Above: The Town’s Covid-19 figures were updated as of yesterday afternoon. (Click to enlarge)
It’s time for another update on the Town and school’s Covid-19 situation.
Updated Southborough figures
Yesterday afternoon, the Town posted updated Covid-19 figures (as of 4:00 pm on February 8th). As of the update, 27 cases were confirmed in the prior 14 days, only 8 of those in the prior 7 days. The 2-week totals are still higher than the fall, but have been trending down the past few weeks.
The Town’s cumulative total over the course of the pandemic was increased to 372 cases with 55 cases currently labeled active. (For details, click on graphs above and below.)
NSBORO School District Data
The district’s Covid Dashboard was updated on Sunday. 8 new cases were confirmed last week, 205 over the course of the pandemic. The number of students/staff kept home for isolation/quarantine was 126 last week.
The schools’ data is below, along with my charts capturing data since the start of school from past announcements.
The data shows a continued, consistent decline in new cases and quarantines over the past 4 weeks across the three combined districts. (Broken down by individual districts there have been fluctuations. I included detailed graphs tracking the data for Southborough K-8 and for Algonquin.)
Just an fyi the previous 14 days only matters on thursday. That is what the state uses. We are actually at 18 as of monday. If we are 6 or fewer in our thursday update we can move to yellow. It is not a moving 14 day total. There were only 5 in previous 4 days so hopefully we can stay under 7 for the next 3 days.
The 14 days is one barometer of how infection rates are trending. What you are talking about is what triggers risk categories for each Town. The fact that the state only bases that on looking at the data one day per week doesn’t mean that the other days don’t matter.
As for only Thursday counting – actually the report is issued on Thursdays but as I often note when covering the Town’s latest risk category, the data used is the results of tests taken in the 14 days ending the prior Saturday. In the case of last week’s report that was tests taken prior to January 30th. This Thursday’s will be based on results of tests taken through February 6th.
Following up, I have the same figure for this Thursday as you do (18 cases if there are no new cases confirmed since Monday’s posting).
But that is the timing of when the Town reported confirmed cases – not when patients were tested. Depending on the timing of the tests (including for the 5 cases confirmed between the Town’s reports last Thursday and this Monday), the 1/24 – 2/6 figures could keep us in the red even if no more cases are confirmed this week.
You can find more about those details on my Covid-19 updates page here.