Wareham now in ‘green’ covid-19 risk category

The town saw 17 new cases of covid-19 in the past week and has been moved to the “green” covid-19 risk category, according to data from the state’s May 20 Weekly Public Health Report.

Wareham’s average daily incidence rate decreased to 9.5 cases per 100,000 people in the past 14 days. Given Wareham’s population, this means there were about 2.19 new cases each day over the past two weeks.

Wareham has also seen a percent positivity rate — or the percentage of covid-19 tests performed that come back positive — of 2.1 percent over the last 14 days. 

A week ago, the state’s public health report indicated Wareham was seeing roughly 3.2 new cases each day and had a percent positivity rate of 2.52 percent. 

Before being changed to the “green” risk category on May 20, the town had been categorized “yellow” since May 6. Prior to that, Wareham had been classified “red” since April 8. 

Since the beginning of the pandemic, there have been 1,730 coronavirus cases in Wareham. On May 18, Town Administrator Derek Sullivan reported that since the beginning of the pandemic, 68 Wareham residents’ deaths were attributed to covid-19. 

As of May 24, Wareham Public Schools reported one student and zero employees currently positive for covid-19, along with 13 students and zero employees currently quarantined.