* Press release…

The Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) today reported 10,376 new confirmed cases of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Illinois, including 49 additional deaths.

Following Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance, beginning November 6, 2020 and going forward, IDPH will report confirmed cases and probable cases combined. A confirmed case is laboratory confirmed via molecular test. A probable case meets clinical criteria AND is epidemiologically linked, or has a positive antigen test. If a probable case is later confirmed, the case will be deduplicated and will only be counted once. Probable deaths and confirmed deaths will continue to be reported separately.

Today’s additional deaths:

- Carroll County: 1 female 90s
- Champaign County: 1 female 70s
- Coles County: 1 male 70s
- Cook County: 1 female 60s, 2 males 60s, 2 females 70s, 1 male 70s, 4 females 80s, 1 male 80s, 2 females 90s, 1 male 90s
- DuPage County: 1 female 60s
- Edgar County: 1 male 80s
- Fayette County: 1 male 90s
- Ford County: 1 female 90s
- Jackson County: 1 male 60s
- Kendall County: 1 male 80s
- Knox County: 1 female 80s, 1 male 80s, 1 male 90s
- Macon County: 1 male 80s
- Macoupin County: 1 male 70s
- Marion County: 2 females 80s
- Mason County: 1 female 90s
- Monroe County: 1 female 80s, 1 female 100+
- Peoria County: 1 male 60s
- Piatt County: 1 male 80s
- Pike County: 1 male 80s
- Rock Island County: 1 male 90s
- Sangamon County: 1 male 60s
- Shelby County: 1 male 80s
- St. Clair County: 1 female 90s
- Tazewell County: 1 male 70s
- Vermilion County: 1 male 70s
- Wayne County: 1 female 70s
- Whiteside County: 1 male 50s, 2 females 70s, 1 male 70s, 1 female 90s
- Will County: 1 male 90s

Currently, IDPH is reporting a total of 465,540 cases, including 10,079 deaths, in 102 counties in Illinois. The age of cases ranges from younger than one to older than 100 years. Within the past 24 hours, laboratories have reported 98,401 specimens for a total 8,215,129. As of last night, 4,090 people in Illinois were reported to be in the hospital with COVID-19. Of those, 786 patients were in the ICU and 339 patients with COVID-19 were on ventilators.

The preliminary seven-day statewide positivity for cases as a percent of total test from October 30 – November 5 is 9.6%. This is the number that IDPH has been consistently reporting in its daily releases and is calculated using total cases over total tests. Similar to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, IDPH has been using test positivity for regional mitigation metrics on its website since mid-July. Test positivity is calculated using the number of COVID-19 positive tests over total tests. On October 29, 2020, IDPH began reporting the statewide test positivity in its daily releases. The preliminary seven-day statewide test positivity from October 30, 2020 – November 5, 2020 is 11.1%.

Case positivity and test positivity rate are both relevant and offer insight into the bigger COVID-19 picture. Case positivity helps us understand whether changes in the number of confirmed cases is due to more testing or due to more infections. Whereas, test positivity accounts for repeated testing and helps us understand how the virus is spreading in the population over time.

Seventy-five counties, plus the city of Chicago, are currently reported at a warning level – Adams, Alexander, Bond, Boone, Bureau, Calhoun, Carroll, Chicago, Christian, Clay, Clinton, Coles, Cook, Crawford, Cumberland, DeKalb, Douglas, DuPage, Effingham, Franklin, Fulton, Gallatin, Greene, Grundy, Hamilton, Hancock, Iroquois, Jackson, Jasper, Jersey, Jo Daviess, Johnson, Kane, Kankakee, Kendall, Knox, Lake, LaSalle, Lee, Livingston, Logan, Macon, Madison, Marion, Mason, Massac, McHenry, Mercer, Monroe, Morgan, Moultrie, Ogle, Peoria, Perry, Pike, Pulaski, Putnam, Randolph, Rock Island, Saline, Sangamon, Scott, Shelby, St. Clair, Stephenson, Tazewell, Vermilion, Wabash, Warren, Washington, Wayne, Whiteside, Will, Williamson, Winnebago, and Woodford.

*All data are provisional and will change. In order to rapidly report COVID-19 information to the public, data are being reported in real-time. Information is constantly being entered into an electronic system and the number of cases and deaths can change as additional information is gathered. For health questions about COVID-19, call the hotline at 1-800-889-3931 or email dph.sick@illinois.gov.

*** UPDATE *** Some of you have noticed that IDPH has some different case numbers today. Dr. Ezike explained this at the daily briefing…

In addition to the data that the governor just spoke about I want to tell people that we are also adding similar to the CDC. We will begin reporting confirmed, and probable cases.

I know that the various CDC terms may be new and are confusing, so I want to explain this update so you can best understand the numbers. I’m thrilled that so many people are following along on our on our website and following the information, so want to make sure it’s all clear.

As treatment and testing have evolved, so too has our response. In August, the national case definition was changed so that an antigen test alone would be considered a probable case. The increased use of antigen tests, we will get more probable cases and we want to make sure that we capture all of those cases that are diagnosed via antigen test, similar to how the CDC does this, and similar to how other states are calculating this as well, so that we can show our actual true Burden of Disease here in Illinois. The result of this is that the total number of cases, since the beginning of the pandemic that we report today is going to look quite a bit higher, because we have added all the probable cases, since the beginning of the pandemic.

Those were already reported each week on our website but we’re bringing that in so there’s approximately 7600 additional cases that will be added to Illinois, total number of cases. To be clear, these are being counted as new cases that occurred in the last 24 hours. These are previously reported probable cases that are now being included in our total grant case count. Instead of having them separated out. So today for the cases that we’re, new cases that were reported over the last 24 hours. That number is 10,376. And that creates total number of cases, 465,540.

Please pardon all transcription errors.