SARANAC LAKE — After a five-day lull last week when Essex County saw no new test-confirmed or suspected cases of COVID-19, the number of test-confirmed cases rose to 24 on Monday, putting the total number of known or probable COVID-19 cases at 38 countywide.

Essex County’s no-new-case streak was broken Friday when the number of test-confirmed cases rose to 18 from 15 on Thursday. All of the new cases on Friday were prison inmates.

The first-ever test-confirmed case of COVID-19 in the town of St. Armand was reported on Monday.

The town of North Elba continues to have the most cases of any municipality in the county, with three confirmed and three suspected as of Monday, though prison inmates now make up more than a third of this county’s total cases. North Elba is the county’s most populous town, with more than 8,000 year-round residents and two prisons in Ray Brook.

Franklin County Public Health reported 12 test-confirmed cases of COVID-19 countywide on Monday. That number hasn’t changed since the beginning of last week, but the number of suspected cases reported rose to 67 on Monday, up from 60 on Friday.

Unlike Essex County, Franklin County has not yet publicly itemized town-level data to clarify how many test-confirmed and suspected cases of COVID-19 are in each municipality. The county health department has released two maps in the last few weeks showing town-level data, but that data includes quarantines, counting people who don’t necessarily have the disease but have been ordered to stay at home due to risk of exposure.

The town of Malone, the most populous of the county’s 19 towns, continues to have the highest number of people in quarantine or with confirmed or suspected cases of COVID. As of last Thursday, the town had 46 reports, up from 38 on April 10.

The town of Harrietstown overtook Moira for the second-most reports last week, growing from five people on April 10 in quarantine, or with confirmed or suspected cases of COVID, to 18 as of this past Thursday.

The neighboring towns of Brighton and Franklin also saw a growth in reports, from one and four, respectively, on April 10 to four and nine last week.

Tupper Lake’s total declined by one between April 10 and 16, from five to four, indicating that a person was either cleared to leave quarantine or recovered from the disease. That leaves this town of about 6,000 people with less than half the number of cases and quarantines as Franklin, a town of about 1,100 people.

Franklin and Essex counties had reported no COVID-19 deaths as of Monday.