information gathered by Melanie Jongsma
LANSING, Ill. (April 15, 2022) – On Tuesday, the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) announced it would be adopting new federal guidelines for tracking COVID-19 at the community level. The new CDC guidelines emphasize the case rate and hospitalizations in order to better track the prevalence of COVID-19 in communities. “As a result of these new guidelines,” reads the news release from IDPH, “testing providers will no longer be required to report some negative tests, and IDPH will therefore no longer report test and case positivity.”
In addition to adopting new CDC guidelines, IDPH is bolstering the data on its COVID-19 dashboard to provide additional information that can help communities respond to changes in the course of the virus.
Among the new data that has been or will be shared on the IDPH COVID-19 dashboard are the following:
- Updated data on vaccination rates to reflect the full population eligible as eligibility continues to evolve
- The number of people admitted to the hospital with a COVID-19 diagnosis
- More detailed data on hospitalizations, including information about vaccination status among those who are hospitalized
This week’s data
On Friday IDPH reported 14,049 new confirmed and probable cases of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Illinois, including 45 deaths since April 8, 2022.
As of Thursday night, 464 individuals in Illinois were reported to be in the hospital with COVID-19. Of those, 70 patients were in the ICU and 32 patients with COVID-19 were on ventilators. Illinois has a total of 20,987 medical and surgical beds in hospitals throughout the state, and 3,535 ICU beds.
A total of 21,648,058 vaccines have been administered in Illinois. Of Illinois’ total population, 76% has received at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose, more than 68% of Illinois’ total population is fully vaccinated, and more than 50% is boosted according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Data indicate that the risk of hospitalization and severe outcomes from COVID-19 is much higher for unvaccinated people than for those who are up to date on their vaccinations.
The federal government established a new website that provides an all-purpose toolkit that provides information on how to obtain masks, treatment, vaccines, and testing resources for all areas of the country: https://www.covid.gov/.
Lansing
The South Suburban Mayors and Managers Association maintains a COVID dashboard aggregating data from villages throughout the south suburbs. Highlights from Lansing are listed below:
- 7-day new cases: 13 (last week: 11)
- Cumulative total cases to date: 6,845
- Cumulative total of COVID-19 deaths: 28 (Previous reported total: 28)
- Seven-day positivity rate: 1.55% (Last Friday: 1.36%)
Illinois interactive graphs
The graphs below are created by HiGeorge and are “live,” so they are continually updated as new data are released from official sources.
