State to update virus metrics
Officials: Prison and college cases unfairly skew community data
Changes appear to be in the works for how the state reports its coronavirus data — and local leaders who say their towns have been unfairly put in the high-risk red zone over “isolated” outbreaks in jails or on college campuses are hopeful the updated metrics will work to their benefit.
State Education Commissioner Jeffrey Riley said during a Board of Elementary and Secondary Education meeting Tuesday that he expects the Department of Public Health is “going to update its metrics to be even more nuanced.”
Riley said he was referring specifically to the “stoplight” system that color codes cities and towns each week based on their
‘We’ve seen how those places can skew a city or town’s data.’
level of risk for coronavirus transmission — which has in recent weeks seen Middleton and North Andover rise into the highrisk red zone due to outbreaks in the Middleton jail and Merrimack College, respectively.
“We’ve seen how those places can skew a city or town’s data,” Riley said. “We’re hoping when the new metric comes out it will take that into account.” Landing in the red zone automatically stops a municipality from moving ahead with step two of the third phase of reopening. It can also have ramifications for in-person learning, though those decisions are left up to individual school districts and are not mandated by the state.
Gov. Charlie Baker said in a press conference Tuesday in Revere that “you can anticipate sometime in the next couple of weeks we are going to try to update the way we collect and present a lot of this information.” But he did not appear to refer to the color-coded risk assessment system specifically.
Tory Mazzola, a spokesman for the state’s coronavirus command center, said in an email later Tuesday, “Over the past several months, we have further
– Education Commissioner Jeff Riley
enhanced our data, public reporting and analysis, which enables us to take a more targeted approach with our guidance, and the Command Center is continuing to refine this public data.”
A letter sent from the state’s Executive Office of Health and Human Services to red-zone Middleton on Tuesday said, “Going forward, we will be noting if a municipality has experienced a significant number of cases associated with a cluster in a skilled nursing facility, correction institution, or associated with higher ed.” The letter also encourages municipal leaders to “review three reporting periods,” which account for four weeks of data, in local decision-making.
“I am encouraged by their recognition that there are communities where the case counts are beyond local control,” Middleton Town Administrator Andrew Sheehan, who’s among the local officials calling for the jail to be cut out of the town’s metrics, said in an email.