Massachusetts enters the first week of May with more than 2.6 million people fully vaccinated against the coronavirus that’s infected almost 650,000 people here in just more than a year and a death rate that’s hit its lowest level on record.
Between Saturday and Sunday, the Department of Public Health reported that the administration of 125,147 total COVID-19 vaccine shots — more than half of them, 71,564, second or final doses — had bumped the number of people inoculated against COVID-19 here to 2,602,414.
More than 6.22 million shots have now been given in Massachusetts.
The agency also reported 1,901 new COVID-19 infections and 11 recent COVID-19 deaths across the two days, raising the state’s cumulative case count to 647,768 people infected and 17,621 people dead in about 14 months. The 786 cases reported Sunday represented the fewest daily new cases since Nov. 2 — exactly six months earlier. The seven-day average positive test rate dropped almost 10 percent to 1.49 percent over the weekend and the number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 declined by a net 34 patients to 525 total hospitalizations, DPH said.
With the final steps towards reopening now in sight and on a schedule, the four main COVID-19 metrics that have guided the Baker administration’s reopening strategy paint a more positive picture than they have in half a year or more.
The state’s positivity rate (1.49 percent) is lower than it has been at any point since Oct. 20, when it registered at 1.48 percent. The seven-day average number of daily new cases (869.3) is roughly equal to its mark from Oct. 21 (869.9). The seven-day average number of people hospitalized currently stands at 587.9, about equal to where it was on Nov. 11 (591.7 patients).
And the seven-day average number of daily COVID-19 deaths on Friday hit its lowest level since DPH began keeping a record in mid-April 2020, now at 8.7 COVID-19 deaths per day on average.
DPH estimated Sunday that there are about 24,104 active cases of the highly contagious COVID-19 in the state — roughly the population of Hingham. Active cases are down about 28 percent since the start of April and almost 70 percent since the start of the year.
