Mass. reports 142 new confirmed coronavirus cases, 27 new deaths

Naliber Taveras was the 5001 person to be tested for COVID-19 for free by the Whittier Street Health Center at a remote site set up for testing at the New franklin Park Apartments on Seaver Street on Wednesday.John Tlumacki/Globe Staff

The death toll from the coronavirus outbreak in Massachusetts among confirmed cases climbed by 27 to 8,152, the state reported Wednesday. The number of confirmed cases climbed by 142, bringing the total to 106,128, as key metrics the state is using to monitor the reopening remained generally steady.

The state also reported one new probable-case death, with that total rising to 216, and an additional 75 probable cases for a total of 6,219.

The state said 10,424 new individuals had been tested for the coronavirus, bringing the total of individuals tested to 982,494. The total number of tests administered climbed to 1,256,303. And the state reported that new antibody tests had been completed for 884 people, bringing that total to 82,409.

Meanwhile, two key metrics that state officials are looking at for the state’s phased reopening dropped, while one remained steady and one ticked up.

The seven-day weighted average of positive coronavirus tests stayed steady at 1.7 percent for the fourth consecutive day, the state reported, a 94 percent drop from mid-April.

The three-day average of hospitalized coronavirus patients also fell slightly, dropping to 570 as of Tuesday from 571 the day before. That figure represents an 84 percent drop from mid-April.

The number of hospitals using surge capacity increased from two on Monday to six on Tuesday. However, the metric has still seen a 71 percent drop from April 15.

The three-day average of deaths among confirmed cases also decreased to 11 on Sunday, down from 12 a day earlier. That figure has dropped 93 percent since mid-April.

The state’s weekly release of town-by-town data, which for the first time included the number of new cases in each Massachusetts municipality over the last two weeks, showed that Boston added more than 300 cases over the last 14 days — by far the most in the state. But adjusted for population, the places adding the most cases were Winthrop (39 cases), Lawrence (146 cases), and Chelsea (50 cases).

By test positivity rate over a two-week period — a key indicator closely watched as a measure of the strength of an outbreak — Lawrence, Fall River, Taunton, and Chelsea were the highest in the state among places with populations greater than 10,000.

The numbers came a day after a University of Massachusetts model estimated that the death toll from the coronavirus in the state will climb to nearly 8,800 by Aug. 8.

The model predicts that by that day, the state will tally 8,774 deaths, with a 10 percent chance of seeing fewer than 8,600 deaths and a 10 percent chance of seeing more than 9,100.

The UMass estimate comes from a lab headed by UMass Amherst associate professor Nicholas Reich that collects various coronavirus pandemic models and develops a combined, or ensemble, forecast that is intended to reflect their collective wisdom.

Reich’s lab releases the ensemble forecast weekly. It only creates the forecast for a four-week window ahead because it believes forecasts aren’t reliable enough after that. Last week, the model estimated there would be 8,651 coronavirus deaths tallied by Aug. 1.

Reich’s lab posts its national- and state-level data at the Reich Lab COVID-19 Forecast Hub. The lab, already an Influenza Forecasting Center of Excellence, collaborates with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on coronavirus predictions.

The closely watched University of Washington Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation model, looking further into the future, predicts that Massachusetts will see 12,906 deaths by Nov. 1.

The latest UMass ensemble model also predicts the United States as a whole will reach a total of 157,204 coronavirus deaths in the next four weeks. The current US death toll was more than 136,000 as of Tuesday evening, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Nestor Ramos of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.