COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – The Ohio Department of Health on Thursday reported 18,247 new COVID-19 cases for the past week, putting the virus back on the rise in the state.

Ohio's COVID-19 cases showed signs of slowing last week as it marked little more than 17,000 new cases, and ended an eight-week streak of consistent rises in new cases. The week prior had the state report 19,546 cases. Over the past seven days, the state averaged about 2,607 new coronavirus cases, the highest rate since Feb. 22. This week begins a new trend where cases are going back up, showing a 4% increase with 717 more than last week.

ODH began reporting COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, deaths and vaccinations weekly instead of daily in mid-March after new infections slowed to a low level after the omicron wave. Alongside cases now going up, there is a larger amount of people being hospitalized with the virus. The 549 hospitalizations reported by ODH in the past seven days (about 78 per day) are up from 482 last week and 506 two weeks ago.

ODH said it is temporarily halting updates on COVID-19 deaths as the National Center for Health Statistics implements a new coding system. The pause will span over the department's COVID-19 updates on June 9 and June 16, after which it will add all of the deaths recorded over that time. In the last update on June 2, 38 Ohioans died of COVID-19, and 29 died in the week prior. The number was a double-digit change from 40 deaths three weeks ago, 57 deaths four weeks ago and 65 deaths over a month ago.

5,249 Ohioans started the COVID-19 vaccination process in the past seven days, per ODH data. Another 5,838 finished vaccination by getting their second dose. Around six in 10 Ohioans are partially or fully vaccinated.