BOSTON — Fifteen cities and towns now fall in the Department of Public Health’s highest-risk category for COVID-19 transmission, including two newly added as of Wednesday, September 23.
The department’s weekly update to its color-coded risk designations added Holliston and Marlborough to the “red” category assigned to communities with an incidence rate of more than eight cases per 100,000 residents in the previous 14 days. Chelsea, Everett, Framingham, Lawrence, Lynn, Nantucket, New Bedford, Revere, Saugus, Tyngsboro, Winthrop, Worcester and Wrentham remained coded red, while Dedham, Lynnfield, Monson and Plainville shed their red designations from last week.
Despite seeing an elevated risk for COVID-19, the City of Boston remained in DPH’s “yellow” category assigned to communities with an average daily case rate of four to eight cases per 100,000 residents over the last 14 days.
Boston’s current rate is 7.9 cases per 100,000, according to Mass. DPH., putting them at the highest possible number allowed in the yellow category and just 0.1 average daily cases away from a high-rate designation. Boston’s case rate was 7.7 one week ago.
A total of 629 COVID-19 cases in Massachusetts are associated with higher education, according to the department, including 130 that are new since last week. The higher education data is in aggregate and not broken down by school.
In the state as a whole, there has now been a total of 126,408 confirmed COVID-19 cases, including 542 newly reported Wednesday, close to double the amount reported a week ago today. An additional 17 new deaths bring the death toll to 9,135 people who died with confirmed cases of COVID-19.
The state’s town-level data is now available in an interactive map. You can explore the data in more detail below or view a full-screen version here:
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