Seeing red: Fueled by raging Delta variant, COVID-19 spreading at high rate across 96% of the state

A patient is wheeled out of the Intensive Care Unit at Roseland Community Hospital on the Far South Side in December. | Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times

The newly updated state map comes as the Illinois Department of Public Health reported an additional 2,463 cases of COVID-19 on Monday. That’s down a bit from the 2,631 on Sunday and the 4,032 on Saturday – the highest daily caseload since Jan. 29.

The coronavirus is spreading at a high rate of infection across nearly all of Illinois, painting the public health version of the state map an ominous sea of red.

All but four of the state’s 102 counties fall into the U.S. Centers for Disease Control’s color-coded red “high transmission” category. And three of the four – Whiteside and Lee in western Illinois and nearby Putnam — are only one category below that, the “substantial transmission” category.

High transmission is defined as more than 100 new cases per 100,000 residents over the past seven days or a test positivity rate exceeding 10% over that period.

Illinois Department of Public Health

Coronavirus transmission rates in Illinois counties as of Sunday.

Only Stark County in central Illinois is at the “moderate transmission” level.

The newly updated state map comes as the Illinois Department of Public Health reported an additional 2,463 cases of COVID-19 on Monday. That’s down a bit from the 2,631 on Sunday and the 4,032 on Saturday – the highest daily caseload since Jan. 29.

And additional four coronavirus deaths were reported on Monday, down from nine on Sunday and 17 on Saturday.

As of last week, new COVID-19 cases have multiplied by a factor of 10 since early July, with Delta causing upwards of 90% of the latest infections, officials have estimated.

On Friday, the state reported more than 21,000 cases over the past seven days, a 27% jump compared to the previous week and a 167% spike from late July.

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