Six more COVID-19 cases in Fall River; no deaths in 9 days

FALL RIVER — Fall River recorded six more positive cases of COVID-19 on Thursday, bringing the city's total to 2,178.

To date, 135 people in Fall River have died of COVID-19. There has not been a death in Fall River attributed to the coronavirus in nine days.

Statewide, 409 more people contracted the disease in the past day, bringing the state's total to 134,277, with another eight deaths recorded on Thursday. To date, 9,350 statewide have died of COVID-19.

The state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education released a report Wednesday detailing coronavirus figures for students and staff at state schools for the past week. Of regional schools, Argosy Collegiate Charter School has one positive student; Diman Regional Vocational Technical High School reported a staff member was positive; and Swansea reported two students and a staff member were COVID-19-positive.

Charlton Memorial Hospital is caring for nine patients with COVID-19, three of them in intensive care.

Nationally, 7,528,313 people have contracted COVID-19, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an increase of over 53,000 cases since Wednesday. More than 211,000 people have died from the disease.

Hospitalizations drop below 500 again

Thursday's report from the Department of Public Health counted first-time tests for 14,035 people, and DPH said 3% of those tested were found to be positive for COVID-19. Meanwhile, the state's seven-day average of the positive test rate of all tests conducted ticked down from the 1.1% reported Wednesday to 1%.

After four straight days that saw the number of COVID-19 patients hospitalized increase by more than 20, the patient population dropped Thursday by 31, settling at 484 as of midday. Eighty-five of those people are being treated in an intensive care unit and 23 are on a ventilator, DPH said.

Since the start of the pandemic, 2,360,825 people have been tested, 134,277 have been infected and 9,565 people have died with confirmed or probable cases of COVID-19.

Isolated, active cases hit a new high

The number of people with active cases of COVID-19 in Massachusetts jumped by more than 20% in the last week to the highest level since the state began reporting active cases at the start of June. There were 8,162 people in isolation with test-confirmed cases of COVID-19 as of Wednesday, the Department of Public Health reported, up from 6,744 the week before.

There were 4,114 cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Massachusetts over the last week, 2,596 people recovered from their bout with the virus and 100 people died.

The number of active cases -- people who have been confirmed to have the contagious COVID-19 -- grew by 1,418 people.

At 8,162 active cases isolated, Wednesday's report set a new high-water mark since DPH began reporting data around recoveries and isolation in June. There were 7,300 active cases in the June 10 report, the previous high, and the 2,586 active cases reported both July 8 and July 15 represent the low-water mark. The number of active coronavirus cases has increased each week since the July 15 report.