Sunday, January 31st Data Update:

Last day of January 2021. Today's numbers:

• 86,871 tests

• 2,428 newly confirmed or probable cases

• Daily case positivity rate of 2.79%. This is the first single day under 3% since mid-July.

So a great downward trend on all important metrics, including bed utilization, deaths, and positivity.

This week in Illinois we administered over 300,000 vaccines with the start of Group 1b on Monday. The average of roughly 43,000 per day was up nearly 55% from last week's roughly 28,000 per day.

While it certainly isn't good enough, we should celebrate the progress and all that have worked hard to get us where we are today. Yes, we need to do better, but everyone is continuing to work and I'm confident we will get better.

The new variant(s) are concerning. But we will continue to vaccinate. There have been over 1.12 million confirmed or probable cases in Illinois, or around 9% of the population, with a great deal more that have had it but were not diagnosed.

Saturday, January 30th Data Update:

Vaccinations now over 50,000 per day consistently. Some Regions doing better than others with the vaccination roll out. Positivity down overall. Close to another statistically significant decrease in case positivity with 7 of the past 8 days under 5% and 4 of those under 4%.

Bed utilization down.

Deaths are down (though still too high).

Thanks to all that are helping drive the vaccination efforts.

You're making a difference.

Thursday, January 28th Data Update:

Yes, numbers are getting better. But we still have to remain vigilant until we can get more people vaccinated. Progress is being made on that front. You can see region by region the percentage of residents that have been vaccinated through January 19th and through January 26th. So some good progress this past week and over 53,000 doses yesterday. Some regions doing better than others, but good progress across all regions this past week.

Wednesday, January 27th Data Update:

Fairly consistent storyline with Monday as vaccinations are starting to see some small movement while positivity and bed utilization continue to decline. I know it has been frustrating for people to try to schedule vaccinations now that the state opened up to group 1b on Monday. Hopefully we can continue to expand sites and availability.

Deaths up 8% this week over last but I have not dug into the details as to what locations or age groups.

Monday, January 25th Data Update:

Continued good news on most fronts with positivity continuing to decline along with bed utilization and deaths. This is the best shape we have been in for months and vaccinations, while not at ideal levels yet, are at least showing some growth in numbers over the past week.

Currently, 4.35% of the state has received at least one dose of vaccination, or one in every 23 people. This will be the first graph I post in the series each day.

Case positivity at 4.95% for the week with the past two days under 4%. Numbers are dropping fast. Yes, some of the UIUC return to campus systematic testing is helping, but that is only a small fraction of the overall drop. Generally good progress across most all regions.

Friday, January 22nd Data Update:

99,036 tests yesterday including:

• 82,893 Molecular ~ 84%

• 10,119 Antigen ~ 10%

• 6,024 UIUC Molecular Saliva ~ 6%

All in, 4,979 newly confirmed or probable cases for a daily case positivity rate of 5.03% and 123 additional deaths.

You can see the positivity trend for the past 4 weeks by Region and for select counties. Lots of great movement across the board now that we are heading into the latter part of January.

I added a chart showing the past week's total numbers for positivity by county by region and color coded it (At or less than 5% = green, Above 5% but less than 8% yellow, and above 8% red). On that same graph I am also showing the percent of the population by county that has received at least one dose of vaccination. It will be interesting to track progress of positivity as the vaccine rolls out to group 1b and beyond over the next few months to see the correlation. Currently only a small percentage of the population has been vaccinated. While there is a negative correlation (as the vaccinations go up, the positivity is lower) it is currently slightly less than "moderate" but I expect that to increase with the advanced rollout.

ICU bed utilization continues to look better.

Thursday, January 21st Data Update:

Positivity showing another statistically significant decrease with 7 straight days under 6.2%. Deaths are down as well to 80 per day this week. Bed utilization, ICU and Non-ICU, for COVID patients also showing improvement.

The numbers continue to trend in the right direction and some areas expected to ease up on mitigations.

The main focus now is vaccination progress, or lack thereof.

Yesterday, the supply of doses for long-term care facilities increased by 72% from 305,000 to 524,000. The overall state supply went up by over 302,000, which includes the LTC doses plus an additional 83,000 in non-LTC doses. We did administer over 29,000 doses in the past 24 hours, but our average for the week is only 22,000. This number has to increase.

Today is the 21st and 1b for vaccinations is set to begin Monday the 25th. So hoping to see these numbers rise quickly over the next few weeks.

Tuesday, January 19th Data Update:

63,002 specimens processed including:

• 55,922 Molecular ~ 89%

• 4,213 Antigen ~ 7%

• 2,867 UIUC Molecular Saliva ~ 5%

All in, 3,385 newly confirmed or probable cases for a daily case positivity rate of 5.37%. That marks 5 straight days at or under 6.20% and a 7 day total of 5.89%.

So great downward trends in positivity rate, bed utilization, and deaths. But we are still losing too many people to this virus with 90 per day. Praying for those that have lost loved ones.

As far as vaccinations are concerned, the downward trend over the weekend isn't great to see. Hoping it might just be a holiday weekend delay in reporting. Either way, we need to see these numbers go the other direction. Phase 1b starting on the 25th so I suspect this grows substantially throughout February into March.

Right now ICU Capacity at a macro level looking better than it has in a while.

Saturday, January 16th Data Update:

The first graph shows the vaccination progress across the state and the first table shows the progress by Region and for some key counties surrounding Chicago. Overall vaccinations have increased 92% over last week and currently 0.80% of Illinois is fully vaccinated with another 1.92% partially vaccinated for a total of 2.72% that have at least received a first dose.

You will note that we are doing less well in the Long-Term Care arena with only 21.1% of vaccines administered compared to 45.0% for the state overall. Obviously this will need to be a major area of focus over the next few months with all high-risk patients in the LTCs and a large proportion of the deaths still coming from LTCs.

For all the other stats...things are looking up. The projected statistically significant decrease in positivity rate occurred on Thursday. Deaths are now in the double digits rather than triple digits. Bed utilization continues to decrease.

Thursday, January 14th Data Update:

76,107 tests resulted yesterday. Of those:

• 22% Antigen Tests

• 72% Molecular

• 6% UIUC Saliva

All in, 5,862 newly confirmed or probable cases for a case positivity rate of 7.70% for the day. We are approaching a statistically significant decrease in positivity rate which may happen today. That's 6 straight days under 8% which is a good sign post holidays, so I am optimistic.

Deaths still averaging in the triple digits daily, but that number has also seen a decrease and the bed utilization is on a steady downward trend. While we struggle in certain regions from day to day, overall there has been some improvements in those numbers for the past month.

The state announced that we could ease up on restrictions for some regions as early as Friday from Tier 3 to Tier 2.

For vaccinations, Illinois is 21st of 50 states with 38.42% of distributed vaccines that have been administered. We have to continue to increase that over the next few months.

Sunday, January 10th Data Update:

102,903 tests resulted yesterday, including:

• 83,108 Molecular ~ 81%

• 16,871 Antigen ~ 16%

• 2,924 UIUC Molecular Saliva ~ 3%

All in, 6,717 newly confirmed or probable cases for a daily case positivity rate of 6.53%. Testing volumes have increased to the normal range for the past 5 days. With the return to normal testing levels, the positivity rate has decreased slightly. The majority of the post-holiday increase in positivity was real, but some was due to the decreased testing as well. So it will be good to be able to track progress more consistently now that the holidays are over and we are back to more normal operations.

Overall case positivity for the past week stands at 8.27%. That's roughly double where we want it to be to be considered in good control. We want test positivity to be under 5% and case positivity to be around 4% as test positivity counts duplicate positives on the same person while case positivity does not.

Deaths up to 820 for the week, or 117 per day on average. Still way too high. Much like Thanksgiving we are seeing some movement into the lower age groups after the holiday as only 49% are from the over 80 age cohort.

Some schools will be returning to hybrid or full in person learning in the next week or two. Colleges and universities will be back shortly as well. I am cautiously optimistic that we are through the absolute worst of it here in Illinois as 9% has been confirmed to have had the virus and likely that number is significantly higher than what is documented. But that doesn't mean we are out of the woods yet.

I do expect to see a spike again in February. As more and more people are able to get vaccinated, especially our most vulnerable and our healthcare workers, I am optimistic that the death tolls will start to reduce into double digits daily rather than the triple digits we have been dealing with since November.

Bed capacity shows improvement. Looking nationally and from our own Illinois data, we know that this can change quickly. So let's all continue to do our part to keep those numbers down.

Thursday, January 7th Data Update:

Yesterday showed 139 deaths, 80, 974 tests run, and 7,569 newly confirmed or probable cases. That equates to a daily case positivity rate of 9.35% and total case positivity for the past week of 8.44%.

So we have seen an uptick in the positivity rate. Some of that is due to the decreased testing and some is due to a real uptick. As testing levels post-holiday get back to a stable level (85k to 95k per day) that will help eliminate the noise.

Bed utilization for COVID patients continues to decrease and we are in a better place than we were in November, but still not out of the woods for the next few months. We know that this can shift quickly and the new strain looks to be more highly contagious.

We will hit 1,000,000 cases in Illinois today once the numbers are released. With a population of 12.7 million that means roughly 8% have been confirmed with the virus, not to mention those that have had it but were never tested.

Sunday, January 3rd Data Update:

Positivity rates have increased slightly. Some of this is due to decreased testing as all regions are down considerably from three weeks ago with a minimum of -18% (Region 5) and a Maximum of -46% (Region 6). The state overall is down 28%.

It will be interesting to watch the first few weeks of 2021 for all the key metrics, including positivity rates, bed utilization and deaths.

January to March often prove to be challenging for bed capacity for many hospitals in Illinois.

Yesterday's numbers came in at only 61,987 tests with zero saliva tests reported from UIUC the past two Saturdays and only 5,590 antigen tests.

4,762 newly confirmed or probable cases for a daily case positivity rate of 7.68% and a weekly of 8.29%. Again, that is up 21.6% from last Saturday, but the testing has dipped significantly as well so it is hard to cut decipher between the real increase and the noise.