Why does Brockton have 7 times the COVID-19 cases as Fall River and New Bedford?

Brockton has seven times the amount of positive COVID-19 cases as comparably sized cities in Massachusetts like New Bedford and Fall River and 147 more cases than Worcester, which has almost 100,000 more people.

As of Sunday, Brockton’s Board of Health reported 457 people in the city have tested positive and 2 people have died. Fall River reported 62 cases on Sunday and New Bedford reported 65 cases on Monday. New Bedford had 95,120 residents, Fall River had 89,420 residnets and Brockton had 95,672 people.

Worcester, the second largest city in Massachusetts with 184,045 residents, reported 310 positive COVID-19 cases on Saturday far from Brockton’s 457. Quincy, even closer to Boston than Brockton, reported on Sunday that it has 174 cases with a population of 94,166. That puts Brockton with nearly three times as many cases as Quincy.

The missing pieces are the testing numbers – could Brockton be testing far more people? Testing numbers are hard to come by as local hospitals and public health officials aren’t releasing those numbers. The Massachusetts Public Health does release total testing numbers for the state, but not by county, city or town – though they do list positive cases by county.

Why do you think Brockton has so many more cases than cities like New Bedford, Fall River, Quincy and Worcester? Comment below!