LYNN — The coronavirus surge continued in Lynn on Friday, with 87 new cases reported for a second straight day.
An additional death was also reported to bring the city’s death toll to 126.
Case numbers have been on the rise in Lynn since early September, a trend Public Health Director Michele Desmarais said could be due to “COVID fatigue,” with more people itching to socialize with friends and family outside of their household.
“I think that there are a lot of people who are social gathering whether it’s family parties or the holiday season’s upon us,” said Desmarais. “I really just believe it’s COVID fatigue. People are tired of not being able to go out. People are tired of not being able to socialize. It’s changed their whole way of life.”
Part of it may also be a financial issue, Desmarais said, explaining that people may be going to work with virus symptoms because they are concerned about paying their bills and taking care of their children.
“That is a huge problem,” said Desmarais.
Exacerbating those two tendencies is the weather, she said, which had been unseasonably warm until temperatures cooled down on Friday. Not only are more people gathering, but they are doing so without wearing masks and social distancing, Desmarais said.
While the reasons are still up for debate, what remains clear is that numbers have been drastically spiking in Lynn over the past several weeks. The city’s daily incidence rate over the past two weeks is 45.1 new cases per 100,000 residents, according to the state Department of Public Health.
With 87 new cases reported on Friday alone, the city now has 6,434 cases, 868 of which are active, 126 people have died and 5,440 have recovered from the virus, according to city data.
Only three communities — Lawrence, Westport and Fall River — have a higher positive test rate than Lynn over the past 14 days, which has swelled from 3.01 percent on Oct. 7 to 7.48 percent on Thursday, or more than three times higher than the state average, according to DPH data.
Even with the state changing its metrics last week to increase the number of cases a community needed to average to be classified as a high-risk community, Lynn is still “pretty deeply in the red,” said Superintendent Dr. Patrick Tutwiler at Thursday night’s School Committee meeting.
Tutwiler was citing the state metrics as part of his rationale for recommending that the Lynn Public Schools continue with remote learning for the second quarter of the school year, which stretches from Nov. 23 to Feb. 5.
The recommendation, which Tutwiler initially presented during the School Committee’s Oct. 29 meeting, was unanimously approved by the panel on Thursday night.
“I take no pleasure in extending remote learning,” Tutwiler wrote in a letter to families. “I know full well the impact that this approach has on students and families alike. Further, I continue to believe deeply in the research that places in-person learning and all of the related benefits over virtual learning.
“That said, the current context of surging positive COVID-19 cases among school-age children and adults alike in our community has created a situation that makes the introduction of an in-person hybrid schedule for all students inappropriate.”
Under the plan, certain groups of students would return for in-person instruction on Jan. 19. Approximately 236 special education students and another 73 students with limited or interrupted formal education have been targeted for an early return to in-person instruction, according to Tutwiler.
The number does not cover the school district’s total number of special education students, which is approximately 2,500. Eligible special education students would come from groups that have more difficulty with remote learning such as Creating Opportunities for Autistic Children (COACH), Together Educating and Advancing Multi-Disabled Students (TEAMS), and self-contained pre-kindergarten classrooms, Tutwiler said.
“The groups of students who are invited to begin receiving in-person instruction on Jan. 19 are those whose needs we struggle to meet the most in the remote learning format,” Tutwiler wrote to families. “The selection of these groups is not at all intended to marginalize the experiences or needs of other students, or to suggest that these are the only students for whom the remote learning is difficult.
“The students invited for in-person learning are those whose learning and growth needs cannot be met in remote learning, regardless of the skill set or technological approach.”
Desmarais said the recent surge has differed from what was seen in the city last spring, when numbers were highest among the elderly and older adults. In the past couple of months, she said the age group that has been getting hit the hardest is 18- to 45-year-olds.
As for getting numbers down, Desmarais said much of it is up to the public, in terms of adhering to the proper protocols.
“I just highly encourage everybody to not gather unless you live in the same household, that you have to understand how dangerous it still is and to just try to wait it out if you can,” said Desmarais. “We all need to wear a mask. The governor has new directives that are out that even if you’re six feet apart you still need to wear a mask. Social distance.
“Fresh air is good for everybody (so) try to be out getting fresh air. Wash your hands all the time and if you don’t feel well, you shouldn’t go to work or send your kids to daycare. You really should be vigilant to try to get through this.”
New cases were also reported in Lynnfield, Marblehead, Nahant, Peabody, Revere, and Saugus on Friday.
In Revere, another red community and COVID hot spot, 51 new cases were reported on Friday to bring the city’s numbers to 3,792 cases and 110 deaths, according to the city website.
Revere has a daily incidence rate of 47.7 new cases per 100,000 residents and positive test rate of 6.65 percent over the past 14 days, according to the DPH data.
In Peabody, 49 new cases and an additional death have been reported since Wednesday to bring the city’s total numbers to 1,747 cases and 194 deaths. A total of 1,161 people have recovered, according to the health department.
Saugus reported 28 new cases and an additional death on Friday. The town website reports 1,042 cases and 45 deaths.
Lynnfield (222 cases, 14 deaths) reported six new cases, Marblehead (328 cases, 30 deaths) reported six new cases, and Nahant (76 cases, six deaths) reported two new cases. Numbers were not updated in Swampscott, which had 212 cases and 11 deaths as of Thursday.