The Ohio Department of Health released updated figures at the end of last week and Lawrence County now leads all of Ohio’s 88 counties in new cases of COVID-19.

According to a Facebook post by the Lawrence County Department of Health on Friday, the county saw 601 new cases of the virus between Jan. 27 and Feb. 3, 17 hospitalizations and six deaths from the virus.

In January, the county reported 4,265 new cases of the virus, 104 hospitalizations and 21 deaths. Cases in January alone represent 25.75 percent of the 16,561 cases since the pandemic began. To date, Lawrence County has had 860 hospitalizations and 198 deaths from the virus.

The department said January deaths included 12 women and nine men, ranging in age from 38 to 86 years old.

The county, which is ranked “High” in transmission level by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, has a positivity rate of 57.2 percent, according to the Ohio Department of Health.

While the county ranked higher than others in Ohio, its weekly number of new cases was lower than the previous week, Jan. 20-27, when it reported 903 new cases.

According to the Ohio Department of Health, 34.36 percent of the population in Lawrence County is fully vaccinated. Using the CDC’s numbers, 50.8 percent is fully vaccinated.

The difference in the numbers is due to those who may have been vaccinated out of state. Those providers are not required to report their numbers to the state health department, but they are reported to the CDC by a resident’s zip code.

The county health department is continuing to offer free vaccinations and booster shots. For more information on those, visit the department’s Facebook page or call 740-532-3962.

Statewide, Ohio reported 2,594 new cases of the virus on Sunday. Total cases since the pandemic began are 2,612,719. The state has seen 34,217 deaths from the virus and 109,181 hospitalizations to date.

Nationwide, new COVID-19 cases per day have plunged by more than a half-million since mid-January, when they hit a record-shattering peak of more than 800,000. Cases have been declining in 47 states over the past two weeks, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

Also, the number of Americans in the hospital with COVID-19 has fallen 24 percent since mid-January to about 111,000.

Deaths are still running high at more than 2,400 per day on average, the most since last winter, reflecting a lag between when victims become infected and when they die.

For a listing of testing sites in Ohio, visit www.coronavirus.ohio.gov/rapid. At home COVID-19 tests are available to households in the U.S and can be obtained by visiting www.covidtest.gov.

The state has seen a decline in new daily cases over the past few weeks.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.