State’s weekly numbers rise again

More hospitalizations, cases and deaths for second straight week

For the second straight week, Connecticut showed troubling trends in four significant COVID19 metrics: cases, hospitalizations, positivity rate and deaths, state numbers show.

Gov. Ned Lamont on Friday announced 290 positive results out of 17,257 COVID-19 tests, for a rate of 1.7%. The state has now recorded 1,741 cases with a positivity rate of 1.45% over the past seven days, up from 1,615 with a 1.36% rate the week prior.

The state also reported an increase in COVID-19 hospitalizations Friday, leaving 134 patients hospitalized with the disease, up from 110 a week earlier.

With three additional coronavirus-linked deaths Friday, the state has now reported 17 over the past week, up from 12 the week before, and 4,530 in total during the pandemic. The United States has recorded 213,360 COVID-19 deaths, according to the Coronavirus Resource Center at Johns Hopkins University.

Lamont received his annual flu shot Friday, at a clinic at Maloney High School in Meriden, and encouraged other Connecticut residents to do the same. Officials fear a bad flu season could complicate the state’s ability to contain COVID-19.

Dr. Deidre Gifford, acting commissioner of public health, said the state had not yet seen widespread flu transmission this fall but will likely see cases soon.

“There is reason to think universal masking will help in [containing] the flu,” Gifford said. “But it’s not a substitute for the vaccine.”

UConn: Infections fewest since August

UConn currently has 11 positive or suspected COVID-19 cases among students on its Storrs campus, the school said Friday, its fewest at a given time since mid-August, shortly after students

first returned.

The university had previous faced several coronavirus clusters, resulting in more than 70 active cases at time in September.

At a stop on UConn’s Hartford campus on Thursday, White House coronavirus response coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx said she was pleased to hear about UConn’s work to contain the spread of COVID-19 among its students and staff.

“I was very, very encouraged to see what they have done for surveillance,” Birx said. “Because we know in university settings, a lot of the spread is asymptomatic.”

Birx added she wasparticularly happy that UConn has tested its wastewater as a way to monitor coronavirus spread among its students, especially on-campus students. Based on her conversations with university officials, she also said that UConn leadership had reorganized itself to focus more on innovation and less on traditional lines of command.

“They’ve been able to reopen safely and provide in-room and in-classroom instruction as well as online instruction,” she said. “And whatwasveryinterestingand whatwe’veseenacrossthe21 universities we have been to, is really successes comefrom partnership and planning.”

More remote learning in Storrs

UConn will shift to remote classes for the first two weeks of the spring semester in January and after the April break, the university said Friday.

“We expect that many of our students, faculty, and staff will be traveling back from numerous locations after the winter break and after spring break; remote learning during those times will help minimize potential contact,” Carl Lejuez, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs, said in a letter released Friday.

The university also plans to continue to limit capacity in residence halls to about 50% and these students will start the semester under a two week quarantine on campus. The difference from the fall is that classes will begin remotelyforall students. This is a change from this past fall when UConn required two-week quarantine before classes started for all students living on campus.

“We heard from students that thetwo-weekquarantine before the start of fall classes was challenging for a variety of reasons, so ourdecision for the spring has also taken that into account,’’ Lejuez said.

The first day of spring semester classes is Jan. 19. Spring break begins on April 11, Final exams will take place from May 3 to May 8. Students who do not live on campus and who have no in-person classes are eligible for a reduction in fees.