After a significant spike in cases coming out of the holiday season, the City of Chicago as well as the State of Illinois are reporting positive progress around the control and management of COVID-19 in recent weeks.
On January 19 Chicago Department of Public Health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady announced “I am very, very pleased to say that we have formally passed the omicron peak here in the city of Chicago,” Arwady added “We’re confident seeing that big decrease both in cases and then in positivity, that this is not just an artifact of testing. This is in fact, a true peak.”*
On Wednesday, January 19 the city was averaging 2,903 cases per day – a drop from 5,399 the week prior and less than half of the city’s early January peak of 8,553.*
The city’s testing positivity rate was down on Wednesday, January 19, registering at 12.6% after peaking on January 1 at 19.6%*
Illinois Tracking Major Reduction in COVID-19 Test Positivity Rates, ICU Admittance and Overall Covid-related Hospitalizations Statewide
The overall Illinois average case positivity rate is at 7.2% as of January 31, down from 11.6% in the week since Monday, January 24.**
Statewide ICU admissions, as well as overall hospitalization rates are down across the state of Illinois.
State health officials announced that as of January 31, the number of COVID-19 patients being treated in hospitals in the state is down 26.1% from one week earlier.** Of those hospitalized, officials report another 24.4% reduction in the number of patients requiring intensive care.**
