As Sonoma County moves closer to reopening more of its economy, public health officials are moving quickly to bolster the corps of workers who track the virus’s spread through the community while the number of new cases continues to rise.

Interactions with people known to have COVID-19, county officials said, are thought to be responsible for most of the county’s recent cases, a tally which grew by 96 between May 14 and Wednesday, the highest seven-day increase in cases since COVID-19 was first detected in the county on March 4.

Sundari Mase, said the county needs more data to understand just how many of these new active cases can be traced back to known COVID-19 patients — and how many contracted it from being out and about in the community.

“We are seeing more and more cases of someone in the community with no contacts having COVID,” Mase said Wednesday, “and that probably is secondary to the increased testing, and may also be from somebody being out and about.

“I’ve always said we will see more cases as we start opening the county in different sectors, and that’s what we’re seeing,” Mase said.

As of Wednesday, the county has recorded a total of 433 cases of COVID-19.

Of the total number of cases, 225 are active and 204 have recovered, the first time the county has had more active cases than recoveries since May 5.

Track cases in Sonoma County, across California, the United States and around the world here.

The county currently provides data about sources of local coronavirus cases, but only as a snapshot in time — about 62% of current cases have been traced back to close contact, with another 19% coming from community spread and the rest either from travel or pending investigation.

As the county gathers more data, it will be able to provide more information about how knowledge of COVID-19 case sources has changed over time, Mase said.

She said this testing will focus on the segments of the community that are at higher risk for the coronavirus — including the Latino population, which Mase acknowledged has been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic