It’s important to pay attention to the expiration dates of COVID test kits, but that’s not all.
Another 27,612 confirmed COVID-19 cases were reported in Massachusetts Wednesday, setting a new single-day record, while 54 new confirmed deaths brought the state's total above 20,000.
The report from the Department of Public Health pushed the state's number of confirmed COVID-19 to 1,135,380, while the death toll rose to 20,008.
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Wednesday's single-day high tops the previous record, set on Friday, by 6,215 cases, a 29% increase.
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 at least in part by the omicron variant.
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Massachusetts' seven-day average of positive tests rose from 21.62% Tuesday to 22,06% Wednesday, the highest it's been since April 23, 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 2,426, the most since Jan. 4, 2021. The figure was once nearly 4,000, but reached under an average of 85 at one point in July.
Of those currently hospitalized, 973 are fully vaccinated, 427 are in intensive care units and 265 are intubated.
More COVID News
Nearly 12.9 million vaccine doses have now been administered in Massachusetts.
That includes, from the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, shy of 5.6 million first shots, nearly 4.8 million second shots and nearly 2.2 million booster shots. There have been more than 335,000 doses of the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine administered.
Health officials on Wednesday reported that a total of 5,102,405 Massachusetts residents have been fully vaccinated.
