One-day positivity rate dips below 3%

State failed to meet vaccination equity targets last week

Connecticut reported positive news Thursday as COVID19 infections declined, but Gov. Ned Lamont said the state was still struggling to vaccinate some of its most vulnerable residents.

Connecticut’s positive rate was2.36% onThursdayafter two consecutive days of rates above 3%. Thestate reported 735 newly identified coronavirus cases out of a total of 31,185 tests administered.

Although Thursday’s rate is lower than in recent days, it’s still higher than the state was reporting at the end of last week. Because of that, the weekly average rate rose slightly on Thursday, from about 2.4% to about 2.5%.

Lamont promised a renewed effort to reach people of color and other residents with low vaccination rates. “We’ve made a big effort. We’ve got to do more,” Lamont said on Thursday.

Nearly 27% of Connecticut residents have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine andabout 10% have been fully vaccinated.

Also on Thursday, the state reported that hospitalizations dropped by seven, for a total of 383 people currently hospitalized with COVID-19. That’s the lowest number Connecticut has seen since the first weekofNovember.

The state’s hospitalizations hit a peak of more than 1,200 in mid-December before leveling off for several weeks and then beginning to drop.

In addition, the state reported nine new coronavirus-linked deaths on Thursday. Connecticut’s daily death counts is on the decline, although the state is still reporting a significant numberof deaths most days.

Since the pandemic began, Connecticut has seen a total of 289,392 coronavirus cases and 7,761 coronavirus-linked deaths.

Nationwide, there have now been more than 29.1 million coronavirus cases and a total of 530,013 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center.

State didn’t meet equity targets last week: During its first week of implementation,

Connecticut did not meet its target goal around vaccine equity, Lamont said Thursday.

On Feb. 28, the day before Connecticut expanded vaccine eligibility to everyone aged 55 and older, the state Department of Public Health told vaccine providers that they are expected to allocate 25% of their doses to residents of high-vulnerability ZIP codes.

The goal is an attempt to vaccinate higher percentages of the vulnerable residents, including the Black and brown residents who have so far been much less likely to receive a vaccine than are white residents.

The ZIP codes, which were selected based on a vulnerability index developed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, are home to 25% of the state’s 55-and-older population.

That means that the state directed vaccine providers to evenly distribute doses among Connecticut’s ZIP codes.

But during the first week with the targets in place, Connecticut’s vaccine providers did not reach the goal. Instead of distributing 25% of doses to vulnerable ZIP codes, providers as a whole distributed 20% of doses to those areas.

Pharmacies fell particularly far short and distributed only 14% of doses to the earmarked neighborhoods. The only providers to reach the goal were federally qualified health centers, which distributed exactly 25% of their doses to the vulnerable ZIP codes.

In Connecticut and across the country, residents of color are significantly more likely to contract and die of COVID-19, but are significantly less likely to have received a vaccine.

Local leaders and public health officials have said that, while vaccine hesitancy plays a role in some communities, the most significant driver of the disparity is access to vaccination.

Newcases, hospitalizations are skewing younger: As vaccinations continue to roll out for the state’s older residents, those testing positive for COVID-19 are skewing younger.

In the two-week period ending March 6, the state identified 534 new cases among residents aged 70 and older, compared with 3,513 new cases among residents aged 20 to 39.

But the difference in case counts is not entirely new — throughout the pandemic, younger people have accounted for a significant share of Connecticut’s coronavirus cases.

In total, people aged 20 to 39 account for about 94,000 of Connecticut’s cases, while residents aged 70 and above account for about 32,000 cases.

This is in part because of the number of people in each of those age groups.

After adjusting for population size, the case rates become more similar.

However, the vast majority of deaths have been among those aged 80 and older — that age group accounts for about 5.5% of the state’s coronavirus cases, but more than 60% of the state’s coronavirus deaths

With cases skewing younger, hospitalizations are also shifting — and dropping.

In both the spring and the fall waves of the pandemic, the majority of COVID-19 hosptializations were among residents aged 65 and older.

In late November into December, there were nearly 100 hospitalizations per 100,000 residents in that age group. By late February, that rate dropped to about 20.

Hospitalization rates among residents aged 50 to 64 have dipped somewhat in recent weeks, while hospitalizations among those aged 18 to 49 have remained low throughout the pandemic.

Since mid-December, Connecticut’s coronavirus hospitalizations have dropped from more than 1,200 to just under 400.

Red alert list slowly shrinking:

Connecticut’s red alert list, which indicates municipalities that are considered coronavirus hotspots, is slowly shrinking.

The state rolled out the colorcoded alert map in early October, as a way to demonstrate which towns and cities were seeing rapid spread of the virus.

When the state first unveiled the map, only four municipalities qualified for red alert status, which was defined as 15 or more new daily cases per 100,000 residents.

But as the pandemic’s fall wave crashed over Connecticut, the color-coded map morphed into a sea of red. Virtually all of the state’s 169 municipalities made the list over the winter.

Now, with vaccinations taking hold and cases slowly subsiding, more towns and cities are dropping down to orange, yellow and even gray status.

“I think you’re going to see a lot dropping out [of red alert status] over the next few weeks,” Lamont said Thursday.

But it’s not happening overnight. On Thursday, the state reported that 104 municipalities still qualified as red alert, the same number that the state reported last week. Two weeks ago, there were 116 red alert municipalities.

“It’s not going to go to zero,” Geballe said. “But we do think that as the number of cases continue to decline, we should see some more color drain out of that map.”