Illinois COVID Update: IL reports 2,950 cases, 10 deaths

CHICAGO (WLS) -- Illinois Department of Public Health officials reported 2,950 new confirmed and probable cases of COVID-19 and ten related deaths Tuesday.

There have been 1,447,161 total COVID cases, including 23,542 deaths in the state since the pandemic began.

Illinois COVID vaccine map shows how many residents vaccinated by county

The preliminary seven-day statewide test positivity from Aug 2-9 is at 5.7%.

Governor JB Pritzker is not backing down from his decision to order a statewide mask mandate for schools, just as students begin to return to the classroom. And he expects district to enforce it, as they do dress codes.

"School districts have been enforcing dress codes for many, many years," Pritzker said. "And so they're expected simply to do the same thing they've been doing literally for decades."

He is now facing the first lawsuit challenging his mandate, filed on behalf of a downstate parent by a lawyer who sued the governor numerous times over the last year. Pritzker is unfazed.

"Every lawsuit he's filed has failed. And mandatory masks in schools, that's something we've had before and certainly we're still in an emergency," Gov. Pritzker said.

The governor launched a new campaign ad Tuesday touting his handling of the pandemic, which included the state-wide shutdown, but he did not address it at his event where he signed into law a bill providing easier access to paid time off for educational support staff.

He called the bill a commitment to health and safety, comparing it to his mask mandate which he says will provide better safety for student, staff and their families at a time when COVID cases are on the rise, especially among young people.

Within the past 24 hours, laboratories have reported testing 51,843 specimens for a total of 27,403,429 since the pandemic began.

Lambda and delta plus: What to know about other COVID variants detected in US

As of Monday night, 1,488 patients in Illinois were reported to be in the hospital with COVID-19. Of those, 300 patients were in the ICU and 136 patients with COVID-19 were on ventilators.

A total of 13,375,991 have been administered in Illinois as of Sunday. The seven-day rolling average of vaccines administered daily is 25,268.