New daily COVID-19 cases in Chicago top 400, a metric cited a year ago when CPS decided not to reopen schools

The average number of new daily COVID-19 cases in Chicago topped 400 Monday, the highest it’s been since May 7 and a tenfold increase from the rate’s lowest point in June.

The 400-case bench mark is another indicator of the latest coronavirus surge, this one largely driven by the contagious delta variant and mostly sickening those who aren’t vaccinated. It’s a metric that Chicago’s top doctor also has referred to as “a line in the sand for us.”

That was in August 2020, when city and Chicago Public Schools officials announced that they would start the 2020-21 school year with all remote learning.

At the time, Chicago’s public health commissioner, Dr. Allison Arwady, said the prospect of hitting 400 new cases a day would really mark “a line in the sand for us, particularly around major things like planning to open one of the largest school districts in the country.” Average new cases were at about 320 then and climbing.

Now the city has passed the 400-case threshold again, with another new school year looming. This time, nearly all CPS students will be learning in person full-time when classes resume Aug. 30.

A representative from Arwady’s office noted that one significant change since a year ago is the availability of the COVID-19 vaccine. More than half of 12- to 17-year-olds are vaccinated, he said, noting CPS has announced it will require all staff members to be vaccinated by Oct. 15. Last week, CPS reiterated its plans to reopen full time after a group of parents requested a continued remote option. As required by state order, everyone will have to be masked, and most elementary students remain ineligible for a vaccine.

Full-time in-person classes with all students present — and what officials have said is a goal of 3 feet of social distancing — will be a huge shift for many CPS families this fall. Even after schools reopened in stages last school year with hybrid schedules that mixed in-person and remote classes, the majority of students stuck with full-time remote learning.

Chicago’s current average of new daily cases is now at 419, still far below the last surge, when new cases peaked at 736 on April 11. At its all-time high last November, the city was reporting nearly 2,500 new cases a day on average.

In other measures, COVID-19-related hospitalizations in Chicago are at 18 per day, down slightly from a week ago, and deaths remain relatively low at fewer than three per day. The positivity rate is 4.3%, the highest since early May.

Statewide, health officials on Monday reported 2,463 new confirmed and probable cases of COVID-19, bringing the average number of daily cases to 3,229 over the past week. That’s up from an average of 2,713 daily cases a week earlier and 636 per day a month ago.

The state reported four additional fatalities Monday, bringing average number of daily deaths to 13 over the past week, up slightly from the previous week’s average of 12. A month ago, the state was averaging nine deaths per day. In all, there have been 23,624 COVID-19 deaths statewide since the pandemic began, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health.

Hospitalizations for the coronavirus also continue to rise, with 1,862 COVID-19 patients in beds statewide as of Sunday night, nearly double the 977 patients who were in the hospital on Aug. 1 and the most in a single day since May 11. Over the past week, the state has averaged 1,661 COVID-19 patients in the hospital per day, the highest seven-day average since mid-May.

There has been a corresponding rise in the number of serious cases, with 423 patients in intensive care units Sunday and 195 on ventilators, up from 21 ICU patients and 84 on ventilators at the beginning of August.

Vaccinations appear to be on the upswing again as well, with an average of 38,840 doses reported per day during the week ending Sunday, up from 25,268 per day the previous week. Nearly 61% of the eligible population has been fully vaccinated, according to the state health department.

According to the latest data available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 98 of Illinois’ 102 counties currently qualify as areas of high coronavirus transmission.

With daily vaccinations still well below their April high point, when more than 100,000 shots were being given per day, the state’s main incentive for getting vaccinated is about to end.

Illinois residents must have gotten at least one shot in the state by Wednesday to qualify for the final drawing of the state’s vaccine lottery. Two $1 million prizes and 17 $150,000 college scholarships will be given out Aug. 26.