Illinois tallies 595 COVID-19 deaths in November

COVID-19 claimed 595 lives statewide in November.

That's down from the death tolls of both the prior two months from the respiratory disease, according to Illinois Department of Public Health records.

IDPH officials reported 23 more deaths on the final day of the month, bringing the confirmed statewide death toll since the outset of the pandemic to 26,414. And 2,962 other deaths are listed as "probable" COVID-19 deaths on the state agency's website.

Of the state's COVID-19 deaths recorded in November, 189 were suburban residents. Among those, 104 were residents of suburban Cook County, 28 were from Will County, 18 were Lake County residents, 17 were DuPage County residents, 14 were from Kane County and eight were from McHenry County.

Suburban residents made up 31.8% of the November's COVID-19 deaths, while Chicago residents made up 18.2%. The other 50% of the COVID-19 deaths recorded in November came from the remaining 96 downstate counties, where just 34.5% of the state's population resides.

Deaths are a lagging indicator in a pandemic. It can take months from the time of infection to culminate in deaths. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, deaths have trailed infections and hospitalizations by several weeks. Because we've seen an uptick in cases and hospitalizations recently, we'll likely see a higher number of deaths in December and January than in November, health officials said.

Besides the additional deaths announced Tuesday, IDPH officials also reported 5,714 new cases of the virus were diagnosed. That means 1,809,875 infections have now been confirmed since the start of the pandemic.

IDPH officials also reported 2,379 COVID-19 patients were being treated in hospitals statewide.

Of those hospitalized, 457 were in intensive care.

The state's seven-day case positivity rate is at 4.1%, stagnant from the previous day. The case positivity rate is the percentage of test results that show a new case of COVID-19. A seven-day average is used to smooth any anomalies in the daily reporting of those figures.

Meanwhile, 53,281 more COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered statewide.

IDPH officials report 17,288,192 total doses have been administered since vaccines became available nearly a year ago.

According to IDPH figures, 58% of the state's roughly 12.7 million residents are now considered fully vaccinated.