Perhaps the City’s new mask mandate policy for indoor venues that went into effect two weeks ago is having some impact on stopping the spread of the Delta variant of the COVID-19 virus in East Boston and throughout the city as some neighborhoods see a decline in cases.
Ahead of the mask mandate, Eastie’s weekly positive COVID test rate spiked 47 percent between August 23 and August 30 but declined last week.
Last week, 1,535 Eastie residents were tested for the virus last week and 3 percent were positive–this was a 32 percent decrease from the 4.4 percent reported by the Boston Public Health Commission (BPHC) on August 30.
Of the 46,851 Eastie residents tested for COVID since the pandemic began, 17 percent overall were found to be positive for the virus. This was an increase of 0.59 percent from the 16.9 percent reported by the BPHC two weeks ago.
Citywide, the weekly positive test rate decreased about 3 percent last week. According to the BPHC 22,466 residents were tested and 3.5 percent were COVID positive–this was a 2.7 percent increase from the 3.6 percent reported by the BPHC on August 30.
Eastie’s COVID infection rate increased only 0.84 percent and the rate went from 1,706.6 cases per 10,000 residents to 1720.9 cases per 10,000 residents.
Sixty-seven additional residents contracted the virus between August 30 and September 6 and there have been 8,076 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 0.40 percent since August 30 and went from 75,888 cases to 76,186 confirmed cases in a week. There were no additional deaths in Boston from the virus in the past week and the total COVID deaths remains at 1,406 confirmed cases.