* Jake Griffin…

Illinois health officials are reporting a spike in the number of new COVID-19 cases among young children just as many have become eligible for the vaccine.

More than 16% of the new cases reported Thursday were in children ages 5 to 11, according to Illinois Department of Public Health records. Federal regulators this week approved use of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine for that age group.

* The case count is up by a few thousand over the past week, but there were 150,000 or so tests reported yesterday alone. The significant jump in the fully vaccinated rate is because the CDC is finally allowing states to submit their data corrections, according to the governor’s office. Sometimes, for instance, the person’s name who got the second shot wasn’t matched up to the first shot. Hospitalizations are still plateaued and up a bit from the day before…

The Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) today reported 17,462 new confirmed and probable cases of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Illinois, including 183 additional deaths since reporting last Friday, October 29, 2021. Of Illinois’ total population, 66% has received at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose and almost 61% of Illinois’ total population is fully vaccinated according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

On Wednesday, November 3, 2021, IDPH adopted CDC’s recommendation for children ages 5 to 11 years to receive the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. The vaccine for children ages 5 through 11 years is a smaller dose (10 µg), a third of the dose for individuals 12 years and older (30 µg). The Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine is administered as a series of two doses, 3 weeks apart, for all eligible individuals.

Currently, IDPH is reporting a total of 1,712,986 cases, including 25,948 deaths, in 102 counties in Illinois. The age of cases ranges from younger than one to older than 100 years. Since reporting on Friday, October 29, 2021, laboratories have reported 820,983 specimens for a total of 36,109,599. As of last night, 1,257 individuals in Illinois were reported to be in the hospital with COVID-19. Of those, 282 patients were in the ICU and 148 patients with COVID-19 were on ventilators.

The preliminary seven-day statewide positivity for cases as a percent of total test from October 29-November 4, 2021 is 2.1%. The preliminary seven-day statewide test positivity from October 29-November 4, 2021 is 2.5%.

A total of 15,911,477 vaccines have been administered in Illinois as of last midnight. The seven-day rolling average of vaccines administered daily is 52,670 doses. Since reporting on Friday, October 29, 2021, 368,687 doses were reported administered in Illinois.

*All data are provisional and will change. Additional information and COVID-19 data can be found at http://www.dph.illinois.gov/covid19.

Vaccination is the key to ending this pandemic. To find a COVID-19 vaccination location near you, go to www.vaccines.gov.

* More…

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