New covid cases in Mattapoisett and Rochester lowered last week, as Marion shifted back to “green” after spending a week as a “yellow” community.

Marion, Mattapoisett and Rochester all have populations under 10,000, and the state determines the covid risk of communities of that size using a measurement of the total number of ongoing covid cases in each town.

Less than or equal to 10 active covid cases designates a low-population community as gray, between 10 and 15 cases puts a community in green, less than or equal to 25 cases marks a town as yellow, and communities with more than 25 cases are designated as red.

Marion saw an increase of new cases this week, jumping up to nine, from four last week. Despite the increase in new cases, Marion’s risk designation shifted down, from yellow to green. This is possible because the number of new cases in town has increased since last week, while the two-week total case count has increased since last week.

In Mattapoisett, new cases dropped from twelve last week to five this week. The two-week case total has kept the town yellow.

Rochester saw a decrease in new cases from 12 last week to six this week, but shifted up to yellow from green. Like in Marion, this is possible because the number of new cases has decreased, while two-week total number of cases has increased.

Community-level covid data is released every Thursday, and can be found on the mass.gov interactive dashboard.

Covid cases in the Old Rochester Regional School District rose at ORRJHS and Sippican School this week, according to the district’s covid dashboard. 

Last week, there were five cases at ORRHS, two at Center School and ORRJHS, and no cases at Rochester Memorial, Old Hammondtown or Sippican School. 

This week, the high school has the highest number of active cases with four. ORRJHS has three cases, Sippican and Center School have one case each, and neither Rochester Memorial nor Old Hammondtown have any ongoing cases of covid.