COVID-19 hospitalizations continue to decline
The number of patients hospitalized for COVID-19 in Connecticut declined again Thursday, according to data released by the state.
Hospitalizations dropped by 49 patients, bringing the statewide total to 1,205 as of Thursday.
“Look I think all the impact of Thanksgiving is in our rearview mirror,” Gov. Ned Lamont said Thursday afternoon during his COVID-19 news conference.
“But look, Hanukkah, Christmas, it’s going to be a busy couple of weeks,” he added “There’s been a lot of travel, there were millions of people traveling over Thanksgiving and that was risky. We’re hopeful people are going to stay closer to home this holiday season.”
The Connecticut National Guard plans to set up a field hospital Friday at the Connecticut Convention Center in Hartford. The field hospital, which will be staffed with Hartford HealthCare doctors and nurses, is intended to provide overflow capacity for patients who do not require intensive care.
The state is still well below the highest point in hospitalizations during the first surge, when the total number of patients hospitalized for the novel coronavirus reached 1,972 in April.
As of Thursday, the state’s hospital beds are at 78 percent occupancy, according to the state’sChief Operating Officer Josh Geballe. Intensive care units are a little more than half-full, of which 42 percent are COVID-19-related
While hospitalizations fell Thursday, state health officials recorded 2,321 new cases of COVID-19 from 35,948 new tests, for a daily positivity rate of 6.46 percent.
Forty-six deaths were reported, bringing the state’s death toll to 5,552.
Sunil Parikh, associate professor at the Yale School of Public Health, called the drop in hospitalizations “a bit of encouraging news.”
“It appears that the extent of the expected Thanksgiving surge in total cases has not been as severe as expected,” Parikh said. “However, we can’t forget that cases are still at staggeringly high rates, and that modeling suggests that we will likely not peak until after the new year. We must continue to take extra care during the holidays so that we can emerge safer and healthier in 2021.”
As of Thursday, 166 of the state’s 169 cities and towns were considered red-alert zones, based on the number of new cases per capita over the last 14 days. Only Barkhamsted, Canaan and Warren were outside of the red-alert metric.
Dr. Luke Davis, an epidemiologist at the Yale University School of Public Health said the state has not seen a large spike in hospitalizations postThanksgiving.
“An important factor seems to be that Connecticut residents are wearing masks and avoiding the indoor gatherings with non-household members that drive transmission. Our hospitals, and especially our ICUs, nonetheless remain busy because critically ill COVID patients require long times in hospital.” he said.
Meanwhile, the governor said Thursday he plans to extend a ban on evictions through Feb. 9 by executive order, a day after Lamont signed another executive order giving residents an extended grace period to pay property, motor vehicle and municipal taxes through April 1.
So far, 1,982 doses of the vaccine have been administered in Connecticut, the governor said Thursday, speaking by video from the governor’s residence in Hartford due to the winter storm.
The state expects to receive about 86,000 doses next week from Pfizer, down by about 13 percent, according to Geballe. Lamont said the shortage was related to supply chain issues.
The lower number of doses may be alleviated somewhat, because health care workers have been able to pull around six doses from a vial rather than the expected five, according to Geballe.
Geballe said the shortage could push vaccination timelines back “a week or so,” but said there are still too many variables to tell — including how many health care workers and nursing home residents and staff elect to take the vaccine in the first phase.
The state is expected to receive some 63,000 doses of the vaccine developed by Moderna.
Thursday evening, a panel advising the Food and Drug Administration endorsed the Moderna vaccine, clearing it for an emergency use authorization by the agency, the Associated Press reported.
The Moderna vaccine uses the same messenger RNA technology to teach an administered patient’s body to develop antibodies to the novel coronavirus.
However, Moderna’s vaccine, which also requires two doses, can be stored at comparatively warmer temperatures than Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, easing concerns about storage and distribution outside hospitals with ultra-cold storage capabilities.
Up to five nursing homes in the state are expected to receive the early vaccinations, the Associated Press reported Wednesday. The Reservoir in West Hartford, a nursing home with 38 residents, will be among
them, the facility’s operator confirmed.
That comes as a handful of the state’s nursing homes are expected to receive doses of the PfizerBioNTech vaccine Friday ahead of a wider distribution slated for Monday.
Geballe said those homes were selected by CVS and Walgreens. Both companies are administering the vaccines to nursing home staff and residents, while health care workers receive the vaccine at hospitals and other health facilities.
It also depended on which homes were ready.
“This is a big logistical lift for them, they have to collect consent forms from various residents who may have other family members making medical decisions for them. ... They’ve picked these knowing that they’re ready to go,” he said.
State officials have not
released the names of the other facilities receiving the shots. Geballe said the names of the facilities are being withheld to allow CVS and Walgreens staff room to work, given the tight restrictions homes have been under to keep the virus from entering the facilities.
Friday’s vaccinations will be among the first in the nation.
Teams from CVS will conduct vaccinations in Connecticut and Ohio Friday ahead of the “national rollout,” Mike DeAngelis, a spokesman for CVS Health, told Hearst Connecticut Media.
Florida and Delaware also expect to vaccinate nursing home residents this week, and some homes in West Virginia have already begun administering doses, the New York Times reported.