IDPH reports 1,542 new COVID-19 cases, 42 deaths

The Illinois Department of Public Health reported 1,542 new cases of COVID-19 on Thursday, bringing the state’s total to 1,371,884.

The state’s death toll is at 22,536 after 42 more deaths were reported on Thursday.

The seven-day statewide positivity rate for cases as a percent of total tests is 2.2 percent, down 0.5 percent from last week. The preliminary seven-day statewide test positivity using the number of COVID-19 positive tests over total tests is 2.7 percent, a 0.5 percent decrease from last week.

There were 79,529 tests processed over the past 24 hours. A total of 24,051,654 tests have been processed.

As of Wednesday night, 1,488 Illinoisans were in the hospital with COVID-19, a decrease of 277 from last week. Of the patients in the hospital this week, 404 were in the ICU and 226 patients were on ventilators, the latter down 10 from last week.

Twenty-six percent of Illinois’ 32,172 hospital beds were available as of Thursday morning. Twenty-one percent of the state’s 3,380 ICU beds were available as were 74 percent of the state’s 5,642 ventilators.

A total of 10,640,990 COVID-19 vaccines have been administered. The seven-day rolling average of vaccines administered daily is approximately 65,998 doses, with 89,832 administered Wednesday.