The state of Illinois continued to see slow improvement in several key COVID metrics on Tuesday, but deaths related to the virus continued to rise toward record highs, as 121 fatalities were reported in the last 24 hours.
According to the Illinois Department of Public Health, the state is now averaging 132 COVID-related deaths per day over the last week. That number is the highest that Illinois has seen since Dec. 2020, with the record average topping out at 155 fatalities per day, according to officials.
In all, 30,276 Illinois residents have died due to COVID complications, according to IDPH, with 3,666 more fatalities currently listed as “probable” COVID deaths.
As the number of deaths continues to rise, new cases and hospitalizations continued their recent downward trends. On Tuesday, 13,706 new cases of COVID-19 were reported across the state, dropping the average number of daily new cases to 24,083.
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According to IDPH, that is the lowest average number of daily cases the state has seen since Jan. 4, and marks a decrease of nearly 26% from the high-watermark set on Jan. 12, when the state was averaging 32,501 new cases per day.
In all, more than 2.85 million COVID cases have been reported since the pandemic began.
The state reported 125,097 new test results on Tuesday, marking a continuing downward trend in the average number of new tests performed, with the state now averaging 207,165 tests per day.
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The positivity rate on those tests did continue to go down, falling to 11.6% on all tests and to 15% on individuals tested.
As of midnight, Illinois officials say that 5,183 hospitalized patients are currently COVID-positive in the state. That marks the lowest number of hospitalizations since Dec. 27, and represents a continued decrease in the number of COVID hospitalizations over the last two weeks.
Of those patients, 907 are currently in ICU beds.
