CT COVID-19 Infection Rate Remains Over 5.3%; Omicron Now In US

CONNECTICUT — After spiking to a 10-month high on Tuesday, the daily Connecticut COVID-19 positivity rate dropped just over half a percentage point overnight.

In the latest numbers released Wednesday afternoon by the state Department of Public Health, another 1,093 cases of the coronavirus were confirmed. With 20,343 tests taken, Connecticut's daily coronavirus positivity rate is 5.37 percent, down from the previous day's 10-month high of 5.96 percent

Three thousand miles to the west, the omicron variant of the coronavirus has made landfall in California, according to the California and San Francisco Departments of Public Health.

A fully vaccinated traveler from South Africa is experiencing "mild symptoms that are improving," the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statement released Wednesday. The person's close contacts have been contacted by health authorities and tested negative. The agency is encouraging everyone age 5 and older to get vaccinated, and everyone over 18 to get a booster shot.

In Israel, which has been the coronavirus coal mine canary for much of the pandemic, Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz said indications are that those fully vaccinated against the coronavirus within six months or with the booster are likewise protected against the omnicron variant. The health official made his remarks to the Jerusalem Post Tuesday, as that nation reported its fourth case of the new variant.

Hospitalizations in Connecticut jumped upwards by 20 beds overnight. Three hundred eighty-five patients are currently hospitalized with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19; of those, 95 (24.7 percent) are fully vaccinated.

Most of those hospitalized (107) are in Hartford County.

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