By Jim Hagerty
Reporter

CHICAGO – The Illinois Department of Public Health on Saturday announced 2,119 new cases of COVID-19 and added 80 people, including a Winnebago County woman older than 100, to the state’s pandemic death toll.

There are now 41,777 confirmed cases of coronavirus disease in Illinois, a total that includes positive lab tests and presumed positives. As of Saturday, 1,874 people have died from complications related to COVID-19.

In the last 24 hours, 11,985 people were tested for COVID-19. There were 16,124 tests administered Thursday. The testing increase now shows an infection rate of around 17.6%, down from 21% from when the state was testing between 6,000 and 8,000 per day.

There were 364 people tested the UIC School of Medicine campus on Parkview Avenue, Rockford’s first drive-through site. The site is one of two sites where people can be tested via nose swab while they sit in their vehicle.

“They are currently for people who have a COVID-19 symptom,” Gov. J.B. Pritzker said of the drive-through sites. “And that’s a much looser standard, just to be clear, than we had prior to having more tests available, when we were requiring a doctor’s order in order to get a test.”

Rockford’s second drive-trough testing site is at Auburn High School. It opens at 9 a.m., Monday. Each site has the capacity to test 500 people per day.

Cook County accounted for 46 of Saturday’s reported COVID-related fatalities. They included a woman in her 30s, two women in their 40s, two men in their 40s, a man in his 50s, two women in their 60s, eight men in their 60s, three women in their 70s, seven men in their 70s, five women in their 80s, nine men in their 90s, two women in their 90s, three men in their 90s and a women older than 100.