Massachusetts reports 1,495 coronavirus cases, 52 deaths, 63,828 vaccinations

Health officials on Saturday reported 52 new coronavirus deaths and 1,495 new cases as 63,828 Bay Staters received vaccine shots.

The state’s count of estimated active cases is now 27,190, a drop from 98,750 at the start of January and a number that continues to trend down following the big surge around the holidays.

Hospitalizations on Saturday went down by 29 patients, bringing the total to 687 — a number that also has kept dropping.

There are 176 patients in the ICU and 114 are intubated, according to the Department of Public Health.

The state now has put 2,069,628 shots in arms, including the new doses reported on Saturday: 34,870 first doses of the Moderna or Pfizer vaccines, 26,009 second shots of those and 2,949 doses of the Johnson & Johnson Janssen vaccine, which only requires one shot.

Saturday was the second day for which the state recorded J&J shots after the feds authorized the vaccine to go into circulation a week ago.

The 1,495 new confirmed cases — plus 227 probable ones — brings the total to 589,931 in the state since the pandemic began.

The 52 new deaths bring the total toll to 16,374 people, including 330 probable COVID-19 deaths. Of that total number 8,668 have been reported in long-term care facilities.

Long-term care centers, which were ravaged by the pandemic particularly in its early months, also have accounted for 34,716 cases from 424 facilities.

The state’s seven-day weighted average test positive rate sits at 1.79%. With higher-education institutions excluded, it’s 3%.

As of Saturday, 83.5% of hospital beds in the state are occupied and 74.5% of ICU beds are taken as downward trends for both continue.

There have been 28.9 million cases in the United States, more than double the count reported in any other country. More than 524,000 Americans have died from the coronavirus as of Saturday. More than 116.4 million have been sickened and 2.6 million killed by the highly contagious disease worldwide.

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/3qujTQc