Pittsfield's Holiday COVID Surge Subsiding

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — The city continues to recover from the holiday COVID-19 surge with numbers dropping at the rate that they had previously spiked.

The average case rate per 100,000 people is 168.7 after peaking at an all-time high of 283.1 on Jan. 16. The positivity rate is 13.6 percent, down from 18.1 during the peak, and there are about 272 estimated actively contagious cases.

This is still much higher than the city's pre-holiday metrics. On Christmas, the average case rate was 64.8 and the positivity rate was 6.3 percent.

There are currently about 29 COVID-positive patients in Berkshire Medical Center and a little over 75 percent of Pittsfield patients are unvaccinated.

"We are starting to see that downward trend of that locally and nationally," Director of Public Health Andy Cambi said to the Board of Health on Wednesday.

"Something that I do want to know is that daily hospital census compared to the previous spikes that we used to deal with before, they did not rise as they did with previous spikes."

After consulting with the city's public health nurse and contact tracing team, Cambi confirmed that occasional increases in metrics can be expected when rates are declining.

He credited low hospitalization numbers to the Pittsfield and Berkshire County's high vaccination rates: 74 percent of city residents are fully vaccinated and 76.5 percent of county residents are.

The Health Department recently held two well-attended vaccinations clinics at Berkshire Community College through the Berkshire Vaccine Collaborative. Cambi said about 2,500 people attended to get a booster, first dose, and even some pediatric doses.

Cambi also reported on the distribution of about 10,000 at-home COVID-19 test kits from the state. At the end of the year, the city was among the 102 towns and cities selected to receive the hot commodities.  

1Berkshire Marks Halfway Point of Pandemic-Altered Blueprint

By Brittany PolitoiBerkshires Staff
05:22PM / Monday, June 10, 2024

1Berkshire President & CEO Jonathan Butler notes how much the world has changed since the release of the 2.0 version of the blueprint five years ago.

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — 1Berkshire's blueprint for economic development was adaptable when it needed to be and today, paves steps for a post-pandemic Berkshire County.

1Berkshire marked five years since the Berkshire Blueprint 2.0 release with a progress report May 30 on the plan shaped by the pandemic's impact on the region and beyond.

President and CEO Jonathan Butler noted that it was an intentional decision to deliver the update from the Berkshire Innovation Center, which was being built when the blueprint was released.

"On the one hand, it's hard to believe that it's been over five years since (Vice President of Economic Development Benjamin Lamb) and myself stood in front of nearly 300 people at the Colonial Theatre attempting to explain this whole framework that we call the Berkshire Blueprint," he said.

"But on the other hand, 2019 is in the very distant past. We've seen the world change, the region change, and plans change. We've lived and worked through a pandemic that consumed nearly three years of our lives and continues to influence it today. Yet, despite all of that, we stand here today at the halfway point of a regional strategy that is still very active but like each of us, has had to pivot, adjust, and rethink its priorities."

Five years ago, the "last thing on our mind was the thought of a life-altering pandemic," he said, but that is exactly where they were a year later with the Berkshire Blueprint 2.0. The 10-year plan was released in February 2019 after two years of planning and adjusted to the pandemic after its onset.

"The impacts of the pandemic are vast, complicated, and will continue to influence how business is done in the Berkshires and beyond for years, if not decades, to come," Butler said. "And that was something that we did not plan for."

Lamb noted that recovery and resiliency really became the focus post-pandemic.