Gov. J.B. Pritzker was working remotely after coming in “close contact” with an employee in his office who tested positive for COVID-19, his office said Wednesday afternoon.
Illinois continues to set records for COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations as the highly contagious omicron variant surges across the state.
Pritzker, who tested negative Wednesday morning, is expected to continue working remotely through Sunday, his office said. In Illinois, more people with the coronavirus are filling hospital beds statewide than at any other time in the pandemic. At the urging of Gov. J.B. Pritzker, someAs of Tuesday, an average of 6,218 patients with COVID-19 were in hospitals each day over the last week. That breaks the previous record average of 6,119 per day during the week ending Nov. 24, 2020, in the pandemic’s first year and just before vaccines became available.
But four of the state’s 11 health care regions each had a half-dozen or fewer available ICU beds as of Tuesday night. That includes five available beds in both the northwest corner of the state and the Metro East region near St. Louis; four available beds in the southernmost region; and six in the region comprising Will and Kankakee counties, home to more than 800,000 people.
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