BOSTON — It’s beginning to look like the end of the COVID-19 pandemic in Massachusetts. But don’t get too excited -- yet, suggested one infectious disease expert.
After a record-setting holiday surge, in which Massachusetts added nearly 140,000 new cases in December alone, daily new positives have slowly begun to decline.
While January is still on track to potentially outpace December’s numbers, the seven-day average for positive cases has declined by nearly 3,000 of the January 8 peak of 6,226 cases.
On January 1, the proportion of tests coming back positive peaked at 8.7%. This week, that number fell by about a third, to 5.9%.
Tuesday, the DPH reported 2,567 new cases of COVID-19 -- the lowest, one-day total in three weeks. So far in January, Massachusetts has added nearly 95,000 new COVID-19 cases. Total confirmed cases now stand at 454,102 since the pandemic began in March, with another 22,424 cases considered ‘probable.’
“Of course it’s encouraging to see the numbers go down rather than up,” said Paul Sax, MD, clinical director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital. “And I just want to emphasize, though, that there’s still a tremendous amount of community spread in the Boston area and in Massachusetts in general.”
To put recent numbers in perspective: in the entire month of August 2020, testing picked up about 8,000 new cases of COVID in the state.
“So even though the numbers are lower, they are substantially higher than they were in the summer and early fall,” Sax said. “So still not time to let down our guard at all.”
And that means continuing to practice physical distancing and the wearing of face masks -- and to avoid crowded closed spaces.
Along those lines, something that may have been forgotten in the rush, by some, to get back to normal -- is that COVID is a sneaky foe.
“COVID-19 can be spread by people with few or minimal symptoms or even, sometimes, with no symptoms,” Sax said. “As a result, you can’t tell when someone has it solely based on whether they’re sick or not.”
While the decline in numbers may reflect the wane of the holiday surge, Sax doesn’t expect a dramatic decline -- at least not over the next couple of weeks.
“One thing that we watch pretty carefully in the Boston area is the detection of SARS CoV2, the cause of COVID-19 in our wastewater,” Sax said.
COVID RNA can be found in the fecal matter of asymptomatic carriers of the virus and in those considered ‘presymptomatic’ -- that is, those destined to develop symptoms, but who haven’t yet done so. Wastewater COVID can thus be used to predict infections one to two weeks down the road.
“It has been at high levels now for several weeks and has not appreciably declined,” Sax said. “So I would not expect things to drop dramatically... yet.”
Something else that hasn’t dropped -- the overall state incidence rate of COVID infections. In fact, the DPH reports it rose dramatically between December 31 and January 14, from 58 cases per 100,000 residents to 78 cases per 100,000.
The CDC reports the national incidence rate of COVID is 60 cases per 100,000 residents.
As the weather warms, it’s quite possible COVID-19 will, like other coronaviruses, become less active -- and that should help suppress new cases in Massachusetts, as well. At some point, immunizations will have an effect, though that may be months away.
But there is a wild card, even as the numbers steadily decline. And that is B.1.1.7, also known as the British variant. The more contagious mutant form of COVID was found in Massachusetts for the first time last week -- and the CDC projects it could become the dominant strain in the US by March.
In the U.K., B.1.1.7 caused a swift and massive spike in cases.
“It just means that we have to be more careful in our interactions with others,” Sax said.
Download the free Boston 25 News app for up-to-the-minute push alerts
>> Complete local and national coronavirus coverage here
RESOURCES:
- Complete local and national coronavirus coverage here
- Follow us on Facebook and Twitter | Watch Boston 25 NOW
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/cmg/7QOJU3BNCJERBNKJC5LWTBYFLU.png)
:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/cmg/LBVMW65BFZEWZNG3S24RTYHIT4.jpeg)
:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/cmg/JGDHAKDFQRCHNO26FBQ54HYDMI.jpeg)
:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/cmg/J3N2OWGFOFAZ5OKK3S5HAVJ3QM.jpeg)
:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/cmg/A6ITVQI6VZF5TIX3ERJ63S3JBY.jpg)
:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/cmg/TORZMI6ZTFHQJC4CK2BLMVFEDU.jpg)