By KAREN VELIE

Spurred by the Omicron  variant, San Luis Obispo County’s COVID-19 surge continues with an all-time high of 590 average daily cases and five new deaths reported on Tuesday, according to health officials.

During the past four days, 2,134 SLO County residents officially tested positive for the virus. Paso Robles leads with 442 new cases, followed by San Luis Obispo with 441, Atascadero with 224, Nipomo with 203, Arroyo Grande with 182, Grover Beach with 110 and Morro Bay with 99.

“These numbers represent an undercount of local cases, as they do not include at-home rapid antigen tests,” according to county health officials. “Data teams are working seven days a week to keep up with the speed of new cases but estimate more than 2,000 additional cases have yet to be counted.”

The number of SLO County residents in hospitals receiving treatment for the virus is also increasing with 54 currently hospitalized, ten in intensive care.

In SLO County, 44,271 people have tested positive for the virus and 389 have died.

There have been 7,732,312 positive cases, and 79,173 deaths in California.

More than 73,449,185 U.S. residents have tested positive for the virus, and 894,880 have died.

In addition, the number of people infected with the virus worldwide continues to increase: 359,175,387 cases with 5,634,080 dead.