SPRINGFIELD, Ill. – The State of Illinois is sounding an alarm similar to the one local health officials sounded last week, about hospital capacity right now, thanks in part to COVID-19.
As of Sunday night, the state says more than 3,900 people were hospitalized with COVID-19 — the highest number since last New Years Eve.
Of those, more than 800 were in Intensive Care, and more than 400 were on ventilators.
What’s more, “The vast majority of people in the hospital, to the tune of 90 percent of all these hospital admissions, are in people who are not vaccinated,” said Dr. Ngozi Ezike, director, Illinois Department of Public Health.
The state says eight out of the eleven regions of the state have less than 30 ICU beds available.
“We just really need to continue to get more of these individuals vaccinated, so that we can have less people ending up in the hospital with COVID, which I would say now is a vaccine-preventable illness,” said Ezoke.
That’s despite the fact there have been “breakthrough” COVID cases among the vaccinated, though not nearly in the numbers of those who are unvaccinated.
As of last Thursday, the region including the Tri-Counties had 89 percent of its hospital beds in use, and an average of 36 ICU beds in use.
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