Watertown remained “yellow” in the State’s COVID-19 tracking program this week, but the number of positive cases of COVID-19 rose close to the threshold for the Town to become “red,” or high risk.
The Town has a total of 34 positive COVID-19 cases over the past two weeks for a total of 514. That puts Watertown’s rate at 7.32 cases per 100,000 residents, so the town remained yellow (or moderate risk). Communities with more than 8 cases per 100,000 residents are considered high risk (red) in the Massachusetts Community Level COVID-19 Reporting program.
The rate of positive results on COVID-19 tests also rose. The Town had 43 positive tests, and the positive test rate was 1.07 percent.
The number of cases has risen over the past few weeks. Three weeks ago Watertown was under 4 per 100,000 and remained “green,” or lower risk. Two weeks ago Watertown had 4.5 cases per 100,000 residents, last week it rose to 5 cases per 100,000.
The positive test rate has also gone up in recent weeks. Two weeks ago Watertown’s rate was 0.70 percent and last week it was 0.74.
All but one surrounding communities saw higher number of cases this week, too. Cambridge was the lone exception, and moved from yellow to green. Belmont and Newton remain yellow, while Boston and Waltham are red.
Statewide, Massachusetts had 11,557 cases over the last two weeks, with an average per day of 11.8 per 100,000 residents. Middlesex County had 2,178 cases over the past two weeks, with an average daily case rate of 9.6 per 100,000 residents. Both the state and county rates were higher than last week.
Thank you, but these stats tell us very little.
For example:
How old were the persons in Watertown who had the positive test results?
Are any of them sick or are they all fine? It matters.
How many of these Covid-19 positive tests were among nursing home residents?
How many cases of flu during the same period?
How many cases of staphylococcus and other communicable diseases?
Some of us are trying to put all this into perspective, but we’re not being given the necessary information, and we’re wondering why, and we think we know why.
Where’s the “transparency”?
Yellow is 4-8 per 100k, red is over 8 per 100k. The rate is a tad over 1 percent.
Watertown will most likely be completely in the Red Zone within the week and if that happens then the schools will have to reconsider any reopening plans.
If schools do remain open then expect higher covid numbers especially if families travel during the Thanksgiving break and disregard the rules of quarantining for two weeks upon return.
As for Karen’s comments. Someone with the flu is not increasing the Covid numbers. Only a positive Covid Test is doing that. And without town wide testing then we should expect that there are positive residents out there that are either asymptomatic or experiencing mild symptoms and not getting tested but spreading the virus. Several news articles are also saying the biggest spread of the virus now are people under 30 years old.