Massachusetts death toll in pandemic surges past 2,000
BOSTON (AP) — The Massachusetts death toll in the coronavirus pandemic surged past 2,000 on Wednesday, about doubling in just seven days as the state becomes a hot spot.
Public health officials said there were 221 new deaths, pushing the overall toll to 2,182. It was the most deaths reported in a single day since the outbreak in Massachusetts began, and the first time the state has recorded more than 200 in a day.
Massachusetts saw its first COVID-19 death on March 20, and the outbreak has intensified despite strict social distancing measures and contact tracing aimed at slowing transmission. The state passed 1,000 deaths on April 15, when 1,108 were reported.
There were more than 1,700 new cases reported Wednesday, bringing the number of confirmed cases close to 43,000.
More than half the deaths — 1,205 — were reported in long-term care centers, such as nursing homes. The average age of people who have died of confirmed COVID-19 is 82, officials said. The average age of people with confirmed COVID-19 is 54.
Vice President Mike Pence recently said the White House is closely watching the Boston area, and the coordinator of the federal coronavirus task force, Dr. Deborah Birx, said officials are “very much focused” on Massachusetts.
In other coronavirus-related developments in Massachusetts:
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HEALTH CENTERS-TESTS
Massachusetts is relying on community health centers to step up testing and tracking for COVID-19, Baker said Wednesday.
Quest Diagnostics has agreed to ship 2,200 tests a day to a dozen health centers across the state including multiple locations in Boston, the Republican said during a news conference.
Baker said 30 community health centers have also agreed to participate in the state’s contact tracing program designed to try to track down individuals who may have come in contact with someone diagnosed with COVID-19.
Cellphone calls from the contract tracing program will show up on phones as “MA COVID Team” and won’t be blocked by caller ID. Baker urged anyone getting a call to answer it.
Baker said it’s still too early to begin reopening the state’s economy. The most important piece of data state health officials look at are new hospitalizations, he said.
The number of hospitalizations has ticked up in recent days, from 30 new hospitalizations on Friday to 105 in the past day. On Wednesday the state reported a total of 3,977 people with confirmed COVID-19 currently hospitalized.
“We’re still seeing an increase, a modest one, but an increase statewide,” he said. “We’ve seen this data bounce around before.”
When the state does begin to emerge from a state of emergency, the question will be less what businesses are essential or nonessential and more about what rules everyone will need to follow, including continued social distancing, to prevent another surge, Baker said.
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NURSING HOME TESTS
Massachusetts has paused a program to test residents of nursing homes and long-term health care centers for the coronavirus after problems with the collection of samples, Secretary of Health and Human Services Marylou Sudders said.
The elderly are particularly susceptible, and more than half the state’s fatalities from the virus were nursing home residents, according to figures from the state Department of Public Health.
The state announced this month that nursing homes could order test kits to be delivered and then administered by trained personnel.
But after sending out 14,000 tests, only 4,000 were returned, and many were unlabeled or in leaking tubes, Sudders told The Boston Globe on Tuesday.
Sudders said at a press conference Wednesday that the state will expand mobile testing at nursing homes through the National Guard while officials work to solve the problems with the test kit program.
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STATE POLICE ACADEMY
Nearly 240 trainees at the Massachusetts State Police Academy have been sent home to self-quarantine for 14 days and continue their studies online after two tested positive for the virus, authorities said.
All the trainees will be tested, according to a statement Tuesday from state police spokesman David Procopio, even though not all of them had contact with the two who tested positive.
The trainees who tested positive, one man and one woman, are the first recruits or staff at the New Braintree academy to test positive for the virus, he said.
The training class is still on track to graduate May 6, five weeks earlier than originally planned, because of the pandemic, the agency said.
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BOSTON TOURISM
Boston has plenty of historic sites — from the Old North Church to the USS Constitution — but Boston Mayor Marty Walsh said he has major concerns about when tourism to those sites and others might return after Massachusetts emerges from the COVID-19 state of emergency.
Walsh said Wednesday that he doesn’t anticipate tourism coming back “for months if not a year.”
“I think a lot of people are going to be concerned about flying. I think a lot of people are going to be concerned about traveling to other places. So I have major concerns about our tourism industry,” the Democrat said at a press conference.