Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
Public health officials on Saturday announced 108 more Illinois residents have died of COVID-19, which has spread to an additional 7,562 residents.
The new cases were diagnosed among 96,851 tests, slightly raising the state’s average positivity rate over the last week to 8.2%.
That number still has gradually trended downward over the last month since the state hit the peak of its coronavirus resurgence in late November, along with other key metrics.
The latest caseload marked the ninth straight day with fewer than 10,000 cases reported by the Illinois Department of Public Health, while the number of hospitalized coronavirus patients has steadily declined over that period, too, down to 4,624 as of Friday night.
Scott Stewart/Sun-Times.
More than 1,500 employees of Cook County’s health care and sheriff’s divisions will go on strike Tuesday if their union can’t hammer out a deal with the county for pandemic pay and safer working conditions, among other demands.
In a statement Friday, SEIU Local 73 the union representing county health technicians, service and maintenance workers, and sheriff’s office employees alleges the county has refused to bargain in good faith for nearly three months, walking out on negotiations, canceling dates or refusing to set them altogether.
The union also says the county spent millions in CARES Act funds to fly in strikebreakers from around the country.