Chicago City Wire

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot told NBC Chicago that the city needs to prepare for 40,000 hospitalizations due to COVID-19, contradicting statewide projections for less than 10,000, Wirepoints Founder Mark Glennon reported.

"Forty thousand hospitalizations. Not 40,000 cases, but 40,000 people who require acute care in a hospital setting," Lightfoot told the news agency. "That number will break our healthcare system. This will push our city to the brink."

However, Glennon says that data from the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metric and Evaluation projects the entire state will need approximately 9,300 hospital beds when the virus is expected to peak.

Glennon questioned why Illinois is reporting hospitalization numbers differently than other states.

"They are key, as we’ve been writing, according to experts around the country," Glennon wrote. "Many other articles in other states have made that same point, though it’s ignored by Illinois reporters."

Lightfoot told NBC Chicago that the numbers would get worse before they get better. Many worry that Cook County will become another hot spot like New York. Health officials have said that an increase in cases will occur with an influx of testing.

Lightfoot told the news agency that she is looking at several different projections regarding the city. She urged residents to stay at home to flatten the curve and urged residents to not go out in groups in their neighborhoods.

Chicago police are currently patrolling city streets to enforce the city's stay-at-home order. They can issue citations and even arrest people violating the order, NBC Chicago reported.

Illinois' number of coronavirus 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 people have been tested for the virus statewide, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health. Chicago has had 3,279 positive tests and 41 deaths.