Framingham Covid numbers drop again; city still in red zone

Framingham’s known new Covid-19 infections dropped again this week, while testing hit another record high – good news even as the city remains in the state’s high-risk “red zone”.

There were an average of 60.7 cases per 100,000 in the city during the last 14 days, according to data released today by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. That’s down from 67.5 in the prior week – and also lower than the state-wide average of 75.5.

Test positivity dropped below 7% for the first time since early December, to 6.33%. That, too, was lower than the state-wide average, which was 6.85%.

Number of tests topped 11,000 for the first time:

Framingham’s Covid-19 numbers were better than MetroWest communities such as Marlboro (89.9 per 100,000, 9.19% positivity) and Milford (73.3 and 10.8%), although higher than many others towns in the area.

And, the city’s numbers are still considerably higher than the Baker administration’s current red-zone threshold of 10 cases per 100K and 4% positivity. Also, while the city has seen improvement, its total known cases per 100,000 population over the last 14 days is way higher than the CDC’s limiit for “highest risk of transmission in schools”. CDC considers a total number of cases of more than 200 per 100K over 14 days to be high-risk. Framingham had more than four times that: 849. The city’s positivity rate was in the CDC’s moderate-risk zone.

What Yale School of Public Health professor Howard Forman said tonight about New York State’s improving numbers seems to apply here as well: “We can either get complacent & crushed in March/April or we can work hard to mitigate & aggressively vaccinate & have a (nearly) normal summer. It’s our choice.”