‘The wrong direction’
Hospitalizations approach ‘thresholds for concern’
‘The hospital thresholds — those are the ones that we’re most closely watching.’ MARTY MARTINEZ Boston health chief
Boston’s coronavirus metrics continue to worsen, with all-important hospitalization numbers approaching “thresholds for concern” in a new report.
“They’re all going in the wrong direction,” Boston Health Chief Marty Martinez told the Herald on Saturday, right after the city released its latest semi-weekly report on coronavirus metrics.
He said officials are “talking this weekend” about whether further restrictions will be necessary. City officials have been saying as much for over a week.
He said that the particular concern in this report is that the hospitalization metrics — mainly, the rates of beds available — appear as though they’re about to cross what the city has laid out as “thresholds for concern.”
“The hospital thresholds — those are the ones that we’re most closely watching,” Martinez said.
This new report says that 21% of ICU beds are free — just above the worrisome rate of 20%. That’s after drops of a point or two nearly every day in the week leading up to Thursday, the most recent date for which hospitalization data is available.
Another metric tracks the total number of free hospital beds, with a threshold of 5% open. As of Thursday, only 10% of beds are available, down from double that at the start of the month.
The data also shows that since Nov. 28, only two days have had lower emergency department visits than the corresponding day of the previous week.
City officials last month said that if multiple metrics cross their
thresholds, restrictions would likely follow.
Several metrics already have. The citywide seven-day average positive test rate stands at 7.1% as of Dec. 6, the most recent day for information considered complete. The preliminary data for the following few days looks like the rate will remain above 7%, well above the 5% “threshold for concern” that the city laid out a month ago,
and rising still from the 6.9% mark from Wednesday’s report.
The positive test rate is now above 8% in seven neighborhoods, up from four parts of town on Wednesday, which is the threshold the city set for that measurement.
And the seven-day average number of positive tests has remained high, well over the mark the city laid out for it, too. The numbers over the last few days for
which data is available have plateaued around 435, up from the 200-to-250 pre-Thanksgiving range, and above the threshold of 339.
Martinez said it’s still mainly small, informal gatherings that are driving the spread.
“People have a small bubble, and then might not realize that those folks might also have their own small bubble,” Martinez said.