April 2, 2021
Amid warnings of doom, Worcester County joins Mass. in another week of COVID case increases
Photo | Grant Welker
Marlborough Hospital
By Grant Welker
New coronavirus cases increased in the week ending Thursday for the fourth straight week across Massachusetts and for the second straight week in Worcester County.
The city of Worcester reported 311 new cases, keeping its rate of new cases roughly flat for the past month and a half.
New totals reported by the city and the Massachusetts Department of Public Health come the same week that U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky used the word "doom" to describe what she saw as a coming next wave of cases nationally. Vaccinations against COVID-19 have been rising, but so have numbers of virus variants spreading more easily. States have also loosened business capacity restrictions, including Massachusetts.
Massachusetts had 14,334 new cases in the past week through Thursday, its fourth straight week of increases. The state's cases now total 600,632 since the pandemic began. The state's death toll also rose in the past week by 205 to reach 16,876.
Worcester County had 1,339 new cases, the second week in a row its total rose, according to the DPH. Worcester County now has 70,617 cases.
Worcester County had 22 newly reported deaths in the past week, bringing its total to 2,155.
City officials in Worcester reported 311 new weekly cases, roughly in line with numbers Worcester's had since mid-February. The city has had 22,011 cases reported since the pandemic began.
Worcester's two health care systems, UMass Memorial Health Care and Saint Vincent Hospital, have a combined 48 inpatient coronavirus cases as of Thursday, according to the city. That's a drop of three from the previous week. They have 14 total intensive-care coronavirus patients, a count that also fell by three.
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