THURSDAY UPDATES: Boone County reports double-digit new coronavirus cases for first time since Friday
The Columbia/Boone County Department of Public Health and Human Services is reporting 19 new COVID-19 cases.
There are currently 50 active cases in the county, up four from Wednesday.
The county now has a reported total number of COVID-19 cases of 17,915.
The county has reported the total number of cases removed from isolation is 17,780, an increase of 15 from Wednesday.
The Columbia/Boone County Department of Public Health and Human Services dashboard has reported the latest five-day average as eight.
The dashboard is reporting the positivity rate for March 19 through last Thursday is 6.7%.
The county continues to trend down as there have been 63 straight days of single or double-digit case increases.
The health department is reporting the total number of hospitalizations in Boone County is 16.
The number of Boone County residents hospitalized is reported to be three.
The dashboard is reporting two COVID-19 patients in the ICU and no patients on a ventilator.
The hospital status remains in 'Green' status. 'Green' status is when hospitals are operating within licensed bed capacity; accepting patient transfers from referring hospitals within standard care operating procedures.
The State of Missouri coronavirus vaccine dashboard is reporting that 55,759 residents have received their first dose in Boone County.
The county has the largest percentage of people in Mid-Missouri that have received at least one dose of the vaccine with 30.9%.
Cole County has the second-highest first vaccination rate in Mid-Missouri with 27.2%. Saline County is third with 27.1%.
State health officials report 400 new COVID-19 cases
Missouri state health officials reported 407 new COVID-19 cases on the health department's coronavirus dashboard.
Since the pandemic started, 489,781 COVID-19 positive cases have been confirmed through PCR testing, the dashboard said. During the same amount of time, the health department has reported 87,914 probable COVID-19 cases through antigen testing.
Thursday's coronavirus case increase was about 100 more than the daily average over the week ending on Monday.
The dashboard said Missouri's seven-day COVID-19 positivity rate increased slightly from the day before going up 0.1 to 4.3%. Even with the increase, the positivity rate has remained low.
Nearly 8,500 people have died in Missouri over the course of the pandemic. Health officials reported one new fatality on the dashboard on Thursday bringing the total up to 8,499.
More than a quarter of all state residents have initiated coronavirus vaccination, the dashboard said. As of Thursday, 26.1% of the state population -- 1.6 million Missourians -- have started the vaccination process. The increase is nearly 0.9% higher than the rate reported a day earlier.
The dashboard included that 2.5 million total vaccine doses have been administered across the state and that 975,000 have completed vaccination.
