Illinois’ new cases dip as state reports 6 more deaths

Illinois health officials announced 883 new COVID-19 cases on Monday and six additional deaths.

It’s the third day this month with a daily fatality count that rivals the single-digit tallies not previously seen since late March.

The new figures also marked another day with fewer than 1,000 new coronavirus cases, after a three-day stretch last week with some of the highest case numbers in weeks.

The seven-day positivity rate remained at 3%, compared with 2.6% one week ago.

The six additional deaths bring July’s daily average to about 21 deaths a day, down sharply from May, when an average of about 100 people were dying each day, or June, when the rate dropped to about 52 COVID-19 deaths per day.

The average number of new cases in July is about 893 a day, down from the peak of 2,172 cases on average in May. The numbers of new infections topped 1,000 on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, with the 1,317 reported on Friday the highest daily caseload since June 2.

The most recent confirmed cases were determined out of the 30,012 tests conducted over the last 24 hours.

There were 1,362 people being treated for COVID-19 in Illinois hospitals since Sunday night, health officials said. Of those in hospitals, 334 patients were in ICU and 136 were on ventilators.

Since the coronavirus outbreak, the state has documented 154,799 cases encompassing all 102 of the state’s counties and 7,193 deaths.