Coronavirus tally: Boston officials concerned about elevated levels of COVID in city’s wastewater

Boston health officials said Friday they’re concerned about elevated levels of the coronavirus in the city’s wastewater, the Associated Press reported. The concentration of the virus in local wastewater has increased by 3.1% over the past week and by nearly 100% over the past two weeks, according to new data from this week from the Boston Public Health Commission. New COVID-19 cases in Boston have decreased slightly over the past week, though the data does not include positive results from at-home tests, the commission said. Boston hospitals had 170 new hospital admissions related to COVID-19 this week. U.S. known cases of COVID are continuing to ease and now stand at their lowest level since late April, although the true tally is likely higher given how many people overall are testing at home, where the data are not being collected. The daily average for new cases stood at 40,631 on Sunday, according to a New York Times tracker, down 25% from two weeks ago. The daily average for hospitalizations was down 9% at 26,898, while the daily average for deaths is down 12% to 382. Globally, the confirmed case tally rose above 621.5 million on Monday, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins, while the death toll is above 6.55 million with the U.S. leading the world with 96.7 million cases and 1,062,564 deaths.