Health & Fitness
CT Coronavirus Updates: State To Ease Travel Advisory Criteria
Under the current guidelines, and with the rise in infection rates, CT was in danger of ending up on its own list, Gov. Ned Lamont said.
CONNECTICUT — Gov. Ned Lamont has announced that changes to the state's criteria for putting other states on its coronavirus travel advisory list are imminent.
The new rules would be less stringent than the present guidelines, which are shared by neighboring states New York and New Jersey.
Currently, states are put on the advisory list if they have a daily positive coronavirus test rate higher than 10 per 100,000 residents or a 10 percent or higher positivity rate over a seven-day rolling average.
Find out what's happening in Across Connecticutfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
During a news conference Monday, Lamont suggested states would need to meet both criteria, not just one, and the positivity rate would be lowered to 5 percent. That change would make qualifying for the travel advisory list more difficult.
Lamont suggested the new guideline would bring the current (still unreleased) list of affected states and territories down from over 40 to about 33, "which is more manageable."
At the rates of testing and infection under the current criteria, Connecticut was in danger of running afoul of its own travel advisory.
Find out what's happening in Across Connecticutfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
"The [current] threshold was so broad, it was becoming unenforceable," the governor said. "We are a tiny bit over that 10 per 100,000 metrics."
That number is "skewed," Lamont said, by the large amount of testing Connecticut does compared to other states.
The state had just tested its 2 millionth resident, according to the governor.
Although the infection rates have gone up statewide in the past few months, the climb has mirrored that of the country as a whole, Lamont said. Overall, the state's infection rate of 1.6 percent is still among the very lowest in the U.S.
The change is being finalized among the governors of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York and New Jersey, according to Lamont.
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