The Illinois Department of Public Health announced today that there are 1,772 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 90 new positive COVID tests reported Wednesday and Thursday morning including 1 death in Macon County with 49 of those in Sangamon County, 25 in Macon, and 11 in Christian. 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 176,896 cases, including 7,478 deaths. Labs over the last 24 hours have reported 41,134 tests for a total of 2,649,786 tests complete.  The seven-day positivity rate for all of Illinois from July 23rd through the 29th is steady at 3.8%. 1,452 people in Illinois were reported to be in the hospital with COVID-19.  Of those, 353 patients were in the ICU and 149 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.