The new weekly total places Southwick back onto list of high risk communities.
SOUTHWICK- The Board of Health reported 19 new COVID-19 cases this past week to bring the pandemic total to 563.
Southwick is once again considered a high risk community after two weeks in a row of having been considered moderate risk.
Health Director Tammy Spencer said that there are no significant single clusters of COVID-19 cases in Southwick. Instead, the virus seems to be spreading through many individual households.
“[The cases] are coming in as groups of three and families,” said Spencer, “Once a day we’re getting three or so cases. We’re seeing it going through the community but it is not really cluster related.”
The pandemic total for deaths in Southwick is seven. The last time a Southwick resident passed away from COVID-19 was in January.
Board of Health Chair Dr. Jerry Azia said that he is aware of at least one Southwick resident who is currently hospitalized with COVID-19.
Spencer said that 3,145 Southwick residents have received at least one dose of any COVID-19 vaccine. Of that group of people, 1,978 are fully vaccinated, meaning they have received both doses of either the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines, or the single dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
Use of the J&J vaccine has been paused this week after reports of at least six people having blood clots within weeks of receiving the vaccine.
Across Massachusetts COVID-19 infection rates appear to be falling quickly after a spike in cases at the end of March and beginning of April. The seven-day average for the number of daily new cases on April 14 was 1,394.9 according to the Department of Public Health. That is down from a recent peak of 2,040 on March 31.
