Partial Massachusetts COVID-19 data represented Saturday, positive rate down to 1.1%, no report Sunday

Massachusetts saw a decrease in hospitalizations in Saturday’s COVID-19 report, but the report may not tell the full story.

Massachusetts has seen 109 more positive cases announced today. A decrease from yesterday’s report. The 7 day weighted average positive test rate decreased to 1.1%.

The Massachusetts Department of Health statistics show a rise in total cases to 115,850 with 20 more reported dead for a total of 8,690.

Massachusetts had seen 431 more positive cases in the previous 24 hour period.

8,301 tests were performed, over 18,400 less than yesterday, to increase the overall total to 2,064,529. The amount of individuals tested is now 1,544,163.

Hospitalizations have decreased in 80 of the last 104 days, including 7 today to see the total drop to 315.
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In anticipation of increased COVID-19 testing volumes linked to expanded testing at Massachusetts colleges and universities this fall, the Department of Public Health are making a long-planned transition of its electronic laboratory reporting system to the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud today, a move that is expected to greatly increase the state’s public health data collection capacity.

The migration to the cloud requires a temporary interruption of laboratory data reporting to DPH. This means that on Saturday, August 22, DPH will publish a dashboard based on data received by 5 PM Friday, instead of by 8 am Saturday. As a result, it should be noted that Saturday’s report could reflect lower numbers of individual tests, total tests, new cases, and deaths. Hospitalization numbers will not be impacted. No dashboard will be published on Sunday, August 23.

DPH expects laboratory data to have resumed to its normal flow by Monday, August 24, when the daily COVID-19 dashboard posting will resume. All laboratory results from the weekend will be displayed on the Monday dashboard report and will be appropriately assigned to their respective test dates, as usual.

“This system migration and capacity upgrade has been planned for many months for enhanced stability and security of our systems and to accommodate the recent and expected growth in COVID-19 test volumes,” said Kevin Cranston, DPH Assistant Commissioner and Director of the Bureau of Infectious Disease and Laboratory Sciences. “It is particularly critical that we make the move now to manage the testing of thousands of college and university students starting soon.”

The migration to the cloud is a needed upgrade that will result in several system improvements including:

· Increasing the current daily volume of test results processed from 25K test results to 100K

· Incorporating an electronic Quality Assurance dashboard to monitor data flow and errors, a process currently done manually

· Providing additional capacity on the server, making more data report enhancements possible

The data system upgrade is part of the plans for extensive infrastructure renovations at the State Public Health Laboratory in Jamaica Plain and IT improvements made possible by recent federal COVID-19 testing resources.

More COVID-19 statistics for Massachusetts and the country include:

Nursing home cases and cases by City and Town as of August 19th.
Weekly COVID-19 Public Health Report

Massachusetts residents subject to COVID-19 quarantine by current status up to August 19th
• Total of individuals subject to quarantine: 79,187
• Total of individuals who have completed monitoring (no longer in quarantine): 76,344
• Total of individuals currently undergoing monitoring/under quarantine: 2,843

According to the CDC, as of August 22nd, the total amount of COVID-19 cases in the country is 5,598,547 with 174,645 dead.

Courtesy of the CDC