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Boston's Covid-19 rate continues to rise; city colored red on state map for third week in a row
By adamg on Wed, 10/14/2020 - 10:09pm
New daily cases per 100,000 people in Boston. Source.
State figures out tonight show that Boston is now seeing 11.1 new daily Covid-19 cases per 100,000 residents, the third week in a row the city has been in the state's "red" zone - and an increase from last week's rate of 10.0.
The number is important not just because it shows a continuing growth in the number of daily Covid-19 cases in Boston, but because three weeks in "red" is the figure recommended by state education officials to move all public-school classes to online-only instruction.
Mayor Walsh and School Superintendent Brenda Cassellius last week delayed an expansion of the BPS "hybrid" system - in which more students could return to school for part of the week - from tomorrow until Oct. 22 because of rising Covid-19 numbers. Currently only special-needs, ESL and homeless students or students under the care of DCF, who were already spending some time in schools
The 11.1 rate represents roughly 77 new Covid-19 cases a day in Boston. For the two weeks ending Aug. 12, Boston was seeing about 49 new cases of Covid-19 per day. And for the two weeks ending July 20, Boston was seeing about 20 new cases a day.
Even the most current figures are still far lower than during the "surge" days in April and May, but some experts have cautioned that only means we need to continue to be careful and do things such as wear masks, wash hands frequently and avoid large gatherings, to keep another surge from exploding.
Boston Public Health Commission figures for Covid-19 tests show that for the week ending Oct. 10, 4.4% of tests came back positive, up from 4.1% the week before.
The city figures do show some good news: The rate at which East Boston residents are testing positive for the virus has been dropping steadily, from close to 14% of tests being positive several weeks ago to 6.5% for the week ending Saturday. But 02125 in Dorchester and 02121, which covers parts of Dorchester and Roxbury, now show a positivity rate of 9.7%. And Hyde Park was at 9.1%.
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Comments
Easy fix
Set the red zone to 15. Why is it 10? George Carlin’s Ten Commandments bit comes to mind.
“Eleven commandments? Get the (expletive) out of here!”
I need one stat
How are things going in zip code 02127, which I read here is the worst place for noncompliance?
3.5%
So not Dorchester, but not Fenway or West Roxbury, either (you can find all the Boston Zip codes at the link towards the bottom of the story).
There is more than one stat that is relevant
Non compliance with mask guidelines and large gathering guidelines in 02127 is only one of many ways the virus is transmitted.
Other factors come into play, such as exposure of workers who service and interact with the public, reliance on public transportation, ability to work from home, and living situation in terms of number of people in an apartment.
I am one of those critics of lack of public mask wearing and large gatherings in 02127. I live in an area with a much higher rate of infection, where public mask wearing is almost universal, but with a high percentage of workers who interact with the public and rely on public transportation and live in crowded conditions.
Mask wearing doesn't prevent transmission. It only reduces transmission. Even N95 masks are not 100% effective. But wearing a mask is an extremely easy way to reduce transmission, and those who do not wear masks in public should be criticized, even if their community has a lower rate of infection
The globe
Reported the other day that Baker said we have a best in class tracing system, and then they go on to blame 20-30 year olds patrying, but if that’s the case why are some town clusters like Chelsea, Everett, and Revere persistently bad? It feels like we’re missing something?
Yeah
The human decency to not oppose housing in other burbs so that we don’t end up with the population density of those cities.
Shhhh
We aren’t going to talk about that. Better to scapegoat who we are scapegoating.
Because the vast majority of
Because the vast majority of people who live there are essential workers and/or live in multigenerational housing?
Please better distancing regs
Please better distancing regs on trains! People have no choice but to sit and stand closer to each other from midmorning and through the rest of day into the evening. So many not wearing masks properly and not safely distancing. MBTA is one big red zone in itself.
Anyone know the Testing rate
So if these numbers are the infection rate does anyone know the Testing rate to really know how many people have it in the population?
Also how do they track the infection rates per neighborhood?
Last but not least has the mayor said anything about halloween and trick or treating recommendations - it's on a Saturday this year?
Is there a chart?
Is there a chart, or a series of tables listing towns, as they've offered in the past (up to 1st week of October)? For some reason, I can't view that map.
See here
Scroll towards the bottom: https://bphc.org/onlinenewsroom/Blog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?List=24ee0d58...
This is what I was looking for
https://www.mass.gov/doc/weekly-covid-19-public-health-report-october-14-2020/download
https://www.mass.gov/info
https://www.mass.gov/info-details/community-level-covid-19-data-reporting
Wow, ton of new red on there since the last time I looked
Hey, at least we're not Sunderland?
I'm going to have to go ahead and blame the UMass students for Sunderland's red zone status.
Accurate
It's the only likely source.
Yep
Yep, that and the University of Nantucket.