Hospital cases highest since May 2020

Health commissioner sounds alarm about the unvaccinated

COVID-19 hospitalizations in Connecticut soared to their highest level since early May 2020 on Monday, signaling just how transmissible the omicron variant of the virus is — and how vulnerable unvaccinated residents are to it.

“The unvaccinated have reason to be scared,” Department of Public Health commissioner Dr. Manisha Juthani warned on Monday during a press conference at Stamford Hospital. But for those who have been vaccinated and boosted, the virus often runs a mild course, she noted.

Hospitalizations in Connecticut rose to 1,452 on Monday, an increase of 301 patients since

Thursday. Connecticut also reported a 21.5% daily test positivity rate on Monday, representing an all-time high since widespread testing began.

“There is rampant community spread,” said Gov. Ned Lamont, who also appeared in Stamford.

Given the current COVID-19 surge, Juthani urged mitigation measures like wearing face masks and staying at home as much as possible, including by teleworking.

Yet when asked about whether he would institute a statewide mask mandate, Lamont declined, saying that he believed Connecticut residents were “overwhelmingly” wearing masks.

“I don’t want to put a lot of counter-pressures on and [have] rebellion and people fighting back against it,” he said.

State Sen. Tony Hwang, R-fairfield, who also spoke at the Stamford event, called for more widespread COVID-19 testing — both at-home rapid tests and expanded PCR testing sites — in order to keep workers, teachers and students safe. Demand for testing has surged across the state during the end-of-year holidays.

“It is absolutely essential for us to ramp up capacity,” he said.

Lamont said he believed that the bottleneck in COVID-19 testing capacity would ease within a week or two.

“We can’t have everybody rush

the gate for the tests at the exact same time,” he said. “I just urge a little bit of common sense here.”

Cases and positivity rate

Connecticut reported 23,678 new COVID-19 cases Monday out of 110,017 tests administered, for a daily positivity rate of 21.5%. The state’s seven-day positivity rate now stands at 19.53%, by far the highest it has been at any time over the past 18 months.

All eight Connecticut counties — along with nearly the rest of the country — are currently recording “high” levels of COVID-19 transmission as defined by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. With this level of transmission, the CDC advises people to wear a mask in public indoor settings.

Hospitalizations

As of Thursday, Connecticut has 1,452 patients hospitalized with COVID-19, up 301 since Thursday and the most the state has seen since May 5, 2020 — less than two months into the start of the pandemic.

Of the patients hospitalized with COVID-19, 999 (68.8%) are not fully vaccinated, according to the state.

The surge in COVID-19 hospitalizations — which have nearly quadrupled since early December — is showing no signs of abating, Juthani said.

“I am very concerned,” she said. “I am very concerned about our hospital staff, I am concerned about nurses and doctors that have been working on the front lines.”

At Stamford Hospital, about 140 of 3,700 employees are currently out due to COVID19, according to Kathleen Silard, Stamford Health’s president and chief executive officer. She noted that most have mild illnesses and are returning to work fairly quickly, and that the health system has been able to find replacement workers.

Hartford Healthcare chief clinical officer Dr. Ajay Kumar said during a press call Monday that he did not know the exact number of staff out due to COVID-19, but stressed that none of the health system’s services have been significantly affected due to staffing issues or shortages.

“Right now, we are doing OK,” he said.

Still, Hartford Healthcare announced changes to its visitation policy Monday, stipulating that each patient can only have one visitor per day during normal visiting hours. Exceptions would be made for patients with disabilities, those in labor and delivery areas, and under other circumstances, including compassionate visitation at end-of-life.

Deaths

The 83 deaths Connecticut reported Thursday bring its total during the pandemic to 9,160.

As COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations have surged in Connecticut over recent weeks, deaths have risen but still remain far below the levels recorded last winter.

The United States has now recorded 826,678 COVID-19 deaths, according to the Coronavirus Resource Center at Johns Hopkins University.

Vaccinations

As of Monday, 88.6% of all Connecticut residents and 95% of those 12 and older had received at least one COVID19 vaccine dose, while 74.6% of all residents and 83.6% of those 12 and older were fully vaccinated, according to the CDC.

Additionally, about 41.6% of fully vaccinated Connecticut residents 18 or older have received a booster dose.

The CDC warns that booster shots are sometimes misclassified as first doses, likely inflating the reported number of first-dose coverage and understating the true number of people who have received boosters.