Though the city’s positive test rate is lower than it has been in months, Boston Mayor Martin Walsh said the city has seen an uptick in cases over the last 10 days and urged people to take virus mitigation measures seriously as St. Patrick’s Day approaches.
For the week that ended Feb. 28, which Walsh said was the most recent data available, Boston saw an average of 4,113 residents get tested for COVID-19 each day and an average of 176 of those residents test positive.
The seven-day positive test rate was 3.6 percent, he said. His administration is trying to figure out what has contributed to the recent uptick.
“I’m appealing to the people of Boston to do the right thing, please do the right thing. We have made so much progress in bringing these numbers down. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, as I said earlier, there’s no question about it, we can see it,” Walsh said. “So don’t put our progress at risk because people want to have a party at St. Patrick’s Day.”
Last year, as the pandemic was just taking root here, South Boston bars were closed for St. Patrick’s Day after big groups congregated in lines outside establishments on Broadway.
Health and Human Services Chief Marty Martinez said the city will be on the lookout this year for lines outside restaurants and added that he’s “really concerned” about that issue.
“We love the nice weather like everyone else, but we sort of wish that it was a little bit later and not so soon … primarily because we want people to double down,” Martinez said. “It’s really, really important we don’t have people standing outside congregating with no masks. That’s a problem and we’re going to see increases in cases if we see that.”
While Walsh said Tuesday that “about 20 percent of Boston’s population age 16 or older have received at least one dose” of a COVID-19 vaccine and that “about 10 percent of Boston’s population aged 16 or older are fully vaccinated,” Martinez presented the same information in a very different frame.
“So much of what we’re seeing in the news about the vaccine and how important that is, still in Boston, 90 percent of folks are not fully vaccinated,” he said.
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