A medical professional administers a COVID-19 nasal swab test. (University of Illinois at Chicago photo)

SPRINGFIELD – The state announced 1,319 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 on Monday, Aug. 10 and one additional virus-related death.

That followed 1,382 cases and eight deaths reported Sunday, Aug. 9 and 2,190 and 15 deaths reported Saturday, Aug. 8. Low Sunday and Monday death and case counts in the state’s reported numbers have been an almost weekly trend during the pandemic, with higher numbers generally reported in the middle of the week.

The rolling positivity rate for the past seven days was 4.1 percent as of Monday after reaching 4.2 percent over the weekend. It’s the fifth straight day of a rolling positivity rate of 4 percent or higher after it was below that number for nearly two months.

The single-day positivity rates were 4.1 percent Monday, 3.3 percent Sunday and 4.4 percent Saturday as the state reported 32,353, 41,354 and 48,016 test results respectively over the three-day span. Over the past seven days, the state has reported 42,792 test results per day on average.

There have now been 195,399 cases confirmed cases of the virus, including 7,637 deaths since the pandemic began. More than 3.1 million test results have been reported in the state.

At the end of Sunday, the Illinois Department of Public Health reported 1,481 people in Illinois hospitalized with COVID-19. While that number fluctuates daily, total hospitalizations are up slightly from their pandemic lows and appear to be on a relative uptrend.

Of those hospitalized, 352 were in intensive care units, which also represents an uptrend from pandemic lows when there were generally between 300 and 320 beds in use per day in mid-July. There were also 138 COVID-19-positive individuals on ventilators, which was also up from pandemic lows, although that number reached as high as 149 on July 29.

The positivity rates in the state’s 11 regions of the COVID-19 mitigation plan remained relatively steady as of Aug. 7, according to the IDPH website. The Metro East area near the Missouri border and southern Illinois had positivity rates of 7.3 percent and 7.1 percent, respectively.

Other positivity rates ranged from 3 percent in eastern Illinois to 6.6 percent in Kankakee and Will Counties. Region 2 of the mitigation plan, which is the north-central region that includes Peoria and more than 20 surrounding counties, had a 5.3 percent positivity rate as of Aug. 7. That number had increased seven of the past 10 days, which is a warning level for virus spread, according to IDPH.

As of Friday, 13 of 102 counties in the state were at a warning level of the virus’ spread.

jnowicki@capitolnewsillinois.com