Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, said on Tuesday that the Delta variant is more contagious and causes more severe disease than others. In the last two weeks, the prevalence of cases resulting from it has doubled to just over 20%.
Massachusetts has reached its long-sought goal of fully vaccinating 4.1 million people, though the achievement comes a few weeks later than Gov. Charlie Baker had initially wanted.
He noted that the Bay State reached his goal in a tweet on Tuesday, in which he thanked health care workers and others who volunteered at vaccine clinics, as well as the roughly 60% of the state's population who got the vaccine.
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Baker's initial goal was to have 4.1 million people fully vaccinated by the beginning of June. As the time approached, he acknowledged the state wouldn't meet the goal on time.
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Asked last week if he had a new goal in mind beyond 4.1 million, Baker said, "More. The new number is more."
Massachusetts has among the highest vaccination rates in the country, though as with other states and the country on the whole, it's slowed recently. President Joe Biden is expected to announce that the nation won't reach his
Baker last week announced a series of $1 million giveaways to incentivize vaccination in Massachusetts. He has said he wants as many people vaccinated as want one, and officials like Dr. Anthony Fauci are warning of the dangers posed by the newly surging delta variant.
Health officials on Tuesday reported that a total of 4,104,162 Bay State residents have been fully vaccinated.
Nearly 8.5 million vaccine doses have been administered in Massachusetts as of Tuesday. That includes nearly 4.4 million first shots and more than 3.8 million second shots of the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines. There have been more than 270,000 doses of the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine administered.
More Mass. COVID News
The state's COVID data, tracked on the Department of Public Health's interactive coronavirus dashboard, has fallen far enough that its state of emergency declaration expired last week.
Massachusetts health officials also reported 33 new coronavirus cases, matching the lowest single-day case number since March 2020, and one new death on Tuesday.
The new numbers pushed the state's confirmed COVID-19 death toll to 17,613 since the start of the pandemic, while its confirmed caseload rose to 663,332.
Once above 30%, Massachusetts' seven-day average of positive tests held again at 0.34%.
The number of patients in Massachusetts hospitals with confirmed COVID-19 cases ticked up to 103 after it hit 100 Monday. At its peak, the figure was nearly 4,000. Of those currently hospitalized, 35 are listed as being in intensive care units and 17 are intubated.
Health officials' projection of active COVID-19 cases fell to 1,838 from 1,876 on Tuesday.
