WORCESTER, Mass. - UMass Memorial Medical Center's Hospital Epidemiologist said all measures are pointing to COVID-19 cases going up in our region, and the state's COVID-19 dashboard suggests a rise as well. 

There were 1,589 confirmed COVID-19 cases reported in the past seven days, and on August 12, there were 82 patients hospitalized with COVID-19 and 31 patients in the ICU. 

Hospital epidemiologist Dr. Richard Ellison said other signs include the rate of those admitted to hospitals and the amount of employees being out sick with COVID-19. 

He said, "Everything is up two- to three-fold from late June and early July," but fortunately, he added this is not a replay of 2020 or 2021. While there are a lot of people getting sick, many are not reaching the level of hospitalization. 

He reccomends some consider masks as students return to schools and college campuses. 

"All the kids are going back to school, everyone is going back to college, people from different parts of the world, different parts of the country are all getting back together again," Ellison said. "So we expect there's going to be an increase in the number of cases seen in September and October."

There were also a reported 16 COVID-19 deaths in the past week, bringing the state's total to 22,731.