Prairie State Wire

Gov. J.B. Pritzker has not yet released the number of Illinois residents hospitalized from the coronavirus, Wirepoints Founder Mark Glennon wrote.

Pritzker tweeted earlier this week that he had requested 4,000 ventilators from the federal government and received only 450.

"The key information we need about the COVID-19 crisis according to a growing chorus of experts is how many people are getting hospitalized," Glennon wrote. "Those numbers are not hard for a state to get."

Glennon questioned why Pritzker has not provided those numbers, which reporters have been asking him for more than a week.

The University of Washington's Institute for Health Metric and Evaluation (IHME) projected that Illinois has 14,552 hospital beds and will only need 10,944 when the crisis peaks in the state around April 20—which means the state may have more hospital beds than it actually needs. The study also found that the state needs 1,311 more ventilators than it currently has and needs about 507 more intensive care beds. 

IHME projected that the state will likely have approximately 3,386 deaths by Aug. 4.

"Hospitalization numbers aren’t important just for measuring how much capacity we need," Glennon wrote. "They will also be essential for the difficult decision about when to end the stay-at-home order that has shut down most of our economy."

Glennon believes a date can't be rationally set without being aware of the actual number of hospitalizations the state has. He stresses that policy can't be informed by facts if those facts are not available.

Pritzker recently extended Illinois' stay-at-home order until April 30.

Illinois' number of cases was lower on Monday and Tuesday than previous days, but health officials don't believe the state has peaked. So far the state has had 7,695 positive cases and 157 deaths. More than 43,000 residents have been tested for the virus statewide, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health.