Lamont positive for COVID-19
Governor tweets he’s feeling well and has no symptoms
Gov. Ned Lamont announced Thursday that he had tested positive for COVID-19.
“I wanted you to hear straight from me that I tested positive for COVID-19 today,” Lamont tweeted Thursday afternoon.
Lamont said in the tweet that he was feeling well and was not experienced symptoms. According to his office, Lamont took a regularly scheduled rapid COVID-19 test on Thursday morning and it came back positive. He then took a second rapid test, which was also positive.
“He is currently awaiting the results of a PCR test. Our office has also conducted contact tracing to identify and inform close contacts,” Lamont spokesperson Max Reiss said in a statement.
Lamont is the 16th U.S. governor to test positive for COVID, which has been on a slight rise in Connecticut with more cases attributed to the BA.2 subvariant.
“Currently, the prediction is that this new wave will be small,” said Pedro Mendes, who specializes in disease modeling at the University of Connecticut. “The current prediction is that hospitalizations would start reducing after reaching around 200.”
The state reported Thursday there had been 2,870 new COVID cases detected in 58,767 reported tests over the past seven days, for a positivity rate of 4.88 percent. That’s the highest seven-day average since the state started reporting the metric last week.
COVID-related hospitalizations increased by 39 over the past seven days for a total of 127. An additional 19 COVID-related deaths were reported over the past week, for a total of 10,795 since the start of the pandemic.
School-based COVID cases also increased week over week, for both students and staff.
There were 1,015 students with COVID identified in Connecticut schools in the past week, according to state data, an increase from
886 the previous week, the third week in a row that cases have increased.
There were 332 COVID cases identified among school-based staff, according to state data, an increase from 247 last week. COVID cases among school staff in Connecticut have increased every week since Feb. 23, when there were 141 infections identified.
Though it is unclear where Lamont may have contracted COVID-19, the governor has averaged about three public appearances a day in recent weeks, with intermittent mask wearing, less frequently as the events are increasingly outdoors.
On Wednesday alone, Lamont attended the opening of a train station platform in Clinton, held an announcement of the recipients of a statewide grant program at a well-attended event in Middletown and then ended the day visiting a vaccination clinic at a local restaurant in Hartford.
At points in some of the events Wednesday, Lamont is pictured without a mask while gathered with other people. At least two of the events were largely outdoors.
At the event in Hartford, the governor appeared in the late afternoon at a café and tea shop, with more than 20 people in close proximity under a small tent. He did not wear a mask at the formal event or while mingling with people afterward in the parking lot and while speaking with reporters. Dr. Manisha Juthani, the state Department of Public Health commissioner, and state Sen. Saud Anwar, D-South Windsor, who is also a physician, spoke at the event alongside Lamont and both wore masks.
That event marked health equity, celebrating the ongoing rollout of pop-up clinics for COVID-19 vaccines and boosters around the state. Food was served indoors, but Lamont remained outside.
Following Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance, the governor plans to quarantine at home for the next five days and will not attend any in-person events, Reiss said.
“He will continue to monitor himself for symptoms and will take another PCR test in several days,” Reiss said.
Lamont’s positive test result comes a week after he received a second booster dose of the COVID-19 vaccine at a school-based clinic in Hartford.
“Thankfully, I’m double boosted and I encourage everyone to get your vaccine and boosters if eligible,” Lamont said in the tweet.
When asked how long after a COVID vaccine dose the body will reach peak immunity, Dr. Scott Roberts, associate medical director for infection prevention at Yale New Haven Hospital, said it takes two weeks.
“You are considered ‘immune’ approximately two weeks after vaccine dose as this is when antibody levels start to spike,” he said. “The peak is usually between two to four weeks and wanes from there.”