WESTFIELD- Health Director Joseph Rouse said this week that the most recent weekly numbers for positive COVID-19 cases in the city represent an “all-time low” since the pandemic first hit the city.
The City of Westfield this week reported just five new COVID-19 cases, four of which were in active isolation as of Sept. 9. This week’s numbers are a slight rise from the week before, but not enough to be considered statistically significant. The total number of cases reported in Westfield since the pandemic began now stands at 527.
The previous week had just three new cases, which is what Rouse was referring to when he said the city had its all-time low.
“That’s about as flat as the curve can get. We were pretty low last month too. We had just one case per day on average,” said Rouse.
During the remote Board of Health meeting Wednesday, Rouse praised the Westfield School Committee members for their ability to see the bigger picture when deciding how to handle the return to school.
“Students not being in school is not optimal for anyone, but we have a big picture to look at here. We can’t just throw caution to the wind and ruin that,” said Rouse.
He also noted that Westfield State University is the only state college in Massachusetts to have opted for an initial period of remote learning before the return to in-person learning later this month.
He indicated that he agreed with the decision, as he has seen many other colleges and universities across the country, and in Massachusetts, have COVID-19 outbreaks after they returned to in-person learning.
“When you’re as low as we are now, we have to tread lightly,” said Rouse, “A month ago I never thought that at this time I would be telling you that the numbers are what they are.”
He said he still expects some sort of spike in case numbers in the near future, but he has said several times previously that he expects it to be containable.
As of early Friday afternoon, the Town of Southwick had not released its weekly COVID-19 case count. For months, however, their cases counts have been among the lowest in the area, often averaging less than 1 case a week.
