FALL RIVER — A counting error by the Massachusetts COVID Command Center placed the city in the highest risk category for new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, but to Mayor Paul Coogan the numbers didn’t jibe and now the state is reversing Fall River’s rating.
“It seems like the positive cases in Fall River are less than have been reported and they are working to correct some of these numbers,” said Coogan who had just completed a conference call with the state health group.
Coogan said that during the call they agreed to remove 16 cases reported in error. He said there could be more adjustments to the numbers.
On Tuesday the state released its new, color-coded state map that showed average daily cases of COVID-19 per 100,000 residents using health data in a recent two-week period for all of the state’s 351 communities. Initially the city was rated in the yellow category, or moderate risk, with a rate of 4 to 8 cases per 100,000 residents.
In the original map four communities were listed in the red, high-risk category: Chelsea, Everett, Revere and Lynn.
That changed Wednesday night when the state updated the COVID map and rated Fall River in the red category with an average of 8 or more cases in the two week period. The city’s average was 8.3 positive cases per 100,000, from 26,088 tests.
The state also placed the communities of Granby, Holyoke, Hull, Salem and Saugus in the red category.
The quick change took Coogan by surprise and on Thursday morning he turned to his staff in the Department of Health who went through the numbers in the Massachusetts Virtual Epidemiologic Network (MAVEN) which collects data of cases of infectious disease in the state.
According to a list Coogan provided, in the period between July 26 and Aug. 8, the timeframe used to calculate municipalities' COVID risks, the state showed Fall River had 109 new cases while the city’s Department of Health’s information from MAVEN showed 63 new cases.
Coogan said he contacted Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito before and after the meeting with the COVID Command Center.
“I said people are scared. If in a two-week period we’re rated high risk, then we’re high risk, but on the merits not on an error,” said Coogan.
The mayor said he doesn’t know when the COVID map and the city’s rating will be corrected by the state health agency or what the color category will be but “it should be yellow at a minimum.”
While the increase in cases in the city isn’t as dire as the new mapping showed on Wednesday, like many communities Fall River has seen a fairly steady increase in new cases over the past few months after cases in the state took a plummet from being one of the worst areas of COVID infection and deaths in the country.
In the research on new COVID cases in the city, the Board of Health also categorized incidence of cases by the ages of patients, said Coogan, who indicated he was surprised by the results.
Of the 63 new cases in the city in the two-week period calculated by the Board of Health, the age-group with the highest number of new cases were people in their 20s, with 17 new reported positive cases.
The next highest numbers were people in their 30s and 40s, with 13 new cases and 14 new cases respectively.
Next were seven new cases reported in people from 10 to 20 years old; five in people in their 50s; four in people in their 60s; three in people in their 70s; one case in a person in their 90s.
Coogan said what he was most happy to see with the opening of city schools in the next several weeks was only one new case reported for children under 10 years old.
Email Jo C. Goode at jgoode@heraldnews.com