See New Mass COVID data city by city – NBC Boston

There are now 30 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 double the 16 cities in last week’s report, which had significantly fewer communities in the higher-risk red zone after a major change in how Massachusetts determines the risk of coronavirus transmission. (See this week’s full list of red zones below.)

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.

It was released as the state’s confirmed coronavirus death toll exceeded 10,000 and the number of confirmed cases remained at levels not seen since the first outbreak ended in the spring.

View data on mass coronavirus risk city by city

The following 30 communities are at the highest risk level on Thursday: Brockton, Chelsea, Chicopee, Clinton, Dighton, Everett, Fall river, Fitchburg, Freetown, Holyoke, Lawrence, Leominster, Lowell, Lynn, Marion, Methuen, Milford, New Bedford, Norfolk, Plainville, Revere, Seekonk, Shirley, Somerset, Springfield, Swansea, Tisbury, Uxbridge, West Springfield and Westport.

Fourteen are newly in red on the list: Chicopee, Clinton, Dighton, Freetown, Holyoke, Leominster, Marion, Milford, Plainville, Shirley, Swansea, Tisbury, Uxbridge and West Springfield. No community came out of the red on the list.

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 people 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 transmitting coronavirus. The new list takes into account the size of the population and the rate of positive tests.

The report did not say that more communities were consistently in the red zone long enough to have to revert to Phase 3, Step 1 of the Massachusetts reopening plan.

According to the state list, last updated on November 6, the towns and villages still in phase 3, stage are: Abington, Acushnet, Attleboro, Avon, Berkley, Boston, Brockton, Canton, Chelmsford, Chelsea, Dracut, East Longmeadow, Everett, Fairhaven, Fall river, Framingham, Hanover, Hanson, Haverhill, Hingham, Holliston, Holyoke, Hudson, Kingston, Lawrence, Leicester, Lowell, Lynn, Lynnfield, Malden, Marlborough, Marshfield, Methuen, Middleton, Milford, Nantucket, New Bedford, North Andover, Pembroke, Plymouth, Randolph, Revere, Rockland, Saugus, Seekonk, Somerset, Springfield, Tyngsborough, Wakefield, Waltham, Webster, Westport, Weymouth, Winthrop, Woburn, Worcester and Wrentham.

State health officials have identified 6,913 coronavirus clusters as of November 7. This is 1,581 more clusters than those identified in the previous report, with data through October 31. There are currently 2.16 cases of COVID-19 associated with each cluster.

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 reorganizations in the previous 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.

Last week’s report also removed 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 the previous weeks, officials have added information on COVID-19 clusters, both on the locations where the main 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 norm 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 last week that the latest data change addresses those concerns.