With summer right around the corner, a spike in COVID-19 cases on the Islands is leading at least one community to think about whether Fourth of July festivities should happen.
Edgartown Town Administrator James Hagerty said the town is “reevaluating” plans for its popular Fourth of July parade and fireworks over Edgartown Harbor.
“We're reevaluating Fourth of July, looking at the fireworks, looking at the parade, all those events, and leaning on the fact that I don't know if they're going to occur — the same way we did it last year,” he said.
As of the state’s latest report on Thursday, Edgartown had the highest COVID-19 rate of any town on Martha’s Vineyard or Nantucket.
The state averages case rates over a 14-day period. During that time, the town saw about three-and-half new cases of COVID-19 per day.
Dukes and Nantucket Counties, which the state tracks together, now have the highest COVID-19 rates in Massachusetts, followed by Cape Cod.