BCAT News

Burlington’s number of new positive cases of COVID-19 has stayed relatively level compared to the week before even as the School Departments reports a slightly higher number of new positive test results. 

According to the weekly reports from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH), on April 1 the department reported that Burlington had a percent positivity rate of 2.83 percent and the town’s average daily incident rate per 100,000 people was 17.2. 

The week before, as seen in the March 25 report, Burlington’s percent positive rate was also 2.83 percent but its daily incident rate per 100,000 people was 19.0 percent, meaning the town’s incident rate has come down slightly since the week before. 

However, despite the town seeing slightly fewer cases, the Burlington Public Schools have had more cases in the past week than perhaps any other week. 

Since we last reported the school cases last week, there have been 12 new cases reported in the district. 

On March 29 there was a case reported at the high school. The school and Board of Health began contact tracing and anyone determined to be a close contact was required to quarantine. 

That same day there was also a case reported in a 3rd grade class at Memorial Elementary School and the classroom was moved to remote for two weeks. 

On March 30 there was a reported case in a 4th grade class at Francis Wyman but it was determined the individual was not in school during the infectious period. 

On March 31 there was a reported case in a 2nd grade class at Memorial Elementary School and the class was put into remote learning. 

On April 1 the district reported three cases at Memorial Elementary and two cases at Francis Wyman. Contact tracing was initiated in all cases. 

On April 2 there was another positive case reported at Memorial Elementary. 

Finally, on April 3 there was a reported case at Marshall Simonds Middle School and contact tracing was begun.  

In all cases of positive tests, the Burlington Public Schools and the Board of Health will contact the parents of any student determined to be a close contact. If you do not hear from them you can infer your student was not considered to be at risk.