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Prairie State Wire

Wednesday, April 2, 2025

Illinois’ approach to Covid causing hysteria

Ward

Gov. J.B. Pritzker | File photo

Gov. J.B. Pritzker | File photo

Illinois finds itself at 780 deaths per million residents, making it 42nd in the country when it comes to COVID-related deaths, according to the COVID Tracking Project.

The project found that when it comes to COVID-19 data, people have been looking at decontextualized data, which is causing hysteria like children staying out of school and businesses shutting down. 

Illinois’ deaths and hospitalizations have not followed the same path as case increases and, instead, the state has stayed between 125 people per million in hospitals to nearly 200 per million, which isn’t anywhere near increased case numbers. 

“Illinois has remained largely locked down, and as such, has an unemployment rate that is 47th worst in the nation, 10.2%,” the commentary states. “This long, hard lockdown has done little to prevent deaths, as Illinois, while having a better record than Massachusetts or New York, is slightly worse than states such as Georgia and Florida — both of which have been largely open since April, where Illinois has been largely closed.”

Since Sept. 15, there has been a significant increase in testing for COVID-19 at 55%, which has also led to an increase in positive cases, leading many to assume the country is heading into a third wave of infections and deaths.

Emily Burns with The Pragmatist writes that it’s important to put the new numbers into context so that people will make wise decisions regarding what to do about the pandemic. She writes that in May, cases were tracked at nearly the same as hospitalizations. She notes that deaths and hospitalizations are more reliable data than cases for tracking.

With COVID-19 testing up 70% since the second wave, Burns points out that the surge in testing is responsible for the increased number of new cases seen across the nation, not an increased infection rate many have been led to believe.

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