Coronavirus

Mass. Confirms 13,717 New COVID Cases Over the Weekend

Massachusetts' seven-day average of positive tests rose to 5.91% Monday

NBC Universal, Inc.

Massachusetts health officials reported another 13,717 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 28 new deaths Monday, in a report that includes data from over the weekend.

It pushed the state's number of confirmed COVID-19 cases to 957,625 since the start of the pandemic and its death toll to 19,434.

Massachusetts' COVID metrics, tracked on the Department of Public Health's interactive coronavirus dashboard, dashboard, had been far lower than they were in spring, but have been rising lately.

Massachusetts' COVID metrics, tracked on the Department of Public Health's interactive coronavirus dashboard, dashboard, had been far lower than they were in spring, but have been rising lately. The discovery of omicron, a new COVID strain labeled a variant of concern by the World Health Organization over the Thanksgiving weekend, is being monitored in case it accelerates the recent surge statewide and across the U.S.

Public health officials have been cautious after the surge of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, says NBC News medical correspondent Dr. John Torres. "We now understand we have to try and stay a step ahead of this virus - and by doing that we might shut down things that don't necessarily need to be shut down," he said. But the alternative — not being cautious — could lead to cases "getting out control."

Massachusetts Department of Public Health COVID reports on Mondays, or Tuesdays after holiday weekends, include all the data reported since Friday's update. This weekend's cases average to about 4,572 per day, after Friday brought 6,345 new cases, the most in one day since January.

Massachusetts' seven-day average of positive tests rose from 5.77% Friday to 5.91% Monday. The metric was once above 30%, but had dropped under 0.5% until the delta variant began surging in the state.

The number of patients in Massachusetts hospitals with confirmed COVID-19 cases rose to 1,513. The figure was once nearly 4,000, but reached under an average of 85 at one point in July.

Of those currently hospitalized, 432 are fully vaccinated, 347 are in intensive care units and 203 are intubated.

Over 12.3 million vaccine doses have now been administered in Massachusetts.

That includes, from the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, nearly 5.5 million first shots, over 4.7 million second shots and more than 1.8 million booster shots. There have been more than 335,000 doses of the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine administered.

Health officials on Monday reported that a total of 5,042,794 Massachusetts residents have been fully vaccinated.

Contact Us