Daily coronavirus updates: COVID-19 hospitalizations in Connecticut reach highest number since February; rolling positivity rate steadily declining
Connecticut reported the greatest number of COVID-19 hospitalizations since mid-February Tuesday, even as the state’s weekly average of positive tests continued a steady decline.
There were 21 new hospitalizations Tuesday, for a statewide total of 545 people hospitalized due to COVID-19. That’s the highest hospitalizations have been since Feb. 18.
Two highly contagious variants of COVID-19 — the B117 variant, originally detected in the UK, and the B.1.526 variant, first detected in New York — account for the overwhelming majority of Connecticut’s COVID-19 cases, experts say.
Connecticut reported 1,118 new COVID-19 tests out of 29,670 tests administered Tuesday, for a daily positivity rate of 3.77%. The seven-day rolling average positivity rate dipped to 3.2%, following a week of declines and marking the lowest point since mid-March.
“Yesterday we had about a 3.8% infection rate so that’s good, we’re staying within a narrow band there,” Gov. Ned Lamont said Tuesday morning.
Connecticut is approaching 8,000 deaths due to COVID-19. There were 17 additional deaths due to COVID-19, for a total of 7,974 deaths in the state overall. There have been 563,027 deaths in the United States due to COVID-19 according to the Coronavirus Research Center at Johns Hopkins University.
“Get vaccinated,” Lamont said. “You won’t be one of those hospitalizations or fatalities.”
Despite the uptick in hospitalizations, COVID-19 vaccinations continue steadily in Connecticut. Overall, 45% of state residents have received at least one shot of the vaccine and 29% of the population is fully vaccinated, according to the New York Times’ vaccine rollout tracker.
Johnson & Johnson doses paused
On Tuesday, the Connecticut Department of Public Health followed federal health agencies in recommending that health care providers pause the administration of the single-dose Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine.
The announcement came as the federal government investigated six cases of rare blood clots among women who had received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. None of the cases of blood clots originated in Connecticut, according to the state Department of Public Health. Overall, nearly seven million Americans have received the one-dose vaccine without reporting serious adverse reactions.
State officials had already planned for a reduction in Connecticut’s allocation of Johnson & Johnson doses due to a recent factory mix-up and emphasized Tuesday that the new setback would not significantly alter the state’s vaccine rollout.
“The good news is we’re going to get extra doses next week of Pfizer and Moderna, so hopefully we’re not going to miss a beat,” Lamont said.
Acting Public Health Commissioner Dr. Deidre Gifford acknowledged that the state’s distribution timeline will be pushed back a few weeks due to the Johnson & Johnson pause but noted that the majority of the state’s vaccine allocation consists of Pfizer and Moderna doses.
“It doesn’t make a big dent in our goals,” she said.
Eliza Fawcett can be reached at elfawcett@courant.com.
