Over 50% Of CT Hospitalized COVID Patients Fully Vaccinated

CONNECTICUT — Gov. Ned Lamont repeated his call to end the statewide school mask mandate and turn decision-making to local officials during his state-of-the-state message Wednesday.

Connecticut would join a wave of state governments which have decided to drop masking requirements for schoolchildren, as coronavirus cases and hospitalizations recede in most areas of the U.S.

Neighboring Massachusetts became the latest member of the club, when the state's department of education announced Wednesday it will lift its school mask mandate on Feb. 28. Delaware Gov. John Carney announced his state would end its school mask requirements at the end of March, as will Oregon. The mask mandate for schools in New Jersey will end March 7.

The end of the state school mask mandate in Connecticut does not necessarily signal an end to mask mandates in schools. Local districts will now adopt their own end-of-COVID strategies, and devise how they'll sell them to long-angry or still-nervous parents.

DPH has reported the number of hospitalized coronavirus patients in Connecticut has dropped to 552, down another 55 beds from their report on Tuesday, and 1,387 since the start of the downward trend on Jan. 12. Of those currently hospitalized with COVID-19, 280 (50.7 percent) are fully vaccinated.

The state's daily coronavirus infection rate dropped nearly two percentage points overnight, according to the latest DPH data. The daily positivity rate reported Wednesday was 5.16 percent.

The daily coronavirus positivity rate is a function of the number of tests compared to the number of cases confirmed positive each day. Since Tuesday, 1,048 positive cases were logged, out of 20,325 tests taken. The numbers of tests and cases confirmed do not include those taken with at-home self-test kits.

Currently, the highest number of the hospitalized —189 — are in Hartford County.

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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.