Following the largest single-day case spike on the Island since the pandemic began, health officials reported four additional new coronavirus cases on Tuesday, continuing an upward case trend that has occurred across the Island, state and country.

In a daily case update that went out Tuesday evening, health officials reported that three of the new patients received tests at TestMV and one tested positive at the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital. The hospital case was reported after the hospital’s daily online update came out at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday, health officials wrote.

The four new cases follow a weekend in which the hospital reported an unprecedented 20 positive coronavirus tests — by far the most cases reported over a single weekend — and a two-week period that has seen more than 50 new cases in total. The virus’s recent spread on the Island has started to cast a broader shadow over public school systems, local politics and businesses as well, with cases prompting Cronig’s Market to close until at least Thursday, the cancellation of two town meetings and the Edgartown school postponing its rollout of expanded in-person learning.

Tisbury health agent Maura Valley said on Monday that community spread was occuring for the first time since the pandemic began and urged renewed caution. On Tuesday, she said that contact tracing was continuing and that some of the new cases were connected, but that no additional case clusters outside of Cronig’s had been identified.

“There are a couple of different family/social groups involved as well as the Cronig’s cases,” Ms. Valley wrote in an email to the Gazette. “Still working out some of the connections.”

More detailed demographic information that health agents release weekly on Friday shows that there are now likely around 40 laboratory confirmed cases currently in progress on the Island, the most since the pandemic began.

“We’re working with the hospital on developing community outreach in an attempt to stop the spread so I’m hoping that we don’t continue to see count increases,” Ms. Valley wrote in an email Tuesday.

The hospital and health agents met on Monday to discuss further public health outreach options as well, according to Ms. Valley.

At an Edgartown board of health meeting on Tuesday evening, health agent Matt Poole noted that it has been difficult for Island families to proceed through an entire ten day quarantine without the virus spreading throughout the household — a factor in the weekend’s high case count. But even though many of the recent cases have been grouped in families, others, he said, were not.

“There are a lot of social connections that if people had sort of conducted themselves differently, perhaps some of those cases were avoidable,” Mr. Poole said. “A good percentage of these folks that are in this tally either traveled together or spent a weekend together or had some sort of social connection, which if they had, you know, really done the draconian sort of physical, social distancing practices, perhaps we would have fewer cases.”

The Island has now had 165 total cases of the virus, with 145 coming through laboratory confirmed tests and an additional 24 involving antibody positive or symptomatically diagnosed patients. Of the laboratory confirmed patients, 97 have tested positive at the hospital and 50 have now tested positive at TestMV. Health officials have stated that there have been patients to test positive at both sites, accounting for the overlap.

The hospital is testing symptomatic patients and their close contacts, while TestMV is focused on testing asymptomatic patients on the Island.

The age breakdown for laboratory positive cases is as follows: 19 under 20; 31 in their 20’s; 28 in their 30’s; 19 in their 40’s; 25 in their 50’s; 16 in their 60’s; seven over the age of 70. Of those cases, 64 are male and 81 are female.

Statewide, case numbers again eclipsed 2,000 new patients on Tuesday, matching daily case totals when the virus was surging in the late spring. The DPH reported 2,047 new cases on Tuesday and 21 new deaths. Nearly 170,000 individuals have now tested positive in the state, and 9,957 people have died.

Gathering rules across the state were tightened last week, and a statewide public mask order is currently in effect for all individuals over the age of five.

The hospital reported Tuesday that no individuals were hospitalized on-Island with the virus as of 9:30 a.m. The Island has had no Covid-19 related deaths since the pandemic began.