While Massachusetts releases its “dashboard” of COVID-19 data every day, it posts town-by-town data once a week, on Wednesdays. The data continue to show the towns and cities with the highest rates of confirmed cases are largely outside of western Massachusetts. 1/

The community in WMass with the highest rate, Holyoke, ranks 16, with 1755 confirmed cases per 100k residents. Only 5 WMass communities are among the state's 50 highest rates. Besides Holyoke, there's Agawam (33), East Longmeadow (39), Longmeadow (43) and Wilbraham (48). 2/

Here’s a chart showing the case rates in those towns/cities — and the state rate — since mid-April when Massachusetts DPH started releasing town-by-town numbers. All numbers are confirmed cases per 100,000 residents. 3/

All those communities are in Hampden County and all have nursing homes reporting at least 30 cases of COVID-19. Holyoke has four such facilities, including the Soldiers’ Home. Agawam has three, East Longmeadow and Wilbraham each have two, and Longmeadow has one. 4/

Springfield has by far the most cases among WMass towns/cities, but its case rate is lower. At 1193 per 100k residents, it ranked 53rd worst in Mass. The city’s health commissioner has said there are pockets of concentrated cases in zips with mostly low-income people of color. 5/

Here’s a chart showing the most populous communities in western Mass., and how their case rates have changed since mid-April: 6/

It’s worth noting that none of this town-by-town data concerns deaths. MA has not released data representing deaths by community (or by individual nursing home) – only by county. Hampden County has the 6th most deaths, but the highest death *rate*. (These charts from DPH.) 7/

And here’s an excellent story from @kbrownreports exploring the multiple reasons for why Hampden County’s COVID-19 death rate has been so high. 8/end https://www.nepr.net/post/race-income-nursing-homes-why-does-hampden-county-have-states-highest-rate-covid-19-deaths?nopop=1#stream/0