State and national COVID-19 numbers continue to improve
SOUTHWICK- The Town of Southwick reported 12 new confirmed COVID-19 cases this week to bring the town’s pandemic total to 472.
While the weekly total is a slight increase from the nine cases that were reported last week, it also brings the 14-day percent positivity average down to 2.98 percent.
“We haven’t been that low since mid-November,” said Public Health Nurse Kate Johnson.
Johnson said that the total of 472 is the number that is reported by the state, but the actual total is somewhere over 500. Throughout the pandemic there has been a slight discrepancy in the total number of cases reported by the state and by the Town of Southwick. The weekly totals remain correct on both fronts, but at some point in the pandemic the state failed to report at least 30 cases, causing the pandemic total to be reported differently by the state and town.
Johnson pointed out that Southwick is averaging better than Hampden County as a whole, which has a percent-positivity rating of approximately five percent.
There have been seven total deaths due to COVID-19 in Southwick, with the most recent death having been reported in January according to Johnson. None of the recent cases have resulted in hospitalizations, though she said that most of the people who do test positive have been in their 50s and 60s.
While the week-to-week total increased slightly this week from last week, the number of confirmed cases continues to be relatively low, as is the case across Massachusetts and the country as a whole. Massachusetts has seen an approximately 31 percent decrease in the number of cases in the last 14 days.
More importantly, the state has seen an approximately 40 percent decrease in the number of COVID-19 related deaths in the same time period.
Nationally, the trend is the same with an at least 30 percent drop in cases over the last two weeks across the U.S.. The last time the U.S. reported more than 100,000 cases in a single day was Feb. 12.
