COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – The Ohio Department of Health on Thursday reported 16,169 new COVID-19 cases for the past week, flipping course for second time and leaving no certain trend.

Ohio's COVID-19 cases showed signs of increasing last week as it marked more than 18,000 new cases, after a drop-off that ended an eight-week streak of consistent rises in new cases. Over the past seven days, the state averaged about 2,309 new coronavirus cases per day, the highest rate since Feb. 22. This week begins a new trend where cases are going back down, showing a 11% decrease with 2,078 less 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 down, there is a fewer amount of people being hospitalized with the virus. The 445 hospitalizations reported by ODH in the past seven days -- about 64 per day -- are down from 549 last week and 482 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.

4,136 Ohioans started the COVID-19 vaccination process in the past seven days, per ODH data. Another 5,151 finished vaccination by getting their second dose. Around six in 10 Ohioans are partially or fully vaccinated.