Big Drops In CT COVID-19 Deaths, Infections & Hospitalizations

CONNECTICUT — As with all the coronavirus-related metrics in Connecticut this week, the number of deaths attributed to COVID-19 continued to fall over the past seven days. There was even some lightening up of the state's high-infection "red zone" map.

The virus claimed 136 lives in Connecticut over the week — 39 fewer than logged the week before — according to the state Department of Public Health.

The Connecticut COVID-19 death toll was 10,219 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 plummet, dropping to 529, down 23 beds overnight.

Currently, the highest number of the hospitalized — 169 — are in Hartford County.

COVID-19 infections in the state have once again dropped below 5 percent, a low not seen since Dec. 13, 2021.

The daily coronavirus positivity rate is a function of the number of tests compared to the number of cases confirmed positive each day. Overnight, 1,026 positive cases were logged, out of 23,078 tests taken. 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 1,755 total infections for students, down from over 4,200 last week, and over 16,200 in the middle of January. DPH logged 488 positive COVID-19 cases among school staff, down from 695 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.

Here is the school-by-school breakdown:

Five towns reported less than five cases of COVID-19 per 100,000 residents from Jan. 23 to Feb. 10. The rest of the state is in the high-alert red zone, 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 over 40 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 (up 1 percent from last week), 88 percent of those between 25-34 (up 1 percent), 83 percent of those between 18-24 (up 1 percent), 86 percent of those between 16-17, 79 percent of those between 12-15 and 45 percent of those aged 5-11 (up 1 percent).

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, 548,525 cases have been identified among residents who are not fully vaccinated.

Six hundred twenty-one COVID-19 related deaths have occurred among the 163,170 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 24 times higher risk of dying from the coronavirus, compared to the vaccinated. Their risk of hospitalization is 9 times greater, and the risk of infection is 3 times as great.