Last week, East Boston went over the five percent COVID positive test rate threshold that the CDC and city have used during the height of the pandemic last year to begin reconsidering the phased reopening of certain businesses, public spaces and events.
Aside from a citywide mask mandate, there has been no cutback on indoor occupancy, in-person learning or other measures to protect against the ragging Delta variant that has caused numerous breakthrough infections for vaccinated people as well as hospitalizing the unvaccinated. In schools across Eastie and Boston, hundreds of students under the age of 12 are unvaccinated and it seems the virus is again taking a foothold once again in Eastie–a neighborhood decimated by the virus last year.
Last week, 1,715 Eastie residents were tested for the virus last week and 5.4 percent were positive–this was a 15 percent increase from the 4.7 percent reported by the Boston Public Health Commission (BPHC) on September 13.
Citywide, the weekly positive test rate increased nearly 14 percent last week. According to the BPHC 24,016 residents were tested and 4.1 percent were COVID positive–this was a 13.9 percent increase from the 3.6 percent reported by the BPHC on Sept. 13.
Eastie’s COVID infection rate increased 1.2 percent and the rate went from 1,734.4 cases per 10,000 residents to 1,755.9 cases per 10,000 residents.
In all 164 additional residents contracted the virus between Sept. 13 and Sept. 20 and there are now 8,240 confirmed cases in the neighborhood since the start of the pandemic.
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 increased 2.2 percent since Sept. 13 and went from 77,549 cases to 79,268 confirmed cases in a week. There were six additional deaths in Boston from the virus in the past week and the total COVID deaths is now at 1,418