Did surge in Conn. virus cases spill over from R.I.?

Connecticut has outpaced the rest of the nation on average in new COVID-19 cases per capita in the past week, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The state has also surpassed New Jersey, New York and all of the New England states except Rhode Island.

Connecticut also ranks slightly higher than the nation on average for the amount of deaths per capita in the last seven days — again outpacing the northeast states except Rhode Island.

Connecticut’s eastern neighbor and the smallest state by land mass had the third-highest number of new cases per 100,000 people over a one-week span as of Tuesday. Rhode Island had been leading the nation until it was recently surpassed by Tennessee and Oklahoma, according to the CDC’s data.

“People tell me, ‘Rhode Island is on fire, they have more COVID cases per capita than almost anywhere else,’” Gov. Ned Lamont said this week. “Yes, but they also test much more than almost anywhere else.”

Dr. Albert Ko, of the Yale University School of Public Health, agrees that more testing results in more cases, but he also suspects geography is a factor.

“If you compare this to the first surge, the first surge we got hit through New York ... it kind of went through our I-95 corridor,” Ko said in an interview with Hearst Connecticut Media. “This was kind of the opposite phenomenon. We had high rates in Rhode Island going back from August and September, and it was really kind of the eastern part of our state that got hit hard in Norwich and New London.”

The concern has gone both ways. In July, Rhode Island officials asked Connecticut and Massachusetts residents to avoid their beaches amid concerns about crowding.

Ko, who co-chaired Lamont’s reopening advisory committee in the spring, cautioned there is no “smoking gun” to show that the second wave of Connecticut infections came through Rhode Island.

“But it does seem that way,” he said.

He pointed out that during the same period, bars and restaurants remained open in Rhode Island, potentially leading to infection “spill over.”

Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo closed the state’s bars again on Nov. 19, according to data from Johns Hopkins University & Medicine, which tracks the impact of states’ opening and closing decisions. Rhode Island’s new restrictions also limited social gatherings to people within the same household, reduced indoor dining capacity to 33 percent, and closed businesses early.

Connecticut bars that serve only alcohol have remained closed since March.

Ko said the “exact mechanism” of what caused the spread is unknown.

“What we did see is it was the eastern part of the state that had the highest rates in Connecticut initially — and then it spread throughout the state,” he said.

Ko said migration continues to be a primary factor in spreading the illness.

“We know this virus doesn’t respect borders and it’s transported in people moving,” he said. “Travel, movement, fuel the spread of the disease.”