Massachusetts COVID-19 infections soar after holidays

NEEDHAM, Mass. — Nearly three years after the first COVID-19 case in Massachusetts, infections are once again soaring.

The state Department of Public Health reported a 27 percent rise in the positivity rate, based on 7-day averaging — since Christmas. As of last week, more than 13 percent of COVID-19 tests were coming back positive.

Hospitalizations are up about 34 percent since Christmas to an average of 1,251 patients.

These are the kind of COVID-19 numbers that have not been seen since the first Omicron wave last winter — and there’s evidence they could go higher. MWRA wastewater data shows a sharp rise in viral RNA in local sewage — not only a portent for future infections, but an indication that the state’s COVID-19 numbers aren’t painting a full picture.

“Us being done with the pandemic doesn’t mean the pandemic is done with us,” said Jon Levy, ScD, chair of the Department of Environmental Health at the BU School of Public Health. “Hospitalizations have climbed quite a bit, deaths from [COVID-19] have climbed quite a bit, wastewater has climbed quite a bit — but we haven’t seen cases move nearly as much. So all that is evidence that we’re not testing as much as we used to and we’re certainly not reporting out those test results as we used to. So there’s a lot more [COVID-19] out there than people are generally aware of.”

On Twitter, citing rising COVID-19 parameters that haven’t been met with an equivalent public health response, Levy posted “we have become comfortably numb.”

Some have also become fearless.

Along Needham’s Great Plain Avenue, Boston 25 News spoke with residents about how they viewed the pandemic, three years later.

“Well it’s definitely a lot better than it was, " said Rudy Holtzhausen. “I think New England is doing much better. I mean, just the fact we’re not wearing masks right now is nice.”

“I gotta live my life,” said Jami Strangio, co-owner of 2nd Hand Rose. “I think a lot of people are feeling that way — that we have to learn to live with it.”

That’s what Grace Hao has been doing. She was one of the few we encountered who was wearing a mask. But she had a solid reason for doing so.

“I just noticed a lot of my friends and family getting sick, so that’s why I started wearing a mask again,” Hao said. “My brother and my Dad just got sick with [COVID-19] maybe two or three weeks ago.”

“The reason for the rise now is that we spent two years indoors, germs didn’t circulate through the schools, kids were having Zoom meetings,” said Christina Hajjar. “Now they’re back in school, back into society, shopping, grocery shopping. The germs are spreading. They’re coming back home from school with it and it’s spreading again.”

Hajjar said it’s no time to ‘freak out’ — given there are ways to prevent and/or treat COVID-19 infections.

However, the dominant variant in New England — XBB.1.5 — evades immunity from previous infections, vaccines and antibodies that worked against other variants.

“This is the most transmissible variant we have known so far,” said Sandeep Jubbal, MD. an infectious disease specialist at UMass Memorial Medical Center. “People should consider this seriously and should wear masks. And especially those who are at high risk of getting very sick should consider avoiding indoor activities in public.”

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