Higher Hub COVID count continues
Boston saw a second day in a row with much higher than normal positive coronavirus case counts as Wednesday’s tally surpassed Tuesday’s — which already had caused concern.
The city logged 418 new COVID-19 cases after registering 407 the previous day, according to the Boston Public Health Commission. The BPHC reported six new deaths and 331 more people recovered on Wednesday, bringing the total counts to 28,053 confirmed cases, 22,755 recovered and 925 dead in the city.
Mayor Martin Walsh on Tuesday noted that day’s big case count — nearly double the previous day’s — adding “we’ll see what our numbers look like” over the next several days as officials hope Thanksgiving gatherings haven’t led to major new spread after a couple of encouraging weeks in Boston. He said he believed that 407 mark was the largest single-day jump since June.
His office didn’t respond to requests for comment on Wednesday’s case count.
Dr. Todd Ellerin, an infectious disease expert at South Shore Hospital, noted that the average incubation period for the virus is five days — and massive testing demand over the past few weeks has caused reporting delays, so many of these positive tests likely were from people who got sick before Thanksgiving.
“I still think we’re going to see the brunt of Thanksgiving over the next one to two weeks,” Ellerin said.
Boston released its semiweekly data report on Wednesday, showing a mixed bag of metrics. The seven-day average positive test rate is climbing back up after a dip over the couple of weeks before Thanksgiving. After dropping back down below the 5% “threshold for concern” all the way down to 3.4% on Nov. 23, the rate climbed back up to 3.9% as of Nov. 26, and incomplete preliminary data from the past few days shows it appearing to continue to creep up.
The report shows testing edging down and daily hospitalizations increasing, though the percentages of occupied total beds and intensive care unit beds in Boston hospitals have both nudged downward, which are important positive signs.
As of the latest data available in this report — varying from Nov. 26 to 30 — the city was not below its thresholds for concern for each of these metrics. If multiple of those marks are crossed at the same time, officials have said, more restrictions would likely follow.
During Wednesday’s city council meeting, Councilor Ricardo Arroyo introduced a hearing order to get more information about testing in Boston’s various neighborhoods. He noted that communities of color have higher case and death rates, and said that should be a focus of the hearing.
“The goal of this hearing is to really get into the testing,” said Arroyo, the council’s public health chair. “What plans do we have in place as we head into the winter?”