The Illinois Department of Public Health announced today that there are 1,393 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 57 new positive COVID tests Tuesday and Wednesday morning including 2 deaths in Montgomery County with 32 of those in Sangamon County and 11 in Macon County. The region also reported 31 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 175,124 cases, including 7,462 deaths. Labs over the last 24 hours have reported 38,187 tests for a total of 2,608,652 tests complete.  The seven-day positivity rate for all of Illinois from July 22nd through the 28th is steady at 3.8%. 1,491 people in Illinois were reported to be in the hospital with COVID-19.  Of those, 355 patients were in the ICU and 152 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.