(Combined Sources) The number of COVID-19 cases continues to climb at a worrisome pace in Massachusetts as the state wrestles with a new coronavirus spike. On Thursday, Massachusetts reported 23 newly confirmed coronavirus deaths and more than 1,760 newly confirmed cases of COVID-19, the highest since the spring when the state was struggling to emerge from the grips of the first wave of the disease. The new report pushed the state’s confirmed COVID-19 death toll to 9,859 and its confirmed caseload to nearly 160,700.