Westford Coronavirus Percent Positivity Trends Upward: State

WESTFORD, MA — The number of people with the coronavirus is trending upward in Westford, which is still considered a moderate-risk town, according to weekly state COVID-19 data released Wednesday.

The town is among 63 communities across the commonwealth that has been designated high-risk, up 23 from last week. Westford stayed in the yellow zone with an average rate of 6.5 cases per 100,000.

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 were marked high-risk, or red, if they reported more than eight confirmed COVID-19 cases per 100,000 residents over the past two weeks.

In Westford, 226 people have tested positive for the virus.

Westford's percent positivity is 1.46 percent. In neighboring Chelmsford, where the risk is considered high, it is 2.22 percent, slightly up from last week's 2.21 percent. In Lowell, also considered high risk, has a percent positivity of 3.29 percent, slightly down from where it was last week. Statewide, the positive test rate rose to 1.3 percent, up from 0.8 percent in mid-September.

Wednesday 518 people tested positive for the coronavirus and officials reported 16 deaths associated with the virus across the state. As of Wednesday there have been 9,429 deaths and 138,083 confirmed cases statewide since the pandemic reached the Bay State in March.

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.