PEORIA, Ill. – Confirmed new COVID-19 cases in the Tri-County area are continuing their all-time record highs and sharp weekly increases.
Peoria City/County Health Department Administrator Monica Hendrickson says 5,910 new cases were added last week alone in the area, taking the total to 79,306.
That makes for a seven-day average of new cases up to another new high, to 844 from 682 last Thursday.
More than 6,000 cases are in at-home isolation. 980 people total have died, up 21 in the last week.
“I think the light at the end of the tunnel is…it’s a really hard thing to visualize right now, which is completely a 180 from where I was at this time last year,” said Hendrickson. “I think you’re having to see and recognize that we are going to be eventually living with COVID-19.”
But, Hendrickson says living with COVID is different than continuing to let it overwhelm local hospitals and healthcare workers.
“These are unnecessary utilizations of our hospitals,” said Hendrickson. “We’re not necessarily accessing our healthcare services at full capacity. We’re not being able to take care of the other plethora of health issues that might arise — whether they’re emergent, or things that people need for quality of life measures, too.”
Just Thursaday, President Joe Biden confirmed what Illinois Governor JB Pritzker announced Wednesday: federal healthcare workers are being deployed around the country to help staff depleted hospitals.
The region including the Tri-Counties still has less than ten percent of available and staffed Intensive Care Unit beds available. But that’s only taking in to account beds that can actually be staffed.
