Eastie COVID-19 Positive Test Rate Decreases; Infection Rate Goes Up Only 1.8 Percent

After experiencing a 44 percent increase in the COVID-19 positive test rate and a three percent increase in East Boston’s infection rate two weeks ago the numbers have slowed dramatically last week. 

According to the data released by the BPHC Friday, Eastie’s COVID infection rate rose only 1.8 percent and went from 515.6 cases per 10,000 residents to 525 cases per 10,000 residents. The last increase two weeks ago was three percent.  The citywide average is 262.6 cases per 10,000 residents and Eastie still has one of the highest infection rates in all of Boston. 

Eastie experienced an all time high with an 11.8 percent positive test rate back in August but efforts by the city and health officials brought that number down to 5.1 percent last month. 

However, two weeks ago the positive test rate number climbed to 6.1 percent and two weeks ago jumped 44 percent to 8.8. 

Last week during his daily press briefing Mayor Martin Walsh again invited Chief of Health and Human Services Marty Martinez to share the latest COVID-19 data in Boston. Chief Martinez said that since the beginning of the pandemic, the Administration has been committed to sharing data with residents in a timely and transparent manner, including at both boston.gov/coronavirus and bphc.org. 

He said that this increase in COVID activity is evident across many Boston neighborhoods and, like Eastie two weeks ago, Hyde Park saw a significant increase in its positive test rate. 

“Dorchester, which had gone up, remained level; and East Boston, which had the highest rate for some time, came down,” said Martinez. 

As of Friday 44 more residents became infected with the virus in Eastie and there were 2,464 confirmed COVID-19 cases, up from the 2,420 reported by the BPHC two weeks ago. 

Of the 18,166 Eastie residents tested for COVID last week 6.5 percent were found to be positive for the virus, a decrease of 26 percent from the numbers reported two weeks ago. The citywide positive test rate climbed from 3.9 percent to 4.1 percent.

Overall since the pandemic began 14 percent of residents here have been found to be positive. 

The statistics released by the BPHC as part of its weekly COVID19 report breaks down the number of cases and infection rates in each neighborhood. It also breaks down the number of cases by age, gender and race.

Citywide positive cases of coronavirus rose by 1.6 percent last week from 17,649 cases to 17,937 confirmed cases. So far 15,175 Boston residents have fully recovered from the virus and no Boston residents died last week. The total of fatalities in the city remains at 764. 

“We continue to respond to this activity with testing resources, with outreach in multiple languages, and with door-to-door and business-to-business outreach in communities seeing the biggest increases,” said Martinez. “The City is monitoring a range of metrics in order to understand whether this increased activity is a sustained trend or a brief bump in the road. This is the first time since early June that the citywide positive test rate has surpassed 4%, our threshold for reassessing where we stand with reopening. The Administration has been consulting with our experts at the Boston Public Health Commission and at the state about what kind of guidance this data calls for.”

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