New COVID cases dropping, but not enough
State tops 15K deaths, but Pritzker says cases, hospitalizations ‘seem to be heading in the right direction’
“The numbers are better than they were,” Gov. Pritzker said of the COVID-19 case count and hospitalizations, “but need to improve.” (Illinois.gov)
By Ted Cox
The governor and the public health director breathed an almost audible sigh of relief Friday in saying Illinois appears to have avoided a dreaded surge in COVID-19 cases after Thanksgiving.
“We did not see the significant surge that we were very much concerned about,” said Dr. Ngozi Ezike at the daily coronavirus briefing at the Thompson Center in Chicago, three weeks after the holiday.
“Those numbers do seem to be heading in the right direction,” Gov. Pritzker said about the case count and hospitalizations.
But, while not at record levels, deaths attributed to COVID-19 remained high, with 181 reported Friday, bringing the statewide toll to 15,015. It was the second straight week Illinois registered more than 1,000 COVID deaths. According to Ezike, 7,377 newly confirmed cases of the coronavirus took the state total to 886,805. There were 4,690 people hospitalized for COVID-19, 1,023 under intensive care and 589 on ventilators. The seven-day test positivity rate stood at 8 percent, with more than 112,000 tests conducted for the day.
Ezike credited the statewide Tier 3 mitigation measures imposed shortly before Thanksgiving with helping to deter the spread of the coronavirus, even with many people on the move to visit family and friends. But Pritzker would not commit to easing those mitigations any time soon, as they’ll continue to guard against a spike following Christmas and New Year’s Day.
“There’s serious distance before we get to the end of the end of the pandemic.”
Dr. Ngozi Ezike (Illinois.gov)
“The numbers are better than they were, but need to improve,” Pritzker said. “We’re watching closely to see the numbers (and) whether we can bring down the tiers.”
The governor said 17,000 frontline health-care workers had now been inoculated with the Pfizer vaccine statewide — outside of Chicago, which is handling its own vaccination program. That was a leap from the 3,500 announced Thursday, and Pritzker cheered the expected arrival of the first Moderna vaccines next week following formal approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
The Pfizer vaccine has proved 95 percent effective with two doses administered three weeks apart, he said, while the Moderna vaccine has proved 94.1 percent effective with two doses administered four weeks apart. But the Pfizer vaccine requires ultra-cold storage, while the Moderna requires only a normal freezer, which is expected to ease logistical bottlenecks in distribution.
Pritzker said the additional vaccine “brightens the light at the end of the tunnel.”
Ezike repeated that the vaccines represent the beginning of the end of the pandemic, but she warned, “There’s serious distance before we get to the end of the end of the pandemic.”
Nonetheless, Pritzker said Friday’s briefing would be the last in the daily series for now, and that they’d shift to briefings “as needed” for the weeks ahead.