Watertown News (https://www.watertownmanews.com/tag/covid-19-cases/page/2/)
Watertown’s COVID-19 cases dropped for the third straight week, while vaccines have been made available only through the state’s vaccination locations. The Mass. Department of Public Health reported that the number of cases over the previous 14 days in Watertown, as of Feb. 18, was 113. The number dropped by 20 from the previous week.
The number of COVID-19 cases continued to drop, and the number of recent cases dropped to its lowest point since the beginning of December. According to the latest Mass. Department of Public Health report, Watertown has had 157 cases over the prior 14 days. The number dropped by 78 from the previous week’s report. The last time the Town had fewer cases over the previous 2 weeks was the Dec.
Watertown Fire Chief Bob Quinn gets a COVID-19 vaccination shot during the clinic for police and firefighters run by the Watertown Health Department last week. The light at the end of the COVID-19 tunnel can be seen, with the first vaccinations by the Watertown Health Department starting last week, but Health Director Larry Ramdin said people must continue their virus prevention practices even after they get their shots. On Jan. 14 and 15, members of the Watertown Police and Fire departments received their first COVID-19 vaccine shots, Ramdin said. He and Public Health Nurse Wil VanDinter have begun planning for public clinics in Town, but do not know when they will be able to administer the vaccine to the general public, Ramdin said.
After moving into the state’s “Red,” or high-risk of COVID-19 transmission, group for a week, Watertown went back into the “Yellow,” or moderate-risk group. The latest Mass. Department of Public Health report (released on Jan. 15), showed that the Town’s positive test rate dropped to 4.91 percent. The previous report had Watertown at 5.14 percent, and any positivity rate over 5 percent for a town of Watertown’s size is one of the thresholds to put it in the Red.
Watertown moved into the Red, or high-risk, category in the most recent Mass. Department of Public Health’s COVID-19 reporting. The Watertown Health Director fears that people are suffering from “COVID fatigue” and have become lax about taking measures to stop the spread of the virus. In the latest data from the MassDPH, Watertown has an average of 55.8 cases per 100,000 residents over the past 14 days, which was up from 51 per 100,000 the previous week. The number that moved the Town from “yellow” to “red” was the positivity percentage of tests, which was 5.14 percent (up from 4.7 percent the previous report).
The numbers of new cases of COVID-19 in Watertown dropped slightly in the most recent community-by-community report by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH), but the percent of positive tests rose. The number of cases over the prior 14 days in the Dec. 24 report (released on Dec. 31) was 236, down from 241 the prior week. The drop was the first since the DPH’s Sept.