Record 95,000 COVID-19 vaccinations delivered in Illinois, officials say

Illinois public health officials on Friday reported administering more than 95,000 COVID-19 vaccinations in the previous 24 hours.

That number represents a single-day record for a state struggling to get doses of the vaccine into the people who need it most. The 95,375 shots outpaced the previous high on Feb. 5 by more than 20,000.

Officials reported 32 deaths from the highly contagious virus, and there were 2,598 confirmed and probable infections. But after a late fall and early winter when daily deaths routinely topped 100, they have hit that mark only twice in the past three weeks. And daily cases have been below 3,000 for six days.

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The overall toll has been heavy, with 1.16 million infections in the 10 months of the pandemic, leading to 19,873 deaths.

The numbers of those most seriously ill with COVID-19 are slowly declining too. On Friday, there were 1,915 people hospitalized, with 437 in intensive care units and 211 on ventilators. Those are the lowest totals since the middle of October.

Of 2.39 million doses of the vaccine delivered to the state, 1.64 million, or 69%, have been injected, with residents receiving the first or both of the shots required for immunization.