Illinois reports 2,300 new COVID-19 cases, 46 additional deaths

By Ben Orner Capitol News Illinois

Gov. J.B. Pritzker explains that he prefers a northwest Illinois church that has been defying the stay-at-home order and holding services cease doing rather than forcing local law enforcers to make arrests. He spoke during a news conference Monday, May 4 in Chicago. (Credit: blueroomstream.com)

SPRINGFIELD – The Illinois Department of Public Health on Monday, May 4 reported 2,341 new cases of COVID-19 as Gov. J.B. Pritzker noted the state is making progress in multiple areas.

Illinois’ total number of cases is now 63,840. The IDPH on Monday also reported 46 additional deaths – the lowest daily number since April 19 – related to novel coronavirus, bringing that total to 2,662. A model that Pritzker’s administration released last month showed Illinois’ peak daily deaths were estimated to reach between 50 and 150, a range above Monday’s count.

“I want to remind everyone that snapshots in time alone are not enough to offer a full understanding of where we are, but together they can offer some indication of how things are trending,” Pritzker said Monday during his daily COVID-19 briefing in Chicago.

The governor noted that health department data shows the state is making progress on hospitalizations and ventilator use as both metrics have shrunk in the past month.

After the number of people hospitalized in Illinois with COVID-19 peaked at 4,999 on April 19, Pritzker said, that number had dipped to 4,493 on Monday.

Additionally, the percentage of intensive care beds occupied by COVID-19 patients has decreased from 40 percent on April 19 to 33 percent on Monday. The number of beds that exist, however, has increased during that time from 3,134 to 3,681.

Pritzker also said the percentage of ventilators being used by Illinois coronavirus patients is shrinking.

“From a statewide standpoint, we’ve continued to see a slight downward trend on this metric,” Pritzker said, from 29 percent of ventilator inventory used by COVID-19 patients on April 6 to 22 percent on Monday.

There were 13,834 new tests for the virus completed in the past 24 hours, IDPH reported. That is a statewide positivity rate of about 17 percent.