Framingham’s daily rate of known new Covid-19 cases ticked up again this week to 27.2 per 100,000, according to data released today by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. That’s up from 25 last week and 18 the week before. Today’s report was for the 14-day period ending April 23.
Number of tests administered to Framingham residents dropped 3% vs the prior period.
Test positivity was above 5% for the first time since the February 10 report, increasing to 5.42% from 4.97% in last week’s report and 3.7% the week before.
With so many people using at-home tests that aren’t included in official data, some experts say that following positivity trends as well as wastewater trends can be helpful in determining true rates of community transmission.
MWRA wastewater Covid traces are up from late February and March but still considerably lower than during the January Omicron surge. MWRA South levels appear to be down somewhat from mid April, although that’s not 100% certain when factoring in margins of error.
I think it’s safe to say that there is more Covid-19 in the community than there was a month or two ago but a lot less than during the worst of January. How we want to respond to that will depend on our own health situation, risk factors among members of our households, personal tolerance for risk including unknown effects of long Covid, and how much we want to help stop transmission in order to protect vulnerable members of the community outside our own households.
More graphs of Framingham data at my Framingham Covid-19 data app and statewide data, including by community, at my Massachusetts Covid-19 data app.
See latest Covid-19 data coverage at http://www.district2framingham.com/tags/covid19/.
Sign up for the District2Framingham.com email list!!