Massachusetts reported another 76 coronavirus deaths on Tuesday and 873 new confirmed cases, health officials said.
The state's coronavirus death toll rose to 5,938, while 87,925 people in total have tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, according to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.
On Monday, the state reported just 65 deaths, though Mondays' reports have generally been lower than other days'. And the number of new deaths reported each day has, on the whole, been lower in recent weeks than during the surge in mid-April.
The Department of Public Health's report contains six indicators that are informing how fast Massachusetts can move through the four phases of its reopening plan. They are: the COVID-19 positive test rate, the number of individuals who died from COVID-19, the number of patients with COVID-19 in hospitals, the health care system's readiness, testing capacity, contact tracing capabilities.
None of the six indicators was trending negatively Tuesday and two were trending positively: the positive test rate, which remained at 10%, and the testing capacity. All of the other four metrics were rated "in progress," the intermediate metric.
Gov. Charlie Baker has said his administration will watch the data to determine "when it's safe to move on to concurrent phases after" Phase 1. But negative trends in the data could also prompt more closures and a slide back to a previous phase.
Massachusetts has for weeks been one of the epicenters of COVID-19 in the U.S. It has the fourth-most cases among all states and third-most deaths.
Baker and other health officials have said Massachusetts' high tallies may be due to the state testing among the most residents per capita in the country -- more than 475,000 tests were conducted as of Tuesday, according to the Department of Public Health.
