Covid-19: Where Are The Hot Spots? Town Trends, Rates - Hampden County (Aug.)

Hampden County’s largest cities continue to steadily reduce the number of positive COVID-19 tests among its residents, according to the most recent information from the Baker Administration.

A few Worcester County communities - Brookfield and Sturbridge - that had been seeing a surge in COVID-19 positive test rates have gone done significantly; Worcester is also seeing a decline.
Photo Credit: *Wikimedia Commons: Mehr News Agency*

Kristin Palpini

08/24/2020 8:27 a.m.

Springfield’s 14-day positive COVID-19 test rate was 2.3 percent - down from a high of 3.4 percent on July 17.

West Springfield’s positive test rate dropped to 0.9 percent - it was at 1.7 percent just last week.

Westfield also saw a decrease with the positive test rate ow at 0.9 percent.

Meanwhile, Holyoke is holding steady at 2.4 percent positive.

Palmer has increased to a 2.3 percent positive test rate.

In Massachusetts, the goal is that by December the state will have less than 5 percent of COVID-19 tests come back positive. On Saturday. Aug. 22, Gov. Charlie Baker reported the state’s 7-day positive test rate was at 1.1 percent, down from 1.4 percent just a week ago. (Massachusetts does not provide 7-day positive test rates for municipalities, only 14-day rates.)

Every Hampden County community, except for Russell, met that 5 percent goal in the most recent reporting period released by the governor’s office on Wednesday, Aug. 19. Russell has had an oddly high infection rate throughout much of the pandemic. The community's numbers get skewed due to its small population.

Since Jan. 1 Massachusetts has had a total of 115,850 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and administered 2.1 million tests. The total number of COVID-19 deaths in the state is 8,690 people.

Here is a breakdown of local COVID-19 data: presenting the total number of infections recorded per community since the beginning of the pandemic and the 14-day positive test rate, percent in parenthesis ( ), for the cities and towns in your community:

CLICK HERE FOR A GRAPHIC SHOWING POSITIVE RATES SINCE JULY 17.

Agawam 252 (1.5)

Blandford <5 (0)

Brimfield 9 (0)

Chester >5 (0)

Chicopee 573 (1.6)

East Longmeadow 288 (1.4)

Granville 12 (0)

Hampden 101 (1.3)

Holland 11 (1.9)

Holyoke 1047 (2.4)

Longmeadow 247 (0.9)

Ludlow 141 0.6

Monson 45 (0.8)

Montgomery <5 (0)

Palmer 64 (2.3)

Russell 21 (9.1)

Southwick 58 (0.3)

Springfield 3175 (2.3)

Tolland <5 (0)

Wales 5 (0)

West Springfield 419 (0.7)

Westfield 502 (0.9)

Wilbraham 239 (1.2)

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