Illinois Reopening Restricted By Rising Coronavirus Trendlines

CHICAGO — Illinois is only about 50,000 vaccinated senior citizens short of the number needed to qualify for the next stage of Gov. J.B. Pritzker's Restore Illinois reopening plan. But increasing rates of new hospitalizations with COVID-like illnesses stand in the way of advancing to the "Bridge to Phase 5" phase the governor announced last week.

According to the Illinois Department of Public Health, the Bridge phase is triggered when 70 percent of Illinois' residents aged 65 or older have been jabbed — as long as there is at least 20 percent bed capacity in the state's intensive care units, and trends of new hospital admissions, number of COVID-19 hospitalizations and death rates are not increasing significantly over the previous four weeks.

As of Friday, 67.42 percent of Illinois' approximately 2 million senior citizens have received at least one dose.

Over the past 28 days, the average number of daily deaths attributed to COVID-19 statewide is slightly declining, and the number of people in the hospital with confirmed coronavirus cases has remained flat.

The average percentage of staffed and available beds in the state's ICUs stood at 28 percent, according to IDPH data.

But the rate of new hospital admissions of patients with COVID-like illnesses is up by about 30 percent since the start of the month.

Regional metrics show the number of hospitalized coronavirus patients is growing fastest in suburban Cook County. In Southern Illinois, the metrics are mostly stable, while western and northwestern Illinois regions show increasing numbers of hospitalized COVID-19 patients.

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After reaching the Bridge phase, a 10-day trend showing a "significantly increasing" number of daily new cases can trigger a move back to Restore Illinois' modified Phase 4 guidelines.

The rate of new daily cases is up by more than 20 percent over the past two weeks to an average of about 2,000 a day.

Moving from the Bridge phase to Phase 5 — unrestricted reopening with a mask mandate in place — requires 50 percent of Illinois residents aged 16 and older to have received at least one dose of vaccine.

As of Friday, 23.8 percent of those 16 and up have gotten at least one dose. A total of 15.4 percent of the population — nearly 2 million people — have been fully vaccinated.

State public health officials said emerging evidence about variants, immunity or the effectiveness of the vaccine will also be a consideration in reopening decisions.

According to IDPH, as of Thursday there had been 227 cases of COVID-19 variants of concern discovered in Illinois, with about 83 percent of them the B.1.1.7 variant first identified in the United Kingdom.