Peabody Back At 'High Risk' For Coronavirus Community Spread

PEABODY, MA — Peabody's struggle to stay out of the state's "high risk" category for community coronavirus spread hit another detour over the past two weeks when it re-entered the designation after a brief reprieve.

The city was one of 77 communities in the state designated as "high risk" in the weekly report released Thursday night. That number is an increase of 22 from the previous week using a 14-day rolling average, although the more recent seven-day rolling averages show a decrease in statewide positive test rates and deaths.

Peabody's cases of 29.2 per 100,000 people were higher week over week, while its positive test rate of 4.11 was slightly lower.

The statewide positive test rate as of Thursday was 2.23 percent with 28.1 cases per 100,000 residents.

Peabody dropped out of the high-risk category on March 12 with a 3.47 percent positive test rate and 24.1 cases per 100,000 people.

Peabody had 261 new coronavirus cases confirmed over the previous 14 days.

The Peabody Health Department has added two coronavirus testing dates in April for Higgins Middle School on April 14 and April 28.

As of Wednesday, the health department said that 37 percent of city residents had received at least one coronavirus vaccination dose, with 23 percent fully vaccinated.

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(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)

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