CHICAGO — After a year of pronounced shifts in the COVID-19 pandemic related to mass vaccination, more infectious variants and the sorely tested patience of the public, Illinois is facing an even more complicated set of realities entering 2022. The state is now seeing record numbers of COVID-19 infections — but these cases appearless likely to cause serious illness. At the same time, Illinois’ health care system is in worse shape than it was a year earlier, and the exploding case counts mean even a milder variant could further strain hospitals with COVID-19 patients. Already, hospitals are tre…

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