State health officials reported on Tuesday that Oklahoma has surpassed 3,000 total deaths due to COVID-19 since the coronavirus pandemic began.

According to the Oklahoma State Department of Health, the state’s death toll stood at 3,037 as of Tuesday.

The seven-day rolling average of deaths in Oklahoma has increased during the past two weeks from 24.14 per day on Jan. 4 to 31.29, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

The rolling average of new cases declined from 3,454.86 per day to 3,081.29 and the positivity rate fell from 23.29% to 17.59% during the same time period.

Johns Hopkins data also show Oklahoma had the fourth highest number of new cases per capita in the nation with 1,269.19 per 100,000 residents during the past two weeks. (See the chart on page 6 of this edition for localized data).

For most people, the coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms that clear up within weeks. But for others, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, the virus can cause severe illness and be fatal.

On Friday, the World Health Organization urged more effort to detect new variants of the virus.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said a new version of the virus, first identified in the United Kingdom, may become dominant in the U.S. by March.

Although it doesn’t cause more severe illness, it will lead to more hospitalizations and deaths just because it spreads much more easily, the CDC said, warning of “a new phase of exponential growth.”

“We’re taking it really very seriously,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the U.S. government’s top infectious disease expert, said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

So far, vaccines seem to remain effective, but there are signs that some of the new mutations may undermine tests for the virus and reduce the effectiveness of antibody drugs as treatments.

Experts say it’s normal for viruses to acquire small changes or mutations in their genetic alphabet as they reproduce. Ones that help the virus flourish give it a competitive advantage and thus crowd out other versions.

In March, just a couple months after the coronavirus was discovered in China, a mutation called D614G emerged that made it more likely to spread. It soon became the dominant version in the world.