State’s daily positivity reaches highest point since late January.
As Connecticut prepares for a substantial easing of pandemic restrictions Friday, the state’s COVID positivity rate has fluctuated this week, causing some concern for health experts.
Many of the restrictions, meant to slow new infections, will be lifted from occupancy caps on restaurants, retailers and houses of worship, to an easing on limitations for gatherings in private residences and commercial venues.
On Tuesday, the state reported a positivity rate of 4.96 percent among new tests administered, the highest number since late January. More telling is the sevenday average for the positivity rate has inched up to just below 3 percent.
Summer Johnson McGee, dean of the School of Health Sciences at the University of New Haven, said any increase is “concerning” this close to lifting restrictions.
“This is a precarious time for our state as we attempt to reopen in the midst of a COVID-19 case plateau,” McGee said. “From a public health perspective, I would have preferred for the state to wait to reopen more until we had a higher level of vaccination across the state.”
At least one doctor said he wasn't sure whether early numbers from this week were enough to delay reopening. "I'd hesitate to make an assumption based on a single day," said Dr. Michael Parry, director of infectious disease at Stamford Hospital. "We have to find out if this is a trend or a blip."
On Wednesday, the positivity rate dropped back down to 2.43 percent as 373 new infections were identified out of 15,362 tests. The seven-day positivity rate stood at 2.87 percent.
There was one fewer patient hospitalized, dipping the statewide total to 402. Eight more fatalities attributed to the disease brought Connecticut's official death toll to 7,807.
With COVID numbers not yet stable, some health experts whether the state is reopening too soon.
“It's just a few weeks too soon,” said Dr. Gregory Buller, Bridgeport Hospital's associate chief medical officer and chairman of the department of medicine. “We need more people vaccinated. It seems a little bit premature to me.”
Buller said he understands the need to open things up from a business and social standpoint, but said he felt it was coming with a health risk.
Dr. Howard Selinger, chairman of Family Medicine at the Frank H. Netter MD School of Medicine at Quinnipiac University, said "we're nowhere near" herd immunity, and the state should wait until more people get the vaccine.
“We are still dealing with slightly more than three-quarters
of the population who are not vaccinated,” he said. “And we have the potential for variants. It's risky.”
When Gov. Ned Lamont announced on March 4 he would lift or modify restrictions, the positivity rate was 1.84 percent, the lowest since October, according to state COVID-19 statistics. At the time, the seven-day average for positivity rate was 2.19 percent.
Lamont at the time said: “It feels good that we’re able to do this, it feels good that we’ve been slowly reopening since May 20 and we really haven’t had to turn back. I hope to god that we don’t have to turn back this time, that the metrics stay in a positive direction.”
Despite a recent bump in the positivity rate, Lamont’s office said they are not planning to shift course with lifting restrictions.
“The infection rate that we’re
seeing now are different than the infection rate we had six months ago,” the governor’s spokesman, Max Reiss said. Young people, he said, are getting sick now.
Hospitalizations, another key measure weighed in decisions about restrictions, had dropped a net of about 50 patients from March 4 to the end of last week. Hospitalizations edged up slightly this week with 20 more hospitalizations reported as of Tuesday. The number of hospitalizations still remains about half what the state saw in early February.
Lamont’s plan on COVID-19 restrictions were conservative compared to other states, such as Texas, which opened everything back up 100 percent and dropped a requirement that people wear masks.
Key to Lamont’s plan was that people were still required to wear masks and socially distance, while businesses and commercial venues continue to sanitize and disinfect to limit the spread of the virus.
But top federal health officials have repeatedly cautioned states from opening too quickly and losing ground against COVID-19 spread.
As recently as last weekend, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the White House chief medical advisor, voiced concerns about states easing restrictions, pointing to an increase in cases in Europe.
“If you wait just a bit longer to give the vaccine program a chance to increase the protection in the community, then it makes pulling back much less risky,” Fauci said on Fox News.
Connecticut has continued to ramp up its vaccination program, relying on commitments from the federal government that supply will increase in the coming weeks to push up the schedule for universal adult eligibility nearly a month to April 5.
When Lamont announced earlier this week that all adults could get vaccinated by April 5, he also moved up the eligibility date for people age 45 to 54 to Friday.
The success of the vaccine program was among the measures that factored into the decision to ease restrictions in Connecticut.
When Lamont announced the plan, Connecticut had already administered 681,488 first doses of the vaccine. With second doses, the number of fully vaccinated people was 361,046.
From these numbers, Lamont said at the time the state was going to have a lot more people vaccinated by March 19.
The latest vaccination statistics released Monday show an additional 237,253 people received a first dose and the number of fully vaccinated increased by 134,960 people.