Positivity tops 3% again, hospitalizations decline
Connecticut on Wednesday reported its second consecutive day of a positive coronavirus test rate above 3%, marking a slight increase from last week.
The state on Wednesday reported 1,493 newly identified COVID-19 cases out of 47,512 tests administered, for a positivity rate of 3.14%. On Tuesday, the state reported a positivity rate of 3.9%, which was the highest the state had seen in three weeks.
Last week, the state’s daily positivity rate hit a low of 1.6%.
However, the above-3% rates have only held for two days, which is not long enough to determine a trendline.
The state’s numbers in the coming days will either cement the uptick as a trend or prove it to be a blip.
Also on Wednesday, the state reported that hospitalizations declined by 16, for a total of 495 people currently hospitalized with COVID-19. Wednesday’s data marks a return to declining numbers, after the state onTuesday reported its first increase in hospitalizations in two weeks.
On Wednesday, Connecticut hit the lowest number of hospitalizations it’s seen since the first week of November.
The state also reported 23 additional coronavirus-linked deaths on Wednesday. While still reporting a significant number of deaths per day, Connecticut’s daily death count has slowed in recent weeks.
In total, Connecticut has now seen 278,184 coronavirus cases since the pandemic began and a total of 7,595 coronavirus-linked deaths. Nationwide, there have now been more than 28.3 million coronavirus cases and a total of 504,135 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center.
New Haven County leads the state in hospitalizations, with 166 people, followed by Fairfield County with 155 and Hartford County with 118.
Lamont vaccine plan
White House Press Secretary Jennifer Psaki said “governors make different choices” whenit comes to whoto vaccinate in their states.
Psaki was asked at a press briefing Wednesday how the White House views Gov. Ned Lamont’s plan that does not adhere to federal guidelines for vaccinations. Lamont announced this week that future vaccinations in Connecticut would be based on age and not other priorities, except for school employees.
“We make recommendations at the federal level for a reason, because there are groups that we feel should be prioritized, whether they’re frontline workers, health care workers, individuals over a certain age, as you noted, and our objective of course is to get to the stage where there’s recommendations for people who are much younger, who don’t have … health conditions that would mean they wouldqualify. That’s the reason we laid them out as we do,” Psaki said. “Obviously governors make different choices about the prioritization and the prioritization order, but we stand by the guidelines we’ve recommended at a national level.”
CVS vaccination sites
CVS Health said Wednesdaythat it was adding pharmacies in Fairfield, Hartford, New Haven and Windham to administer COVID19 vaccinations. There are now approximately 19 CVS pharmacies in Connecticut that have COVID-19 vaccines, including Hartford, Bristol, Enfield, New Britain, Winsted and Windsor Locks.
Vaccinations are by appointment only through the CVS’s online site. To access other providers, go to https://portal.ct.gov/Coronavirus/COVID-19-Vaccinations. Thestate’s vaccine sign-up portal is https://dphsubmissions.ct.gov/OnlineVaccine.