COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – The Ohio Department of Health on Thursday reported 24,465 COVID-19 cases for the past week, marking a nearly 30% increase in the new case rate.

Ohio's COVID-19 new case rate has now made a double-digit percentage jump -- the first in weeks -- and overtaken the previous new case count by over 5,000. The state's COVID-19 spread has not broken 20,000 new cases in nearly five months, though it came close in May. The jump is a rebound from four weeks where Ohio had no clear upward or downward trend in case rates. It previously saw an eight-week streak of consistent rises in new cases end in late May. Over the past week, the state averaged 3,495 new coronavirus cases per day.

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. The steep rise in cases was accompanied by more people being hospitalized with the virus. The 550 hospitalizations reported by ODH in the past seven days (about 79 per day) are higher than 411 last week and 483 two weeks ago.

ODH said 39 more people had died from the virus by Thursday but did not document any trends, as this was the first new data after a two-week hiatus as the National Center for Health Statistics implemented a new coding system. In a June 23 update, the state reported 121 people died from COVID-19 since June 2. ODH said on June 2, 38 Ohioans died of COVID-19, and 29 died in the week prior.

While cases were up by a sharp percentage, 8,458 Ohioans started the COVID-19 vaccination process in the past seven days, per ODH data. Another 4,888 finished vaccination by getting their second dose. Around six in 10 Ohioans are partially or fully vaccinated.