COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations have spiked across Central New York - county health departments are indicating, so far, major events like the NYS Fair are not to blame.

On August 25th, there were 104 people hospitalized across CNY. It's the first time the number of hospitalizations crossed 100 since mid-February, staying above that marker through the weekend until dropping down to 97 hospitalized on Monday. The region's seven day positivity rate stands at 3.3%, the highest it's been since April 10th, per NYSDOH data.

The spike in mid-August comes off the back of months of steadily increasing cases and hospitalizations throughout the summer after cases initially plummeted in June, coinciding with the state of the NYS Fair.

In a statement provided to CNY Central, the state health department said that so far 923 people have been tested at the NYS Fairgrounds - 24 of them have tested positive, about 2.6% of the total, though there's no evidence that they actually contracted the virus at the Fair itself.

The question of where cases are coming from is not an easy one to answer, even for county health officials.

Spokespeople for the Cayuga, Oneida, Onondaga and Oswego Counties all indicated that they have not recorded major clusters, but instead are seeing high rates of general community spread.

"The current case numbers are not being driven by any specific clusters," the Onondaga County Health Department said in a statement to CNY Central, "Along with much of New York State, Onondaga County is experiencing high rates of community transmission. Over the past two weeks, around 27% of cases are household contacts, and 13% have reported travel outside the county. The majority of cases have identified multiple potential community exposures."

Onondaga County reported 70 hospitalizations on Monday with hundreds of new cases coming from the past weekend alone. There are now 734 active cases in Onondaga County.

It's a similar story in Madison County, now seeing over 100 active cases for the first time since February.

"It's interesting, because its not in any particular township, its scattered all over, its an increase in the number of people that are positive," said Madison County Health Director Eric Faisst.

Faisst said even with local colleges back in session, no single event has contributed to a large spike in cases. Instead, they are monitoring a number of different cases of community spread that do not lead to a clear answer as to where the person originally contracted the virus.

"Its not surprising with those freedoms that came back, if you will, and the infectiousness of this new variant that it took off," said Faisst.

The data punctuates the high transmission rate of the Delta variant, but also shows something encouraging. Vaccines are working.

According to the Madison County Health Department, 143,150 people have been fully vaccinated since the start of 2021. Just 2.4% have tested positive - around 104 people. Of them, only two were hospitalized, both eventually discharged from the hospital.

While that data is encouraging - Faisst said while there hasn't been evidence of significant spread at the Fairgrounds just yet, it doesn't mean it isn't happening. He said it may take a week or two for new cases to manifest themselves.