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Last week, the CDC announced that people should return to mask-wearing indoors in areas where there is “substantial” or “high” COVID-19 transmission.
“Substantial” transmission means the county has seen between 50 and 99.99 total new cases per 100,000 persons in the past seven days, according to the CDC. “High” transmission includes anything above that number.
As of Tuesday, Aug. 3, Massachusetts is now up to nine counties that have hit the CDC’s mask threshold, up from five counties a week ago.
According to the latest data released by the CDC, Barnstable, and Nantucket counties are in the “high” transmission rate category. Bristol, Essex, Hampden, Middlesex, Plymouth, Suffolk, and Worcester counties are in the “substantial” zone.
The number of COVID-19 cases in Massachusetts continues to climb, up to approximately 575 cases this week compared to less than 70 at the end of June, marking a near 900 percent increase in the past few weeks.
Hospitalizations in Massachusetts have also risen in the past two weeks, more than doubling from 80 to approximately 200 as of Aug. 3.
Nationwide, there are currently 1,960 counties (60.87 percent) in the US with a “high” level of community transmission rate, while there are 609 (18.91 percent) with a “substantial,” 479 (14.88 percent) with a “moderate,” and 171 (5.31 percent) with a “low” transmission rate.
Complete data from the CDC can be found here as the number of cases continues to surge across the country.
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