Editor’s Note: Thursday’s updated case count and important information about Case Monitoring and Contact Tracing from Town Manager Sarah Stanton and the Covid-19 Task Force
Click this link to read the Town’s full update for Thursday, May 21, 2020
The daily update is also available in the following places if you’d like to share with your friends:
- Website ~ www.BedfordMA.gov
- Facebook ~ @bedfordma
- Twitter ~ @BedfordMAGov
CURRENT CASES
As of today, May 21, 2020, there have been a total of one hundred eighty-five (185) positive cases of COVID-19 reported to the Town of Bedford Board of Health by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (MA DPH) and thirty-seven (37) deaths of Bedford residents attributed to COVID-19. The total case number includes residents of the Town of Bedford, including but not limited to those in single-family homes, apartments, the VA campus, Hanscom Air Force Base, special needs group homes and any and all other larger assisted living/care facilities in Bedford as reported to us by the MA DPH.
As you may be aware, long term care facilities serving the elderly and congregate-care facilities, house susceptible populations with underlying conditions who are particularly vulnerable to COVID-19. Increased testing occurs at these facilities which results in more positive cases being identified. As such, cities and towns with these facilities, like Bedford, experience elevated positive case counts and, unfortunately, deaths due to the vulnerability to COVID-19 of the populations within those facilities.
Fifty (50) of the total Bedford cases have already recovered and have come off of isolation and there may other Bedford residents who would be considered persons under investigation in that they are symptomatic, have undergone testing but have not yet received results. There are other individuals impacted by COVID-19 in the community who have not sought medical attention, and/or have not been tested and are isolating at home regardless. Those individuals do not appear on the surveillance reports the Town receives from the MA DPH.
IMPORTANT UPDATES
Case Monitoring and Contact Tracing
The Bedford Board of Health has consistently worked to identify, communicate with and conduct contact traces, as appropriate, on COVID-19 positive cases who are Bedford residents, living in Bedford, while the Bedford VA is conducting follow-up and contact tracing of the Veterans under their care. Many of the identified close contacts of some of the Bedford cases never exhibited symptoms, have completed their required quarantine period, and have been released from quarantine by the Board of Health.
Please note, in part to alleviate the community concern, the VA does do a daily report of their numbers, which includes inpatients, outpatients, and staff, many of whom do not call Bedford home. The information can be found here:
https://www.accesstocare.va.gov/Healthcare/COVID19NationalSummary
There are some factors attributing to additional positive cases included in Bedford’s total case number that is reported weekly by the state. These factors include: staff testing at long term care facilities where those staff attributed their “location” to Bedford, when in fact they have residency in another community, and former residents who have identified their “home” as Bedford but actually live in and are being followed in another community/state. The attribution of a facility’s staff as being residents of a community, as is the case with Bedford, indeed skews the data and the surveillance work of the Board of Health. Rest assured that our Board of Health staff are working diligently to ensure not only our residents but the staff and former Bedford residents who are attributed to Bedford are identified and followed by the appropriate community.
To that end, the Board of Health asks Bedford Residents to be part of the COVID-19 solution and “Answer the Call!” If you’ve tested positive for COVID- 19 or if you’ve been in close contact with someone who has tested positive, a representative of the COVID Community Team, including the Bedford Community Health Nurse, the School Nurses and representatives from the MA Community Tracing Collaborative will be reaching out via phone to you and your close contacts to slow the spread. We’ll help support you and will help to keep track of symptoms to move you through isolation and quarantine appropriately. Your name will not be publically released but the information you can provide to us is imperative in slowing the spread so we can get to the other side of this outbreak.
Stay healthy!…(and wash your hands as often as possible.)
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