COVID numbers improve in state, with no clear reason

New COVID cases and hospitalizations have been steadily declining in Connecticut for the past month, but despite more people getting vaccinated, Gov. Ned Lamont’s administration said there is no clear indication why the state’s numbers have been improving.

There was a 13 percent decline in daily reported cases between Jan. 4, when the latest wave peaked at 4,516, and four weeks later on Feb. 1, according to the state’s data.

Connecticut’s COVID hospitalizations have also dropped from a peak of 1,269 on Dec. 14 to 827 reported on Friday. The total number of Connecticut patients hospitalized has now been falling since Jan. 22 and has reached its lowest point since before Thanksgiving, according to the state’s data.

While deaths related to the virus have continued to climb, they could be reaching a plateau. Dr. James Gill, the state’s chief medical examiner, noted the daily number of COVID-related deaths has been less than 40 since Jan. 19. Gill said it will take another week to have a better sense whether the state’s deaths are on the decline.

Lamont pointed to the state’s success at nursing homes as one reason why he hopes numbers will continue to improve. He is also optimistic that vaccinating residents 65 and over — who may be able to register as soon as this week — will continue the state’s downward trend.

“As I’ve said many times, we still have to watch out for these variants, they could spread very quickly and we’re following that, but so far, so good in Connecticut,” the governor said.

Since the first confirmed infections emerged nearly a year ago, Connecticut has recorded 259,372 COVID cases as of Friday. But the actual number of residents who have had the disease is likely much higher.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 1 in 4.2 cases nationwide are actually detected. Health experts say there are a variety of reasons why those other infections go undetected — not everyone who gets sick will get tested, and others may have the disease but never show symptoms.

As a result, many more people may have had the disease and recovered, giving them some immunity from reinfection. However, the CDC notes it’s unclear how long someone is naturally immune after having the disease.

Connecticut health experts don’t believe that alone is the cause of the decline.

“I don’t think ... that the downward trend that we’re seeing now is likely related to a really high percentage of people being immune because of natural infection. We just haven’t seen a large enough number of infections for that to be the case,” said Dr. Deidre Gifford, acting commissioner of the state Department of Public Health.

She noted Connecticut has not conducted a recent seroprevalence survey to determine the actual virus spread, but said there’s no reason to believe the CDC’s estimates are different here.

Gifford said the downward trend is likely the result of multiple factors — some people having natural immunity, vaccinations starting to “kick in,” mitigation tools stopping the spread of the virus and “the natural course of these kinds of viral epidemics.”

Dr. David Banach, head of infection prevention at UConn Health and an associate professor of medicine, said the decline is likely the state receding from a spike in cases stemming from holiday gatherings.

But he also suggested widespread vaccinations at nursing homes could be contributing to less cases in those facilities.

New nursing home cases among residents fell by more than one-third over the last two weeks, while deaths were reduced by nearly 50 percent.

Josh Geballe, the state’s chief operating officer, said Connecticut is far enough into its vaccination program at nursing homes that the inoculations would have an effect on that data.

“I do think we started to see a trend downward before that point though,” he said, citing infection control measures, the work of the Department of Public Health and nursing home staff.

Banach said the combination of ramping up vaccinations and warmer weather ahead should help reduce the number of infections in the coming months. However, he said efforts to control the pandemic could be hampered by the emergence of more contagious variants.

“I think there’s some potential for optimism,” he said, “but it’s really a cautious optimism at this stage.”