Rockford's Independent Newspaper

More Illinois COVID-19 cases reported; curve ‘flattening’

By Jim Hagerty
Reporter

CHICAGO – The Illinois Department of Public Health on Friday announced 1,842 new cases of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) including 62 additional deaths, 37 of which occurred in Cook County.

Friday’s deaths also included a Boone County woman in her 60s.

There are now 27,575 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in 92 Illinois counties. The death toll is currently at 1,134.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker told reporters Friday that Illinois has not yet reached a peak in new COVID-19 cases, but the doubling rate continues to widen, indicating the curve is flattening, something that will weigh in his decision how an extension of the state’s stay-at-home order may look after April 30.

“We are in a period where you can see it bending,” the governor said. “We know what the projections were had we not put the stay-at-home order in place. And we can see the slowing of the development of people ending up in hospitals, and in ICU beds, and on ventilators.”

In other words, Pritzker said, COVID-related fatalities are often a lagging indicator of where things are on the curve. Confirmed cases and hospitalizations paint a clearer picture of where Illinois is in the midst of this pandemic.

“We saw a really significant upward trend, then we saw a flattening,” he said. “It’s flattening. It’s bending. But it isn’t flat.”

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