Three weeks after the state of Illinois lifted its mask mandate, and amid reports that cases of an omicron subvariant are beginning to increase, state health officials say that rates of new COVID infections have remained largely steady, and even decreased, over the last seven days.
According to the latest figures from the Illinois Department of Public Health, The state is now averaging 1,085 new cases of COVID per day over the last week.
That figure has actually gone down from last Monday, when the state was averaging 1,177 new cases of the virus per day.
A similar trend has been noted in the number of new deaths per day. Over the last two days, zero new fatalities have been reported in Illinois, bringing the daily average of COVID-related deaths to 16.
These figures come even as the state is averaging more than 86,000 new test results submitted to laboratories each day.
Hospitalizations have continued to decrease in the state, with 529 patients currently hospitalized with COVID in Illinois. Of those, 97 are in ICU beds, and both figures are the lowest the state has reported since last summer, before the delta variant caused an uptick in cases, hospitalizations and deaths.
On Monday, there were 753 new COVID cases reported in Illinois. Zero deaths were reported for the second consecutive day and the sixth time in the month of March.
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In all, Illinois has reported more than 3.05 million COVID cases during the pandemic, with 33,216 confirmed deaths. More than 56.5 million tests have been performed during the pandemic, including nearly 50,000 on Monday.
The state’s positivity rate on COVID tests is holding at 1.3%, according to officials.
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All 102 of the state’s counties are currently at a “low transmission” risk category at this time, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
