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As a result of a surge in new COVID-19 cases in Worcester, UMass Memorial Health is increasing the number of days it will provide free testing at the Mercantile Center in Worcester.

On Wednesday city officials announced that UMass will begin offering free COVID testing four days next week.

"In my 30 years working there, we have never been as busy at UMass as we have in the last month," Dr. Richard T. Ellison, UMass Memorial Health infectious disease expert, said. "We've had to open up surge spaces to take care of patients and we're trying to expand further locations in the hospital for next week.

The 20th annual Goods for Guns Buyback program, which aims to reduce unsafe firearms in the community, collected 116 firearms from its nine collection sites on Saturday.

WORCESTER — Dr. Erik Garcia’s Monday started at 7:30 a.m. at the Queen Street shelter, where he saw two patients with more than a dozen medical conditions.

Four hours later, Garcia was finishing up giving COVID tests and checking in with patients at the Hotel Grace shelter and had to decline a BLT — he was due back at his office on Chandler Street for more appointments.

When Eleni Nicolau became sick with COVID after Thanksgiving, a breakthrough infection that hit the 83-year-old hard, she found herself alone in a hospital room, separated from her family and struggling to breathe.

Then doctors gave her a new option: Did she want to finish her hospitalization at home?

DOUGLAS BROWN, president of UMass Memorial Community Hospitals, put it bluntly: “We’re going through the worst staffing crisis in our history.” 

Yet, UMass fired more than 200 employees earlier this month, many of them working in clinical care. The reason: those employees did not comply with the health system’s mandate to get vaccinated against COVID-19. 

Between 25 percent to 43 percent of fully vaccinated patients at major Massachusetts hospitals tested positive for COVID-19 in the week ending Dec. 10, WBUR reports. 

As Americans gather to toast the end of another particularly difficult year, many loved ones will be notably missing from holiday celebrations, a glaring reminder of the tragic realities of the coronavirus pandemic.

On Tuesday, the United States reached yet another staggering milestone, with 800,000 Americans now confirmed lost to the coronavirus, according to newly updated data from Johns Hopkins University.

WORCESTER, Mass. - There are no detected cases of the omicron variant in Central and Western Massachusetts, but it doesn't mean they won't appear. 

UMass Memorial Health says most of their hospitalized COVID patients have the delta variant of the virus.