Hospitalizations Spike Among Unvaccinated As IL ICU Beds Dwindle

ILLINOIS — Southern Illinois has only three beds left in the region's intensive care units, state health officials said Monday.

Region 1 in the state's northwest corner has 20. The Metro East, near St. Louis, has 22. And Region 3, which includes the state capital Jefferson City, has 26.

Altogether, only 575 ICU beds remain available statewide, even as state health officials announced Thursday 3,180 new coronavirus cases and 45 more deaths from COVID-19 — the most since mid-May.

Those beds must serve everyone, state health officials say, not just COVID-19 patients. That means, as ICUs fill up, victims of car accidents, gunshots, strokes, heart attacks or other critical illnesses all might have to go elsewhere — or go without care.

As of Wednesday, 1,994 Illinoisans were hospitalized with COVID-19 statewide, including 449 in intensive care and 220 on ventilators.

But even as case numbers and hospitalizations spike, the percentage of the state's population that is fully vaccinated has held relatively steady, rising from about 66 percent of those over 12 in July to 69.5 percent as of Thursday.

Health officials say most new coronavirus cases and nearly all hospitalizations and deaths across the country are among unvaccinated people.

The state's seven-day average test positivity rate is 6.2 percent, up from 5.9 percent last week.

That rate is far higher in some regions of the state. In southern Illinois, for example, the positivity rate is 10.4 percent, and more COVID-19 patients are currently hospitalized than at any time since early January.

Southern Illinois is also the least-vaccinated region of the state, with most counties having fewer than 40 percent of their populations fully vaccinated. In Alexander County at the state's southwestern tip, less than 16 percent of residents are fully vaccinated.

In total, 1.47 million coronavirus cases have been reported in Illinois since the start of the pandemic, and 23,699 Illinoisans have died from COVID-19.