State’s positivity rate drops amid 761 new reported cases

Here are the most important things to know about the coronavirus in Connecticut:

Connecticut announced 761 new coronavirus cases on Friday, seven more deaths and eight new hospitalizations for a total of 329 patients currently in the hospital. The positivity rate has sharply dropped to 2.5 percent after surpassing six percent on Oct. 29.

Study finds 20 percent of grocery employees infected

A study has found a high rate of asymptomatic COVID-19 infections among grocery store workers. Published in the journal Occupational & Environmental Medicine, the study found one of five of the grocery store workers tested were positive for coronavirus. Of those who tested positive, 76 percent were asymptomatic, and 91 percent had roles in the store that put them into contact with customers.

Bad air can linger for 5 hours, researchers say

Ventilation matters a lot, according to a study published last week in the British Journal of Anaesthesia. Aerosolized particles can remain in the air for more than five hours in a room with a low ventilation rate, suggesting that hospital rooms with COVID-positive patients “should be considered ‘contaminated’ for extended durations after aerosol-generating procedures have been performed,” the study said,

“since it has been shown that airborne SARS-CoV-2 remains viable for at least five hours.”

CDC: One patient at Wisconsin summer camp infects 118 people

A single COVID-19-positive patient infected 118 people at a summer camp in Wisconsin, according to the CDC. That patient tested negative a week before attending the camp, but developed symptoms and tested positive shortly after arriving. The result, the CDC said, was 76 percent of the people at the overnight camp, hailing from 21 states and two foreign countries, later tested positive. According to the CDC, this case demonstrates the need for “pre- arrival quarantine and testing, cohorting, symptom monitoring, early identification and isolation of cases, mask use and enhanced hygiene and disinfection practices.”

FDA considering ‘expanded access’ process for COVID-19 vaccines

The FDA announced it is in “the early stages of considering whether to use expanded access to distribute a potential COVID-19 vaccine,” CNN reported. Expanded access is not an approval process, but rather a method to move along the process of approving an “investigational medical product,” like a vaccine. The process has been used before for vaccines, but not for a massive distribution that would be needed with a COVID-19 vaccine, according to CNN.