A day before Christmas and as health professionals and public officials urged people to keep holiday gatherings small over the next couple of weeks, the entire Brockton region remained in the "red" at high risk for COVID-19.
The Massachusetts Department of Public Health's weekly community health report, released on Thursday evening, showed 188 communities in the highest risk category. That's one additional community over last week's report.
After the state revised its risk measurement system on Nov. 6, the number of communities in the "red" went from 121 to 16, then up each week to 30, 62, 81, 97, 158, 187 and now 188. There are 351 communities in Massachusetts, meaning about a dozen more than half are in the "red."
In the Brockton area, all towns that touch the city are in the "red" for the second straight week.
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Between Brockton and the Cape, the only communities that are not in the "red" are Duxbury and Kingston, which are in the "yellow" at moderate risk for COVID-19 for the second straight week, and Plympton, which is now in the "green" at low risk for the disease.
Plympton is in the smallest of the three population categories that are used in determining a community's COVID-19 risk. The town was in the "gray" last week, a color that doesn't carry a risk classification and means the small town has seen fewer than 10 cases the past two weeks. This week, the town was up to 12 cases over two weeks, with 5.83 percent of those tested positive.
Brockton's infection rate decreased for the first time this week after rising for 11 straight weeks since the city was back in the "red" on Oct. 7. The city's average daily incidence rate per 100,000 is still near early pandemic levels, when the city was a top coronavirus hot spot in Massachusetts, but down slightly from 75.4 cases per day per 100,000 to 71 cases. The city's test positivity rate over the past two weeks was 9.26 percent, while it was 9.33 over the two prior weeks.
"The bad news is that the local hospitals are filling up fast and, if the post-holiday Thanksgiving surge is any indicator of things to come, next month's post-Christmas surge will be brutal," said Dr. Richard Herman, Brockton's pandemic consultant and an emergency physician at Good Samaritan Medical Center in the city.
Gallery: Brockton's daily COVID dashboards throughout the pandemic
Although it's released every Thursday, the state's weekly report only includes cases up to the previous Saturday, meaning this week's report covered Dec. 6 to 19. Any surge in cases related to Christmas week gatherings wouldn't likely be seen in a weekly state report for at least another three weeks.
After West Bridgewater had the highest average daily incidence rate per 100,000 in the Brockton area for two straight weeks, that distinction now lies with Avon. The town had 52 new cases the last two weeks for 84.9 per day per 100,000.
In the Brockton area, Bridgewater, Raynham and West Bridgewater are also among the top 50 Massachusetts communities in terms of the number of cases per day per 100,000.
Massachusetts as a whole remained in the "red" for the third straight week, after having previously avoided the designation since Oct. 29, partly due to the new risk measurement system that made it more difficult for communities to fall into the "red" by taking population size and test positivity rate into account.
Over the last two weeks, the state averaged 63.2 cases per day per 100,000 residents and a 6.14 percent test positivity rate. Those numbers were similar to the previous two weeks, when the state averaged 65.1 cases per day and 6.01 of all residents tested were found to be positive.
The local communities in the "red" and their average daily incidence rate per 100,000 residents and test positivity rates include: Abington (75.6 cases, 10.36 percent); Avon (84.9, 9.31); Berkley (90.1, 11.01); Bridgewater (80.9, 8.34); Brockton (71, 9.26); Carver (29.7, 7.39); East Bridgewater (57.6, 8.99); Easton (44.5, 5.86); Halifax (42, 7.16); Hanover (92.4, 12.43); Hanson (63.7, 9.44); Holbrook (53.6, 7.24); Lakeville (58.4, 8.19); Mansfield (52.6, 7.52); Middleboro (50.8, 6.90); Norton (48.1, 7.32); Pembroke (41.5, 7.10); Plymouth (40.9, 5.51); Randolph (67.4, 7.69); Raynham (81.7, 10.10); Rockland (76.2, 8.25); Stoughton (63, 8.23); Taunton (79.2, 9.27); Wareham (52.3, 7.28); West Bridgewater (79.4, 7.64); and Whitman (70.3, 10.24).
Kingston, which is one of the communities in the "yellow," saw a higher two-week case count and test positivity rate, but managed to evade the "red" because the town's positive test rate was below the 5 percent threshold for a community of its size to make the "red." The town had 41.8 cases per day per 100,000 and a 4.75 percent test positivity rate, up from 35 cases and 3.54 percent of residents who were tested positive.
Senior reporter Cody Shepard can be reached by email at cshepard@enterprisenews.com. You can follow him on Twitter at @cshepard_ENT. Support local journalism by purchasing a digital or print subscription to The Enterprise today.
The Link LonkDecember 26, 2020 at 05:07PM
https://www.enterprisenews.com/story/news/coronavirus/2020/12/26/covid-weekly-report-massachusetts-department-public-health-brockton-area/4046698001/
As experts fear post-holiday COVID surge, the Brockton area remains in the high-risk 'red' - Enterprise News
https://news.google.com/search?q=Red&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en
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