The positive rate of Covid-19 infections remains higher than the citywide average at over 10 percent in Dorchester, Mattapan and East Boston, Mayor Martin Walsh told reporters Thursday during a media availability outside of City Hall.

According to data tracked by the Boston Public Health Commission (BPHC) for the week of Oct. 25-31, Dorchester is still leading the city with the highest positive rates. Dorchester zip codes 02122 and 02124 have a 12 percent positive rate; and 02121 and 02125 are at 11.6 percent positivity. Mattapan and East Boston posted positive rates of 10.1 and 10 percent, respectively. The city’s overall positive rate is at 7.2 percent, down from 8 percent in the previous week.

Walsh said that an increase in testing will help city officials determine exactly where infections are happening and guide the response.

“We’ve increased testing and at the same time we saw fewer positive tests. We want to be able to get a more accurate number of where covid-19 is in the city,” said Walsh. “There was an 8 percent increase in the number of people being tested last week. I want to continue to urge everyone to get tested.”

When asked about the potential for a multi-week pause on indoor dining, Walsh replied: “Everything is on the table but we’re hoping that we are able to get the numbers down... if we don’t then we might have to take further action.”

Marty Martinez, chief of Health and Human Services for the city, said that case investigations and contact tracing show that the infection is spreading in several different ways.

“Infections are not coming from just one place or scenario,” he said. “There are a lot of scenarios which include people still going to work and coming back to their multi-generation homes; we see folks having small gatherings in their homes; and we see folks getting it from being out and about. The message is we need everyone to continue to think about face coverings, social distancing, and not being around a lot of people at one time.”

The mayor says the city’s Election Department “continues to count every vote,” and is currently processing all of the mail-in ballots received since Tuesday night. This will continue through Friday, he said.

“I’m asking everyone for your patience while we wait for the national results,” he said. “And I want to urge everyone speaking out or planning to participate in a demonstration to do so peacefully and wear a face mask.”

When asked about ta $2 million dollar tourism campaign launched today, Walsh said that while the campaign won't have an “immediate impact” as covid cases remain high, city officials are “thinking ahead.”

“The covid pandemic has certainly been tough on our tourism industry but we want to be able to come out of this quicker and help businesses recover,” he said. “We’re in an interesting position but we want to get ahead of it and come up for a plan to market the city when we can open safely.”

Walsh said the ad campaign, funded with dollars from the Federal CARES Act, will be used to highlight the diversity of the city’s businesses and neighborhoods.