DPH: 5,368 new COVID-19 cases after processing backlog of tests

There were 5,368 new cases of COVID-19 in Illinois announced Friday, which the Illinois Department of Public Health said is due to a slowdown in data processing this week that affected the reporting of tests.

The issue, now fixed, was brought on “due to the large volume of testing occurring in Illinois,” the department said in a statement.

Though the issue affected the number of cases and completed tests that were publicly reported, the department said the issue did not affect the reporting of positive or negative results to individuals in any way.

The state’s total number of cases is 245,371 cases.

An additional 29 deaths were reported Friday, bringing the total number to 8,143.

A total of 149,273 tests were reported over the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of completed tests to 4,309,941.

The positivity rate for tests over the past seven days is 4.1 percent.

Thirty-six percent of Illinois’ 34,787 hospital beds were available as of Friday morning. Forty percent of the state’s 3,805 ICU beds were available as were 78 percent of the state’s 5,693 ventilators.