Today Governor Baker urged all residents to participate in the new contact tracing efforts. Contact tracing is the strategy of isolating anyone who has come in contact with a person who has tested positive. The steps of contact tracing involve self-isolating if you are aware of contact with someone who has received a positive test, calling your PCP or a testing center if symptoms appear, and reporting any contact you have had with others so that the chain of isolation may continue.
The Attorney General’s office has a website for frontline health care workers – frontlinema.org – which connects those workers to crucial resources and services.
The Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center in Holyoke is making its vast computing power available for free to researchers working on COVID-19 projects. The nonprofit computing center, run and funded by a consortium of five Massachusetts universities, announced that it will give away access to its data storage and computational systems to other academic institutions and for-profit businesses for use in the fight against COVID-19.
Local coffee company Dean’s Beans, after seeing a spike in online sales, is donating extra funding to the Holyoke Public Schools meal distribution program.
City Staff: Masks are still in short supply everywhere. We are working to get everyone who needs them washable masks. If you need masks in your department, please write us at coronaresponse@holyoke.org with what Dept and how many are needed. If you know of community teams or organizations making masks to donate, please send me that info at the same email as we are compiling a master source list.
Testing remains limited with a turnaround time of 1 – 4 days and many cases are being clinically diagnosed (no testing or reporting involved). All are advised to behave as though they are carriers of Covid-19.
316* Holyoke residents have been confirmed positive by testing. (as of 4/15 – update still pending)
*Holyoke Soldiers’ Home testing included. Full Holyoke Soldiers’ Home report can be found in the MEMA Command Center Site Report
1985 confirmed cases in Hampden County (5% increase)
248 in Hampshire (4% increase)
170 in Franklin (6% increase)
382 in Berkshire county (3% increase)
The curve we need to flatten: County numbers graphed over time can be found here: https://www.wmasscovid.com/
Massachusetts has experienced a total of 1,245 deaths connected to Covid-19.
* When recovery counts become available and reported by the state, we will include those as well.