Author: Press Release

As you will no doubt see in today’s newsletter, the statewide COVID-19 report, and ongoing news coverage of our pandemic, today Massachusetts reported its third consecutive day of 1,000+ new positive cases. To help you get a better sense of what that means for us, I wanted to share some key statistics and trends that help to illustrate the state of the pandemic here in the Commonwealth.

As you are likely aware, most public health officials now expect that the coming weeks and months will bring another major uptick in COVID-19 cases. We do not yet know the size or scope of that increase, but we have much better data available than we did in March to track and understand the trajectory of the virus.

Each Wednesday, the Department of Public Health releases community-level numbers of COVID-19 testing and positive case totals. Our town-by-town numbers in this week’s public health report can be found below:

Holliston: 123 (+8 from last week)

As you know, our efforts to respond to COVID-19 often require different policies and guidance from town to town, state to state, or even country to country as we look at where each community stands with respect to the trajectory of the pandemic and tailor our response to meet each community’s needs. In this spirit, I wanted to share some updates from around the state that were announced today, which may be valuable to you in your planning and travel, but also provide a snapshot of where we are as a Commonwealth.

Today marks two weeks to Election Day, and I continue to receive occasional questions from constituents about how COVID-19 has impacted our voting system and what Massachusetts voters’ options are for safe, socially-distant voting.

This evening, you may receive or may have already received a Wireless Emergency Alert via the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency (MEMA). This alert will be sent between 5 and 10pm today to all cell phones in areas around several persistently high-risk communities. Although our towns are not among those being notified, it is likely that residents in communities near Worcester and Framingham will receive alerts as well.