PROVIDENCE – New cases of COVID-19 fell slightly on Wednesday, totaling 365 as opposed to Tuesday’s tally of 394 new cases, which was the highest count in five days.
Gov. Gina M. Raimondo said Wednesday that current numbers represent “good news.”
“We’re kind of hovering at a bit of a plateau, I don’t know if we can say it’s a trend, I don’t know if we can say precisely where we are in the peak… [but] it’s good news, this is a good news day,” the governor said during her afternoon press briefing.
The R.I Department of Health reported 10 new deaths on Wednesday, a decline from 16 deaths on Tuesday.
COVID-19 cases now total 5,841 in Rhode Island, and deaths related to the virus stand at 181.
Eight of the people whose deaths were announced Wednesday were nursing home residents, said R.I. Health Director Dr. Nicole Alexander-Scott.
Those who died ranged in age from their 60s to one person older than 100, she said.
There are 270 people hospitalized in the state with the virus, with 71 in intensive care units and 44 on ventilators. The state says 315 COVID-19 patients have been discharged from hospitals.
Providence remains the municipality in the state with the most positive tests at 1,658, followed by Pawtucket at 540, Cranston at 369 and North Providence at 337.
The number of tests administered in the state total 41,722, marking a 2,413-test increase day to day.
With the opening Wednesday of a walk-up testing site on the campus of the former Memorial Hospital in Pawtucket, testing is now beginning to reach people who don’t have access to transportation to reach testing sites spread out across the state.
The site, run by Care New England Health System, works in tandem with a respiratory clinic already in place at Memorial.
Described by CNE as multilingual, the site will allow for up to 100 residents of Pawtucket and Central Falls neighborhoods to be tested daily, Raimondo said.
Appointments are required, she cautioned.
The state’s first walk-up clinic at Robert L. Bailey IV Elementary School in Providence is now testing about 50 people per day.
“We’re optimistic that we’ll double that number by next week,” Raimondo said.
Noting that Wednesday was Earth Day, the governor also announced that the R.I. Department of Environmental Management is developing a plan to reopen the state’s parks and beaches next month. More details of the “phased” plan are expected to come next week, Raimondo said.
“It is my hope that we will begin to be able to enjoy our parks and beaches in some fashion sometime in the month of May,” she said, adding that the re-openings will be slow, and include social distancing restrictions.
The state has also launched a new website, covidselfcheckri.gov, as a partnership with Diagnostic Robotics. The site, available in English, Spanish and Portuguese, is designed as a tool to help state residents who have symptoms consistent with COVID-19 make decisions on when to seek medical help or get tested for the virus.
This story has been updated to include details of the governor’s daily coronavirus press briefing.
