With the city’s COVID-19 state of emergency set to be lifted Friday, Charlestown’s weekly COVID positive test rate increased last week. With indoor mask mandates and proof of vaccination measures already lifted weeks ago it seems Boston as a whole is heading in the right direction with the weekly positive test rate still comfortably under the 5 percent threshold.
However, the neighborhood broke through the 5 percent threshold last week.
Last week, 327 Charlestown residents were tested for the virus and 5.8 percent were positive–this was a 32 percent increase from the 4.4 percent that tested positive as reported by the Boston Public Health Commission (BPHC) on March 21.
Nineteen additional residents contracted the virus between March 21 and March 28 and there are now 3,736 confirmed cases in the neighborhood since the start of the pandemic.
According to the BPHC 12,286 residents were tested citywide last week and 3 percent were COVID positive–this was a 30 percent increase from the 2.3 percent that reportedly tested positive for the week ending on March 21.
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 0.6 percent last week and went from 167,241 cases to 168,260 confirmed since the start of the pandemic.
There were five additional deaths in Boston from the virus in the past week and the total number of COVID deaths is now at 1,439. Deaths increased 67 percent in Boston last week with two more deaths compared to the three deaths reported by the BPHC two weeks ago.