Shrewsbury Deemed 'High Risk' As Coronavirus Cases Increase

SHREWSBURY, MA — A jump in positive COVID-19 cases pushed Shrewsbury onto the state's "high risk community" list, also known as the "red" communities.

Shrewsbury had 43 new positive COVID-19 cases in the last two weeks, bringing the total number of cases in the town to 454. Shrewsbury has 8 average daily incidents per 100,000 residents, meeting the state's high-risk threshold.

Over the last two weeks, Shrewsbury has tested 3,247 people, bumping its total testing number to 20,000. But in the last two weeks alone, 50 tests came back positive in town. The town's percent positive rate over the last two weeks rose to 1.54 percent. Health officials say positive test results need to stay below 5 percent for two weeks or longer and, preferably, be closer to 2 percent, for states to safely ease restrictions.

State rules mean that high-risk communities, plus others that were high-risk in the last two updates, cannot move on to the next phase of reopening. Sixty-three communities were designated high-risk in the new town-by-town data released by the state Wednesday. Shrewsbury was one of 24 new communities added to the state's list of "high risk" COVID-19 communities.

View the state's interactive COVID-19 map.