Leaders in Lawrence are urging people to stay home this New Year’s Eve with surging COVID-19 cases.
Another 21,397 confirmed COVID-19 cases were reported in Massachusetts Friday, setting a record for the third day in a row.
The report from the Department of Public Health pushed the state's number of confirmed COVID-19 to 1,059,963. The state crossed the 1 million case mark on Tuesday.
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Another 48 deaths were reported, putting the state's death toll at 19,821 since the start of the pandemic.
Friday's case count breaks the state's previous record high, set Thursday, by 260. Thursday's total also broke a record set a day earlier by 5,974 cases, a 39% increase.
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Massachusetts' COVID metrics, tracked on the Department of Public Health's interactive coronavirus dashboard, dashboard, have been spiking to heights not seen since last winter's surge, thought to be driven in part by the omicron variant. COVID levels tracked in the Boston area's wastewater are far outpacing any previously observed levels.
Massachusetts' seven-day average of positive tests rose from 16.44% Thursday to 18.42% Friday, the highest it's been since April 29, 2020. The metric was once above 30%, but had dropped under 0.5% until the delta variant began surging in the state.
The number of patients in Massachusetts hospitals with confirmed COVID-19 cases rose to 1,954, the most since Jan. 24. The figure was once nearly 4,000, but reached under an average of 85 at one point in July.
Of those currently hospitalized, 686 are fully vaccinated, 387 are in intensive care units and 243 are intubated.
More COVID News
More than 12.7 million vaccine doses have now been administered in Massachusetts.
That includes, from the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, over 5.5 million first shots, more than 4.7 million second shots and more than 2.1 million booster shots. There have been more than 335,000 doses of the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine administered.
Health officials on Friday reported that a total of 5,088,122 Massachusetts residents have been fully vaccinated.
