- Credibility:
CHICAGO — Fifty-five people died from coronavirus in the last day in Illinois.
The state has now seen at least 6,537 people die from coronavirus. There have also been 134,779 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Illinois, with another 593 coming in the last day.
Dr. Allison Arwady, head of the Chicago Department of Public Health, said during a Facebook Live session Thursday was the first day Chicago could be considered moderate-high risk — an improvement since the city has been in the high risk category for months.
The change comes because Chicago is now down to seeing an average of 185 new cases per day. And about 14 people are dying from COVID-19 per day in Chicago, a drop since Chicago once had more than 50 deaths per day, Arwady said.
But there’s work to do, Arwady said: Chicago won’t be considered low risk for coronavirus until there are fewer than 20 new cases per day, and that’s a long way off.
“There has been and still is a lot of COVID in Chicago,” Arwady said.
The city will pass 50,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus Thursday, Arwady said.
And at least 2,444 people have died in Chicago — 4 percent of those with confirmed cases. In comparison, the flu typically kills about .1 percent of people who become sick with it.
But Arwady said many more people have likely had coronavirus than have had it confirmed through a test. The city estimates 200,000-250,000 people have had COVID-19.
In all, 8.3 percent of Chicago’s population has now been tested for COVID-19. The city’s positivity rate has fallen to 5.6 percent.
The city has seen cases related to recent protests and to reopening, Arwady said, but there hasn’t been an uptick in the number of new cases because “those cases can sort of be absorbed in the overall decline your city is having.”
The city is still trying to move cautiously as it reopens, though, Arwady said. Other places, like Florida, have seen upticks in their cases as they reopened quicker and with fewer restrictions.
“COVID is not over, let me tell you,” Arwady said. “So keep it up.”
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