East Boston and the city’s weekly COVID positive test rate continues to rise dramatically post Thanksgiving and ahead of the Christmas Holiday.
A week after Mayor Michelle Wu announced several measures to help combat the explosive rise in cases in Boston, Eastie’s weekly positive test rate approached 8 percent last week and the citywide weekly positive test rate neared 7 percent. Last Monday, Wu said Boston health officials will distribute 20,000 free rapid antigen home tests,offer free masks to neighborhoods with the highest rates of COVID-19 and appointed a 17-member COVID advisory board to help with the latest outbreak.
Last week, 2,398 Eastie residents were tested for the virus last week and 7.8 percent were positive–this was a 16.4 percent increase from the 6.7 percent that tested positive as reported by the Boston Public Health Commission (BPHC) on December 6. The weekly positive test rate has now jumped 86 percent in Eastie over the course of two weeks.
The citywide weekly positive test rate also increased dramatically last week. According to the BPHC 28,854 residents were tested and 6.7 percent were COVID positive–this was a 29 percent increase from the 5.2 percent reported by the BPHC on December 6 and a 67 percent increase over the course of two weeks.
One hundred eighty seven additional Eastie residents contracted the virus between November 29 and December 6, and there are now 9,070 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 2.7 percent last week and went from 89,745 cases to 92,170 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 1,478.