THREAD: IDPH does NOT report the daily number of people hospitalized for/because of COVID. Closest they come is hospital admissions for COVID-Like Illness (CLI) on the Regional Metric page. Latest date is October 24, with 228 folks statewide admitted w/CLI. 1/6

Data goes back to July but are tedious to enter into a spreadsheet for every region. Remember, these hosp aren't confirmed COVID cases https://www.dph.illinois.gov/regionmetrics?regionID=11

(FYI - IDPH doesn't provide any downloadable data for any metric. Why?) 2/6

Something media is not grasping about IDPH's hospital data on the hosp utilization page ( https://www.dph.illinois.gov/covid19/hospitalization-utilization) is that "COVID Patients" are confirmed AND suspected (awaiting test result) combined. There is no distinction, like there is in Chicago's data. 3/6

If Chicago's hosp capacity data* are any indication, PUIs comprise anywhere from 30% - 50% of "COVID Patients" 4/6

https://data.cityofchicago.org/Health-Human-Services/COVID-19-Hospital-Capacity-Metrics/f3he-c6sv/data

*different from Chicago's hospitalization data, which is here https://data.cityofchicago.org/Health-Human-Services/COVID-19-Daily-Cases-Deaths-and-Hospitalizations/naz8-j4nc

Remember, these people are NOT necessarily the same folks:

-Patients admitted for/with COVID-Like Illness
-Patients who test positive for COVID, regardless of why they are in the hospital
-Patients hospitalized for/with CLI who test pos for & are being treated for COVID

5/6

At minimum, IDPH needs to make public the same hospitalization & hospital capacity data that Chicago does.

It's also LONG past time for IDPH to make all data on its site downloadable, like pretty much every other state in the Union.

6/6 END