Daily coronavirus updates: As cases surge in nation, Connecticut continues to slow growth of COVID-19
Connecticut on Friday reported 104 new cases of COVID-19 and a positivity rate of .79% as the state continued to make progress in its fight against the coronavirus.
Gov. Ned Lamont reported three new deaths, for a total of 4,413 fatalities since the pandemic began in March. More than 145,000 people in the U.S. have died from COVID-19-related causes, according to the Coronavirus Research Center at Johns Hopkins University.
Much of the nation is at risk or facing an active or imminent outbreak of the virus, according to Covid Act Now, which tracks health metrics and COVID-19 risk in all 50 states.
There are 71 people hospitalized for COVID-19 in Connecticut, with nearly all patients in Fairfield, New Haven and Hartford counties. Nearly every municipality in the state has recorded a confirmed COVID-19 case, except for the small towns of Canaan and Scotland.
On Friday, the state also announced a backlog of unreported test results for Connecticut residents dating back to mid-May. Among these approximately 12,000 tests, 440 were positive. On Thursday, the state reported an additional 13,000 tests.
With the 544 new cases, the state has now recorded 48,776 coronavirus cases.
Positivity rate
Excluding the backfilled data and using only the actual new cases, the state’s positivity rate increased slightly from .6% on Thursday to .79% Friday.
Positivity rate is found by dividing the number of new cases by the total number of tests conducted, and can be used to gauge whether a state is conducting enough testing.
A higher positivity rate indicates that a state is only testing patients who have a high probability of testing positive, such as people with clear COVID-19 symptoms. A lower positivity rate indicates that a state is testing more broadly and has expanded testing to those who have a lower chance of testing positive, including patients who have the virus but are asymptomatic.
When a state has a high positivity rate, it may be due to a sharp increase in cases or due to a lack of testing. But either way, a high rate indicates the state does not have a clear picture of the outbreak within its borders. A low rate indicates the opposite.
Connecticut’s positivity rate had been hovering around 1%, often dipping well below that.
Hospitalizations dip
After three straight days of increasing COVID-19 hospitalizations, that number dipped by 1 on Friday.
From Monday to Thursday, hospitalizations increased from 54 to 72. But on Friday, the total dropped to 71. In mid- to late April, at the peak of the pandemic, the state had nearly 2,000 hospitalized patients.
Coronavirus-related deaths have been dropping since its mid-April single-day peak of more than 200 deaths. On four separate days in the past three weeks, the state has reported zero coronavirus-related deaths. Two of those four days were in the past week.
Emily Brindley can be reached at ebrindley@courant.com.
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