A new covid variant is spreading through Illinois, leading to new mask mandates in hospitals and other public places and leading to renewed calls for wider mask mandates to halt the potential spread of the new offshoot virus. Illinois as covid numbers have begun to spike again as the year nears its end. In Illinois, 1,225 new COVID-19 hospitalizations were reported last week, up 22 percent over the previous week. The number of counties listed at the “high” level for COVID-19 hospitalizations has doubled from five to 10 Illinois counties in central Illinois, including Sangamon, according... Read More

Are masks coming back? There are renewed calls for a wider mask mandate across Illinois as covid numbers have begun to spike again as the year nears its end. The Illinois Department of Public Health has recommended that hospital patients and officials begin wearing masks to minimize the spread of covid and other viruses. In a news release, health officials said that IDPH supports the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention’s recommendation of facility-wide masking at healthcare facilities that are in counties rated at high levels for COVID-19 hospitalizations or per facility discretion in... Read More

It finally caught up with me, the jerk. For the last three years, I’ve been dodging covid. I’ve written about it, I’ve known dozens of people who have gotten it, and spent an entire week at home around my son 24/7 while he had it, and throughout it all, I never caught it. Until this week. It hit pretty hard and fast, and unexpectedly. I’m double-vaxxed, although didn’t get boosters, and I’m in pretty good health overall. I don’t have any mitigating factors, no diabetes or anything like that. I also like long walks on the beach, sushi, and good conversations... Read More

BREAKING NEWS: The Quad-Cities area is at risk of going back to a mask mandate with covid numbers spiking in the area and reaching a “high” level in neighboring Knox County, which includes Galesburg, as well as neighboring Warren County. Knox and Warren, surrounding the Quad-Cities’ Rock Island County, were both seeing spiking numbers the previous few weeks, ramping up into the high range this week. In addition, Saline County in Southeastern Illinois is also in the high range. Counties at a “high” community level are seeing elevated levels of COVID-19 hospitalizations, percentages... Read More

Businesses have begun to shut down across the state as spiking covid numbers have hit their workers hard, causing the places to close temporarily as workers recover. In Rock Island, for example, Circa ’21 Dinner Playhouse was forced to shut down for two weeks, delaying the opening of a new show, “Disaster!” due to a number of the cast and crew testing positive for covid. Other businesses around the state have likewise been hit with the same dilemma as statewide numbers continue to surge, as previously reported on QuadCities.com. Statewide numbers have continued to rise over the... Read More

BREAKING NEWS: Covid numbers are rampaging again across Illinois, causing individual business shutdowns in the Quad-Cities and elsewhere, as there’s increasing nervousness over bigger statewide shutdowns especially as fall school start dates loom. Thursday, Illinois reported its single-highest daily total of new COVID cases since late May, with 6,636 new probable and confirmed cases. In addition, people are testing positive for longer periods of time, and are becoming infected again after infections much more quickly. “I wouldn’t say the incubation period is shorter… it’s... Read More

BREAKING NEWS: Illinois is in the midst of a massive covid-19 resurgence, as cases are up 174 percent over the last month and the state is averaging more than 6,000 new probable and confirmed covid-19 cases per day, with hospitalizations also beginning to climb across the state. Illinois is averaging 6,065 new cases of COVID per day over the last week, marking the first time the state has eclipsed the 6,000-case barrier since Feb. 9, according to the latest data from the Illinois Department of Public Health. In the last seven days, the state’s daily average of new COVID cases has gone up by 17.7%,... Read More

BREAKING NEWS: Covid-19 numbers are starting to spike again in Illinois, as this week, the state was seeing an average of 5,154 new cases per day over the last seven days, IDPH data revealed. That represents an increase of 41.6% in the last week, climbing from 3,639 cases per day as of last Monday. Over the last month, daily case rates in the state have increased by more than 180%, according to IDPH data. While hospitalizations had been flat going into the spring, they’ve leapt over the past couple of weeks. They jumped 21 percent last week. There are 777 hospitalized patients in the state that... Read More

Is covid really in the rear view mirror? New covid numbers are rising again, prompting some Illinois and national officials to look warily at bringing back some mitigations, as the CDC has gone to court to bring back the travel mask mandate. Mask mandates and other mitigations have been off the table for a while as covid numbers had faded down to much more manageable levels, hospitalizations had fallen dramatically, and other metrics were far lower than they had been late last year and early this year as the various variants of covid were hitting their peak. However, over the past few weeks, covid... Read More

BREAKING NEWS: Illinois officials are closely monitoring the increasing spread of the more virulent BA.2 omicron subvariant of covid-19, ready to take action should it start to hit the state heavily. The subvariant is said to be up to 50 percent more infectious than any other variant of covid, and although covid numbers are going down overall statewide, the BA.2 is already making up 25 percent of all new covid infections, according to Illinois Department of Health numbers, Illinois governor JB Pritzker said today in a press conference. The BA.2 variant has ripped across Europe and pushed infections... Read More