Massachusetts Jumps To Second On The List For COVID Safe States

Here's some good news courtesy of a study conducted by our good friends at WalletHub! As infection rates decline and vaccine efforts continue, it appears that Massachusetts remains one of the safest states to live during the pandemic.

The financial website WalletHub conducted a study that compared how well all 50 states and Washington D.C. have stayed safe during the pandemic.

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WalletHub based its rankings on five key metrics state by state:

• Transmission rate
• Positive testing rate
• Vaccination rate
• Hospitalization rate, and
• Death rate

Under a previous WalletHub study, the Commonwealth ranked pretty high on the list, coming in at #3. However, according to this new study, Massachusetts is doing even better, landing at #2. The only state to beat out the Bay State? Vermont comes in at the top spot.

Massachusetts tied with Vermont for third-lowest transmission rates and the Commonwealth also tied with Rhode Island for first place in lowest positive testing rates among states.

Vaccine efforts continue to incentivize more Massachusetts residents to get vaccinated including the "VaxMillions" lottery which is exclusively for fully vaccinated people. The good news is that the country as a whole is picking up speed with just under 50% of the population being fully vaccinated as of July 8.

Remaining an area of concern, however, is the emerging Delta variant now accounting for half of the sequenced cases in the U.S. WalletHub says that if a large portion of the country remains unvaccinated, the more contagious nature of the Delta variant could trigger more local lockdowns.

For more fascinating data from the study, please check out the full story on WalletHub's website here.