There are now 1,264 confirmed cases of coronavirus/COVID-19 on Cape Cod according to the state of Massachusetts. This is good news but it comes on a holiday weekend when there is most likely very little testing being done or at least very few results coming back in for the state to report. Yesterday, the state reported a total of 23 tests which is exceptionally low. Today, we are catching up on the status of the virus on the Cape, as we have not made reports all week.
Updating the numbers is extremely important, but here at Cape Cod Star we realize that there is a lot to handle right now, with the economic, physical, mental, and emotional health concerns that are swirling around us all at the moment. That is why we did not get our reports out this week. It is that spirit that we recognize how difficult it is for our small local governments to keep these pages updated. We know that the health departments have a lot to take care of but we feel that constant updating is critical and that the information must be easy to access. Some towns are doing a great job at all of this and others really need to improve.
Some local towns release lots of numbers and make regular updates on the status of the virus. Provincetown, Barnstable, Sandwich and Yarmouth do a great job, releasing the data on the total number of cases, recovery, hospitalization, and deaths. Bourne, Mashpee, and others provide very little information. A good example of this is the Bourne Coronavirus page that was updated on May 22, with the most recent update being on the 29th of March, at the beginning of the crisis. Harwich’s page on the town website shows that the last update was made on March, 21st. The town does regular updating, but you have to listen to the Board of Selectmen meetings. There is a ton of useful local information there, but it is just not easy to access it. If I weren’t searching really hard for this information, I would never have found it!
We update numbers that the town reports when we find an update on the town web site. Very often, there are differences in the number of cases that any town reports, compared with the state reports. See the key below the chart for more information on the symbols used. Today’s report is an abbreviated one and the only updated number below is the total on the bottom line. We will be back tomorrow with a more thorough review of coronavirus on Cape Cod news for this week.
Cape Cod/ Barnstable County Coronavirus Cases by Town
| Town on the Cape | Town Count | County Count | State Count | Other #’s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bourne | — | 153 | 144 | <10 actv |
| Falmouth | 170 | 186 | 170 | — |
| Sandwich | 73 | 54 | 80 | 60 rcv/11 actv/2 dth/0 hsp |
| Mashpee | — | — | 50 | — |
| Barnstable | 334 | 222 | 293 | — |
| Yarmouth | 114 | 111 | 101 | 29 actv/83 rcv/2 dth |
| Dennis | 83 | 79 | 83 | 32 rcv/13 dth |
| Brewster | 97 | 120 | 92 | 74 ltc |
| Harwich | 107 | 111 | 111 | 67 ltc/12 dth |
| Chatham | 14 | 10 | 12 | — |
| Orleans | 13 | 11 | 15 | — |
| Eastham | 10 | 7 | 10 | 6 rcv/3 actv |
| Wellfleet | — | 2 | 5 | — |
| Truro | — | 5 | 9 | 8 rcv/1 actv |
| Provincetown | 29 | 6 | 22 | 27 rcv/1 actv/1 dth |
| **Other | — | — | — | — |
| Total | 1,264 | — | — | — |
Abbreviations and symbols on the chart:
- actv=active
- rcv=recovered
- hsp=hospitalized
- dth=death
- com=community spread
- ltc=long term care
The Cape Cod COVID-19 Community Alert Heatmap is not working as an embedded map at this point. You can find it here.
Image: – Volodymyr Hryshchenko – Unsplash