Illinois reports highest COVID-19 caseload with 6,363 new infections

Coronavirus cases in Illinois continue to climb upward as health officials Thursday announced the highest daily caseload of new infections since the start of the pandemic.

Another 6,363 people have tested positive for the disease, including 56 new deaths, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health.

Meanwhile, Gov. JB Pritzker announced new coronavirus restrictions in central Illinois in response to a climbing positivity rate there.

“As of this morning, Region 3 – which encompasses Quincy, Springfield and much of West-Central Illinois – has now sustained an average positivity rate of 8 percent or higher for three days, today hitting 8.8 percent – meaning that, starting Sunday, they will join the majority of the state in operating under resurgence mitigations,” Pritzker said in a statement.

“Something has got to give, and these mitigations aim to cut down on those high-risk activities until we bring down the positivity rate in an area once again,” he said.

“Because let’s be clear: well-meaning and reasonable people can have fair disagreements about how and where to draw lines and connect dots – but when every single metric in every single corner of the state is trending poorly, we have to take meaningful action to keep our people safe.”

Since the beginning of the pandemic, 395,458 people in Illinois have tested positive for the virus, 9,675 of whom have died.

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