Town sees about 60 new covid-19 cases in past week

Jan 1, 2021

As of Dec. 31, there had been 62 new coronavirus cases in Wareham over the past week, according to the state’s latest report.

That’s a decrease from the prior week, in which there were 83 new cases. But cases are expected to increase rapidly following gatherings for the Christmas holiday and New Year’s festivities.

According to the state’s most recent weekly report released Thursday, Dec. 31, Wareham’s average daily incidence rate fell slightly to 41.6 cases per 100,000 people in the past 14 days. Given Wareham’s population, this means there were about 9.57 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 7.21 percent over the last 14 days. 

Although the number of cases and the percent positivity rate have fallen over the past week, Wareham is still classified “red” per the state’s guidelines — the same category the town has fallen into since Dec. 3.

A week ago, the state’s public health report indicated Wareham was seeing roughly 12.03 new cases each day and had a percent positivity rate of 7.28 percent.

As of Dec. 21 (the most recent date for which data has been provided)  Wareham Public Schools reported eight students and two employees who had tested positive for covid-19, along with 25 students and 11 employees currently quarantined.