Local COVID-19 updates

( Wall-o-text, covering 3 days of death data )

A classic mixed bag of data today. Deaths are up compared to the previous report and cases are down; unsurprising, since yesterday's case counts and today's death counts both cover three days of data. In much less pleasant news, today's one-day case total is actually higher than the average over three days of yesterday's report. Also unpleasantly, the seven-day percent-positive average ticked up slightly compared to yesterday, although at 3.09% it's still a great improvement over earlier this year. Hospitalizations are down again, which is good; in fact, today's report of 882 COVID-19 patients is the first time all year that number's been reported below a thousand, and is the lowest value reported since the 839 patients reported on November 29, 2021. While percent-positive is up slightly, the other three seven-day averages all dropped compared to yesterday's report.

The big news today locally is that the Commonwealth has dropped its recommendation that everyone mask up indoors:
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The updated state mask advisory/requirements page now states:

Effective February 15, 2022: A fully vaccinated individual should wear a mask indoors if you have a weakened immune system, or if you are at increased risk for severe disease because of your age or an underlying medical condition, or if someone in your household has a weakened immune system, is at increased risk for severe disease or is unvaccinated.

A link is provided to the updated guidance document (68k PDF), which states in relevant part:

Recognizing that Massachusetts is a national leader in vaccine acceptance, and in light of recent positive progress on COVID-19 indicators, the Department of Public Health now advises that a fully vaccinated person should wear a mask or face covering when indoors (and not in your own home) if you have a weakened immune system, or if you are at increased risk for severe disease because of your age or an underlying medical condition, or if someone in your household has a weakened immune system, is at increased risk for severe disease or is unvaccinated.

So, apparently, cases dropping from skyhigh Omicron levels is good enough to say "fuck it, let it rip!", even though we're at basically the same average levels for deaths, cases, percent-positive and hospitalizations as we were in the middle of February 2021 - when, as one might recall, only the most elderly people were vaccinated and the state's mass-vaccination program was completely shitting the bed. (Okay, to be fair, Phase 2 Group 1 (age 75+) opened up on February 1 without too many problems. Phase 2 Group 2 (age 65+ and/or two+ certain medical conditions and/or low-income or affordable senior housing residents) opened up on February 18 - and the signup website crashed hard.)

The town of Acton's current Google Data Studio dashboard is showing 30 active and 2,738 cumulative cases as of February 9, and apparently has not been updated since. The most recent "newsflash style update" at 7PM on December 21, 2021, the town reported 1538 cumulative cases with 89 individuals in isolation, 1417 recovered and 32 fatalities.