Only heart disease and cancer killing more Illinoisans now than COVID- 19
The coronavirus is now the third leading cause of death in Illinois, public health officials said Wednesday, reporting that the latest 140 lives lost raised the state’s pandemic death toll to 11,014.
The virus that a year ago was scarcely an afterthought for most Illinoisans is now killing more of them than strokes and accidents combined. Only heart disease and cancer are causing more grief, according to Gov. J. B. Pritzker’s office.
Illinois Public Health Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike estimated last month that the COVID- 19 death toll would surpass 11,000 by the end of the year; she didn’t think it would happen with six weeks left on the calendar.
“It means we’re in bad shape,” Ezike said. “I need everybody’s help talking to one another, saying, ‘ We really need to rethink Thanksgiving, we need to really rethink this party that you wanted to have . . .’ That is our path to making sure that we don’t continue to go past 11,000 to 12, to 13, to 14,000.”
Officials on Wednesday also reported an additional 8,922 cases of COVID- 19 reported statewide, meaning a total of nearly 607,000 people have contracted the virus over the last eight months. That’s about 4.8% of the state’s population.
In one small, potential “glimmer of optimism” noted by Pritzker, the latest caseload marked the first time in almost two weeks that the state has reported fewer than 10,000 new cases.
And they were detected among almost 104,000 tests, lowering the statewide positivity rate to 11.9%, as low as it’s been since Nov. 9.
“But I have been fooled before by the numbers,” the Democratic governor said. “The numbers fluctuate a little bit.”