The Illinois Department of Public Health announced today that there are 1,231 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 with 18 additional deaths. IDPH is reporting both confirmed and probable cases and deaths on its website as per CDC guidelines.

In central Illinois, there were 89 new positive COVID tests over the weekend and Monday morning with 64 of those in Sangamon County and 12 in Macon County. The region also reported 59 recoveries. The seven-day positivity rates for the area as of July 18th are Christian County at 1.6%, Montgomery County at 4.7%, Shelby County at 2.3%, Sangamon County at 3.3%, Macon County at 2.1%, Moultrie County at 5.0% and Fayette County at 7.0%. Fayette County saw the largest increase raising 5.7% since last week. 

IDPH is reporting a total of 172,655 cases, including 7,416 deaths. Labs over the last 24 hours have reported 30,567 tests for a total of 2,542,134 tests complete.  The seven-day positivity rate for all of Illinois from July 20th through the 26th is up .4% to 3.8%. 1,417 people in Illinois were reported to be in the hospital with COVID-19.  Of those, 350 patients were in the ICU and 124 patients with COVID-19 were on ventilators.

For health questions about COVID-19 call 1-800-889-3931 or email dph.sick@illinois.gov. For a complete look at breakdowns of the Regional Radio listening area visit taylorvilledailynews.com and click on the “current coronavirus cases by county” icon at the top of the page.