COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations continued to rise in Illinois as the statewide seven-day rolling case positivity rate reached 3.8 percent for the third consecutive day on April 5.
The case positivity rate had not been near 3.8 percent since the beginning of February, when it hit 3.9 percent on Feb. 1, and then continued to decline throughout the month and into March.
It’s a trend that’s playing out in suburban Cook County, including Brookfield and Riverside.
As of the morning of April 6, Brookfield had notched its highest one-week total for new confirmed and probable cases of COVID-19 since January. The 29 new cases in the past week was the highest since the 22 recorded for the weekly period ending Jan. 26.
Case numbers in Brookfield have been trending upward weekly since the end of February. After averaging nine cases per week between Feb. 23 and March 16, Brookfield’s average number of new cases in the past three weeks has been 22.6.
According to the online COVID-19 dashboard maintained by the Northwestern University School of Medicine, Brookfield’s seven-day rolling positivity rate was 5.12 percent as of April 5 and nearly 4 percent over the past two weeks.
Riverside saw its number of new confirmed and probable cases of COVID-19 rise for the third straight week. The village recorded 14 new cases in one week as of the morning of April 6, according to the Cook County Department of Public Health, the highest one-week total in Riverside since the week ending Feb. 2.
The seven-day rolling positivity rate in the 60546 ZIP code, which includes both Riverside and North Riverside, was 4.05 percent as of April 5. But North Riverside has seen fewer new cases on a weekly basis than Riverside recently.
There were four new COVID-19 cases in North Riverside for the week ending on the morning of April 6, roughly in line with the 4.2 case average the village has seen during the past seven weeks.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker said in a news conference April 5 in Champaign that Illinois could be approaching a third surge that many other areas of the nation have already seen.
“But these things come in waves,” Pritzker said. “I am hopeful that with the rising number of vaccinations we’re doing – we’re averaging over 100,000 a day – the increasing number of people who are fully vaccinated at the same time that we’re dealing with a surge … that we can sort of overcome the surge for the very first time.”
Approximately 6.3 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been administered, representing about 40 percent of residents 16 years or older having received their first dose. About 2.3 million people, or nearly 18.7 percent of the state’s population, are now fully vaccinated.
More than 80 of Illinois’ 102 counties have expanded COVID-19 vaccine eligibility to all Illinois residents 16 and older. Vaccine eligibility will be open statewide starting April 12.
Bob Uphues contributed to this report.
