Five months ago, Pittsfield had a daily COVID-19 case rate per 100,000 of less than 1.
Now, amid a region-wide surge, the city of 44,000 is reporting an average daily case rate of almost 70 per 100,000 over the past two weeks.
Interim public health director Andy Cambi tells WAMC the city has remobilized its COVID-19 taskforce amid the surge.
"We wanted to make sure that we're speaking to our parties: The hospital, EMTs, the jail services, police department, fire department, and we wanted to make sure that we're all on the same page as far as our response,” said Cambi.
Over the past two weeks, almost 11% of around 9,500 COVID-19 tests performed by Berkshire Health Systems – the county’s largest healthcare provider – have come back positive. That’s above the average 9.7% rate the company has recorded since March 2020.
