TUESDAY UPDATES: Cole County reports 26 new coronavirus cases

The Cole County Health Department is reporting 26 new coronavirus cases.

The health department is reporting 8,344 total cases with 270 being from Long Term Care facilities and 8,074 being from the county.

Cole County also has the most coronavirus reported deaths in Mid-Missouri with 124. The last

Boone County reports 58 new coronavirus cases, active cases jump to 220

The Columbia/Boone County Department of Public Health and Human Services is reporting 58 new COVID-19 cases for Tuesday.

There are currently 220 active cases in the county. That is an increase of 41 from Tuesday. This is the highest number of active cases since Feb. 15.

The county now has a reported total number of COVID-19 cases of 18,957.

The county has reported the total number of cases removed from isolation is 18,620, an increase of 17 from Monday.

The health department's hospital status remains in green.

The health department is reporting three Boone County residents are in the hospital due to the coronavirus.

There are a total of 45 people hospitalized at a Boone County hospital due to the coronavirus.

The dashboard is showing 20 COVID-19 patients in the ICU and nine patients on a ventilator.

The State of Missouri coronavirus vaccine dashboard is reporting that 90,706 residents have received their first dose in Boone County and 81,066 Boone County residents have completed their vaccine doses.

Boone County has the largest percentage of people in Mid-Missouri that have received at least one dose of the vaccine with 50.3%. The second closest in the state is St. Louis County with 48.9%.

Boone County is first in the state with a reported 44.9% of residents that have completed their coronavirus vaccine doses. St. Louis County is second in the state with 43.2% of residents have completed the doses for vaccination.

Cole County has the second-highest first vaccination rate in Mid-Missouri with 40.6%. Montgomery County is third with 36.6%.

Boone County health officials warn of contact tracing delays

The Columbia/Boone County Department of Public Health and Human Services is warning that contact tracing is taking longer because of a spike in local cases in recent days.

"The recent increase in positive COVID-19 cases in Boone County has led to a higher number of close contacts needing to be notified," the department posted on social media Tuesday. "The contact tracers currently have more than 150 contacts to make so the timeline may be delayed due to the increased workload."

The department encouraged people who tested positive for coronavirus to notify people they were in contact with two days before their symptoms began. For asymptomatic cases, the department told infected people to contact those they were in contact with as early as two days before the positive test.

The five-day average of new daily coronavirus cases in Boone County reached 23 on Sunday -- a level not seen since February. The county reported 79 new cases between Saturday and Monday. The county's active cases jumped from 135 on Friday to 179 on Monday.

The trend of rising cases is being seen statewide, with experts saying the spread of the more contagious delta variant is helping fuel the increase. For the second straight week, Missouri has the highest number of new infections in the country, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Missouri records highest COVID-19 positivity since end of January

According to an update on the state health dashboard, Missouri's seven-day COVID-19 positivity rate increased to 8.1% Tuesday.

The last time the positivity rate reached this level was on Jan. 31, when Missouri's Department of Health and Senior Services reported a rate of 8.2%.

State health officials recorded an additional 653 confirmed cases of COVID-19, bringing the total of confirmed cases throughout the pandemic to 523,860.

New cases of the virus have increased 18.4% in the past seven days as compared to the prior week.

The dashboard also showed an increase of 269 probable cases of the virus. In total, 93,561 probable cases of the coronavirus have been discovered in Missouri through antigen testing.

Missouri's death toll increased to 9,302 Tuesday morning after 45 deaths were added to the dashboard. State health officials linked 39 previous deaths to the virus following a weekly review of death certificates, but six of the deaths were new reports.