Covid Rates On The Rise Again

The rate of Covid infections has increased in the last few weeks.

For the two week period ending on July 2, the Massachusetts Department of Health said Rehoboth had a daily positivity rate of 10.09 percent. Seekonk reported 9.03 percent. The statewide percent positivity average is 6.04. The 14 day average daily incidence rate for Rehoboth was 18 per 100,000 residents. Seekonk was 14.3 per 100,000. Fall River and New Bedford had higher daily incidence rates - 18.9 and 19 respectively.

“We just want to continue to be vigilant,” Rehoboth Public Nurse Geraldine Hamel said Monday. “Hand-washing, masking, and social distancing as best as your conscience tells you to.”

According to the CDC (Centers for Disease Control), as of last Saturday, the latest Omicron subvariant BA.5 accounted for more than half of the country’s new COVID cases. The numbers continue to grow. The CDC reports an average of 106,549 new cases of COVID daily. The CDC also reports daily averages of 5,093 new hospital admissions and 273 new deaths from COVID.
Reported symptoms of BA.5 are similar to previous COVID variants: fever, runny nose, coughing, sore throat, headaches, muscle pain and fatigue.

Hamel said there were 508 new cases in Massachusetts last week. 18 of those resulted in death and the average age of those Covid patients was 83 years old.

“(Covid) is not going away, it’s never going away but we just want to be very careful,” Hamel added.