COVID-19 cases in Harvard for the week ending April 22. The town’s cumulative number of confirmed cases since the pandemic began remains at 134. During the week of April 26, no students tested positive in the school testing program. One Bromfield student was out due to COVID-19, and two students or staff were in quarantine because of close contact with someone with the virus.
According to the state’s weekly town-by-town vaccination report, the number of residents in Harvard that were fully vaccinated as of April 20 was 1,860, up from 1,658 a week earlier. Another 1,217 had received one dose of a two-dose vaccine, up from 1,148 the previous week. Town Clerk Marlene Kenney reported Harvard’s population, excluding Devens residents, was 5,502 on April 1, based on voter registration numbers and the annual town census. Devens residents are not included in Harvard’s vaccinated population count published by the state, so as of April 20, the percentage of fully vaccinated Harvard residents was nearly 34%, with another 22% partially vaccinated.
Statewide, during the week between April 20 and April 27, confirmed COVID-19 cases increased by 8,361, down from the previous week’s increase of 11,662. There were 77 COVID-19-related deaths that same week, up from 70 the week before. On April 27 the number of patients hospitalized for COVID-19 in the state was 628, down from 708 a week earlier. The number of COVID-19 patients in intensive care units was also down over that same week, from 168 to 158.
On April 27 the Bureau of Prisons website reported two active COVID-19 cases among inmates at the Federal Medical Center in Devens, up from one case a week earlier. No cases were reported among staff members. As of April 27, 365 inmates had been fully vaccinated (about half) and 341 staff had been fully vaccinated. These numbers have remained the same for the last two weeks. Since the pandemic began, 376 of the current inmates have been infected with COVID-19 and recovered, 63 staff have recovered, and 10 inmates have died.
Editor’s Note: The state’s vaccination database uses federal census data for town and city populations; for Harvard, that data includes Devens residents and the 2019 count of the inmates at the Federal Medical Center in Devens. However, the state is not including Devens residents or inmates from FMC Devens in its vaccinated population numbers by town. As a result, the state’s reported percentages of the Harvard population that has been vaccinated, including overall, and by age, gender, and race, are not accurate.
