Following a country-wide trend, Pennsylvania is again recording a sharp increase in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations as a result of increased travel and relaxing restrictions as well as the spread of more contagious variants of the virus, write Madeleine Ngo, Danielle Ivory, Lauren Leatherby, and Robert Gebeloff for The New York Times.

Currently, Pennsylvania is reporting 4,922 cases a day on average, compared to roughly 2,515 a month ago.

This puts the state near the top of the list of the highest per capita daily case counts across the country. Hospitalizations have also gone up by around 16 percent in the last two weeks.

Sadly, deaths have started to slowly climb and now average 37 a day.

State and national officials are especially worried about the spread of the B.1.1.7 variant which is around 60 percent more contagious and 67 percent more deadly than the virus’s original version.

However, Pennsylvania still has no plans to impose new lockdowns, according to Alison Beam, the state’s acting health secretary.

“At this stage, our hospitals have not indicated to us that they are overrun or that they foresee being overrun,” she said.

Read more about the surge in cases in The New York Times.