Daily coronavirus updates: Connecticut reports zero coronavirus deaths for third day in past two weeks
Connecticut again reported zero new coronavirus-related deaths on Tuesday, which marks the third day in two weeks that the state’s death count has not moved.
The state has now seen a total of 4,406 coronavirus-related deaths since the pandemic hit the state in March. But while the deaths did not tick up Tuesday, the state did see an increase in the number of hospitalized patients — that number increased by 8, for a total of 62.
Nearly 141,500 people in the U.S. have died from COVID-19, Johns Hopkins University’s Coronavirus Resource Center reported Tuesday evening.
The number of hospitalized patients in Connecticut has fluctuated for the past several weeks, with occasional bumps amid the general decline. Hospitalizations have been mostly dropping since mid-April, when the state hit a peak of more than 2,000 hospitalized patients.
Nearly all of the hospitalized patients are in Hartford, New Haven and Fairfield Counties. Those counties also rank among the counties with the most deaths due to COVID-19.
The state also reported an additional 41 COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, for a total of 48,096. It’s unclear if this total includes the 90 false positives that the state discovered last week and announced Monday. Those false positives were the result of a faulty test system that has now been fixed and was used in only a small percentage of the state’s total tests.
Connecticut’s positivity rate remained low on Tuesday. The positivity rate is calculated by dividing the number of new cases by the number of tests performed. States aim for lower positivity rates, which are used as an indication that a state is successfully identifying a large percentage of actual cases.
With 5,548 tests reported Tuesday, Connecticut’s single-day positivity rate was around 0.7%. The World Health Organization has recommended officials aim for a sustain positivity rate below 5%, according to Johns Hopkins University’s Coronavirus Resource Center.
While other states in the country are seeing COVID-19 spikes, Connecticut’s data indicates it’s still heading in the right direction.
In an effort to safeguard that progress, the state on Tuesday expanded its travel advisory list, which now includes 31 states. Travelers from any state on the list are required to either test negative for COVID-19 or self-quarantine for 14 days upon arriving in Connecticut.
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