City’s over ‘threshold for concern’
Boston is now back up above its “threshold for concern” for the coronavirus positive test rate as the latest uptick continues.
The positive test rate crossed the 5% threshold on March 26, and as of a week ago — the most recent complete data available in the report the city released this week — the rate remained at 5.1%, according to the Boston Public health Commission’s report.
Acting Mayor Kim Janey noted this in her press conference on Thursday, reiterating that the city is seeing “some increase among younger Bostonians.”
Yuppie-heavy South Boston now leads the way in positive test rate among Boston’s neighborhoods, with 7.9%. The upper and lower halves of Dorchester, plus Roxbury, East Boston, and the South End, round out the other neighborhoods with rates at or above the citywide average.
The downtown neighborhoods collectively lead in the number of tests, even though the positive test rate
there is 3.4%.
The city dipped below its “threshold for concern” for this key COVID-19 test positivity metric in February after a couple of months over it. Boston saw a long climb in October, November and December before a peak at the start of the year, followed by a drop-off through the next couple of months into March. Janey and other officials have been warning for several weeks now that numbers are again starting
to turn in the wrong direction.
Incomplete data for more recent days shows the rate appearing to remain about flat around the 5% mark.
The other stats the city focuses on in its semiweekly reports are a mixed bag. The average daily number of cases has increased over several weeks, but leveled off for the most recent several days for which there’s complete data.
Testing is up week over week. Janey called that a
“welcome sign” after weeks of it generally trending slightly downward amid the vaccine rollout.
The percent of hospital beds filled also has begun to creep back up, now hitting 89% after dipping to 87% last month. It reached a high above 100% in late January — above the threshold hold for concern of 95% — in late
January. The percent of free intensive care unit beds remains at 11%, where it’s been stagnant, worse than the threshold for concern of 20%, but not worsening further.
The city laid out “thresholds for concern” for several different metrics in October. Officials at the time said these should be taken in aggregate, and aren’t tied to specific policy changes — but that exceeding several of them meant that more restrictions were on the way. That happened, and they were — with the city pausing and rolling back its reopening for a few weeks in December before moving ahead once cases began to recede again.