Not a local COVID-19 update - yet

Well, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is having more "technical issues" with its reporting, today. The interactive data dashboard page is showing the following notice:

Please note: due to technical issues, the posting of today’s data report will be delayed. It will be posted as soon as it is available.

So that's that, then.

Local COVID-19 updates

Well, it took a couple of hours, but the state has finally gotten today's report out, after whatever the "technical issues" were.

( Wall-o-text )

Day-to-day numbers appear good at first blush, with deaths, cases and percent-positive all down from yesterday. However, the number of tests was also down - by a lot more than the number of cases - which makes me suspect the case decline is more due to it being Sunday and weekend reporting being wonky rather than any real improvement in the state's position. Upticks in the estimated total active case count and the hospitalization count also make me feel unhappy, and the fact that the seven-day averages for cases and hospitalizations are up is also unhappy-making. Worse still, the seven-day averages for cases and percent-positive are both well above where they were two weeks ago.

Oh, and pretty much the entire northeastern corner of the US - including Massachusetts - is now in the red "very high risk" category on https://www.covidactnow.org/. Only Vermont and Maine have daily new cases less than 25 per 100k population (and Vermont is awfully close, at 24.5). Massachusetts is sixth in the nation at 30.5. Not a good place to be.

The town of Acton's current Google Data Studio dashboard is showing 22 active and 832 cumulative cases as of March 24, and apparently has not been updated since. The most recent "newsflash style update" at 2PM on March 19, 2021 reported 813 cumulative cases with 9 individuals in isolation, 772 persons recovered and 32 fatalities.