Health officials on Sunday announced an additional one person has died due to the coronavirus, making it the lowest reported COVID-19 death day since March 21 — four days after the state recorded its first death.
The one fatality — a 90-year-old man in Bond County — brings the state’s death toll to 7,398.
While it’s certainly positive news that the state recorded its lowest daily death count in four months, it’s also worth noting that it’s not unusual for the state to record fewer coronavirus-related deaths over the weekend because some counties don’t report deaths between Friday and Monday.
Illinois has seen some of its lowest daily tolls this month, recording eight days with 10 or fewer coronavirus-related deaths and averaging about 18 deaths per day.
Though the state’s coronavirus fatality rate has remained relatively low this month compared to the height of the pandemic in May, Illinois continued its upward trend of new coronavirus infections Sunday as health officials announced an additional 1,541 people have tested positive for the virus.
That marks the state’s fifth straight day with a four-digit daily coronavirus caseload, making it the longest such stretch since May, when the state reached its peak of COVID-19 deaths and cases with an average of more than 2,100 new cases a day.
So far in July, Illinois is averaging 1,086 new cases a day, up starkly from about 764 for the month of June.
Sunday’s new cases were confirmed among the latest batch of 40,844 test results reported to the Illinois Department of Public Health, raising the state’s rolling positivity rate over the past week to 3.7% — a .7% uptick from last Sunday and one percentage point more than two weeks ago.
Out of the more than 2.5 million tests the state has performed, 171,424 people have tested positive for the coronavirus, though the vast majority of those people have since recovered with Illinois boasting a 95% recovery rate.
As of Saturday night, 1,394 coronavirus patients were hospitalized in Illinois, with 345 of those patients in intensive care units and 119 on ventilators, officials said.
