coronavirus

Coronavirus cases are rising across several Massachusetts counties, including Suffolk, according to Centers for Disease Control (CDC) data released this week.

Back in March of 2020 when the global coronavirus pandemic took hold, states and local governments in the United States instituted varying degrees of lock downs aimed at stopping the spread of the virus, which was initially thought to be spread primarily through contact with contaminated surfaces as well as through respiratory droplets.

When the emergency vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna started making the rounds, so did sensational headlines about how the Black community wouldn’t take it. Discussion arose among the medical community on how to convince Black people to get the vaccine, and organizations in Boston mobilized to get the community to the mass vaccination site at the Reggie Lewis Center.

Stan McLaren is used to being the first. He is the first born, the first in his family to go to college. It was only fitting then that he was the first at the Harvard Street Neighborhood Health Center to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.

Your immune system is on constant guard looking for intruders — something that should not be there. It can distinguish between normal, healthy cells and unhealthy cells. When it detects an outsider — bacteria or a virus, for example — it readies forces to eradicate it. What’s even better, it can often remember. If the virus tries to enter again, its entry is blocked.

They call her the “vaccine evangelist.” It’s a moniker that Dr. Sabrina Assoumou bears with pride. Assoumou is an infectious disease physician at Boston Medical Center and assistant professor of medicine at Boston University School of Medicine.

With the seven-day average of active COVID-19 cases reaching 4,490 in early December according to the city’s dashboard, Mayor Martin Walsh said his goals are to get students back to school, find ways to support restaurants through the winter and increase COVID testing.

William Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing” is getting a very 2020 makeover in the Hub Theatre Company adaptation, running virtually in four performances Nov. 14, 15, 20 and 21.

In a recent study by Health Affairs, a national health journal that has been focusing on COVID-19 matters, researchers have found specific social factors that predict high COVID-19 cases in Black and Latino communities.

Though Massachusetts was leading the northeast in COVID-19 recovery, a recent uptick in cases and deaths has alarmed state officials.

Mayor Walsh warned Boston residents that COVID-19 will likely have a second surge and encouraged them to take precautions as the city reopens.