The state’s average positivity rate fell Tuesday for the first time in 11 days, but overall it has trended steadily upward since Christmas.
The coronavirus has killed 126 more Illinois residents and spread to an additional 6,839 people, but the state’s average testing positivity rate declined Tuesday for the first time in 11 days, officials said. The new cases were detected among 87,083 tests submitted to the Illinois Department of Public Health, lowering the seven-day average positivity rate by a tenth of a percentage point to 8.5%. That number, which indicates how rapidly the virus is spreading, had been on the rise nearly daily since Christmas. Gov. J.B. Pritzker urged families to cancel holiday gatherings to avoid another statewide surge like the one that shattered records in mid-November. The positivity rate fell by almost half from an autumn high of 13.2% on Nov.13 to 6.8% on Dec.26, but it has steadily risen since then. Pritzker’s health team has not indicated whether they think the uptick is tied to holiday transmission.
