Three Dukes County towns report zero cases in new data

Town-by-town count shows Aquinnah, Chilmark, and Gosnold with no cases.

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Aquinnah is one of three Dukes County towns that is reporting zero COVID-19 cases. — Gabrielle Mannino

Updated 4:25 pm

Aquinnah, Chilmark, and Gosnold are three of the 22 towns across the state reporting zero confirmed cases of COVID-19, according to state data.

In a new list that will be updated every Wednesday, The Department of Public Health broke down the 29,918 confirmed cases by municipality. The confirmed cases range from Jan. 1 to April 14.

There are 59 municipalities that have less than five confirmed cases and have a population less than 50,000 were not required to report exact case counts to preserve privacy.

West Tisbury has five confirmed cases and a rate of 173.43 (per 100,000), according to the data — the only town in Dukes County with an exact confirmed case count. Edgartown, Oak Bluffs, and Tisbury all report fewer than five cases.

This comes after the state Department of Public Health (DPH) was admonishing local health agents who were releasing similar data early on.

“Having the ability to look at this virus through the lens of its impact on specific cities and towns will help us identify potential hotspots, inform the public health response, assist cities and towns working to slow the spread and help the state appropriately deploy resources,” Massachusetts Health and Human Services Secretary Marylou Sudders said during a press conference Wednesday.

The state has also released a list of how many patients are at each hospital.

As of Thursday, Martha’s Vineyard Hospital’s confirmed cases held steady at 12 for the ninth day in a row. The number of people tested on Island is up to 227 with 212 of those people testing negative for the virus. There are 3 pending tests.

While no one is hospitalized on Island, on Tuesday, hospital officials said three of the 12 patients who were “quite sick” were taken off-Island for treatment. Two were airlifted and one was driven off-Island in a private vehicle.

Of those 12 confirmed cases, seven are female and five are male. Six of the cases are aged 50-59 years old, two cases are 60-69 years old, two are 30-39 years old, and two are 20-29 years old.

At the state level on Thursday, 137 new deaths brought the state total to 1,245, according to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. DPH reported a large spike in positive cases with 2,263 new cases for a total of 32,181. The state has tested 132,023 people.

Meanwhile, Cape officials have launched a new interactive map that shows the public where cases are by zip code. 

A month after Gov. Charlie Baker declared a state of emergency due to the spread of the coronavirus, Baker says the state has begun hitting its peak number of cases.

“At this point in time, based on the conversations we’re having everyday with our colleagues in the hospital community, we are in the surge, yes,” Baker said at a press conference Wednesday.

 

Updated to include current state and MV hospital numbers. — Ed.

4 COMMENTS

  1. Another foolish decision. May events were postponed to June. So why did the Ag Society cancel their big event in August?

  2. Just for the non number crunchers out there– Official numbers by the WHO are recorded in cases per million. West Tisbury’s rate of 173.43 per 100 thousand is 1,734 per million.
    That’s just slightly below the U.S rate of 1,997 cases per million, an well above the world wide average rate of 267.

  3. Which test was administered to everyone in these three towns? I don’t believe you can diagnose a condition through theory and statistics. Maybe they will peak in June or July… or maybe not.

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