The daily average of new COVID-19 cases rose by 70% in April compared to the average in March, while hospitalizations grew by 32%, the Illinois Department of Public Health showed Friday.
Combating this alarming trend was a 23% decrease in average daily virus deaths in April compared to March, while the state set another record on Thursday with 164,462 COVID-19 vaccine shots. One in five Illinoiss is now fully vaccinated.
New COVID-19 infections followed up until 4,004 on Friday, the highest since January 29, with another 21 people dying from the respiratory disease.
The seven-day average for vaccines administered is 118,336 a day – a score that should rise significantly if Illinois is to avoid another bottleneck on Monday when vaccinations open to every resident 16 years and older, a logistics expert said.
“I do not know if we have gone through the logjam completely,” said Hani S. Mahmassani, director of the North-West University Transportation Center. ‘Come Monday, I think all bets are off.
“There are probably more people who are eligible now than we have been vaccinated in the last four months. And all of these people want to be vaccinated at the same time.”
Eligibility is currently limited to people 65 years and older, essential workers such as firefighters and priests, and people with serious medical conditions. The frustration was high in February and during most of March, especially among the elderly who could not find appointments, but there has been daylight over the past few days with about 1 million doses per week from the federal government.
According to Mahmassani, between 3 million and 3.5 million people could jump into the vaccine battle on Monday.
“Unless we increase the vaccination rate, I think there will be intense frustration in a few weeks that I hope will not turn into vaccine rage.”
Noting that the state has a significant supply of doses that have not yet been administered, “I think we should reach our average of seven days to 150,000” compared to the 110,000 to 120,000 range, Mahmassani said.
Government JB Pritzker addressed the decline and flow of COVID-19 statistics at an event on Friday when asked about the reopening of more activities and businesses in the state.
“I want to turn around and ask the virus when we can open things up,” Pritzker said. “This virus is so unpredictable, but we’re in the right direction.”
He noted that the number of hospitalizations, one measurement that is key to easing pandemic restrictions, is still rising.
The complexities show that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control will reduce its supply of Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose vaccine by about 85% next week, due to manufacturing problems.
Karen Ayala, executive director of DuPage County’s health department, expressed concern about the increase in daily new cases and warned that our residents may have a false sense of security due to the vaccination now available.
“While the number of people being vaccinated is increasing every day, the fact is that the pandemic is not over yet, and we still have about 400,000 eligible residents in our country,” she said.
The federal government has delivered 8,841,285 doses of vaccine to Illinois since distribution began in mid-December and 6,871,645 shots have been fired.
To date, 2,665,722 people have been fully vaccinated – 20.9% of Illinois’ 12.7 million population. Vaccinations manufactured by Pfizer and Moderna require two doses with a few weeks apart. On Wednesday, 154,201 shots were fired.
The state’s positivity rate for COVID-19 cases is 4.2%, based on an average of seven days.
The total number of cases nationwide stands at 1,273,200 and 21,476 Illinois residents have died since the pandemic began.
In April, the average daily number of new cases stood at 3,179, while in March it was 1,867. This month, the daily count of people dying from COVID-19 reached 20 compared to 26 in March.
And in April, the average daily hospitalizations averaged 1,613 patients, compared to 1,216 per day in March. Patients in the hospital with COVID-19 arrived at 1808 on Thursday night.
Labs has processed 101,737 virus tests in the last 24 hours.