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

CONNECTICUT — The number of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 dropped recently after a sharp rise last week.

There were 383 patients hospitalized with COVID-19 as of Thursday, which was a net drop of 17 patients from the prior week. Last week, hospitalizations jumped 75 patients from the prior week and reach the highest levels since mid-February.

The state reported 3,557 cases over seven days, which was par for the course with the past several weeks. The weekly positive test rate was 9.57 percent. The actual number of cases is likely higher, as many at-home positive test results go unreported.

New London County is in the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s lowest COVID-19 community level, while all other counties are in the medium level.

Connecticut reported another 22 COVID-19 related death, which brought the state total up to 11,365.

Uptake of the newly-approved bivalent COVID-19 booster shot remains low in Connecticut and the U.S. in general. About 153,500 Connecticut residents have received the new booster. The new vaccine targets both the original COVID-19 train and the Ba.4 and Ba.5 variants.

Moderna's booster is approved for people 18 and older, while Pfizer/BioNTech's shot is approved for people 12 and older.

Human trial results for the bivalent booster are expected sometime in November, according to Yale Medicine. Pfizer and Moderna tested a Ba.1 bivalent booster, and data showed a strong antibody response to the Ba.1 strain. There was also a strong response against the Ba.4 and Ba.5 variants, but not as strong as Ba.1.

School COVID-19 cases down

There were fewer reported COVID-19 cases among students and staff in PK-12 schools during the most recent reporting period. DPH reported 2,187 cases among students and 633 among staff between Sept. 22-28. There were 3,208 cases among students and 918 among staff in the previous reporting week.

Check out school-by-school case counts here.

Town-by-town cases