.jpg)
Illinois reported more new coronavirus cases on Friday — 15,415 — than any other state in the nation has ever logged in a single day throughout eight months of the pandemic.
The jaw-dropping count marked the fourth straight daily record-breaking rise in an exponential explosion of infections with COVID-19 “running rampant through our communities,” according to Illinois Public Health Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker has not yet handed down a statewide stay-at-home order like the one that helped bend the curve of the springtime peak, but he’s suggested a new edict could come soon.
Either way, the only hope for Illinois to come down from its current “crisis level” is for residents to take precautions more seriously, the Democratic governor said.
“There’s got to be some personal responsibility that gets taken by not only people for wearing masks in their communities, and asking their neighbors and friends who are not wearing masks to wear them, but also the local leaders, as I’ve said, who are taking no responsibility,” Pritzker said. “That is the conspiracy that is working against the people of the state of Illinois.”
Leaders in suburban Cook County issued stay-at-home advisory Friday, following a similar guidance issued for Chicago a day earlier by Mayor Lori Lightfoot amid the violent viral flareup.
Friday’s case total included almost 3,000 more infections than were reported a day earlier. The state’s 25 highest daily caseloads have all come in the past four weeks.