Fall River’s weekly COVID cases plummet by half. Could the omicron surge have peaked? – Fall River Herald News

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FALL RIVER The devastating fourth wave of COVID spread seems to have peaked, as weekly case numbers fell by half, dropping for the third week in a row.

According to the state Department of Public Health, another 668 positive cases of the highly contagious coronavirus were reported in Fall River last week, an average of about 94 new cases per day.

Last week,1,285 new cases were reported,an average of 183 cases per day.

This still leaves average daily cases at shockingly high levels, above where cases were last year at this time but is a relief from the astronomical levels seen in January. This past weeks case total is about half of last weeks total, and less than a third of the weekly total of three weeks ago, when 2,179 people in Fall River caught the virus in a single week.

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Since the start of the pandemic, Fall River has logged almost 29,000 cases of the virus.

The citys COVID test positivity rate also continued to fall, with 19.12% of COVID tests turning out positive in the past two weeks. The statewide average is just over 10%.

Communities in Greater Fall River also saw their COVID weekly case totals cut in half, with improvements in their test positivity rates also dropping slightly:

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The statistics regarding positive cases and tests only reflect positive cases officially reported to health care centers and officials; they do not count positive results of at-home rapid tests. It also doesnt take into account people who may be positive but are asymptomatic and dont get tested at all.

COVID affects people differently. Most people who are diagnosed with COVID will recover from symptoms that include cough, sore throat, loss of taste or smell, nausea, high fever and body aches; how long the symptoms last varies from person to person. Some cases are mild. In others, the symptoms can be severe, sometimes requiring hospitalization, and those symptoms can linger for months. COVID can be fatal, and is most threatening to people such as the elderly and those who are medically vulnerable, but not exclusively.

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An already daunting fourth wave of cases that began in November2021 crested twice as high first in December as the omicron variant of the COVID-19 virus began to appear locally, and then twice as high as that in January when omicron began surging, spreading to thousands of people.

Its estimated that over 7,000 people in Fall River were sickened by COVID-19 in January alone accounting for one in four cases of the illness over the entire pandemic.

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Omicron is considered the likely cause, a variant of COVID that scientists have described as more easily spread, quicker to cause symptoms, and can more easily break through to infect those who are vaccinated although medical experts note that vaccination still provides substantial protection against becoming severely ill if infected.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notes that 99.9% of all current COVID cases are the omicron variant. But top medical officials including Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nations top infectious disease expert, say omicron's spread could peak by mid-February.

Dan Medeiros can be reached at dmedeiros@heraldnews.com. Support local journalism by purchasing a digital or print subscription to The Herald News today.

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Fall River's weekly COVID cases plummet by half. Could the omicron surge have peaked? - Fall River Herald News