Another 50 people with the new coronavirus have died in Massachusetts, health officials said Tuesday, and 358 more cases of the virus have been confirmed.
It comes a day after the coronavirus case total jumped past 100,000 and the death toll past 7,000, due in large part to the Massachusetts Department of Health adding probable cases and probable deaths to the tallies.
The total number of cases now stands at 101,163, while the death toll stands at 7,085.
And as of Tuesday, the state has tested more than 600,000 people for the virus using the standard test. Tens of thousands more received antibody tests, which test a person's blood to see if they ever had the virus.
Testing has been a cornerstone of the state's coronavirus response plan. Gov. Charlie Baker instituted an innovative contact-tracing scheme that aims to alert anyone recently exposed to someone who tests positive for the virus that they should quarantine.
The data in the Department of Public Health's daily report has been driving Baker's decisions on reopening the state economy. It's currently in Phase 1, with preparations being made for when Phase 2 is possible.
The report contains six indicators that are informing how fast Massachusetts can move through the four phases of its reopening plan. They are: the COVID-19 positive test rate, the number of individuals who died from COVID-19, the number of patients with COVID-19 in hospitals, the health care system's readiness, testing capacity, contact tracing capabilities.
None of the six indicators were trending negatively Tuesday and two were trending positively: the positive test rate and the testing capacity. All the other four metrics were rated "in progress," the intermediate metric. None of the indicators have changed since they launched May 18.
One of the indicators that Baker has repeatedly cited is percentage of non-antibody rests coming back positive. It's dropped in recent days to 5%, down dramatically from the low-30s, where it was at the height of the surge.
For months, Massachusetts been one of the epicenters of COVID-19 in the U.S. It has the fifth-most cases among all states and, after probable cases were added Monday, the third-most deaths.
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Baker and other health officials have said Massachusetts' high tallies may be due to the state testing among the most residents per capita in the country.
