CHICAGO (WLS) — Illinois public health officials reported 34,573 new COVID cases and 144 related deaths Wednesday.

The report comes as Governor JB Pritzker will give an update on the state’s response at the Thompson Center Wednesday afternoon.

There have been 2,522,953 total COVID cases, including 28,804 deaths in the state since the pandemic began.

The seven-day statewide test positivity rate is 16.7%.

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Within the past 24 hours, laboratories have reported testing 237,157 new specimens for a total of 47,411,987 since the pandemic began.

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As of Tuesday night, 7,219 patients in Illinois were reported to be in the hospital with COVID-19. Of those, 1,131 patients were in the ICU and 650 patients with COVID-19 were on ventilators.

A total of 19,779,403 vaccine doses have been administered in Illinois as of Tuesday, and 61.17% of the state’s population is fully vaccinated. The seven-day rolling average of vaccines administered daily is 51,745.

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