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In response to the increase in numbers, Yarmouth Health Director Bruce Murphy warned the region could witness a ‘third wave’ of the outbreak and called on state officials to redistribute some doses from mass vaccination sites to community clinics in Cape Town and to set up an emergency vaccination site in the region.
“We have to move forward now,” Murphy told The Globe.
According to state data released Thursday, the town of Barnstable has by far the highest average daily incidence rate in the state, at 64.6 per 100,000 residents. Barnstable, Cape Town’s largest city, also had the state’s highest positivity rate at 10.2% for cases from March 7 to March 20.
In addition, the nearby town of Yarmouth had a high average daily incidence rate per 100,000 inhabitants with 39.2 and a top positivity rate with 7.98 percent.
“We need emergency vaccination sites here for that part of the population where we could see an increase,” Murphy said of the increase in cases.
“I know they are planning to set up emergency vaccination sites around Boston, but it looks like you would need them here if this is where I think the epicenter is for the third wave. I know they mention the hike is coming, I say this is the epicenter of the third wave on Cape Town between the high risk cities and the P.1 variants that are really increasing here, ”he said. -he adds.
While key indicators for Yarmouth, Barnstable and other Cape Town communities tend to increase, indicators of the spread of COVID-19 in Massachusetts have remained lower. According to Thursday’s report, the state’s average daily infection rate per 100,000 population was 21.5 and Massachusetts’ positivity rate was 2.01%, according to the state’s most recent data.
Barnstable’s figures represent an increase from data released the previous week, in which the city had an average daily incidence rate per 100,000 population of 45.1 and a positivity rate of 7.49 percent.
The number of Cape Town cities that have slipped into a “high risk” designation has also increased in recent weeks. In the state report released on March 11, no community in Cape Town was considered to be at high risk for COVID-19. But on Thursday, according to state data, seven of Cape Town’s 15 communities were designated as high risk.
Sandwich, Mashpee, Barnstable, Yarmouth, Dennis, Harwich and Brewster have all met state minimum thresholds to be considered at high risk for the virus. In the previous report, only Barnstable and Yarmouth were identified as high-risk communities.
The increase in positive cases and positivity rates in Cape Town communities does not appear to be solely the result of an increase in testing, according to a Globe review.
Eleven of Cape Cod’s towns have seen an increase in the positivity rate since March 4, but only five have seen an increase in testing during the same period.
The increase in Cape Town cases comes even as the region, which has an aging population, leads the state in COVID-19 vaccinations as the state prioritizes its most vulnerable residents in its deployment plan vaccination.
According to state data released Thursday, 39% of residents in Barnstable County, which encompasses all Cape Cod towns, have received at least one dose of COVID-19 as of March 23, the highest rate in the country. State. Overall, 29% of Massachusetts residents have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.
Yarmouth Health Director Murphy said he believed the increase in cases in the town and on the Cape was a combination of factors, including the arrival of Variant P.1 in County of Barnstable.
In late February, the COVID-19 variant that originated in Brazil was identified in a Barnstable County woman in her 30s, state officials said.
“It’s worrying when I look at the stats for Yarmouth and look at what else is happening in Cape Town over the past two weeks,” said Murphy.
The State informed Yarmouth that P.1 and UK strains are increasingly common in Cape Town.
“Between Sandwich, Barnstable, Yarmouth and Dennis we are seeing more P.1 cases,” he said. “And [the U.K. variant] increases so much that DPH does not notify cities because it is becoming so common here. “
The state did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The Brazilian variant is less studied than other “variants of concern” found in the United States, said William Hanage, associate professor of epidemiology at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health last week. But specialists believe it may be more transmissible than COVID-19, capable of re-infecting people who have recovered from the virus, or “a combination” of the two, he said.
Martin Finucane and Travis Andersen of Globe staff, and Globe correspondent Lucas Phillips contributed to this report.
Amanda Kaufman can be contacted at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @ amandakauf1. John Hancock can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on twitter @Hancock_JohnD.
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