CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRSADIO) -- Illinois saw a rise in COVID-19 cases Wednesday as health officials announced 1,598 new cases and 23 additional deaths.
The new cases continue a nearly week-long trend of 1,000-plus daily cases. The state’s positive rate also inched up to 3.2 percent, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health.
"Let me begin by reminding everyone of the unfortunate truth: COVID-19 has not gone away, and it remains a serious threat," Governor Pritzker began a press conference Wednesday, providing a COVID-19 update.
"If you watch your online newsfeeds or TV without seeing reports of record cases and deaths across the United States, then you are missing something, because we are seeing it in places like Florida, Texas, California, Arizona, and Alabama, and other places. And we see positivity rates rising and at new heights in neighboring states of Iowa, Indiana, Missouri, Kentucky, and Wisconsin," Prtizker said. "Illinois' careful reopening and conscientious people, who are mask-wearing, social-distancing residents of our state, have kept our positivity rates at around half of our nearest neighbors - one-sixth of Florida's, and one-fifth of Texas.
"But let's not forget it does not take long, at all, to reverse all of our gains and for a trajectory of success be turned on its head. COVID-19 knows no boundaries, and the United States is one indivisible nation."
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The Governor said if there had been one national strategy employed by our national government, like a national mask mandate, perhaps things would be different. But, he said, that has not happened, and we cannot rely on the possibility. In the meantime, Pritzker said, Illinois has set policies for itself and "we have seen real progress over these last four and a half months; but our numbers now appear to be gradually rising, and that's very concerning."
On Wednesday, the State of Illinois reported nearly 1,600 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 - the highest number of daily cases in Illinois in the month of July.
"I remind everyone that we look at these numbers via seven-day rolling averages, and not one-day totals. A rise is still a rise, and it is on all of us to bring these numbers down. There are those who mistakenly think, 'No problem; we can't eradicate the virus, and our numbers are so low we don't need to do anything about it.' To them I would say in every one of the states, like Arizona and Florida, that are in full-blown crisis right now, it started with a gradual rise in the numbers."
Pritzker said the best doctors in Illinois, who he said are some of the best in the nation and the world, told him that a gradually rising positivity rate is exactly when the exponential factors can take over.
"You can go from 3 percent positivity to Arizona's 23 percent positivity in the blink of an eye. We've been there. Let's not let that happen again," he said. "And let me also say this to virus deniers: this virus is not a blue-state virus, and it is not a red-state virus. The deadly nature of this virus is not a hoax. Choosing to go out in public without a mask is not a political statement. Going out without a face covering on endangers the other customers at the grocery store, it puts your friends and your family at risk. There is nothing political about that. It demonstrates a callous disregard for the people in your community and in your county, and in our state and our nation. The enemy is not your mask. If you are not wearing a mask in public, you're endangering everyone around you, so the enemy is you."
The Metro East region is coming dangerously close to new restrictions due to its quickly rising numbers. Outside of Metro East, Priztker said, all other 11 regions fall below five percent, ranging from 2.2 percent in Region 6 (Eastern Illinois) to 4.9 percent in Region 7 (Kankakee and Will counties).
Governor Prizker said the state will take immediate action to impose additional mitigation if a region crosses over the metrics that we set, "and Metro East is coming dangerously close to that."
"We're now testing record numbers of Illinoisans, and we brought our overall positivity rates down to low single-digits statewide, from a high 23 percent in early spring. If that number pushes back up past eight percent in any region, that is a problem of local businesses and residents not following mitigation strategies. Contrary to what the President says, most testing does not cause rising positivity rates," he said.
"We are holding local leaders accountable. Demand that [leaders> take action — early — so that regions don't have to undergo the challenges of staying at home or closing local businesses, again. If it sounds like I'm taking this extremely seriously, it's because I am, and you should, too. It's imperative that we hold onto the success we've had against this virus. We've made tremendous progress since we launched this battle just a few months ago."
Since last week, Pritzker said, Illinois has set a new record surpassing 40,000 tests in three of the last seven days. Volume at drive-through sites is up 53 percent since July 6, and Illinois is expanding to more lanes at high-volume sites and bringing on larger lab capacity to ensure results are returned as fast as possible.
According to Pritzker, Illinois has over 280 testing sites across the state, including over 100 federally-qualified health centers that will serve anyone regardless of insurance status. The state also has over 1,600 contact tracers, Pritzker said, who interview, trace, and follow-ups with close contact of cases in their respective jurisdictions.
Beginning Friday, community-based organizations can apply for funding to do contact tracing in collaboration with local health departments, Pritzker announced. These grants are focused on regional leaders outside of Cook County.
Asked about President Trump’s apparent move to embrace masks, Governor Pritzker said, “It’s never too late to learn.”
Dr. Ngozi Ezike, head of the Illinois Department of Public Health announced that since Tuesday, the state is reporting 1,598 people who are newly diagnosed with COVID-19 for a total of 165,301 cases. In addition, 23 more deaths were reported, for a total of 7,347. As of Tuesday night, 1,456 people were hospitalized with COVID-19; with 337 in ICU and 132 on ventilators.
Testing capacity across the state continues to grow, Dr. Ezike said. To date, more than 2.3 million tests have been run, with 39,633 being resulted in the last 24 hours.
"You've probably seen people crowding into bars, areas where people were not wearing masks or not maintaining six-feet of distance between one another, or maybe establishments hosting large events or large summer street parties. You may ask why do we keep talking about face coverings and distancing? Because these are simple measures that will in fact help protect us and all the people around us.
"I don't understand when trying to protect our neighbors became a bad act. I venture to guess that nobody is disappointed about all the lives saved and all the cancers that were prevented from keeping restaurants and bars free from dangerous secondhand smoke. I think we are proud to protect our waiters and our waitresses and our hostesses and our bartenders. I see this as a similar measure. Or think of it another way. When you are driving an automobile. No one hopes to be in an accident. We wear seatbelts in the event that there is a crash. Seatbelts are used universally to save people in vehicles from harm or death.
"We have the chance to do the same thing with masking and distancing. So what is the controversy? Not wearing face coverings, not social distancing, is will take us back."
What works best can be different region by region, Dr. Ezike said, but what does work everywhere is washing your hands, social distancing, and wearing a face covering. The more people don't do this, "the more cases we'll see, and the more dangerous it will be for people as they're trying to go back to school...Please wear a face covering if you're going out to dinner. Businesses, please require customers to keep six feet of distance between each other. Please require the use of face covering...
"This is not about restricting freedom; this is about decreasing the transmission of this virus, which ultimately saves lives. It's that plain and that simple. This is about your actions and what you can do to keep your community safe."
Dr. Ezike said think of your face covering as your seat belt, and treat it as such.