State reports 460 new COVID cases in one day

The governor’s office reported on Friday there have been 460 new cases of the coronavirus in the state.

The new cases were found among 33,808 new tests— a positivity rate of just under 1.4 percent. On Thursday, the state reported 192 new cases out of 10,372 tests for a 1.8 percent positivity rate.

Three more people have been hospitalized for the illness, with a total of 110 now hospitalized in Connecticut, according to Friday’s data.

Connecticut also recorded three more deaths attributed to the virus, bringing the death toll in the state to 4,513.

Connecticut’s 460 cases reported Friday pushes the seven-day rolling average of daily cases to 244, or just under 70 cases per million people per day. That’s a jump from where the state has been over the last two weeks — in the range of 40 to 50 per day per million people.

But it’s still far lower than the national rate, which is hovering around 128 cases per million. It’s also well below the threshold of 100 cases per day per million that’s considered a warning level.

The more closely watched figure — percentage of tests showing a positive result — stands at 1.1 percent over the last seven days well in line as one of the nation’s lowest rates of the illness. The 460 cases reported Friday came with an asterisk, as part of a cache of 33,808 that were done earlier but not previously reported.

In short, two days of very large test numbers pushed Connecticut higher in total cases but the rate of illness remains low. The state has had five days of more than 400 cases since July, as overall averages have remained much lower.

The larger concern is hot spots such as Norwich, a municipality of around 39,000 residents in New London County, where public health officials said there has been a spike of 84 new cases between Sept. 13 and 26. That brought the daily case rate in Norwich to 24 per 100,000 — the highest rate in the state.

Residents of the city are being told to limit trips outside their homes, wear masks when they do venture out, and avoid gatherings.