North End, Surrounding Area’s COVID Cases Decline

With a new school year in full swing, a large percentage of students under the age of 12 still unvaccinated and the Delat variant of the COVID 19 virus still raging city health officials are keeping a close eye on infection spikes in neighborhoods.

Ahead of the city’s mask mandate, the North End’s weekly positive COVID test rate spiked 31 percent between August 16 and August 23 but has steadily declined.

According to the weekly report released Monday by the Boston Public Health Commission (BPHC), 2,384 North End, Beacon Hill, Back Bay, West End and Downtown residents were tested and 2.6 percent were positive. This was a 7 percent decrease from the 2.8 percent of residents that tested positive between August 30 and September 6. .

Overall since the pandemic started 67,939 North End, Beacon Hill, Back Bay, West End and Downtown residents have been tested for COVID-19 and the data shows that 6 percent of those tested were COVID positive. This was a 3.2 percent decrease from the 6.2 percentage reported by the BPHC on September 6.

Citywide, the weekly positive test rate increased nearly 3 percent last week. According to the BPHC 22,313    residents were tested and 3.6 percent were COVID positive–this was a 2.85 percent increase from the 3.5 percent reported by the BPHC on Sept. 6.

The BPHC data released Monday showed North End, Beacon Hill, Back Bay, West End and Downtown had an infection rate of 726.8 cases per 10,000 residents–a 1.8 percent increase from the 714.2  cases per 10,000 residents reported on September 6.

Seventy additional residents have been infected with the virus between September 6 and September 13 and the total number of cases in the area increased to 4,050 cases overall since the pandemic began.

The statistics released by the BPHC as part of its weekly COVID19 report breaks down the number of cases and infection rates in each neighborhood. It also breaks down the number of cases by age, gender and race.

Citywide positive cases of coronavirus increased 2.7 percent since Sept. 6 and went from 76,186 cases to 78,234 confirmed cases in a week. There were seven additional deaths in Boston from the virus in the past week and the total COVID deaths remains at 1,413.