COVID cases in Connecticut schools declining, data shows

The number of new COVID-19 cases reported among students and staff in Connecticut schools has been declining, according to the state’s latest data.

According to weekly data released Thursday, the state reported 499 total COVID cases among students, the lowest since early September. Cases among teachers and staff — 89 — was the lowest since the first report, figures show.

Of the 499 students who were found to have COVID-19 in the past week, 432 were not vaccinated, the data showed. For the 89 teachers and staff who had the virus, 30 were not fully vaccinated, state figures show.

Cases in schools peaked in mid-September when 880 students, 762 of whom were not vaccinated, and 138 teachers and staff were found to have COVID-19.

On Friday, the state reported 494 new cases, with a daily positivity rate of 1.87 percent. Hospitalizations fell by a net of a dozen patients, bringing the number of people hospitalized for the disease statewide to 232.

There are now 17 executive branch state employees who have been suspended for not complying with Gov.

Ned Lamont’s order to get vaccinated or submit to weekly testing. The suspensions are in addition to 28 employees — all who started within the past six months — who have been fired for not complying.

The decline in COVID cases in Connecticut schools follows a similar trend of overall infections and hospitalizations, which have been on the decline statewide in recent weeks.

While a majority of eligible school children are vaccinated, the percentage did not increase significantly in the last week. Gov. Ned Lamont’s office reported that 69 percent of children age 12 to 15 were fully vaccinated, and 79 percent age 16 and 17 had received all their shots.

Though it remains unclear when the remaining students will get vaccinated, some are hopeful that eligibility will expand this month to children age 5 to 11 after Pfizer-BioNTech reported recently it had requested the Food and Drug Administration to approve an emergency authorization for its vaccine, in a smaller dose, for this age group.

While a decline has been reported in COVID-19 cases in school, and in general, the delta variant, which led to a spike in cases in the late summer, remains prevalent across Connecticut.

All but one of the samples sequenced by the Yale School of Public Health and Jackson Laboratories in the past week were the delta variant, the data shows. This represented a slight drop from the previous three weeks in which all the cases sequenced were the delta variant.

Breakthrough cases, which started to rise with the arrival of the delta variant, increased again in the past week. A total of 670 new breakthrough cases were reported in the last week for a total of 15,089 infections, according to state figures. Officials said of the 2.3 million people vaccinated, about 0.64 percent have contracted the virus.

With the delta variant still circulating, the state has continued to roll out booster shots for those eligible. In the past week, roughly 61,000 new COVID vaccine shots were administered — a portion of which were boosters for those who had previously received the two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

The FDA’s outside panel reviewing vaccines endorsed the use of Moderna boosters on Thursday for those age 65 and older, along with people in highrisk settings. Unlike its endorsement for Pfizer, the dose for the Moderna booster was smaller than the initial two doses in the vaccine course.

The same panel on Friday endorsed a booster from Johnson & Johnson when administered at least two months after the initial dose among people ages 18 years and older. The one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine has been used less widely in Connecticut than the other two vaccines.

It was unclear when regulators may decide to give approval for the use of Moderna vaccine boosters.