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The weekly COVID-19 alert map was released on Wednesday and the numbers show that things have slightly trended in the wrong direction from a week ago, as seven Oklahoma counties are in the orange, or moderate risk level for a chance of contracting COVID-19.

Fifty counties sit in the yellow, or low risk category and only 20 counties are in the green, or new normal level. Washington, Osage and Nowata counties are all in the low risk category.

Health officials from across the state are seeing a rise in the number of cases, specifically in the northeastern part of the state.

They say this number is still low compared to what we had seen at earlier times during the pandemic, but believe the rise is tied to the Delta variant, as Chief COVID Officer for Oklahoma University Health Dale Bratzler explains.   

Oklahoma now ranks 11^th in terms of average of new cases per day. The state had been ranked 50^th. The number of cases Oklahoma is averaging now is still much lower than what it had been earlier in the year.