With a new school year in full swing, a large percentage of students under the age of 12 still unvaccinated and the Delta variant of the COVID 19 virus still raging city health officials are keeping a close eye on infection spikes in neighborhoods.
Charlestown’s weekly positive COVID test rate spiked 31 percent between August 16 and August 23 and another 2 percent between August 23 and August 30. However, infections here have steadily declined since.
According to the weekly report released Monday by the Boston Public Health Commission (BPHC), 644 Charlestown residents were tested and 2.2 percent were found to be positive–a 37 percent decrease from the 3.5 percent that tested positive between August 30 and September 6.
According to the weekly report, of the 18,208 Charlestown residents tested for the virus since the pandemic began 8.7 percent were found to be positive. This was a decrease of 1 percent from the 8.8 percent reported on September 6.
Citywide, the weekly positive test rate increased nearly 3 percent last week. According to the BPHC 22,313 residents were tested and 3.6 percent were COVID positive–this was a 2.85 percent increase from the 3.5 percent reported by the BPHC on Sept. 6.
Twenty-two additional Charlestown residents tested positive for the virus since September 6 and the number of positive cases increased to 1,577 overall 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 2.7 percent since Sept. 6 and went from 76,186 cases to 78,234 confirmed cases in a week. There were seven additional deaths in Boston from the virus in the past week and the total COVID deaths remains at 1,413.