Illinois’ daily COVID-19 case count dips below 1,000 for first time in four days

Illinois saw its daily COVID-19 case count dip below 1,000 for the first time in four days on Sunday, marking the end of the longest stretch of four-digit daily caseloads since a peak month of May.

Health officials announced another 965 people tested positive for the coronavirus, bringing the state’s total to 161,575 cases, though the vast majority have since recovered with Illinois boasting a 95% recovery rate.

While the daily case count did decrease from the previous few days, the state also received nearly 14,000 fewer test results than the previous day.

The new cases were confirmed among the latest batch of 32,113 test results reported to the Illinois Department of Public Health, for a daily positivity rate of 3%. In each of the past three days, Illinois processed more than 40,000 tests, including a record-setting batch of 46,099 test results Saturday.

In total, Illinois has performed more than 2.24 million tests over the last four months.

The state’s rolling positivity rate over the past week is 2.9%, which is a mild increase from mid-June when it was just 2% but still drastically lower than the 17% positivity rate Illinois saw at the height of its pandemic in mid-May.

Health officials also recorded an additional six deaths attributed to COVID-19 Sunday, bringing the state’s death toll to 7,296.

Illinois has seen some of its lowest daily tolls this month, recording six days with 10 or fewer coronavirus-related deaths.

As of Saturday night, 1,356 coronavirus patients were hospitalized in Illinois, with 320 of those patients in intensive care units and 132 on ventilators, officials said.