* Cases are up by 30 percent, but are still low. Hospitalizations, a lagging indicator, are down 7.6 percent. ICU and ventilator usage are up, but the overall numbers are small. Daily vaccine average is about the same. Deaths are down 37 percent, but, again, the overall numbers are small. Here’s IDPH…

The Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) today reported 14,049 new confirmed and probable cases of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Illinois, including 45 deaths since April 8, 2022.

Currently, IDPH is reporting a total of 3,094,485 cases, including 33,510 deaths, in 102 counties in Illinois since the beginning of the pandemic. The age of cases ranges from younger than one to older than 100 years.

As of last night, 464 individuals in Illinois were reported to be in the hospital with COVID-19. Of those, 70 patients were in the ICU and 32 patients with COVID-19 were on ventilators. The preliminary seven-day statewide case rate is 110 COVID-19 cases per 100,000 Illinoisans.

A total of 21,648,058 vaccines have been administered in Illinois. The seven-day rolling average of vaccines administered daily is 19,799 doses. Since April 8, 2022, 138,595 doses were reported administered in Illinois. Of Illinois’ total population, more than 76% has received at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose, more than 68% of Illinois’ total population is fully vaccinated, and more than 50% is boosted according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Data indicates that the risk of hospitalization and severe outcomes from COVID-19 is much higher for unvaccinated people than for those who are up to date on their vaccinations.

On April 12, IDPH announced it is using new federal guidelines for tracking COVID-19 at the community level. The new CDC guidelines emphasize the case rate and hospitalizations in order to better track the impact of COVID-19 in communities. In addition, as a result of HHS announcing that testing providers are no longer required to report some negative test results, IDPH will no longer know how many tests are being done and will therefore no longer report test and case positivity.

All data are provisional and are subject to change. Additional information and COVID-19 data can be found at https://dph.illinois.gov/covid19.html.

I’m shutting down relatively soon, so comments are closed.