Hospital cases continue to rise
State’s positivity rate dips slightly but still above 1%
Hospitalizations for coronavirus infections again edged higher Friday and the positivity rate for COVID-19 remained above 1% for the 10th straight day.
The state on Friday reported a net increase of two hospitalizations, for a total of 77 patients currently hospitalized with COVID-19. The state hasn’t reported a hospitalization number that high since July 10. Hospitalizations, which rose nearly every day in the past week, have increased by 16 in the last seven days.
The state’s positivity rate has been sitting above the golden standard of 1% for even longer. That metric, which reflects the number of positive tests out of the total number of tests administered, hit 1.5% on Sept. 9 and hasn’t dropped back below 1% since then. Before jumping up, the state’s positivity rate had typically remained below 1%, with occasional outliers, for the past two months.
On Friday, the daily positivity rate dipped slightly but remained high enough to continue the trend. The state reported 141 newcoronavirus cases out of a total of 13,865 tests, for a positivity rate just above 1%.
Gov. Ned Lamont at a Thursday news conference acknowledged that the trends were “concerning” and said the state is watching the data carefully.
The state’s chief operating officer, Josh Geballe, said Thursday he doesn’t believe that the increase in cases can be linked
to K-12 schools reopening. He instead pointed to cases at UConn and Central Connecticut State University, along with an ongoing outbreak in Danbury. The Courant reported on Friday that at least some of the state’s rising numbers appear to stem from reopened college campuses.
Also on Friday, the state reported four new coronavirus-related deaths. Since the pandemic began, there have been 4,492 coronavirus-related deaths in Connecticut.
Nationwide, there have now been nearly 6.7 million confirmed coronavirus cases, and 198,114 coronavirus deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.