With the city’s overall weekly COVID positive test rate steadily declining it’s safe to say removing Boston’s mask mandate and canceling proof of vaccination for indoor venues has not caused a huge spike in cases over the past month.
However, there was a slight uptick in positive cases last week in Beacon Hill, Back Bay, Downtown, the North End and the West End.
Last week, 1,198 Beacon Hill, Back Bay, Downtown, the North End and the West End residents were tested for the virus last week and 3.5 percent were positive–this was a 17 percent increase from the 3.3 percent that tested positive as reported by the Boston Public Health Commission (BPHC) on March 14.
Forty two additional residents contracted the virus between March 14 and March 21 and there are now 9,268 confirmed cases in the neighborhood since the start of the pandemic.
According to the BPHC 12,982 residents were tested citywide last week and 2.3 percent were COVID positive–this was a 4 percent decrease from the 2.4 percent that reportedly tested positive for the week ending on March 14.
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 0.31 percent last week and went from 166,722 cases to 167,241 confirmed since the start of the pandemic.
There were three additional deaths in Boston from the virus in the past week and the total number of COVID deaths is now at 1,434. Deaths decreased 25 percent in Boston last week with one less death compared to the four deaths reported by the BPHC two weeks ago.