus patients, up from the 18 deaths recorded on Monday.
These patients had been treated in hospitals that are part of the task force.
The task force’s seven-day moving average of COVID deaths increased – from 22 on Monday to 23 on Tuesday, which is over three times the number recorded in October when the seven-day moving average of deaths was seven.
The task force was formed in April to coordinate the efforts of four health systems: BJC HealthCare, Mercy, SSM Health and St. Luke’s Hospital. The group’s statistics include results from BJC HealthCare’s metro-east hospitals: Alton Memorial Hospital, Memorial Hospital in Belleville and Memorial Hospital East in Shiloh.
State of Illinois announces new cases, deaths
Meanwhile, the state of Illinois announced 7,359 new COVID-19 cases Tuesday, bringing the total to 863,477. The state health department also announced 117 additional deaths to bring the total to 14,509 since the pandemic began.
Also within the past 24 hours, laboratories have reported 92,922 new tests have been administered for a total of 11,962,010.
As of Monday, 4,965 people in Illinois were reported to be in the hospital with COVID-19. Of those, 1,057 patients were in the ICU and 598 patients with COVID-19 were on ventilators.
The preliminary seven-day statewide positivity for cases as a percent of total tests from Dec. 8-14 is 8.6%.
This story was originally published December 15, 2020 at 12:37 PM.