Massachusetts virus cases continue to get younger, 14 new deaths reported

Katie Lannan
State House News Service

APRIL 14, 2021…..Almost 40 percent of the new COVID-19 cases recorded in Massachusetts in the past two weeks were among people in their 20s and 30s, according to Department of Public Health data updated Wednesday.

Of the 26,716 cases, the DPH said 5,942 were people in their 20s and 4,419 were people in their 30s. Youth between the ages of 10-19 accounted for 4,512 cases, and 2,704 cases were in kids age 9 and younger.

Numbers were lower at the other end of the age spectrum, with 287 cases among people 80 and older, 546 among people in their 70s, and 1,924 among people in their 60s during the same time period.

“The most important thing I can say about vaccinations generally is the impact it’s had on some of the most vulnerable communities in Massachusetts and across the country and frankly around the world,” Baker said from the Hynes Convention Center mass vaccination site, where he got his own first dose last week. “It’s pretty clear at this point: the vaccines work. If you look at the hospitalization rates and the case rates among those groups of people who’ve been vaccinated, they’ve evaporated, and in many cases involved some of the folks that we were most concerned about.”

As of Wednesday, the average age of a hospitalized COVID-19 patient in Massachusetts was 59 years old, according to the DPH, and 711 patients were hospitalized with the respiratory disease, down three from the previous day’s report.

A new Health Policy Commission report released Wednesday found that Black and Hispanic patients represented a disproportionate share of COVID-19 hospitalizations in 2020, as did patients from lower-income communities.

DPH on Wednesday also reported 2,004 new confirmed cases of COVID-19, bringing the state’s running total to 624,666. Fourteen newly reported deaths bring the state’s fatality count to 17,082, or 17,427 when the 345 deaths among people with probable but unconfirmed cases of COVID-19 are added in.