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Beaufort County reported 41 new cases of COVID-19 in their daily update Wednesday, the county’s third-highest daily case count ever.

Wednesday’s report brought Beaufort County’s total confirmed cases to 1,944. The county knew of 278 active cases of COVID-19 at the time of the report, and all of them were self-isolating. Twenty-nine more county residents had recovered from COVID-19 as of Wednesday, bringing the total amount of recoveries to 1,610.

The county’s coronavirus metrics have been trending upward since mid-November. The daily case count spiked to 46 on Dec. 2, which still stands as the second-highest total to date.

The county’s seven-day average case count is now approximately 22, and the 21-day average case count is approximately 16.

“You can see that, in both cases, we’ve reached the highest numbers that we’ve seen since the beginning,” Beaufort County Health Director Jim Madson said in a presentation on Monday. “So we are in our highest wave that we’ve had.”

Thanksgiving festivities may have had something to do with that wave.

“It may be that’s what’s factored in here,” Madson said. “I can’t tell. If it is, then we’ll probably see that wave continue because everybody that contracted it during Thanksgiving would be giving it to a ton of people who’ll spread it later. Hopefully that’s not the case.”