The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Amid spread, 34 CT COVID deaths
Connecticut on Thursday reported 34 COVID-19 deaths over the past week, most in a seven-day period since mid-May, as the state continues to record high levels of viral transmission.
The state has now recorded 11,164 coronaviruslinked deaths since the start of the pandemic, and experts say the true number of people who have died from COVID-19 or its indirect effects is likely even higher.
Over the past week, Connecticut has recorded 4,849 COVID-19 cases out of 40,165 tests, for a positivity rate of 12.1 percent. Cases and positivity rate have increased in recent weeks amid the spread of the BA.5 subvariant and currently stand at or near their highest levels in several months.
As of Thursday, Connecticut has 325 patients hospitalized with COVID-19, down 27 from a week prior but still more than at most previous points this summer.
Due to the arrival of increasingly contagious subvariants, what once looked like it might be a low-COVID summer in Connecticut has instead featured tens of thousands of infections, hundreds of hospitalizations and dozens of deaths. The current COVID-19 wave began in midJune and has grown gradually since. Over the past few weeks the state's case count and positivity rate have appeared to level off but have not yet begun to decrease.
Deaths, which tend to lag other metrics by several weeks, have increased recently, with the state reporting 28 last week and 34 more this week. Though those totals are far lower than during the worst of the pandemic, they are higher than at relatively stable periods such as last summer.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's “community levels” map, Fairfield, New Haven, Middlesex and
Litchfield Counties currently have “medium” levels of COVID-19, while Connecticut’s other four counties have “low” levels.
Based on the CDC’s stricter “community transmission” map, all eight Connecticut counties have high levels of transmission.