The number of patients in California hospitalized with COVID-19 sunk even lower Thursday and the daily case count kept falling, but so too has the number of tests in recent days.

The 5,383 new cases Thursday brought the seven-day average to its lowest level since June 29 — about 5,650 per day, according to data compiled by this news organization — while there were fewer hospital patients Wednesday than any point since June 24: 4,293, a decline of 40% from its peak and 18% in the past two weeks.

The state has reported daily case counts below 6,000 for the past three days — something that hadn’t occurred since the final week of June — but on all of those days, the state has also reported some of its lowest testing totals in months.

From July 12 to Aug. 18, there were three days when the California Department of Public Health reported fewer than 100,000 tests. During that time, labs around the state reported an average of about 129,000 test results per day. But in the time since — nine days — there have been four days with fewer than 100,000 tests — including as few as 70,000 on Wednesday — and the daily average has dropped to about 96,000 per day.

A representative from CDPH said a number of high-volume labs reported “across the board lower testing volumes,” over the weekend, which was reflected in the data early this week.

“Additionally, we suspect that the increase in wildfires, combined with the poor air quality and hot temperatures, has reduced the number of individuals who are going to be tested — reducing the overall demand on testing,” the CDPH representative said in a statement. “We expect test numbers to pick back up as those situations are improved.”

Some testing sites closed early due to the lack of demand this past week, the representative said.

The percentage of those tests to come back positive has also fallen to levels not seen since June. On Thursday, the rolling seven-day positivity rate fell to 5.6%, the lowest it has been since June 25 (excluding a period of faulty data earlier this month). That rate had climbed as high as 8% in late July.

Meanwhile, California continued to add to its record-setting August death toll but was otherwise trending in a positive direction Friday.

There were another 142 fatalities reported around the state, according to data compiled by this news organization, keeping the seven-day average at about 125 per day and bringing the monthly total to 3,470 — already 330 more than the entire month of July, when the state set the previous record.

In the Bay Area, the cumulative death toll crossed 1,100 with six more fatalities reported in the region Thursday. Still, the deaths between its 10 counties were fewer than four individual counties and none of its counties ranked among the top 10.

The per-capita rates of cases, deaths and hospitalizations throughout the Bay Area was still among the lowest in California, even after recent declines in Southern California and the Central Valley — both of which previously had among the highest rates.

For the counties that have fallen within the state-mandated thresholds and are eligible to come off the monitoring list, Gov. Gavin Newsom was expected to address the next steps for reopening Friday.