The daily mean of new COVID-19 cases is up 70% in April compared to the March average, while hospital admissions are up 32%, data from the Illinois Department of Public Health showed Friday.
Countering that worrying trend was a 23% decrease in average daily virus mortality in April compared to March, while the state hit another record Thursday with 164,462 COVID-19 vaccination shots to the arms. One in five Illinoisans is now fully vaccinated.
New COVID-19 infections skyrocketed to 4,004 Friday, the highest number since Jan. 29, with 21 more people dying from the respiratory disease.
The seven-day average for vaccines administered is 118,336 per day – a number that should rise significantly if Illinois is to avoid another bottleneck on Monday, when vaccinations open to every resident 16 and older, a logistics expert said.
“I don’t know if we fully passed the logjam,” said Hani S. Mahmassani, director of the Northwestern University Transportation Center. “Come Monday, I think all bets are off.
“There are probably just more people eligible (than) we’ve vaccinated in the past four months. And all of these people want to be vaccinated at the same time.”
Eligibility is currently limited to people aged 65 and over, essential workers such as firefighters and priests, and those with serious medical conditions. Frustration was high in February and throughout much of March, especially among seniors unable to find appointments, but for the past few weeks there was daylight with about 1 million doses per week coming from the federal government.
Mahmassani estimated that between 3 million and 3.5 million people could jump into the vaccine battle on Monday.
“Unless we increase vaccination rates, I think there will be a few weeks of intense frustration that I hope will not turn into vaccine rage.”
Noting that the state has a significant supply of pending doses, “I think we should hit our seven-day average at least 150,000” compared to the 110,000 to 120,000 range, Mahmassani said.
Gov. JB Pritzker spoke about the ebb and flow of COVID-19 statistics at an event Friday when he was asked to reopen more operations and businesses in the state.
“I want to turn around and ask the virus when we can open things,” Pritzker said. “This virus is so unpredictable, but we are heading in the right direction.”
He noted that hospital admissions, a measure that is key to alleviating pandemic disabilities, are still on the rise.
Complicating matters, data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control shows that stocks of Johnson & Johnson’s one-time vaccine will decline by about 85% next week due to manufacturing issues.
Out of concern at the increasing number of new cases daily, Karen Ayala, executive director of DuPage County Health Department warned, “Our residents may have a false sense of security because the vaccine is now available.
“Although the number of people vaccinated is increasing every day, the fact is that the pandemic is not over yet, and we still have about 400,000 eligible residents to vaccinate in our province,” 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 injections have been administered.
So far, 2,665,722 people have been fully vaccinated – 20.9% of Illinois’s 12.7 million residents. Vaccines manufactured by Pfizer and Moderna require two doses several weeks apart. On Wednesday, 154,201 shots were taken.
The state positivity rate for COVID-19 cases is 4.2%, based on a seven-day average.
The total number of cases stands at 1,273,200, and 21,476 Illinoisans have died since the pandemic began.
In April, the average daily number of new cases was 3,179, compared to 1,867 in March. This month, the daily number of people who died from COVID-19 was 20, compared to 26 in March.
And in April, mean daily hospital admissions averaged 1,613 patients, as opposed to 1,216 a day in March. The number of patients with COVID-19 in the hospital on Thursday evening was 1,808.
Labs processed 101,737 virus tests in the last 24 hours.