Health experts: Drop in state hospitalizations shows vaccines are working
Success with the vaccine program has driven the statewide total of hospitalizations to the lowest point in six months as officials continue to express that Connecticut is making progress against the COVID-19 pandemic amid a broader easing of restrictions.
Hospitalizations have been a crucial metric weighed when Gov. Ned Lamont and his administration gauge whether the state is ready to ease back toward what he has called a “new normal.”
While hospitalizations rose and then remained somewhat flat through parts of April, Lamont announced a universal lifting of business restrictions by May 19. Since then, hospitalizations have largely dropped.
Last weekend, Connecticut saw a sharp drop in overall hospitalizations with 41 fewer patients to bring the statewide total to 342. The decline comes as Lamont lifted outdoor restrictions on businesses, including a mandate that people wear a mask outdoors.
Lamont said Monday it was “the lowest hospitalizations we’ve had in about six months.” State data shows the last time hospitalizations were below 342 was Nov. 1, before climbing steadily through December to a high of 1,262.
“Our numbers continue in the right direction ... some of those trends hopefully are being reinforced because of each and every one of you,” Lamont said of the COVID metrics, including hospitalizations. “We are making progress.”
Lamont credited the progress with the continued efforts to vaccinate all adults in Connecticut.
Connecticut became the first state in the nation to have 50 percent of all residents age 18 and older fully vaccinated.
After increasing by one net patient on Tuesday, hospitalizations again fell Wednesday by a net of 10 patients for a total of 333. The positivity rate for new COVID-19 tests was 2.6 percent and seven more people died for a total of 8,124 fatalities, according to the state’s data.
Though numbers are low, most hospitalizations remain concentrated in New Haven, Fairfield and Hartford counties, the latest state figures show.
At Yale New Haven Health, one of the state’s largest hospital networks, cases have dropped swiftly in the past several weeks.
“We are starting to see our COVID cases decline,” Yale New Haven Health CEO Marna Borgstrom said. “There’s a tendency on many people’s parts to say are we actually coming out of this.”
Borgstrom and others credited the declining COVID hospitalizations to the state’s vaccination efforts, particularly among older residents.
As of Monday, the state said 1.9 million people had received a first dose of the vaccine and nearly 1.4 million people were fully vaccinated.
Vaccinations appear to be having a similar impact on the number of people hospitalized across Hartford HealthCare’s network of hospitals.
Dr. Ajay Kumar, HHC’s chief clinical officer, said Tuesday there were a total of 93 hospitalizations across the network.
“This is one of the lower numbers we’ve seen in several weeks, I’m encouraged by that,” Kumar said.
Of those who are hospitalized, 20 are in intensive care and one requires a ventilator, Kumar said. Mirroring the statewide statistics, the highest number of cases were Hartford Hospital and the Hospital of Central Connecticut, which is in Hartford County, and St. Vincent’s Hospital in Bridgeport.
“We have seen that vaccines have really lowered the hospitalizations and are reducing the mortality,” Kumar said.
Since the onset of the vaccination program late last year, Kumar said there has been only one hospitalization of someone vaccinated, but for an unrelated reason, and no vaccinated patients have died.
“Vaccines really work,” he said. Dr. Jeff Nicastro, chief medical officer system chairman of surgery for Nuvance Health, which includes Danbury, Norwalk, New Milford and Sharon hospitals, said the system has seen a drop in hospitalizations, and like others, credited the vaccination efforts.
“Nuvance Health hospitals are encouraged by the steady decline in patients hospitalized with COVID-19 over the past several weeks,” Nicastro said. “We can attribute some of this decline to COVID-19 vaccines and how effective they are at preventing severe illness, hospitalization and death from the virus.”
He said it’s “great news” that half of Connecticut’s adult population has been fully vaccinated, but more work needs to be done.
“Now that access to COVID-19 vaccines has expanded, we hope individuals will continue to get vaccinated if they have not already to protect themselves and reduce transmission of COVID-19 in their community,” Nicastro said.