After weeks of decline, the Island is now seeing a surge of confirmed COVID-19 cases with 47 cases reported by the Martha’s Vineyard boards of health between March 21 and March 27.
The 47 confirmed cases include 36 from the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital, seven from TestMV, one from the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah), one from the Martha’s Vineyard Public School Testing, and two from off-Island providers.
Of the 47 new cases, 32 were symptomatic, nine had no symptoms and the status of six was unknown. None of the individuals is hospitalized, according to the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital website.
Between March 1 and March 19, the boards of health reported 25 new cases.
A group of positive cases linked to King’s Barbershop has grown to seven and is now being considered a cluster by the boards of health.
The Island has had five other clusters, including an October wedding (8 cases), Cronig’s Market (19 cases), a Bible study group (11 cases), MV Hospital (5 cases), and Project Headway (4 cases).
Shirley’s Hardware in Vineyard Haven is closed down for two weeks after two of the store’s employees tested positive for COVID-19, according to the store’s Facebook page.
“We are sorry to report that two of our employees have tested positive for COVID. We have decided to close immediately,” the Shirley’s post reads. “We want to make sure it is safe for [customers] before we reopen. The 14-day quarantine period allows us to open Friday, April 9th. Fingers crossed!”
In total, there have been 1,055 confirmed positive results on the Island since testing began in March — 500 females and 496 males. There have also been 59 probable cases — 33 male and 26 female. There have been 377 cases — 38 percent of the total — that have been linked to at least one other case. In most instances those involved family members or small social groups.
Martha’s Vineyard reported its highest number of cases in January with 302 cases of which 195 were symptomatic.
Meanwhile, as of Saturday, the hospital has administered more than 11,000 total vaccine doses — 6,715 first doses and 4,578 second doses.
The hospital has now administered 15,170 tests, with 714 positive results. There have been 14,429 negative tests and there are 19 results pending.
TestMV, which is located in the parking lot at Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School, has now administered 35,428 tests, with 267 positive results, 34,840 negative results, and 321 tests pending.
The town of Aquinnah has conducted 444 tests, of which one has come back positive, 441 negative, and two pending results.
The Martha’s Vineyard public schools have administered 8,674 tests. Of those, five have tested positive.
The Tribe has reported a total of eight positive cases of COVID-19.
Due to how tests are conducted, there can be a discrepancy between the number of positive individuals and the number of positive tests reported.
At the state level Sunday, there were 1,817 new confirmed cases with an estimated 30,772 active cases. The state’s seven day average of percent positivity rate is 2.2.8 percent. There were 29 new COVID-realted deaths Saturday for a total of 16,775 since March.
