WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The town's health inspector said Thursday he has no idea why the commonwealth's COVID-19 Community Level map is showing Williamstown as the lone "yellow" community in Berkshire County.
"I don't know where those numbers are coming from," Jeff Kennedy said. "I'm checking my computer. I'm checking the communicable disease database. I talked with my public health nurse.
"We only have, basically, one positive [COVID-19 test] in town right now, and that's the one you know about at Williams that's under isolation."
Late Wednesday, the state Department of Public Health posted its latest weekly map categorizing all 351 Massachusetts municipalities as "higher risk (red), moderate risk (yellow), or lower risk (green)" for the current rate of spread of the novel coronavirus.
According to the map, Williamstown has had five cases in the last two weeks and an average daily incidence rate per 100,000 people of 4.85.
It is one of four communities in Western Massachusetts designated as yellow, joining Easthampton, Holyoke and Wilbraham on that list. Monson is the lone town in the region listed in the red, with an incidence rate per 100,000 of 8.47, according to the commonwealth.
Williamstown's Kennedy was at a loss to explain how the town of 7,700 moved from grey (fewer than five reported cases) to yellow (4 to 8 cases per 100,000) in the period from Sept. 2 to Sept. 9.
"It's one of the glitches in the system," he said. "I wasn't aware of it until I got a couple of emails coming in, including one from Win Stuebner."
Stuebner, a member of the town's Board of Health, said Thursday morning he was not aware of the town's designation as yellow until after he received a phone call from iBerkshires.com seeking comment.
"Of course, we knew we had the two at the college," Stuebner said.
Williams College maintains a public "dashboard" of test results from the testing program it stood up on Aug. 17. It currently shows two positives since Aug. 17 out of 7,427 tests; one positive was in the last seven days.
"The first case at Williams, there were no exposures [in town]," Stuebner said. "He or she was dropped off by their parents and went right to the testing area. The second one at Williams came by bus. Ten other students are currently quarantined as well as the driver. But no cases I'm aware of have popped up from that."
Kennedy speculated it was possible that Williamstown is being "credited" with a diagnosis that happened outside of town of someone, like a student, who lists the North Berkshire community as their hometown.
He said he would ask the town's designated public health nurse to contact DPH to find out why the map designation does not match the numbers on the ground.
Kennedy said he has notified officials at the Mount Greylock Regional School District, which has triggers in its reopening plan based on the town's status under the green/yellow/red designations, that the designation as yellow appears to be without basis.
"I don't know how we got yellow," Kennedy said. "Maybe someone got overambitious with a highlighter."
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this shows 4-8 per 100,000. Since Williamstown only has a population of 7,000. Even one case would exceed the standard, duh! In fact one case = 14 per 100,000 residents.
100,000 divided by 7,000 = 14.3
If population = 9,000, 100,000 divided by 9,000 equals 11.1 per one case.
In response to the above comment: I thought the same, until I read through the interactive map linked in the story. They are defining the x cases per 100,000 population *daily average* over a 14-day period (Aug. 23 - Sept. 5).
So the math would be: 5 cases (supposedly) in 14 days = 5/14 = .357 per 7700 population or 4.63 percent per 100,000 population.
It does seem like a very convoluted way of presenting the data.
And by the way the map is extremely inaccurate in showing actual rates of risk from town to town. The "less than 5 cases" cutoff is completely arbitrary. Consider if the town of Florida (pop. 752), 1/10th the population of Williamstown, had 4 cases in the past 14 days. They would be grey. Yet their per capita daily cases rate would be 4/14 = .286 / 752 = 38.0 cases per 100,000, nearly 9 times higher than Williamstown's.
The facts for Williamstown are that during that two-week period there has been probably the largest influx of people and the most robust testing per capita anywhere in the county, yet with an incredibly low infection rate. We should be thrilled with those numbers.
Why iBerkshires found it necessary to be all gotcha with town officials over a color on a map is maybe the real question in this nonstory.
Williamstown Affordable Housing Trust Hears Objections to Summer Street Proposal
By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Neighbors concerned about a proposed subdivision off Summer Street last week raised the specter of a lawsuit against the town and/or Northern Berkshire Habitat for Humanity.
"If I'm not mistaken, I think this is kind of a new thing for Williamstown, an affordable housing subdivision of this size that's plunked down in the middle, or the midst of houses in a mature neighborhood," Summer Street resident Christopher Bolton told the Affordable Housing Trust board, reading from a prepared statement, last Wednesday. "I think all of us, the Trust, Habitat, the community, have a vested interest in giving this project the best chance of success that it can have. We all remember subdivisions that have been blocked by neighbors who have become frustrated with the developers and resorted to adversarial legal processes.
"But most of us in the neighborhood would welcome this at the right scale if the Trust and Northern Berkshire Habitat would communicate with us and compromise with us and try to address some of our concerns."
Bolton and other residents of the neighborhood were invited to speak to the board of the trust, which in 2015 purchased the Summer Street lot along with a parcel at the corner of Cole Avenue and Maple Street with the intent of developing new affordable housing on the vacant lots.
Currently, Northern Berkshire Habitat for Humanity, which built two homes at the Cole/Maple property, is developing plans to build up to five single-family homes on the 1.75-acre Summer Street lot. Earlier this month, many of the same would-be neighbors raised objections to the scale of the proposed subdivision and its impact on the neighborhood in front of the Planning Board.
The Affordable Housing Trust board heard many of the same arguments at its meeting. It also heard from some voices not heard at the Planning Board session.
And the trustees agreed that the developer needs to engage in a three-way conversation with the abutters and the trust, which still owns the land, to develop a plan that is more acceptable to all parties.
Developer David Traggorth asked the trustees to make the contribution from its coffers to help unlock an additional $5.4 million in state funds for the planned 54-unit apartment building at the south end of the Cable Mills site.
click for more
The donors, who wish to remain anonymous, say the gift reflects their desire to not only support Williams but also President Maud S. Mandel's strategic vision and plan for the college.
click for more
Neighbors of a proposed subdivision off Summer Street last week asked the Planning Board to take a critical look at the project, which the residents say is out of scale to the neighborhood. click for more
The Select Board and Planning Board this week clashed over a proposal that would add to the town charter a mechanism to ensure compliance with the foundation of town government. click for more