Local COVID-19 updates

[edschweppe]

As of 4PM this afternoon, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is reporting 104 more deaths from COVID-19 (for a total of 3,003 to date), 1,524 new cases (for a total of 56,462) and 8,787 more tests performed (for a total of 244,887).

I'd thought those testing numbers were good, and they may well be compared to other states; however, an analysis by the folks at STAT and the Harvard Global Health Institute indicates that Massachusetts (and most of the other states in the nation) need a whole lot more in the way of testing before they can safely consider opening things up again:

More than half of U.S. states will have to significantly step up their Covid-19 testing to even consider starting to relax stay-at-home orders after May 1, according to a new analysis by Harvard researchers and STAT.

The analysis shows that as the U.S. tries to move beyond its months-long coronavirus testing debacle — faulty tests, shortages of tests, and guidelines that excluded many people who should have been tested to mitigate the outbreak — it is at risk of fumbling the next challenge: testing enough people to determine which cities and states can safely reopen and stay open. Doing so will require the ability to catch reappearances of the coronavirus before it again spreads uncontrollably.

[ ... ]

The results show that states with few Covid-19 cases and deaths so far will need to perform relatively few tests: between 68 and 145 per day in Alaska and between 31 and 156 in Montana, for instance. States harder hit by the pandemic face a much heavier lift: New York would have to do 130,000 to 155,000 tests every day, New Jersey 75,000 to 90,000, and both Massachusetts and Illinois about 30,000 to 35,000.

Many hard-hit states are not even close to their goals. New York, for instance, has been averaging barely more than 20,000 tests per day since mid-April. New Jersey has been doing about 7,000, on average. Neither has announced reopening plans or dates, giving them time to ramp up testing. Massachusetts and Illinois are in no better shape, conducting just under 7,000 a day. Michigan, Connecticut, and Colorado are all about 15,000 tests a day below their May 1 targets. Texas, with more than 9,000 tests a day, and Washington state, with more than 3,000, are already doing enough.

Thirty to thirty-five thousand tests per day needed? Yikes. No wonder Governor Baker is in no hurry to reopen bricks-and-mortar business locations.

The town of Acton has not posted an update so far today; yesterday's update reported a total of 66 confirmed cases (up from 65 the day before).