Illinois now doing more coronavirus tests per capita than NY as reopening day nears
Illinois is now completing more COVID-19 tests per capita than any other state in the country, according to Governor J.B. Pritzker.
During his daily press conference, Pritzker said Illinois surpassed New York in that measure over the past seven days.
Currently, IDPH is reporting a total of 98,030 cases, including 4,379 deaths. A total of 621,684 tests have been administered in total, with 18,443 being tested in the past 24 hours.
“There’s much more work to do advance testing to make it even more widely available but I do want to recognize the folks at this juncture who made this happen,” Pritzker said, thanking the many who have been executing the tests and working to make testing available.
New York has tested 1,467,739 people as of Tuesday. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 12,671,821 people live in Illinois and 19,453,561 live in New York state.
Illinois has seen its largest increase in tests administered in the last week, according to state testing data.
Pritzker added that every region in Illinois are “on track” to reach phase 3 of the reopen Illinois plan before the end of May. Phase 2 began 18 days ago. He said specific information on workplaces and activities will be released in the coming days.
Illinois Department of Health Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike says without a stay-at-home order the state would not be as close to entering the next phase, but warned that people need to still take caution.
“We can’t undo all that we’ve done. We are going forward,” Ezike said. “We want to get to phase three and continue on.”
Pritzker encouraged anyone who is eligible to get tested, including people with symptoms, people with risk factors or who came into contact with the virus and people who work in health care facilities or at correctional facilities.
Here’s where you can get tested in the metro-east.