School-By-School Breakdown: COVID-19 School Cases Decline In CT

CONNECTICUT — The number of COVID-19 cases among Connecticut PK-12 staff and students continues to decline.

On Thursday, the Department of Public Health reported 6,024 total infections for students, down from just over 11,000 last week. DPH logged 1,138 positive COVID-19 cases among school staff, a drop of 617 from the previous week.

Cases among staff and students had remained relatively low until the first week of November, when they began their climb. Confirmed cases among both groups shot up dramatically after the first of the year.

Here is the school-by-school breakdown:

Canaan remained the only town to stay off the highest infection tier in the latest set of numbers released from the state Department of Public Health. It has reported less than five cases of COVID-19 per 100,000 residents from Jan. 9-22. The rest of the state is in the high-alert red zone, according to DPH.

The color codes correspond to guidance from DPH. Populations in the red zone have reported 15 or more cases per 100,000 people over a two-week average.

Canaan, with its population of 1,053, is also the only town to be fully vaccinated.

Mansfield remains the vaccination outlier, still with less than 40 percent of its population fully vaccinated.

All Connecticut residents over the age of 5 are currently eligible to receive the vaccines. The state maintains an online database of vaccination clinic locations here.

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The graph above illustrates the slow progress toward complete vaccination.

As of Thursday, those residents who have received at least one dose of the vaccine against COVID-19 include more than 95 percent of those over the age of 55, 90 percent of those between 45-54 (up 1 percent from last week), 92 percent of those between 35-44, 87 percent of those between 25-34 (up 1 percent), 82 percent of those between 18-24 (up 1 percent), 86 percent of those between 16-17 (up 1 percent), 79 percent of those between 12-15 (up 2 percent) and 43 percent of those aged 5-11 (up 2 percent).

The table below shows new COVID-19 cases in the past 7 days by vaccination status. The percentage of cases among fully vaccinated residents is influenced by the increasing proportion of the population that is eligible for and has completed a vaccine series, and should be considered in light of the overall proportion of vaccinated individuals who have contracted the virus, according to DPH.

This table breaks outs the total Connecticut cases and deaths among fully vaccinated persons by age group.

As of Wednesday, 150,141 cases of COVID-19 among fully vaccinated persons in Connecticut have been identified. Of the 2,569,296 persons who are fully vaccinated, 5.84 percent have contracted the virus.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, 543,245 cases have been identified among residents who are not fully vaccinated. Five hundred eleven COVID-19 related deaths have occurred among the 150,141 fully vaccinated persons confirmed with COVID-19.

The charts above and below show the "relative risk," or the difference in risk, when comparing rates between vaccinated and unvaccinated persons.

The latest data show unvaccinated residents have a 13 times higher risk of dying from the coronavirus, compared to the vaccinated. Their risk of hospitalization is 8 times greater, and the risk of infection is 3 times as great.

Although coronavirus deaths in Connecticut have declined markedly since February, it is important to note that death — and hospitalization — rates have consistently been higher among unvaccinated persons compared to fully vaccinated people.

COVID-19 claimed 225 lives in the Nutmeg State over the past seven days — 16 fewer than logged the week before — according to DPH

The Connecticut coronavirus death toll is currently 9,908. Cases of the omicron variant are typically milder and have proven less fatal.

DPH reported the number of hospitalized coronavirus patients in Connecticut has dropped to 1,270, down 76 beds overnight, and 650 since the start of the downward trend on Jan. 11.

According to data released Thursday, 45.9 percent of those hospitalized in Connecticut with COVID-19 are fully vaccinated. That percentage has been growing over the past several weeks.

Currently, the highest number of the hospitalized —431 — are in Hartford County.

COVID-19 infections in the state have once again dropped below 10 percent, a low not seen since the end of 2021.

The daily coronavirus positivity rate is a function of the number of tests compared to the number of cases confirmed positive each day. Overnight, 3,036 positive cases were logged, out of 31,201 tests taken. The numbers of tests and cases confirmed do not include those taken with at-home self-test kits.

Instructions on how to get COVID-19 vaccinations and boosters in Connecticut are available online, as is a list of walk-up clinics sponsored by DPH.

This article originally appeared on the Danbury Patch