Last week, for the first time in more than four months, the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office reported that a resident of Brookfield had died after contracting COVID-19.

The 73-year-old woman, who died Aug. 9, was the 14th resident of Brookfield to die as a result of the disease, which continues to plague the nation after 17 months despite the development of vaccines that have proven highly effective against the novel coronavirus.

On Aug. 16, the Illinois Department of Public Health reported that the pandemic picture in Illinois continues to worsen, with the COVID-19 delta variant impacting unvaccinated people at a greater rate.

Individuals who are vaccinated make up just 2.68 percent of the 2021 COVID-19 deaths.

Meanwhile, there were 423 intensive care beds in use statewide for COVID-19 as of Sunday night, Aug. 15, a high since May 13. On a seven-day average from Aug. 9-15 there were 354 ICU beds in use daily, a 39 percent increase from a week ago and a 290 percent increase from the week ending July 11.

Over the five days preceding Aug. 16, a total of 73 people have died of COVID-19, or about 15 per day on average.

As news of the delta variant and its infectious nature reaches more people, the pace of vaccinations has increased, with 38,840 administered on average daily over the past seven days. That’s a 123-percent increase from July 26.

Brookfield, Riverside mark COVID milestones

Closer to home, the total number of people who have contracted COVID-19 in Brookfield pushed past 2,000 last week. Matching the total from the previous week, there were 29 new COVID-19 patients in Brookfield as of the morning of Aug. 17, bringing the total number since the first cases were reported in March 2020 to 2,014.

Last week’s fatality was the first in Brookfield since March 24, according to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office.

In Riverside, meanwhile, the total number of cases pushed past 1,000 to 1,005 after six new cases were reported in the week ending on the morning of Aug. 17. That marks the third straight week where six new cases have been reported in Riverside after reporting virtually no cases during the five weeks prior.

There were also six new cases of COVID-19 reported in North Riverside in the past week, bringing that village’s total to 643 since the pandemic started 17 months ago.

However, there have been no fatalities from the disease in either North Riverside or Riverside for months. The Landmark has reported previously that three Riverside residents and four North Riverside residents have died from COVID-19. The most recent of those was a North Riverside resident who died Jan. 11.

The seven-day rolling positivity rates in the villages remained close to where they stood a week earlier, according to the Northwestern University School of Medicine’s online COVID-19 dashboard.

As of Aug. 16, the positivity rate in Brookfield was 5.77 percent. In the 60546 ZIP code, which includes both Riverside and North Riverside, it was 3.5 percent.

In suburban Cook County, the seven-day rolling positivity rate was 4.8 percent, according to the Cook County Board of Public Health.

Jerry Nowicki of Capitol News Illinois contributed to this report.