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Local COVID-19 updates
Feb. 22nd, 2022 06:12 pmThe Commonwealth took yesterday off (unsurprising, since it was Presidents Day; surprising, since they made no mention of it on their dashboard), so today's numbers are the first in four days.
( Wall-o-text, covering 4 days of case data and 4 days of death data )
Newly reported deaths are down compared to Friday, both on a raw-number comparison and the (presumably more accurate) comparision between today's numbers averaged over four days and Friday's single-day count. Newly reported cases were up on a raw-number basis, but well down averaged over four days. (We haven't had many four-day reports over the course of this pandemic, but today's 4,118 case count is the second-lowest; only the 269 on July 6, 2021 is lower.) Hospitalizations are down substantially as well, as are all four of the seven-day averages.
These numbers do show great improvement over earlier this year. However, for the past several weeks, we keep seeing great improvements over the weekend being undone to some extent during the middle of the week. And, as glad as I am to see the new-case count nearing one thousand per day, the state is still showing an overall level of high community transmission on the CDC Covid Data Tracker site. I found out over the weekend that Littleton (next town over to me) had scrapped its indoor mask mandate last week with a terse announcement:
The town of Acton's current Google Data Studio dashboard is showing 16 active and 2,764 cumulative cases as of February 21. 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.
( Wall-o-text, covering 4 days of case data and 4 days of death data )
Newly reported deaths are down compared to Friday, both on a raw-number comparison and the (presumably more accurate) comparision between today's numbers averaged over four days and Friday's single-day count. Newly reported cases were up on a raw-number basis, but well down averaged over four days. (We haven't had many four-day reports over the course of this pandemic, but today's 4,118 case count is the second-lowest; only the 269 on July 6, 2021 is lower.) Hospitalizations are down substantially as well, as are all four of the seven-day averages.
These numbers do show great improvement over earlier this year. However, for the past several weeks, we keep seeing great improvements over the weekend being undone to some extent during the middle of the week. And, as glad as I am to see the new-case count nearing one thousand per day, the state is still showing an overall level of high community transmission on the CDC Covid Data Tracker site. I found out over the weekend that Littleton (next town over to me) had scrapped its indoor mask mandate last week with a terse announcement:
Effective Friday, February 12th at 12:00 AM, the Littleton Board of Health voted to lift the Indoor Mask Mandate.My own town of Acton still has an active mandate for now. If the county-wide community transmission levels ever get below 50 new cases per day per 100k population (the CDC's threshhold for "moderate" community spread, where indoor masking is only recommended for unvaccinated individuals), I may actually start feeling comfortable unmasked. However, we're still over twice that level even with favorable weekend reporting wonkiness.
Thank you for your assistance in implementing the mandate.
The town of Acton's current Google Data Studio dashboard is showing 16 active and 2,764 cumulative cases as of February 21. 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.