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(In the video player above: Ohio Department of Health Director Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff discusses omicron in Ohio.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WJW)– The Ohio Department of Health released the latest COVID-19 numbers for the state Friday afternoon with a large surge in cases.

In the last 24 hours, 41,455 COVID cases, 472 hospitalizations, 36 intensive care unit admissions and 487 deaths were reported to the state health department. That’s up significantly from the 21-day average of 18,890 cases, 348 hospitalizations and 105 deaths.

Other states do not send death certificates to the Ohio Department of Health’s Bureau of Vital Statistics on a regular schedule, which results in fluctuations in morbidity data.

The Ohio Department of Health said the state is experiencing a backlog in processing positive test results because of the high volume of cases being reported amid the current surge.

“As a result of enhancement to expand the state system’s capacity to process a higher volume of automated lab results, a significant increase in cases will appear on the ‘current trends’ dashboard beginning today for the next several days until the backlog clears. Cases will be attributed to their proper illness onset date on the overview dashboard, which shows true spread of COVID-19 in Ohio,” the health department said.

The state is seeing about 30% positivity in lab-confirmed tests.

There have been more than 220,000 cases, 2,615 hospitalizations and 289 deaths reported in Ohio since Jan. 1.

More than 6.5 million Ohioans are fully vaccinated for COVID, which is about 56% of the state’s population. Of the people hospitalized with COVID in Ohio since Jan. 1, 2021, 53,699 were not fully vaccinated and 3,209 were.