Leaders in Lawrence are urging people to stay home this New Year’s Eve with surging COVID-19 cases.
Another 21,137 confirmed COVID-19 cases were reported in Massachusetts Thursday, setting a record for the second day in a row.
The report from the Department of Public Health pushed the state's number of confirmed COVID-19 to 1,038,566. The state crossed the 1 million case mark on Tuesday.
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Thirty-six new deaths put the death toll at 19,773.
Thursday's high tops the previous record, set on Wednesday, by 5,974 cases, a 39% increase. The record was set three times last week amid the latest COVID surge.
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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 13.58% Wednesday to 16.44% Thursday, the highest it's been since May 4, 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 1,817, the most since Jan. 27. The figure was once nearly 4,000, but reached under an average of 85 at one point in July.
Of those currently hospitalized, 631 are fully vaccinated, 382 are in intensive care units and 250 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 nearly 2.1 million booster shots. There have been more than 335,000 doses of the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine administered.
Health officials on Thursday reported that a total of 5,082,311 Massachusetts residents have been fully vaccinated.
