Member of Pritzker’s staff tests positive for COVID-19

An employee with Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s office tested positive for COVID-19 during routine testing Monday, his office said Monday evening.

The employee, who has not been identified, has not been in contact with Pritzker in recent days, according to spokeswoman Jordan Abudayyeh. She said all staff members identified as close contacts will follow the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention protocol for quarantine.

“The governor’s office continues to follow COVID-19 safety protocols including testing staff multiple times per week, weekly deep cleaning procedures, mask wearing, social distancing and limiting the number of staff reporting to the office for in person work,” Abudayyeh said in a statement.

Pritzker received his single dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine last month.

The Illinois Department of Public Health reported 2,433 new cases of COVID-19 on Monday, bringing the state’s total to 1,282,205.

The state’s death toll is at 21,523 after 18 more deaths were reported on Monday.

The seven-day statewide positivity rate for cases as a percent of total tests is 4.4 percent, up 0.6 percent from last week. The preliminary seven-day statewide test positivity using the number of COVID-19 positive tests over total tests is 4.9 percent, a 0.4 percent increase from last week.

There were 53,115 tests processed over the past 24 hours. A total of 21,225,122 tests have been processed.

As of Sunday night, 1,998 Illinoisans were in the hospital with COVID-19, an increase of 417 from last week. Of the patients in the hospital this week, 418 were in the ICU and 177 patients were on ventilators, the latter up 18 from last week.

Twenty-nine percent of Illinois’ 32,481 hospital beds were available as of Monday morning. Twenty-six percent of the state’s 3,381 ICU beds were available as were 77 percent of the state’s 5,686 ventilators.

A total of 7,243,383 COVID-19 vaccines have been administered. The seven-day rolling average of vaccines administered daily is approximately 132,188 doses, with 64,772 doses administered on Sunday.

There have been 9,001,105 doses of COVID-19 vaccines delivered to Illinois providers, including in Chicago.