There was finally some good news last week in the fight against COVID-19 pandemic in East Boston. Having one of the highest rates of infection in all of the City, Eastie, after nearly two months, may finally be seeing a downward trend.
At his daily press briefing Monday, Mayor Martin Walsh reported that by the end of last week, the City conducted a total of 36,072 tests, or roughly five percent of Boston’s population.
Walsh said the neighborhoods with the biggest reductions week-over-week were in Eastie and Mattapan.
Eastie experienced a 19 percent drop in positive results while Mattapan has a 15% drop. Overall Boston’s rate of positive tests last week was 20 percent, bringing the city’s cumulative positive test rate down to 29 percent,
“Every neighborhood saw its positive test rate go down,” said Walsh.
Walsh noted that the drop is a testament to the physical distancing Eastie residents are doing, and the expanded testing access his administration has created citywide.
With that said Wlash cautioned that while the numbers are encouraging Eastie and Boston may not be out of the woods. Walsh urged all Eastie and Boston residents to continue to follow social distancing rules, wear masks in public, practice good hygiene, and stay home whenever possible.
In one week East Boston’s COVID-19 infection rate rose slightly from 206.9 cases per 10,000 residents to an infection rate of 252.9 cases per 10,000 residents as of Friday.
As of Friday there were 1,187 confirmed COVID-19 cases in Eastie, up from the 971 cases reported by the Boston Public Health Commission (BPHC) a week ago.
The stats released by the BPHC as part of its weekly COVID-19 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.
Two weeks ago 2,065 residents were tested for the virus and 45.5 percent of those tested were positive. Three weeks ago 1,171 residents in Eastie were tested and 46.8 percent were found to be COVID-19 positive.
The number keeps dipping and last week 3,053 Eastie residents were tested and only 38.7 percent were found to be positive.
Whereas Eastie has the highest rate of positive results among residents tested, the neighborhood now ranks third behind two Dorchester neighborhoods.
Citywide there have been 11,106 positive cases of coronavirus–confirmed and presumptive–among residents. So far, 3,327 of these 11,106 residents have fully recovered. There have been 533 COVID-19 related deaths among Boston residents.
Massachusetts has 78,462 positive cases of coronavirus (confirmed and presumptive) and 5,108 deaths reported at this time. Massachusetts has also tested 394,728 individuals to date.