The initial reaction to the Massachusetts pandemic is one of the most productive in the country.
Residents wearing masks and the state collected information about COVID-19 and introduced one of the country’s first contact studies programs. For months, security measures worked, but now cases are increasing again. On Thursday, Massachusetts reported 1,243 new CASES of COVID-19, according to the Department of Health, marks the sixth consecutive day on which it recorded more than 1,000 instances of a day.
The number of instances daily now resembles that experienced by the state in mid-May, with an average of seven days for new instances up to nearly 339% since early September, according to abc’s investigation of state data.
In addition to the accumulation in the number of cases, 121 communities in Massachusetts are lately “high risk,” according to the State Department of Health. The identified communities have an average rate of more than 8 cases consisting of 100,000 in the subsequent 14 days. .
To date, Massachusetts has reported more than 151740 cases of COVID-19. The state also recorded 9,727 deaths, more than 65% of them in long-term care facilities, according to knowledge research through the state health branch.
“The only positive thing is that the number of deaths has remained solid since the spring,” said Dr Howard Koh, a professor at Harvard’s TH Chan School of Public Health.
“But we also know that as cases increase, hospitalizations and, in the end, deaths follow,” said Koh, a former Massachusetts public fitness commissioner in the 1990s and early 2000s.
“Everyone is watching those signs up close,” he added.
Dr. Sandro Galea, epidemiologist and dean of Boston University’s School of Public Health, believes it is too early to establish a situation about what drives the Massachusetts uptick.
“There is enormous inequality,” he said of the state epidemic, which in Boston is very different from that of rural areas in western Massachusetts.
And while other people under the age of 30 are shown to be the rebound in new cases this fall, Galea does not believe construction is similar to the maximum density of Boston universities, some of which have opened in person.
“Transmissions are low,” he said of schools.
Instead, he referred to informal meetings, especially among young people. “The question of whether they can be controlled is an openArray,” Galea said. “It fluctuates day by day. “
Neither does the weather. The states of the country have noticed a buildup of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations in recent weeks. “Drier situations create more transmission,” said Dr. John Brownstein, innovation director at Boston Children’s Hospital and abc News contributor. “People are starting to spend more time indoors at low temperature. “
What doesn’t show the growing number of cases in Massachusetts is that the state took a more proactive COVID-19 reaction than almost any other position in the country and seemed to have the virus under control beyond spring and summer.
This is partly due to the robust public fitness infrastructure that existed in the state prior to the pandemic, which added a university and hospital in Boston. “This is a condition with a strong position of public aptitude and a concentration of medical experience and public aptitude. Koh said. ” This is a state that was based on science in its response. They observed knowledge every day. “
But even in a reference public fitness environment, preventing COVID-19 from ruining the economy has proved difficult.
“We are seeing a build-up of cases in recent weeks, that is, in the last month. It’s a cursed virus,” Koh. No you can be too careful. “
Boston, the city of Massachusetts, unsurprisingly, led the state to COVID-19 infections.
And as in other cities in the country, those nearly 20,000 cases are concentrated in black and brown neighborhoods. Although Boston’s population is only 25% black and 20% Latino, black and Latino citizens are much more likely to be inflamed with COVID. 19 that white citizens, according to city data.
The average positive check rate in Boston has risen to 7. 8%, Mayor Marty Walsh warned at a news convention Thursday. The building up even upper in Dorchester, a predominantly black domain of the city, which reported a positivity check rate of more than 10% for the week finishing October 24.
“All the neighborhoods most affected are low-income neighborhoods, those are places where there are multigenerational homes, there are many other people who are workers, who have to endure the most,” Brownstein said.
In Lawrence, Massachusetts, a city of another 80,000 people north of Boston, near the New Hampshire border, where most citizens are Latino, the average 14-day positive verification rate exceeded nine% on October 28, nearly double the level of world health organization. Recommend.
“The pandemic has disproportionately affected communities of color,” Koh said. “They have all the social forces that put communities at risk, such as being low-income and having multigenerational housing. “
In June, when infections subsided, Massachusetts fired at least two hundred members of the state’s 1,000-person touch study team, according to a survey conducted through ABC’s WCVB. In September, as cases increased, the state began recruiting touch plotters.
Koh needs the state to keep those other people permanently.
“I hope touch trackers can be permanent members of a revitalized workforce for the future,” he said. Contact tracking is maximum effective when trackers are trusted members of their local communities, Koh said. For some residents, it is also a lifeguard. Trackers ensure that other quarantined and remote people have access to food and medicine through social facilities and that their fundamental desires are fulfilled.
“Its price goes beyond infectious control,” Koh said. “Much of the suffering we see reflects the fact that we have a public fitness system with insufficient funds,” he said of the United States.
In Galea’s view, Massachusetts officials have done their best to balance public fitness with the economic needs of the state and praised leaders for intensifying the search for contacts and for conveying to the public a transparent message of public aptitude about COVID-19.
“If you were locking up in Melbourne, you’d probably be cutting cases,” Galea said, noting that at one point last month, Massachusetts had the highest unemployment rate in the country. “It’s hard, ” he added.
As for the options that could be improved, Galea pointed to the evidence. “Evidence remains hampered by general federal chaos,” he said. “It’s hard to think of tactics where Massachusetts can be better off in the void, in the absence of a broader federal strategy. “
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