The Cattaraugus County Health Department reported 21 new cases of COVID-19 on Friday.

The 414 cases in the first 22 days of this month has exceeded the 411 cases reported in March. There were 1,161 cases in February and 4,739 in January when cases skyrocketed due to the Omicron variant.

After plateauing in March and continuing to trend down in early April, the coronavirus is on the rise again as an Omicron subvariant BA.2 expands in areas of New York state and the Northeast.

There are currently 194 active cases of COVID-19 in the county.

Six of the new cases Friday were residents who were vaccinated and 15 were unvaccinated. One person reported testing positive with an at-home COVID-19 test. There have been 1,587 people who have reported positive tests with the at-home tests here.

The number of weekly tests in the county has dipped below 1,000. The combination of fewer people being tested and unreported at-home test results is making it more difficult for local health officials to get a full picture of the infection here.

Hospitalizations have not increased here under the BA.2 subvariant, but that often lags new cases.

The southeast part of the county has reported a total of 8,504 cases, around 45.9% of all cases in the county since March 2020. Th southwest has 3,677 cases, the northeast 3,686 cases and northwest 2,670. There have been 9,701 women diagnosed with COVID-19 and 8,836 men.

Cattaraugus County’s seven-day positivity as of Thursday was 8.82%. With 102 cases in the previous seven days, the county’s rate was 134/100,000, a 67.2% increase over the previous seven-day period, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s COVID Data Tracker.

Western New York’s seven-day average rate is 39.52/100,000 and the positivity was 16.63%.

For comparison, New York’s daily rate was 43.25 per 100,000, while the seven-day rate was 32.61 per 100,000. Friday’s positivity was 7%, while the seven-day average was 6.37%.