Whitman County’s COVID-19 case count rose to 422 Saturday, nearly tripling the county’s numbers since last week, according to a Whitman County press release.

Of the 58 new positive cases reported in the county Saturday, 22 were in people 19 or younger and 36 were in people age 20 to 39, the release said.

Pullman ranks fifth in the United States for metro areas where new cases are rising the fastest, on a population-adjusted basis, according to a New York Times case tracker.

Pullman’s ranking was based on COVID-19 case counts from the New York Times’ database of reports from state and local health agencies and hospitals, which showed Pullman had only 14 new confirmed cases of the virus last week and 222 this week.

Pullman also ranked 10th in U.S. metro areas with the greatest number of new cases, relative to their population, in the last two weeks. Pullman had 4.4 new cases for every 1,000 residents while Eagle Pass, Texas, the city with the worst outbreak, recorded 11.3 cases per 1,000 residents.

In response, Pullman Police Department Chief Gary Jenkins announced police will be immediately issuing tickets for violating Gov. Jay Inslee’s pandemic restrictions. Police had been giving warnings prior to this week, he said.

“A warning is really just kind of a freebie,” Jenkins said in an interview with Pullman Radio. “We’re just at a point in this pandemic where we just can’t offer those freebies.”