77 cities, towns land on high-risk list
Facility, college clusters noted in data
A record 77 cities and towns are now on the state’s high-risk list for coronavirus transmission — up 14 from the week before — as the statewide average daily case rate remains in the red zone.
Four towns in the highrisk “red zone” — Chelmsford, Middleton, Milton and North Andover — were given asterisks to denote a cluster in a long-term care facility, college campus or correctional facility that resulted in at least 30% of its total cases in the past 14
days, a new designation the Department of Public Health announced on Wednesday.
In Middleton, the asterisk is due to the coronavirus
outbreak at the Middleton Jail. In North Andover, it denotes a cluster at Merrimack College.
Other communities given asterisks this week were
Amherst, Bridgewater, Cambridge and Newton, whose average daily case rates per 100,000 residents over the two-week period ending Saturday classified them as
“yellow” for moderate risk of transmission.
Receiving an asterisk does not grant a red-zone community the ability to move forward with step two of the third phase of reopening, economic relief that local leaders had been pushing the governor for.
“We continue to believe that we need to be consistent with the rules,” Gov. Charlie Baker said in a press conference Thursday. “Communities can then use the data associated with that to make the decisions that make the most sense for them.”
The 77 cities and towns in the red zone this week are: Abington, Acushnet, Ashland, Attleboro, Avon, Berkley, Boston, Boxford, Brockton, Buckland, Canton, Chelmsford, Chelsea, Chicopee, Clinton, East Longmeadow, Everett, Fairhaven, Fall River, Framingham, Gloucester, Hanover, Hanson, Haverhill, Hingham, Holliston, Holyoke, Hudson, Kingston, Lawrence, Leicester, Lowell, Lynn, Lynnfield, Malden, Marlboro, Marshfield, Mattapoisett, Methuen, Middleboro, Middleton, Milford, Millville, Milton, Monson, New Bedford, North Andover, Norwood, Oxford, Pembroke, Plymouth, Randolph, Raynham, Revere, Rochester, Rockland, Saugus, Scituate, Seekonk, Shrewsbury, Somerset, Somerville, Springfield, Swampscott, Tyngsboro, Wakefield, Waltham, Webster, West Bridgewater, West Newbury, Westfield, Westport, Weymouth, Winthrop, Woburn, Worcester and Wrentham.
“In so many different ways we’ve confirmed that the numbers are going up,” Worcester Medical Director Dr. Michael Hirsh said. “We just have to tighten everything up.”
There were 63 communities in the red zone last week. The number of highrisk communities has risen each week since late September.
The statewide average daily case rate per 100,000 residents was 9.2, a slight uptick from 8.7 the week prior, keeping Massachusetts in the red per its own metric.