Director of federal CDC tests positive for COVID-19

Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky has tested positive for COVID-19, according to the agency. 

The CDC announced the positive test in an emailed release just after noon Saturday.

The agency said Walensky is up to date with her vaccines.

“Dr. Walensky is experiencing mild symptoms,” the agency statement said. 

“Consistent with CDC guidelines, she is isolating at home and will participate in her planned meetings virtually,” the statement said. “CDC senior staff and close contacts have been informed of her positive test and are taking appropriate action to monitor their health.”

In Connecticut, state data also that the current COVID test positivity rate is 8.69%, according to Gov. Ned Lamont’s office.

During this past week, there were 405 people hospitalized, which was the same number as the pervious week, state data shows.

[ Look for a COVID surge this winter. Here’s what you need to know. ]

Further, in Connecticut there were 33,097 PCR/NAAT COVID tests done in the last seven days, bringing the total done in the state to date to 15,604,163. In total, 985,227 of those tests were positive, the data shows. The data excludes hospital censuses.

In Connecticut, according to data reported to the CT WiZ immunization information system as of Oct. 18, 3,058,702 people here have received at least one does of COVID vaccine, 2,774,985 have completed the primary series and 346,346 have received the bivalent booster, the data shows.

[ COVID-19 linked to increase in US pregnancy-related deaths ]

Are we about to see another surge in COVID-19 this winter, as the weather gets colder? How can we avoid getting sick? The Courant spoke with Dr. Ulysses Wu, assistant director of infectious diseases at Hartford HealthCare, and Dr. Scott Roberts, associate medical director for infection prevention at the Yale School of Medicine.

“We are definitely set for another wave of COVID,” Wu said. “One is to be expected because this is going to be the normal variation of respiratory viruses that we will face when weather starts getting colder,” such as flu, the common cold, respiratory syncytial virus, human metapneumovirus and parainfluenza.

“We should expect that, however, this wave will probably be a little bit bigger than it should be due to two reasons: No. 1 is masking and the lack thereof. So people have mask fatigue,” Wu said. “And then the second thing is vaccine fatigue as well, which will unfortunately probably result in more cases.”

Read more here.