Gov. confident amid talk of 4th virus wave
‘I think we’re going to break the back of this thing’
As the nation braces for a possible fourth wave of COVID infections, Gov. Ned Lamont said he isn’t concerned that such a surge will hit Connecticut as more people get vaccinated.
As cases and hospitalizations climbed last month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky warned of a potential fourth wave, due to the loosening of COVID restrictions nationwide and too many Americans letting their guards down. The rise of COVID-19 variants, which have been shown to be more contagious, was part of the concern.
“The trajectory of the pandemic in the United States looks similar to many other countries in Europe, including Germany, Italy, and France looked like just a few weeks ago,” Walensky said in a White House briefing on March 29. “And since that time, those countries have experienced a consistent and worrying spike in cases.”
But Lamont said he maintains confidence that vaccinations in Connecticut are proceeding quickly enough to keep such a wave from rising. He said about 50 percent of Connecticut residents have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.
“I’d like to think we’ll have 60 percent of our people vaccinated in the next week or so,” Lamont said Thursday. “I think we’re going to break the back of this thing.”
As of last week, Connecticut
had administered 1.42 million first doses of the vaccine and 883,000 people were fully vaccinated.
Local doctors are also cautiously optimistic about the possibility of a new spike in COVID cases. But they said if there is a new surge in COVID, it would technically be the third wave in Connecticut — not the fourth.
“If you look at the country as a whole, it looks like we had three waves, but in Connecticut, it looks like we only had two
waves,” said Dr. Michael Parry, director of infectious diseases at Stamford Hospital.
He said the first wave hit last spring, when COVID-19 first came to Connecticut, and the second was around late fall and early winter.
Parry and Dr. Gregory Buller, associate chief medical officer and chairman of the department of medicine at Bridgeport Hospital, said a new COVID spike is possible in Connecticut, but they shared Lamont’s optimism that
it could be prevented with the speed of vaccinations.
“With vaccinations, there shouldn’t be another significant big number of people getting hospitalized,” Buller said. “People will be hospitalized, but not in big numbers.”
If a new wave does hit, “it’s very possible that (it) might be very blunted and not be a major problem,” Parry said. Though, he added, “being a realist, it wouldn’t surprise me if numbers went up again.”
Dr. Corina Marcu, associate vice president of medical affairs at St. Vincent’s Medical Center in Bridgeport, said her biggest concern is the COVID variants, and their ability to quickly infect a large number of people.
“It’s becoming a tight race against the variants with the vaccine,” Marcu said. “I think a lot people are becoming very relaxed (about the virus). I think it’s a little too relaxed, because the variants are out there.”
All the experts said the key to preventing a new surge — or at lessening its impact — is to get vaccinated and continue to take such safety measures as maskwearing and avoiding large crowds.
“People want things to be the way they remember, with no masks and more gatherings,” said Dr. David Hill, professor of medical sciences and senior director of the global public health program at the Frank H. Netter MD School of Medicine at Quinnipiac University. “As we ramp up in vaccinations, we need to realize that this pandemic is not over. We are looking to the future, but it’s not over yet.”