The recent modest increases in COVID-19 cases in Oregon and the nation has not happened in Baker County.

Nationally, daily cases have risen over the past few weeks from about 29,000 per day to about 37,000.

More than 85% of those confirmed cases are the highly contagious BA.2 strain, according to The Associated Press.

In Oregon, the daily rolling average, based on totals from the previous seven days, rose from from 288 on April 2 to 421 on April 14.

Baker County, meanwhile, has continued a month-long trend of reporting no cases on most days.

Since the county set daily and monthly records for new cases in January, the height of the omicron variant surge, the number of reported infections has plummeted.

January’s total was 646, with 230 during February and just 14 in March, the fewest since June 2020. Baker County’s first COVID-19 case was reported on May 6, 2020.

There were no cases reported in the county for the final 14 days of this March.

During the first 16 days of April, the county has reported six cases — half of those on April 1.

There were no reported cases for the most recent week, April 10-16.

State and federal officials have pointed out that recent figures could be underestimating the prevalence of the virus, since many people are doing home tests, the results of which don’t have to be reported to public health agencies.

The number of recorded tests in Baker County over the past month:

• March 6-12 — 193

• March 13-19 — 156

• March 20-26 — 131

• March 27-April 2 — 108

• April 3-9 — 145

• April 10-14 (results from April 15 and 16 not yet available) — 54