Barnstable County has 4,540 new COVID-19 cases in 2 weeks — more than twice report last week

Cynthia McCormick, Cape Cod Times
·3 min read

The state Department of Public Health said in its weekly Thursday report on Massachusetts cities and towns that Barnstable County on Cape Cod reached a record 4,540 new cases of COVID-19 over the past two weeks.

Hospitalizations of people with coronavirus on Cape Cod have skyrocketed recently, coming to 75 patients as of Wednesday.

But deaths from coronavirus are nowhere near where they were during peaks in April 2020 and January 2021.

State public health officials said in the daily part of their Thursday report that there were 36 newly confirmed deaths of people with COVID-19 in Massachusetts and one death of a person with a probable case, bringing the total number of probable and confirmed fatalities to 20,872 since the pandemic began.

Made with Flourish
Made with Flourish

Also in the daily report Thursday, which is based on Wednesday data, state public health officials said that Barnstable County had no new deaths from coronavirus.

Omicron likely driving the surge: Record-high COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations on Cape Cod

They said in the past two weeks Cape Cod has seen 21 deaths of people with COVID-19.

A total of 577 Cape Codders with COVID-19 have died since the start of the pandemic.

Massachusetts' COVID-19 fatalities reached a peak on April 24, 2020, when 198 people died. State public health officials said 94 died on Jan. 10, 2021 at the peak of a second surge, which occurred just as vaccines were starting to roll out.

The DPH said Thursday that the average age of a person in Massachusetts diagnosed with COVID-19 over the last two weeks was 34 and the average age of a person with COVID-19 who died was 73.

Statewide, the number of newly confirmed daily cases of COVID-19 as of Wednesday was 18,721, for a total of 1,305,830 since the pandemic began, the DPH said Thursday.

The new cases represented a drop from the record numbers reached in the current surge of new cases driven by the highly transmissible Omicron variant. On Jan. 3, the state reported 35,970 new coronavirus cases and on Jan. 4, 32,673 new cases.

The number of new probable cases in Massachusetts Wednesday was 2,988, for a total of 105,783.

The seven-day testing positivity rate for the state is 20.34%.

The daily count of new COVID-19 cases in Barnstable County Wednesday was 366, for a total of 29,131 cases since the pandemic began.

There were 3,180 people with COVID-19 hospitalized in Massachusetts Wednesday, 1,505 of whom were fully vaccinated, state public health officials said.

Cape Cod Hospital in Hyannis had 58 patients who had coronavirus, 10 of whom were in intensive care. Falmouth Hospital had 17 patients with COVID-19, including three in the ICU.

The state also said in its weekly municipal report that the two-week count of cases on Barnstable County was twice what was reported for the previous week.

The number of new cases, total cases and positivity rate for testing over the past two weeks for each town on the Cape are as follows:

Barnstable (1,091; 7,743; 20.94%); Bourne (532; 2,895; 17.26%); Brewster (203; 1,091; 15.56%); Chatham (66; 604; 13.92%); Dennis (206; 1,707; 17.51%); Eastham (59; 386; 17.42%); Falmouth (654; 3,421; 17.81%); Harwich (209; 1,554; 15.36%); Mashpee (331; 1,858; 16.38%); Orleans (89; 588; 17.42%); Provincetown (34; 403; 13.10%); Sandwich (460; 2,765; 18.43%); Truro (6; 159; 7.23%); Wellfleet (36; 228; 17.86%); and Yarmouth (564; 3,363; 19.91%).

DPH officials said the average testing positivity rate for Barnstable County over two weeks is 18.13%. For the state it is 21.52%.

This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Cape Cod has 4,540 new COVID cases in past 2 weeks but rate below state