Town-By-Town CT Coronavirus Updates: Cases, Hospitalizations, Schools

CONNECTICUT — The number of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations in Connecticut continue to drop, even as health officials turn their attention to the rest of the respiratory disease family. Cases of influenza, respiratory syncytial virus infection (RSV) and rhinoviruses are on the rise nationwide.

Dr. Henry Anyimadu, chief of infectious disease for MidState Medical Center and The Hospital of Central Connecticut, said flu season in the northern hemisphere mirrors what happens in the southern hemisphere. That's an ominous bit of medical trivia this year, with Australia reporting one of its worst flu seasons in five years, logging more than twice the number of cases as 2019.

Ironically, COVID-19 has left many Connecticut residents "vaccine -fatigued," and less likely to get a flu shot, according to Hartford Healthcare. As with the COVID-19 vaccine, a flu vaccine does not prevent someone from catching the sickness, but it lessens the severity of the symptoms.

COVID-19 may have us off-balance when it comes to flu-fighting in other ways. The flu's targets are different from COVID's: Children are most likely to get sick from flu, and people 65 and older are least likely to suffer from it. And two years of fastidious social distancing and mask-wearing has lowered our collective immunity, leaving people more susceptible to the flu, according to Anyimadu.

There were 325 patients hospitalized with COVID-19 as of Thursday, a drop of 43 patients from the prior week. Last week, hospitalizations had increased by five over the prior week.

The state reported 2,264 cases over seven days. The weekly positive test rate held steady at 7.33 percent this week. The actual number of cases is likely higher, as many at-home positive test results go unreported.

New London County has remained at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s lowest COVID-19 community level, while all other counties continue at the medium level.

Connecticut reported another 31 COVID-19 related deaths. The state COVID-19 death toll stands at 11,559.

DPH has identified a total of 294,592 cases of COVID-19 among fully vaccinated persons in Connecticut as of Nov. 16. Those cases account for 10.6 percent of the nearly 2.8 million people in the state who are fully vaccinated.

School COVID-19 Cases Drop

There were fewer reported COVID-19 cases among students in PK-12 schools during the most recent reporting period. DPH reported 581 cases among students and 230 among staff between Nov. 10-16. There were 637 cases among students and 228 among staff in the previous reporting week.

• Check out school-by-school case counts here.