BCAT News

Due to a rise in the number of cases of COVID-19 both in the district and in Middlesex County as a whole the Burlington School Department is recommending students, teachers and other district employees to wear masks while in school buildings.

“Since our return to school following April vacation we have seen a steady rise in Covid cases impacting students and staff,” a letter sent to families from Superintendent Eric Conti states.

Conti said that in the week following vacation, they had 65 reported cases and last week there were 78 reported cases in the district. As of the time of the letter, there have already been 59 reported cases two days into this week. Conti said this rise in cases in the district corresponds with the latest data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website which currently has Middlesex County is in the “high category” for COVID-19 community level, along with most of Massachusetts.

“Given this trend, we are advocating for the CDC recommendation that individuals voluntarily ‘mask-up’ until the higher COVID-19 rates subside in Middlesex County,” he wrote. “We will continue to provide updates on the number of district Covid as part of our weekly update each week.”

As reported on BNEWS, Massachusetts has seen a rise in new cases, according to the Mass Department of Public Health. In the reports issued each Thursday, the state has seen increases in the number of new cases (based over a two week period) grow steadily. On April 14 the state reported 18,266 new cases, on April 21 there were 24,195 new cases, on April 28 there were 27,670 new cases and most recently, on May 5, the state reported 31,689 new cases.

Locally, Burlington has seen an increase in new cases over the same period. On April 14 the town had 81 new cases, on April 21 it had 90 new cases, on April 28 there were 94 new cases and on May 5 there were 120 new cases in town.