With two thirds of Illinois residents 12 or older now vaccinated, the virus is spreading as slowly as it has since experts started tracking it reliably.
Illinois’ COVID-19 case free fall took another leap in the right direction Friday as public health officials reported just 102 new cases of the disease — the fewest in a day since St. Patrick’s Day 2020. That was a few days after hordes of revelers flocked to bars downtown despite ballooning concern over the novel coronavirus — less than a week after the World Health Organization declared a pandemic, and three days before Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced a sweeping stay-at-home order. Since then, the virus has infected nearly 1.4 million residents statewide and killed 23,133 of them, including the latest 13 victims. But with about two-thirds of Illinoisans 12 or older having received a COVID-19 vaccine dose and slightly more than half of those residents fully immunized, viral transmission has slowed to a crawl.
