Town-By-Town Coronavirus Updates: Red Zones, Schools, Vaccination Rates

CONNECTICUT — The number of coronavirus-related deaths ticked up slightly this week, but all other key metrics continued to fall steadily, even as the number of new vaccinations has risen very slowly.

The virus claimed 119 lives in Connecticut over the week — 14 more than logged the week before — according to the state Department of Public Health.

The Connecticut COVID-19 death toll was 10,443 as of Thursday. Cases of the omicron variant, dominant in the state since just before the start of the new year, are typically milder and have proven less fatal.

DPH reported the number of hospitalized coronavirus patients in Connecticut continued to drop, falling to 248, down 77 beds from last Thursday's report.

Currently, the highest number of the hospitalized — 82 — are in Hartford County.

The daily coronavirus positivity rate in the state dropped less than three-fourths of a percentage point from last week, 3.99 percent.

The daily coronavirus positivity rate is a function of the number of tests compared to the number of cases confirmed positive each day. The numbers of tests and cases confirmed do not include those taken with at-home self-test kits.

The number of COVID-19 cases among Connecticut PK-12 staff and students continues to decline.

On Wednesday, the Department of Public Health reported 513 1,031 total infections for students, down from 1,245 last week, and over 16,200 in the middle of January. DPH logged 123 positive COVID-19 cases among school staff, down from 192 the previous week.

Cases among staff and students had remained relatively low until the first week of November, when they began their climb. Confirmed cases among both groups shot up dramatically after the first of the year.

With the lifting of the statewide mandate, masks will be optional in many Connecticut schools as of Monday.

Here is the school-by-school breakdown:

The coronavirus alert level in every Connecticut municipality continues to drop. Twelve towns now reside on the lowest infection "gray" rung, 11 are "yellow" and 59 are "orange." All other Connecticut municipalities were at the highest coronavirus alert level, according to DPH.

The color codes correspond to guidance from DPH. Populations in the red zone have reported 15 or more cases per 100,000 people over a two-week average.

Canaan, with its population of 1,053, is still the only town to be fully vaccinated, although neighboring Salisbury is close. There, one hundred percent of the people have received their first dose, and just over 95 percent have gotten both jabs.

Mansfield remains the vaccination outlier, still with just under 41 percent of its population fully vaccinated.

All Connecticut residents over the age of 5 are currently eligible to receive the vaccines. The state maintains an online database of vaccination clinic locations here.

The graph above illustrates the slow progress toward complete vaccination.

As of Thursday, those residents who have received at least one dose of the vaccine against COVID-19 include more than 95 percent of those over the age of 55, 90 percent of those between 45-54, 93 percent of those between 35-44, 89 percent of those between 25-34 (up 1 percent from last week), 84 percent of those between 18-24, 87 percent of those between 16-17, 80 percent of those between 12-15 and 46 percent of those aged 5-11.

Instructions on how to get COVID-19 vaccinations and boosters in Connecticut are available online, as is a list of walk-up clinics sponsored by DPH.

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The table below shows new COVID-19 cases in the past 7 days by vaccination status. The percentage of cases among fully vaccinated residents is influenced by the increasing proportion of the population that is eligible for and has completed a vaccine series, and should be considered in light of the overall proportion of vaccinated individuals who have contracted the virus, according to DPH.

The table below shows cases and deaths among fully vaccinated persons, and among persons who have received an additional dose, by age group. As shown below, persons who have received an additional dose are a subset of those cases that are fully vaccinated.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, 550,957 cases have been identified among people who are not fully vaccinated.

Seven hundred eighteen COVID-19 related deaths have occurred among the 170,997 fully vaccinated persons confirmed with COVID-19.

The charts above and below show the "relative risk," or the difference in risk, when comparing rates between vaccinated and unvaccinated persons.

The latest data show unvaccinated residents have a 12 times higher risk of dying from the coronavirus, compared to the vaccinated. Their risk of hospitalization is 11 times greater, and the risk of infection is 3 times as great.