Signs point to increase in cases
Wastewater tests show biggest spike since January
Recent samples from sewage treatment plants in Bridgeport and New Haven show “rapid increases” in the level of the COVID virus in raw sewage, and researchers say the finding is a warning that people should remain cautious even as vaccine eligibility opens to all adults.
Analyzing human waste can help predict when an outbreak of the virus might pop up in a certain area.
“Those increases, while it’s only been a week of them, look just like the increases we saw last fall when we saw the big outbreak,” said Jordan Peccia, one of the lead researches involved in the Yale COVID-19 wastewater surveillance project. “We’re not immune to not having another outbreak just because spring is around the corner and more people are getting vaccinated.”
What’s causing the increase?
Peccia said it’s a combination of an uptick in activity, “a lot more interaction than we had previously in the stricter lockdown,” and more infectious mutations of the virus circulating in Connecticut.
Those mutations can be detected in wastewater samples, Peccia said, in addition to the genetic sequencing of the variants going on in the state, and the Yale researchers intend to more broadly track them going forward to get a better sense of how prevalent different variants of the virus are in the state.
While the wastewater data has occasionally shown spikes that didn’t result in a big wave of cases, “this is the most significant one since early January,” said Howard P. Forman, a professor of public health, management, and radiology at Yale University who is not involved in the
wastewater tracking project.
Higher levels of COVID-19 detected in wastewater usually foreshadows increases in hospitalizations and cases, but this time around the data is “lagging behind,” Forman said, noting that hospitalizations
and cases climbed in the weeks leading up to the spike.
As has been true all along, it’s the totality of this information that should be looked at to “form a picture of where we’re at right now, if we’re getting better or worse,” he said.
Now that younger people, who are more likely to spread the virus, are eligible to get vaccinated in Connecticut, it’s still possible to avoid a significant spike, Forman said, especially with the success of the rollout so far.
“The immunity from the
vaccine could overwhelm the potential spread from reopening,” Forman said. “We should all for hope for that.”
But it’s also possible, he said, that Connecticut could continue to see cases increase rapidly, which could prompt a rolling back of the reopening plan.
Friday marked the next phase of the state’s reopening plan, which allows outdoor event venues allowed to increase capacity to 50%, capped at 10,000 people, while outdoor amusement parks can open without a capacity limit. Indoors stadiums are allowed to open at 10% capacity.
Asked Thursday during his coronavirus briefing about whether he has plans to reopen the state to prepandemic levels, Gov. Ned Lamont said “not for a while.”
The governor said he would err on the side of caution until Connecticut gets closer to herd immunity and would continue to keep a close eye on hospital capacity and the prevalence of variants of the virus in the state.
After more than a year of governing by emergency powers, an authority that the Democratic majority in the state Senate recently extended to May 20, Lamont said Thursday it’s time for the legislature to weigh in.”
The governor said he would be setting down with the state’s legislative leaders in the weeks to come to discuss the dozens of executive orders that his administration has issued throughout the pandemic to determine which should stay in place and which should expire.