The latest surge of COVID has hit East Boston particularly hard over the summer with the neighborhood’s weekly COVID positive test rate increasing to over 15 percent last week. Public health officials are blaming the summer surge on the highly contagious sub variants of the virus.
According to the latest data by the Boston Public Health Commission (BPHC) more than 1.5 out of 10 residents tested for the virus were positive last week.
Last week, 647 Eastie residents were tested for the virus last week and 15.3 percent were positive–this was a 14 percent increase from the 13.4 percent that tested positive between July 25 and August 1.
Ninety-nine additional Eastie residents contracted the virus between August 1 and August 8 and there have now been 16,343 confirmed cases in the neighborhood since the start of the pandemic.
However, Boston’s citywide weekly positive test rate decreased last week according to the BPHC, 10,355 Boston residents tested citywide and 8.6 percent were positive—a 5.5 percent decrease from the 9.1 percent that tested positive between July 25 and August 1.
Adult COVID-19 Hospitalizations in Boston are now averaging 129.6 per day–down 2 percent from the previous week. This metric helps the BPHC understand the burden of serious COVID-19 cases among adults resulting in inpatient care in Boston hospitals. It includes the total number of adult hospitalizations among Boston and non-Boston residents for COVID-19.
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 1 percent last week and went from 197,686 to 199,831 confirmed cases since the start of the pandemic.
There were four additional deaths in Boston from the virus in the past week and the total number of COVID deaths is now at 1,506.