Walsh raises ‘little red flag’ as cases increase
Boston is in the midst of a rise in coronavirus cases, fast approaching the state’s “red” warning designation, Mayor Martin Walsh said, insisting there’s no need to panic yet.
“There is an uptick in COVID activity that we’re experiencing here in the city,” Walsh told reporters on Wednesday. “It does not cross that threshold for real major concern yet, but we are monitoring the situation extremely closely.”
The mayor acknowledged that this is a change in messaging — the first time he’s “putting a little red flag up” regarding the direction of the virus in the city in a couple of months.
“We’re not looking at shutting everything down. That’s not where we are today. But we are saying to people we need to be a little more careful,” Walsh said.
Walsh said the city is creeping up on the state’s “red zone” — the color-coded warning system Massachusetts health officials apply to municipalities where cases are increasing more rapidly.
The state focuses specifically on daily new cases for that determination, and a city turns “red” if it’s seeing an average of eight or more new cases per day per 100,000 residents. Boston has been creeping toward that point for weeks, now at 7.9 new cases a day per 100,000 residents over the past 14 days, per state data — up from 7.7 last week.
Marty Martinez, Walsh’s health chief, told reporters that that metric is important, but Boston also focuses on others to keep a full picture of what’s going on.
“It forces us to really make sure that we’re continuing to look at our daily positivity rate,” Martinez said. “We’re continuing to look at our hospitalization, emergency room visits, and we’re continuing to look at our daily cases.”
Gov. Charlie Baker on Wednesday announced a loosening of several coronavirus restrictions for restaurants, including that eateries can now seat parties of up to 10 at a table. But Walsh said the capital city wouldn’t follow that change, keeping a cap on six to a table.
Walsh said the city reported 63 new cases on Wednesday, and no new deaths. In total, 16,766 people have tested positive for the virus in Boston, and 761 have died of it.
Walsh said the city’s positive test rate last week was 2.7%, holding steady from the previous week. While that remains far below what it was earlier on in the pandemic, it was below 2% in August, and has been trending upward.