COVID-19 School Cases Decline In CT + School-By-School Breakdown

CONNECTICUT — The number of COVID-19 cases among Connecticut PK-12 staff and students declined sharply over the past week.

On Thursday, the Department of Public Health reported 9,722 total infections for students, down from nearly 15,000 last week. DPH logged 1,533 positive COVID-19 cases among school staff, a drop of 1,150 from 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:

Canaan remained the only town to stay off the highest infection tier in the latest set of numbers released from the state Department of Public Health. It has reported less than five cases of COVID-19 per 100,000 residents from Jan. 2-15. 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 also the only town to be fully vaccinated.

Mansfield remains the vaccination outlier, still with less than 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, 89 percent of those between 45-54, 92 percent of those between 35-44 (up 1 percent from last week), 86 percent of those between 25-34 (up 1 percent), 81 percent of those between 18-24 (up 1 percent), 85 percent of those between 16-17 (up 1 percent), 77 percent of those between 12-15 (up 1 percent) and 41 percent of those aged 5-11 (up 9 percent).

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 the total Connecticut cases and deaths among fully vaccinated persons by age group.

As of Wednesday, 136,171 cases of COVID-19 among fully vaccinated persons in Connecticut have been identified. Of the 2,540,829 persons who are fully vaccinated, 5.35 percent have contracted the virus

Four hundred and thirty-two COVID-19 related deaths have occurred among the 136,171 fully
vaccinated persons confirmed with the virus.

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 14 times higher risk of dying from the coronavirus, compared to the vaccinated. Their risk of hospitalization is 7 times greater, and the risk of infection is 3 times as great.

Although coronavirus deaths in Connecticut have declined markedly since February, it is important to note that death — and hospitalization — rates have consistently been higher among unvaccinated persons compared to fully vaccinated people.

Two hundred and forty-one residents have died from COVID-19 over the past seven days, up from last week's DPH report of 161 deaths. The Connecticut coronavirus death toll — an indicator that typically lags infections and hospitalizations —is currently 9,683.

DPH reported the number of hospitalized coronavirus patients in Connecticut has dropped to 1,733, down a whopping 72 beds overnight.

Currently, the highest number of the hospitalized —545 — are in Hartford County.

COVID-19 infections in the state have dropped over three-and-a-quarter percentage points overnight, to 13.29 percent, according to the latest DPH data.

The daily coronavirus positivity rate is a function of the number of tests compared to the number of cases confirmed positive each day. Overnight, 4,805 positive cases were logged, out of 36,158 tests taken. The numbers of tests and cases confirmed do not include those taken with at-home self-test kits.

See also: NBC Sports To Broadcast Winter Olympics From Connecticut HQ

• Guns Found At Connecticut Airport Checkpoints Spiked In 2021
  
• CT Nursing Homes Tighten COVID-19 Restrictions On Visitors

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.