December 30, 2020
Greater Worcester COVID tally far worse than spring, but no longer among nation's worst
Photo | Grant Welker
Vehicles line up at a coronavirus testing site run by UMass Memorial Health Care in Worcester.
By Grant Welker
At the start of the first coronavirus wave in the Worcester area, the region was suffering worse than almost any other on a national scale.
At one point in late April, the area's death count exceeded that of San Francisco, Dallas, Houston, San Diego — all far larger areas by population. That put the Worcester area at among the worst 5% of metro areas nationally.
At the end of March, the Worcester metro area — which includes Worcester County and Connecticut's Windham County — was in the worst 10% of metro areas for its rate of confirmed cases.
[Related: Worcester sets new single-day COVID record at 335 on Wednesday]
Now, cases are far higher than back then, with Christmas-week numbers showing only a slight dip from consecutive weeks of all-time highs, and warnings from public officials of a post-Christmas boom in cases. Still, the Worcester metro area no longer stands out.
Coronavirus cases have spread so widely and risen so high nationally the Worcester area is hardly any higher than the national metro-area average, according to a New York Times analysis of pandemic data.
For average daily cases in the past two weeks, the Worcester area ranks 187th of roughly 600 metro areas nationally as of Wednesday, according to the analysis, up from 242nd early last week. The area, despite having far more cases than ever, has roughly one-third of the Inland Empire metro area in California, a sprawling area east of Los Angeles.
Similarly, the rate of how sharply cases are rising don't even make the Worcester area notable. In this case, Worcester has a similar ranking of 228th, up from 260th last week despite a slight decrease in cases in the Worcester area.
Since the pandemic began, the Worcester area ranks 424th in case rate per 100,000 residents. The area has less than one-third the rate of the worst-hit area, the North Dakota capital of Bismarck.
[Related: In face of post-Christmas COVID surge, Central Mass. hospital bed capacity shrinking]
Worcester County has the bulk of cases, as well as nearly 90% of the population, for the Worcester metro area. Worcester County has had 40,795 coronavirus cases since the pandemic began, as of Tuesday, according to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. Windham County has 4,989 through Tuesday, according to the Connecticut Department of Public Health.
On a per-capita basis, Windham County was also initially largely spared like many other rural areas, but that, too, has changed. Windham County has registered 4,263 cases per 100,000, compared to 4,911 in Worcester County.
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