Illinois on Thanksgiving Day reports 12,022 new coronavirus cases, 131 deaths
CHICAGO - Illinois health officials on Thursday reported more than 12,000 new confirmed and probable cases of COVID-19, as well as 131 additional deaths.
In total, the state has had 697,489 cases of the virus and 11,963 deaths since the pandemic began.
In the past 24 hours, labs have processed 107,556 coronavirus tests.
As of Wednesday night, 6,032 people were hospitalized across Illinois with the virus. Of those, 1,224 patients were in the ICU and 724 were on ventilators.
The state is on track to breach over 12,000 deaths and 700,000 cases by Friday, as the average statewide positivity rate climbed slightly to 12%, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health.
Health officials have raised concerns about the spread of COVID-19 at family gatherings for Thanksgiving, and have pleaded with the public to hold virtual dinners in lieu of traveling.
“Thanksgiving this year needs to be different,” Gov. J.B. Pritzker said Tuesday. “To those who haven’t yet changed your plans, the doctors are asking all of us to skip the big group dinner this year. The vaccines that seem to be on the horizon can’t help you if you get sick now.”
To help slow down the spread of the virus, the state late last week put into effect new COVID-19 restrictions, that include capping crowds in retail stores and temporarily closing museums and casinos. On Tuesday, Pritzker said he did not expect to see any reduction in the number of cases for about a week.
On Wednesday, the director of the state’s public health department, Dr. Ngozi Ezike, said it may be as long as a week or two before it becomes clear if Thanksgiving gatherings had any kind of effect on the number of cases or deaths.
Still, both she and Pritzker took the final chance before the holiday to implore people to stay home and avoid gathering with relatives and friends who don’t already live with them.
“Please, please, please reconsider,” Ezike said to those who have made plans to celebrate Thanksgiving with friends and extended family. “We don’t want anyone’s Thanksgiving dinner to turn into a COVID-19 superspreader event. ”
That was the same message in Chicago, where Mayor Lori Lightfoot and the city’s public health commissioner, Dr. Allison Arwady, voiced concerns that such gatherings would make worse an already dire situation. Arwady said concerns have only grown since a spike in Canada in the number of cases after last month’s Thanksgiving in that country.
In all, the state ’s health department has reported that there have been 685,467 cases and 11,832 COVID-19 deaths since the pandemic began early this year.
On Tuesday, Ezike said Illinois will receive far fewer doses of the COVID-19 vaccine than originally estimated, telling reporters that she expects the state to receive about 80,000 initial doses instead of the 400,000 doses that Illinois officials had anticipated, pending FDA approval of the vaccines.
She also said she expects still expects health care and emergency workers who could come into direct contact with coronavirus patients to be vaccinated first.
Associated Press and Sun-Times Media Wire contributed to this report.