CT Coronavirus Situation 'Critical': White House Task Force

CONNECTICUT — Connecticut is at a critical point in its battle against the coronavirus, especially as new cases linked to Thanksgiving become more apparent. The White House Coronavirus Task Force recommended Gov. Ned Lamont and state leaders keep up the message about how to safely celebrate the holidays.

“We share the strong concern of Connecticut leaders that the current situation is critical and that the population and health care system must do everything possible to prepare for and limit a post-Thanksgiving resurgence,” the task force noted in its Nov. 29 report.

The task force’s reports for Connecticut and other states were released by the Center for Public Integrity.

Connecticut has moved to the middle of the pack for states in virus metrics. It has the 31st-highest rate of new coronavirus cases in the country and the 32nd-highest positive test rate.

There were another 8,129 coronavirus cases reported between Friday and Sunday in Connecticut. The positive test rate was 6.61 percent. The state also passed the milestone of having more than 3.5 million test results reported — an average of one test for every resident.

Coronavirus hospitalizations increased by a net of 33 patients over three days. Another 78 deaths were reported, which brought the state total to 5,224.

“Additional measures should be taken, including communications to reinforce message around social gatherings throughout the ongoing holiday season,” the task force wrote. “Maximizing control of transmission now will also allow for greater and earlier resumption of business activity in addition to limiting cases, hospitalizations and deaths.

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The Abbott BinaxNow tests should be used to routinely test kindergarten through 12th grade teachers to measure the degree of community coronavirus spread, the task force recommended. The tests are currently used in Connecticut to screen symptomatic teachers and students to quickly determine whether a classroom or school needs to quarantine.

The task force also recommended Connecticut expand its use of point-of-care antigen tests for people who gather across households; antigen tests can give results in about 15 minutes. The tests are accurate during the highly infectious window and can help identify some asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic infectious cases.

Antigen tests generally aren’t as sensitive as polymerase chain reaction tests, but their main advantage is the rapid turnaround time. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends negative antigen test results be confirmed with a polymerase chain reaction test in many instances.

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Daily coronavirus town metric