Salem Coronavirus Numbers Stabilize Amid Halloween Crunch

SALEM, MA — Salem got some good news amid its unprecedented fight to deter visitors during the Halloween season this week when the state's weekly report on coronavirus rates showed the city bucked the statewide trend of rising numbers.

Salem was one of 90 out of 351 communities in the state to show lower rates of coronavirus per 100,000 residents — the metrics the state uses to determine whether communities can move forward with eases business restrictions and in-school learning. After surging from 6.3 cases to 7.1 in last week's report, Salem settled back to 5.9 cases in this week's report.

Salem had 37 confirmed positive cases over the past two weeks with a test-positive rate of 1.07 percent that was also lower than recent weeks.

The report comes as the city announced additional restrictions for potential Halloween visitors over the next two weeks, which includes having parking garages closing early, commuter rail outbound trains from Boston bypass the Salem stop and 8 p.m. business curfews for Halloween weekend.

It also comes as Salem Public Schools are preparing to welcome back its youngest students, and select other grades, for in-classroom learning on Nov. 16 for the first time since the buildings closed at the start of the health crisis seven months ago.

The state as a whole also remained above the high-risk threshold, reportingover eight average daily cases per 100,000 residents over the last two weeks. Seventy-seven communities — including Swampscott — were designated "high-risk" communities in the latest state report.

The positive test rate over the last two weeks increased in 130 — or 37.0 percent — of the 351 communities in the state. The rate fell in 90 — or 25.6 percent — communities and held steady in the remaining 131.

State rules mean that high-risk communities, plus others that were high risk in the last two updates, cannot move on to the next phase of reopening. Towns were marked high risk, or red, if they reported more than eight average daily confirmed COVID-19 cases per 100,000 residents over the past two weeks.

The full list of town-by-town data can be found here.

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