Illinois has had 113,195 confirmed COVID-19 cases since the start of the pandemic, including 4,923 deaths.
Illinois is nearing 5,000 deaths from COVID-19, with 39 new deaths reported in the past 24 hours.
Illinois Department of Public Health director Dr. Ngozi Ezike said there were 1,178 new coronavirus cases confirmed in the past day, including 39 more deaths.
Ezike said the relatively low number of new cases was typical on the first business day after a weekend, as there is typically a lag in reporting of new cases confirmed by hospitals over the weekends.
Illinois has had 113,195 confirmed COVID-19 cases since the start of the pandemic, including 4,923 deaths.
For the week that ended May 16, Illinois had 780 total deaths, down from 800 the week before, according to Ezike. It was the first time during the outbreak that Illinois has seen a week-to-week decline in COVID-19 deaths. That decline continued last week, when the state reported 675 total deaths.
“So I am hopeful that this fact is the beginning of a downward trend, but of course that also depends on all of us, and making sure that we’re doing all that we can to decrease the transmission of this virus,” Ezike said.
As of Monday night, there were 3,788 coronavirus patients being treated in Illinois hospitals, including 1,035 in intensive care, and 590 on ventilators, according to Ezike.
Gov. JB Pritzker said hospitalizations from the virus have reached a six-week low, with nearly 1,200 fewer beds in use for coronavirus patients.
The governor also said the state’s positive test rate for the past week was 9.2%, down from a peak of 23% in late Arpil.
“The fact that we’ve seen these numbers trend in a good direction, even after we opened things up in Phase 2, demonstrates the importance of everyday actions,” Pritzker said.
Ezike said Illinois also received its third shipment of remdesivir from the federal government last week. The medication earlier this month received FDA authorization for emergency use in treating COVID-19 cases.
