With Illinois seeing a steady increase in cases, the state is drawing closer to an average it hasn’t seen in nearly a month.
According to data from the Illinois Department of Public Health, the state has been averaging nearly 1,000 cases per day over the last week, with 6,934 cases over the last seven days.
That 1,000 cases per day plateau is one Illinois hasn’t seen since June 9, approximately two weeks since the state moved forward into Phase Three of its reopening plan.
Part of the increase is due to more testing however, as the state’s rolling seven-day positivity rate on June 9 stood at nearly 12 percent. As of Monday, that number is now at 3.01 percent, but has risen slightly in recent days.
Even with that increase in cases, Illinois is still not being hit nearly as hard as some other states in the U.S. According to figures compiled by the NBC 5 Investigates team, 11 other states have recorded more COVID-19 cases over the last seven days than Illinois, including Florida, which has reported 63,064 new cases in the past seven days. That number is more than nine times the number of cases reported in Illinois in the same time span.
California and Texas have both reported more than 50,000 new coronavirus cases in the last week, with Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Louisiana, Alabama and Ohio all outpacing Illinois in that category.
Even still, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker has urged residents to continue wearing masks to help avoid further increases in cases, and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has not ruled out re-imposing some restrictions that were recently lifted amid a downturn in coronavirus cases in the city.
