Tewksbury Remains Moderate-Risk As Cases Fall

TEWKSBURY, MA — Tewksbury is still considered a moderate-risk community, according to weekly state data released Wednesday.

Sixty-three communities across the commonwealth that has been designated high-risk, up 23 from last week, but Tewksbury remained moderate-risk with a falling case rate. The town's average daily case rate was 5.3 per 100,000, down from 7.89 last week.

State officials have said that high-risk communities, along with those considered high-risk in the past two updates, cannot move on to the next phase of reopening. Towns were marked high-risk, or red, if they reported more than eight confirmed COVID-19 cases per day per 100,000 residents over the past two weeks.

Tewksbury's percent positivity is just 0.87 percent, down from last week's 1.31 percent. Statewide, the positive test rate rose to 1.3 percent, up from 0.8 percent in mid-September.

The state reported 518 confirmed cases and 16 deaths associated with the virus across the state, Wednesday. There have been 9,429 deaths and 138,083 confirmed cases statewide since the pandemic reached the Bay State in March.

In Tewksbury, 683 people have tested positive for the virus since March.

Health officials say positive test results need to stay below 5 percent for two weeks or longer and, preferably, be closer to 2 percent, for states to safely ease restrictions.

Statewide, there were 8.7 average daily cases per 100,000 residents, putting the state above the high-risk threshold for the first time since the metric was introduced.