81 communities now in high-risk red zone – NBC Boston

There are now 81 communities considered most at risk of transmitting the novel coronavirus in Massachusetts, according to the latest weekly community-level pandemic data, which no longer includes an updated COVID-19 risk assessment map. city ​​by city day.

The total is almost 20 more than the 62 towns and villages mentioned in last week’s report, which in itself was nearly twice the number of communities in the red the week before.

In recent weeks, the number of towns and villages in Massachusetts in the coronavirus red zone has seen marked increases, from 16 to 30 to 62 to today 81. And yet there are even fewer communities in red now that there was not a month. since.

So, what happened? A radical, albeit abrupt, change in the way the State Department of Public Health measures the risk of transmission of the coronavirus, which has dropped the number of cities in red from 121 to 16.

There have been more changes as well: The map showing all of the Massachusetts community’s risk levels has been removed, which a department representative told NBC10 Boston was because the map was no longer considered too useful than it once was, now that coronavirus cases are ongoing. seen in most communities.

The weekly data, from the Department of Public Health, includes a breakdown of the total number of coronavirus cases in each city and town in Massachusetts, transmission rates, cluster data, and more.

Friday’s city-by-city coronavirus report was released the day after Thanksgiving, but only includes information through November 25. In the week leading up to the holiday, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had urged Americans not to travel, given the strong spread of the coronavirus across the country.

See the full report from the Department of Public Health on Friday here.

View data on mass coronavirus risk city by city

As of Friday, the following 81 communities have the highest level of risk: Attleboro, Barnstable, Bellingham, Berkley, Blackstone, Boxford, Brockton, Chelmsford, Chelsea, Chicopee, Clinton, Dartmouth, Dighton, Douglas, Dracut, East Longmeadow, Edgartown, Everett, Fairhaven, Fall River, Fitchburg, Framingham, Freetown, Gardner, Georgetown, Hampden, Haverhill, Holyoke, Hopedale, Lancaster, Lawrence, Leicester, Lenox, Leominster, Littleton, Lowell, Ludlow, Lunenburg, Lynn, Malden, Marion, Mendon, Merrimac, Methuen, Middleton, Milford, Millbury, Monson, New Bedford , Norfolk, Oak Bluffs, Paxton, Peabody, Rehoboth, Revere, Rutland, Salisbury, Saugus, Seekonk, Shirley, Somerset, Southbridge, Southwick, Springfield, Sterling, Sutton, Swansea, Taunton, Templeton, Tisbury, Tyngsborough, Upton, Uxbridge, Wenham, West Boylston, West Springfield, Westminster, Westport, Whitman, Winchendon, and Woburn.

Twenty-five of these communities are newly red on the list: Bellingham, Berkley, Boxford, Chelmsford, East Longmeadow, Gardner, Georgetown, Haverhill, Hopedale, Leicester, Lenox, Littleton, Mendon, Merrimac, Middleton, Millbury, Monson, Oak Bluffs, Paxton, Rutland, Upton, Wenham, West Boylston, Westminster and Whitman.

Six communities came out of red on the list: Abington, Acushnet, Nantucket, Northbridge, Rockland and Townsend.

The Department of Public Health no longer includes a community-level risk map in the weekly report. An official told NBC10 Boston that the card is no longer seen as as useful as it once was, now that cases of the coronavirus are being reported in most communities.

To qualify for the red category under the new measures, communities of less than 10,000 inhabitants must have more than 25 cases. For medium-sized communities of 10,000 to 50,000 people, they should have an average of more than 10 cases per 100,000 inhabitants and a positive test rate of more than 5%. And for larger communities of over 50,000 people, they must have more than 10 cases per 100,000 population and a positive test rate of over 4%.

Previously, the state used the number of cases detected on average each day over two weeks to determine whether communities in Massachusetts were at high risk of coronavirus transmission. The new list takes into account the size of the population and the rate of positive tests.

Read this week’s full report here, with data on the percentage of positive communities, county and state level data, and more.

Massachusetts changed communities it considered to be at high risk for coronavirus transmission, which dropped the number from 121 to 16 on Friday. Officials said the change allowed more schools to run in-person classes.

Massachusetts Hotspot Map Changes

Massachusetts has changed its coronavirus settings for the Weekly Report over time, including three significant reshuffles in the past three weeks.

The most recent changes produced a major change: to increase the number of communities in the red zone from 121 to 16 because what defined a high risk community has changed. Officials said the adjustment brought Massachusetts closer to risk levels in other states.

This week’s report also dropped the map that displayed city-by-city coronavirus data. It showed where in the state communities were at high, moderate or low risk of transmission, but officials said it was no longer very informative.

In previous weeks, officials have added information on COVID-19 clusters, both on the locations where major clusters have been identified – they are listed in the report with an asterisk – and on trends among the clusters. .

Color-coded city-by-city data was introduced in August, and the Baker administration announced that the state would focus its strongest COVID mitigation efforts on cities in the red category. Communities can only go to step 2 of phase 3 of the Massachusetts reopening plan, announced at the end of September, if they are not systematically in the red.

Prior to the introduction of this data, the positive COVID test rate over the previous 14 days was the standard for measuring hot spots. The Department of Public Health’s weekly report still includes this information, along with other metrics such as the number of tests performed locally and the number of cases reported locally.

Some of the small towns in Massachusetts have contested that their risk is assessed only on a per capita case basis. They had said that when a city had only a few thousand inhabitants, an epidemic in a single household could send it back to red by the criteria of the time: 8 cases of COVID-19 per 100,000 inhabitants.

Officials said two weeks ago that the latest data change addressed those concerns.