PEORIA, Ill. — The tri-county region has seen its eighth death from COVID-19.
The Tazewell County woman in her 90s with comorbid conditions was transported to a local hospital where she later died.
The investigation is ongoing according to Peoria City/County Health Administrator Monica Hendrickson, who spoke at Tuesday’s news briefing.
That brought Tazewell County’s total to four deaths. Woodford remained at one, while Peoria remained at three.
The area’s total case count was raised to 175. Peoria had 112, with 50 in Tazewell, and 13 in Woodford.
91% of tri-county cases have recovered, while 9% were still hospitalized.
26% were in home isolation.
19 ICU beds were in use, with 12 being occupied by individuals with confirmed cases and seven with suspected cases.
Peoria Mayor Jim Ardis appeared at the news conference, and spoke about Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s “Restore Illinois” plan.
Ardis said he hadn’t had an opportunity to carefully examine the plan, as Pritzker had rolled it out right before Tuesday’s local news briefing, but he commended Pritzker for breaking the state up into four regions as a part of the plan.
“It’s kind of like that thought process we were all in a just a few days ago, that everybody is in the state of Illinois, and we’re all doing this together, so I give the governor credit he’s thinking outside that,” he said.
“Who knows; it could be the Fourth of July or August before the city of Chicago comes out of this, and for the rest of the state, that couldn’t happen.”
Ardis said he had submitted to Pritzker a draft of a reopening plan for Peoria earlier in the afternoon.
“The governor was anxious to see that, and we’re looking forward to his thoughts on that so we can potentially get Central Illinois back on track again.”
