DPH reports 168 COVID-19 deaths, 14,612 new cases

The Illinois Department of Public Health reported 168 deaths related to COVID-19 on Thursday, the third-highest number of daily deaths since the pandemic started.

The 168 new deaths bring the state’s death toll to 11,178. It’s the highest single-day total since 191 were reported on May 13.

There were 166 deaths reported on Nov. 14, though the department said at the time that included 66 deaths that should have been reported the prior day.

The Illinois Department of Public Health reported 14,612 cases of COVID-19 on Thursday, bringing the total to 621,383.

The seven-day statewide positivity rate for cases as a percent of total tests is 12 percent, a 0.6 percent decrease from last week. The preliminary seven-day statewide test positivity using the number of COVID-19 positive tests over total tests is 14 percent, a 0.1 percent increase from last week.

There were 113,447 more tests processed during the past day. A total of 9,472,674 tests have been processed.

As of Wednesday night, 6,037 Illinoisans were in the hospital with COVID-19, an increase of 779 from last week. Of the patients in the hospital this week, 1,192 were in the ICU and 587 patients were on ventilators.

Twenty-nine percent of Illinois’ 34,898 hospital beds were available as of Thursday morning. Thirty percent of the state’s 3,747 ICU beds were available as were 71 percent of the state’s 5,673 ventilators.