COVID-19 pushes hospital ICUs near capacity as Sangamon County reports 2,333 new cases

Steven Spearie, State Journal-Register
·1 min read

The Sangamon County Department of Public Health reported 2,333 new positive cases of COVID-19 covering a four-day period of Saturday through Tuesday.

Information was released Tuesday because of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday on Monday.

That is an average of 583.25 cases per day, with the highest total of 711 coming on Tuesday.

The county has had 5,544 new positive cases over the last-day period, including a record 1,345 reported Thursday.

There were no reported deaths in the county over that time period.

The intensive care unit bed availability in the county is 9.4%, well under the 20% recommended by the Illinois Department of Public Health.

See also: COVID-19 causes North Mac to pause classes; close to 2,000 D186 students in exclusion

According to statistics provided to The State Journal-Register, there were 105 patients who were COVID-19 positive at Springfield Memorial Hospital, 25 of whom are in ICU.

At Jacksonville Memorial, there were 19 patients and eight in ICU. Lincoln Memorial had eight patients and Taylorville Memorial three patients, though none were in ICU.

Taylorville Memorial had three patients and there were eight patients in Lincoln Memorial. Neither hospital reported COVID-19 patients in the ICU.

The number of fully-vaccinated county residents stands at 61.7% (120,515) while 66.8% of the population (130,432) has received at least one dose of the vaccine.

IDPH reported 20,483 new confirmed and probable cases and 36 deaths on Tuesday.

There were 6,695 people are hospitalized for COVID-19, including 585 newly-admitted on Saturday for COVID-like illnesses. That included 1,120 people in the ICU, 628 of whom were on ventilators.

As of Sunday, the average available and staffed ICU beds was at 10%.

This story will be updated.

Contact Steven Spearie: 217-622-1788, sspearie@sj-r.com, twitter.com/@StevenSpearie.

This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: Sangamon County reports 2,333 new COVID-19 cases over four days