Wakefield's Coronavirus Risk Level Rises To High

WAKEFIELD, MA — Wakefield has been labeled a high-risk community for the coronavirus by the state, according to the latest town-by-town data released Wednesday by the Department of Public Health.

Sixty-three communities across the Commonwealth have been labeled high risk, up 23 from last week. It is the first time since the state started putting out its weekly color-coded map that Wakefield has fallen into the high risk, or "red," category.

"There has been a significant increase of positive cases in Wakefield due to a cluster at one location," officials said in a statement on the town's website. "Without this cluster, Wakefield would have changed from 'green' to 'yellow' due to community cases."

State officials have said that high-risk communities, along with those considered high risk in the past two updates, cannot move on to the next phase of reopening. Towns are marked "red" if they reported more than eight confirmed COVID-19 cases per 100,000 residents daily over the past two weeks.

Wakefield's percent positivity rate over two weeks rose to 1.57 percent. There were 34 cases in the town during that time, bringing the total case count to 395.

The state reported 518 new cases and 16 deaths Wednesday. The positive test rate rose to 1.3 percent statewide, up from 0.8 percent in mid-September. 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.

Statewide, there were 8.7 average daily cases per 100,000 residents, putting the state above the high-risk threshold for the first time since the metric was introduced. There have been 9,429 deaths and 138,083 confirmed cases statewide since the pandemic reached the Bay State in March.

View the state's interactive COVID-19 map.