COVID Update: IL reports 5,568 new cases, 22 new deaths

CHICAGO (WLS) -- Illinois reported 5,568 new COVID cases and 22 new deaths Friday

IDPH said "daily deaths reported on weekends and at the beginning of the week may be low" and "those deaths will be captured in subsequent days."

There have been at least 3,407,189 total COVID cases in the state since the start of the pandemic and, at least 34,076 related deaths.

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The Illinois Department of Health said the daily case rate per 100,000 people is at 33.4.

Health officials also announced some changes in the COVID community levels in the Chicago area.

Most notable the city of Chicago, and Cook and DuPage counties are all back in the high range.

The levels are based on case and hospitalization rates and are meant to inform people about the dangers posed by the virus in their specific communities.

Kane, Grundy and Lasalle counties are at a low community level.

As of Thursday night, 1,099 patients in Illinois were reported to be in the hospital with COVID-19. Of those, 114 patients were in the ICU, and 32 patients with COVID-19 were on ventilators. Health officials say 22% of hospital beds are available.

A total of 22,604,803 vaccine doses have been administered in Illinois as of Thursday, and 69.25% of the state's population is fully vaccinated. The seven-day rolling average of vaccines administered daily is 8,727.

COVID vaccines have saved nearly 20 million lives world-wide in their first year of availability, according to a large-scale modeling study published Friday in "The Lancet."

Researchers estimated those lives were saved between December of 2020 and December of 2021.

They also believe hundreds of thousands of more lives could have been saved if global vaccination rates had reached 40% by December 2021.