While health officials in Illinois reported the largest one-day increase in the state’s COVID-19 vaccine supply on Tuesday, they also noted a significant spike in hospital admissions for the respiratory disease.
According to figures from the Illinois Department of Public Health, an additional 454,410 doses of the vaccine were added to Illinois stock.
But hospital admissions are also up more than 7.4% from the previous day, as far as many public health officials are concerned.
“Even as we get more and more vaccine doses, we cannot relax our vigilance, especially with these virulent new strains in circulation,” said IDPH Director Ngozi Ezike.
Since the introduction of the vaccine began in mid-December, Illinois has received 6,211,205 doses of the three types of approved vaccines. According to state figures, 77.6% of those doses ended up in the arms of Illinois residents and workers during that time.
IDPH officials reported that 70,252 more COVID-19 vaccine doses were administered across Illinois in the past 24 hours.
That brings the total number of inoculations performed statewide to 4,818,097. Vaccine providers do an average of 91,000 vaccinations a day.
State-wide hospitals reported treating 1,270 patients for COVID-19 infections. Of those hospitalized, 272 are in intensive care. Both figures are significantly higher than the previous day’s totals.
The state hospitals reported 88 new COVID-19 patients from the previous day. Hospitals added 138 COVID-19 patients in the past two days. That’s the biggest two-day growth in hospital admissions since early January.
Also, according to state figures, there were 39 more COVID-19 patients in ICU beds than the day before. That’s the largest one-day increase since December 8. But at the time, there were nearly 1,200 COVID-19 patients in ICU beds, compared to the less than 300 currently treated in ICUs.
The rise in hospital admissions did not go unnoticed by state health officials.
“We have come this far and are so close to a more normal time, but we are already seeing some concerning plateaus and even increases in hospitalizations and cases,” said Ezike. “We’re not out of the woods yet, so keep wearing your masks, avoid crowds, and keep a distance of six feet.”
According to figures from the IDPH, it has been nearly a month since so many COVID-19 patients were hospitalized statewide.
The state is split into 11 health regions that help health officials determine the need for mitigation initiatives as cases and hospital admissions grow above established levels.
Region 10 in the Cook County suburbs has seen an increase in the seven-day moving average number of COVID-19 patients in the hospital in nine of the past 10 days. Hospitals in the suburbs of Cook County are now treating an average of 356 patients per day for COVID-19 infections. A week ago, the seven-day average in the region was 322 patients.
Region 9, which includes Lake and McHenry counties, has seen an increase in that number of hospitalizations in the past four days. Hospitals in those two provinces are treating 55 COVID-19 patients daily, up from 49 on March 18.
Regions 1 and 2, which comprise more than two dozen counties in the northwest of the state, have also seen spikes in hospital admissions in recent weeks, according to IDPH data.
IDPH officials also reported on Tuesday that 13 more Illinois residents have died from COVID-19, while the daily number of new cases was 1,832.
The state’s death toll from the respiratory disease is now 21,116 and 1,224,915 have been infected since the start of the pandemic.
Public health officials in Chicago have updated travel orders, which require people coming from certain states to provide evidence of a recent negative COVID-19 test or a mandatory 10-day quarantine. Michigan is now on that list.
Dr. Alison Arwady, commissioner of the Chicago Public Health Department, said all public health departments look not only at raw numbers, but also at the growth rates of all the statistics.
“Those are things that predict potential problems,” she said. “If we see a big increase in cases that aren’t associated with an increase in hospitalization or death, then I’m not too concerned about that.”
The state’s seven-day positivity rate is now at 2.5%. That is slightly lower than the previous day, but still higher than a week ago. Case positivity shows the percentage of tests that resulted in new cases of the disease. A seven-day average is used to smooth out any discrepancies in the daily reporting of new cases and tests.