Boston coronavirus stats are showing marked improvement — though tests continue to drop.
The good news is that one major metric the city uses has dipped below its “threshold for concern” for the first time since last year, and two others are right on the brink of following suit, according to the semi-weekly COVID-19 report that the Boston Public Health Commission puts out.
The daily number of positive cases has dropped down to 239, now well below the threshold of 339 that the city has been using. That number was up above 590 at the start of January.
The seven-day average positive test rate appears to be following right behind — after a steady drop over the past month, it’s at 5% as of the most recent fully available data, right at the city’s threshold for concern. That’s down from a peak of 8.9% a month ago, and incomplete preliminary data from more recent days suggest the number will continue to decline.
Only one neighborhood — the bottom half of Dorchester — is over 8% positivity, a mark that at one point eight different neighborhoods hit at once.
And hospitalization numbers — which the city says are among the most important — also are improving, with week-over-week numbers showing the number of visits decreasing. The report says 95% of adult hospital beds are occupied, a mark that’s also right at the city’s threshold for concern after 34 days above it. The metric got as high as 101% at the end of January.
The percent of ICU beds free — now 13% — has shown some improvement but remains worse than the threshold for concern.
The bad news is the number of tests continue to drop week over week. The city’s currently averaging 4,111 people tested per day — excluding colleges — which comes after four weeks in a row of decreases after a peak of 6,657 after the holidays.
Boston Health Chief Marty Martinez told reporters, “We just want to encourage folks if you’re out, if you’re connecting, if you’re seeing people, you should get tested to be safe.”
City officials encouraged people to go get tested at the various free sites, including the Strand Theater in Dorchester’s Uphams Corner, which is open for walk-ins.
“I don’t want people to focus just on the vaccine,” Martinez said.
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February 11, 2021 at 08:15AM
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Boston coronavirus stats improving, but testing drops - Boston Herald
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