COVID-19 positivity rate for southwestern Illinois drops for a 5th straight day
Region 4’s COVID-19 positivity rate dropped again Wednesday, marking the fifth consecutive day the rate has lowered.
The metro-east’s rolling seven-day average positivity rate was 11.4% on Wednesday, down from 11.5% on Tuesday. Wednesday again marked the lowest the region’s rate has been since Nov. 4 when it was 11.3%. However, the region reported a daily positivity rate of 13.6% on Wednesday, a sharp rise from 9.1% on Tuesday.
The number of available hospital beds in the seven-county metro-east, meanwhile, showed mixed trends Wednesday, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health.
As of Tuesday, 12.4% of the metro-east’s staffed hospital beds were available for patient use, up from 11.9% on Tuesday, according to state health department data. Additionally, 17.3% of the region’s intensive care unit beds were available as of Wednesday, down from 18.2% the day prior.
Wednesday also marked the 16th consecutive day the region’s hospital bed availability has been below the state-set threshold of 20% and the seventh-straight day the region’s ICU availability has been under the threshold, which plays a part in determining whether COVID-19 restrictions need to be tightened or relaxed. Currently, the entire state is in Tier 3 mitigations.
Overall, as of Wednesday, Region 4 still had the highest positivity rate and the lowest hospital bed availability statewide.
For Tier 3 mitigation metrics to be relaxed or to move to Tier 2, the region must experience a seven-day rolling average positivity rate of less than 12% for three consecutive days while also seeing at least 20% available intensive care unit and medical/surgical bed availability for three consecutive days.
The new testing positivity rate is based on data recorded as of Jan. 10, and the hospital and ICU bed availability is based on data recorded as of Jan. 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.
Restrictions on Illinois businesses may be lifted as early as Friday, depending on the level of COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations in their communities, Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced last week. Illinois officials had paused any removal of restrictions through the end of year holidays, even as statistics improved in some areas of the state.
Officials picked Friday as the earliest date for that to happen because it is outside of the time frame during which the state could see any potential surge in COVID-19 diagnoses from holiday gatherings. Local officials say a recent spike in cases and deaths may be a result of recent gatherings.
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.
State of Illinois announces new cases, deaths
Meanwhile, the state of Illinois announced 5,862 new COVID-19 cases Wednesday, bringing the total to 1,046,030. The state health department also announced 97 additional deaths to bring the total to 17,840 since the pandemic began.
Also within the past 24 hours, laboratories have reported 76,107 new tests have been administered for a total of 14,339,584.
As of Tuesday, when the latest data was available, 3,642 people in Illinois were reported to be in the hospital with COVID-19. Of those, 749 patients were in the ICU and 386 patients with COVID-19 were on ventilators.
The preliminary seven-day statewide positivity for cases as a percent of total tests from Jan. 6-12 is 7.3%, down from 7.5% the day prior.
This story was originally published January 13, 2021 at 12:45 PM.