Local COVID-19 updates

[edschweppe]

As of 4PM this afternoon, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is reporting one hundred forty six more deaths from COVID-19 (for a total of 1,706 to date), 1,705 new cases (for a total of 38,077) and 5,435 more persons tested (for a total of 162,241).

Things are worse than I'd thought. According to today's Boston Globe, Massachusetts is now one of the nation's hot spots for coronavirus infections:

This virus first struck in late February on the Pacific Coast, attacking a nursing home in Washington state where the death toll quickly soared from one to 14 — to 43.

It was terrifying, but far away — not here, not us. The one publicized case of COVID-19 in Massachusetts had seemed to fizzle. But today, after seven long weeks, fortunes have dramatically shifted.

Washington appears to be on the back side of the curve with new infections waning, and Massachusetts has emerged as a national hot spot.

There have been more than twice as many deaths here, and our infection rate is now triple that of Washington, which has a similar size population and has been nearly as aggressive in testing for the new coronavirus.

Based on today's numbers, and assuming a population of 6.9 million (about what the Census Bureau estimated for 2019), the state has 551.8 cases and 24.7 deaths per 100k residents - which would put us around number 3 in the country in case rate, and number 6 in death rate. Not good statistics.

At least we're doing well on testing:

The state has significantly ramped up the number of people tested, and as of Saturday morning ranked fourth per capita in the nation, trailing only New York, Rhode Island, and Louisiana. Increased testing, however, means more confirmed cases, with Massachusetts now having the third highest number of known infections per capita in the nation.

The town of Acton has yet to post an update today; yesterday's total remained steady at 45 confirmed cases. I had to do a grocery run this afternoon, and the local supermarket was (for once) well stocked with toilet paper. They also had the aisles posted for one-way traffic (although many of the customers were ignoring the directional arrows), and all the staff were wearing some sort of facial covering.