New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Six Conn. counties at ‘high risk’ of COVID transmission
Six of Connecticut's eight counties are listed as high risk of COVID transmission, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
People in New Haven, Litchfield, Hartford, Middlesex, Tolland and Windham counties are all considered at high risk of catching the coronavirus, according to CDC data updated this week.
The CDC recommends that people in high-risk counties wear a mask indoors in public. Fairfield and New London counties are listed at medium transmission.
To determine transmission risk, the CDC said it examines the combination of three metrics — new COVID hospital admissions per 100,000 people, the percent of staffed inpatient beds occupied by COVID patients and the total new infections per 100,000 people in the past seven days.
Last week, when all Connecticut counties were either at medium or high risk, the state Department of Public Health explained that the approach “focuses on preventing hospitals and health care systems from being overwhelmed and directing prevention efforts toward protecting people at high risk for severe illness.”
“This latest CDC update is a reminder that Connecticut is in the midst of a swell from a subvariant of omicron,”
state Department of Public Health Commissioner Manisha Juthani said last week.
The state reported Friday there were 323 patients in Connecticut hospitals fighting a COVID infection, an increase of 84 over the past seven days.
In the past seven days, there have been 10,459 new COVID cases discovered out of 76,293 reported tests for a positivity rate of 13.71 percent.
But Scott Roberts, associate medical director of infection prevention at Yale New Haven Hospital, said Friday that those numbers may be the tip of the iceberg.
“This is a vast underestimate,” he said. “I am certain there are more COVID infections right now than we're seeing from the numbers the state is reporting.”
The surge, described by Juthani as a “swell,” is largely due to two omicron subvariants, as Yale researcher Nathan Grubaugh said.
As of last week, BA.2 is comprised of 73 percent of all samples Grubaugh tested. Another subvariant, known as BA.2.12.1, comprises 23 percent of all samples, and there is some indication that can cause more reinfection and breakthrough cases.
Roberts said BA.2.12.1 is
as much as 30 percent more infectious than its predecessor, BA.2.
“I predict the numbers will continue to go up for the next few weeks,” he said. “We're seeing hospitalizations go up, too. The metrics are going in the wrong direction.”
BA.2.12.1 has two distinct mutations, Grubaugh said, causing “some additional immune escape with this variant.”
“Some of your neutralizing antibodies from past infections or from the vaccine would be less effective,” Grubaugh said. “It doesn't obliterate your neutralizing antibodies, but it does reduce those.”