Wareham saw 33 new coronavirus cases in the past week, keeping the town in the “yellow” according to the state’s Feb. 18 public health report.

Wareham’s Council on Aging staff is also launching a hotline for residents who need help making a covid-19 vaccine appointment. Starting Wednesday, Feb. 17, residents can dial 508-291-3100 Ext. 6530 from 8 a.m. until noon Monday through Friday. Staff will assist with finding a mass vaccination site with openings and booking the appointment.

“[Cases are] coming down very well,” said Director of Public Health Bob Ethier at the Feb. 17 Board of Health meeting.

Wareham’s average daily incidence rate decreased to 22.7 cases per 100,000 people in the past 14 days. Given Wareham’s population, this means there were about 5.22 new cases each day over the past two weeks.

Wareham has also seen a percent positivity rate — or the percentage of covid-19 tests performed that come back positive — of 3.78 percent over the past 14 days. 

One Wareham resident died from coronavirus in the past week.

“There are so many people that have died in Wareham, and who have gotten very sick and families. [...] I just think as a board we should acknowledge that and [offer] condolences to all those families,” said Board of Health Chair Amy Wiegandt.

Wareham’s covid numbers have continued to drop over the past few weeks. A week ago, the state’s public health report indicated Wareham was seeing roughly 6.85 new cases each day and had a percent positivity rate of 4 percent.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, there have been 1,269 coronavirus cases in Wareham.

Despite the decrease in cases, Wiegandt said caution is still necessary.

“Continuing to wear a mask, continuing to keep your distance — as much as possible, be safe,” she said. “If we’re super careful, hopefully, we can get it under control now with vaccines.”

So far, the available vaccines seem to be effective against the variants of the virus. 

“If we can get it under good control with vaccines and with all the measures we’ve been doing, we may be lucky enough not to have a variant that needs a whole new vaccine,” she said. “But if people aren’t smart, it’s going to come.”