Hospitalizations at highest point since April

Seven-day positivity rate at 3.44% as delta variant still spreading

Hospitalizations have yet to drop off in Connecticut, and the state continues to record numbers of COVID-19 cases, an indication of the continued spread of the delta variant throughout the state.

Dr. Thomas Balcezak, chief clinical officer for Yale New Haven Health, said Tuesday that the hospital system has seen about 130 COVID-19 cases for the past week, which he noted was triple the hospital’s caseload a month ago. Even so, he said he was optimistic that hospitalizations would begin to decline in coming weeks.

“Hospitalizations lag about 14 days after the positivity rate, so I’m hopeful that we’re going to see a plateau and then a slow decrease,” he said.

Balcezak added that it is unlikely that COVID-19 will entirely fade away this fall — or even by early 2022. Across the Yale New Haven Health system, and the state at large, he said, “we’re going to see a handful to about a hundred cases, up and down, in a cyclical fashion in our health system over the next year or two.”

Cases, positivity rate

Connecticut reported 1,071 new COVID-19 cases Tuesday out of 27,958 administered, for a daily positivity rate of 3.83%. The state’s seven-day positivity rate now stands at 3.44%, about the same as late last week, when it stood at 3.47%.

Hospitalizations

Connecticut reported 22 additional hospitalizations Tuesday, for a statewide total of 391 hospitalizations due to COVID-19. Hospitalizations have steadily risen since early July and have not been that high since late April.

Deaths

Connecticut reports COVID19 deaths once a week, on Thursdays. As of last week, the state had recorded 8,330 coronavirus-linked deaths during the pandemic. Deaths, like cases and hospitalizations, have increased during the ongoing surge.

The United States has recorded 629,891 COVID-19 deaths, according to the Coronavirus Resource Center at Johns Hopkins University.

Vaccinations

As of Tuesday, 72.6% of all Connecticut residents and 83.3% of those 12 and older had received at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose, while 65.1% of all residents and 74.8% of those 12 and older were fully vaccinated, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.