Coronavirus CT: Here Are The Town-By-Town Case Numbers

CONNECTICUT — The state has been averaging 24.5 coronavirus-associated deaths a week for the past month as vaccinations slow and the virus positivity rate stays locked in the 3-4 percent range.

This week, the Department of Public Health has reported 39 new deaths. There have been 8,394 COVID-19-associated deaths In Connecticut since the start of the pandemic.

As of the latest community vaccination numbers provided by the Connecticut Department of Public Health on Thursday, 66 percent of the state population has been fully inoculated against the virus.

Put another way, that's 34 percent of Connecticut residents that the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention prefers stay at home over the long Labor Day weekend.

"First and foremost, if you are unvaccinated, we would recommend not traveling," CDC chief Dr. Rochelle Walensky said Tuesday during a White House press briefing.

"We have actually articulated that people who are fully vaccinated and who are wearing masks can travel," Walensky said. "Although given where we are with disease transmission right now, we would say that people need to take ... these risks into their own consideration as they think about traveling."

Flummoxed by widespread vaccine hesitancy as the highly-transmissible delta variant caused infection rates to spike over the summer, health officials may finally be catching a break. The virus, and its variants, surfaced and resurfaced in predictable waves, the New York Times is reporting, and the current cycle appears to be on its downside. Case numbers in "hot" states Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Missouri have been tumbling since early or mid-August, when they were at their peak.

In Connecticut, the daily hospitalization rates have been inching lower in the latter half of August, after rocketing into an upward trajectory beginning the first week in July.

There were 357 COVID-19 patients in Connecticut hospital beds on Thursday, three fewer than the day before. The lion's share of coronavirus patients are hospitalized in Hartford County, with 121, followed by 106 in New Haven County.

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