CT Coronavirus Positivity Rate In Flux As Experts Speculate Why

CONNECTICUT — An epidemiology researcher at Yale who warned against relaxing business capacity restrictions last month says his predictions are vindicated by the most recent coronavirus infection trends.

Nathan Grubaugh, an assistant professor at the Yale School of Public Health, speculated on Twitter that there was a correlation between the recent rise in COVID-19 cases and the rollback of restrictions on Connecticut restaurants.

I was concerned about @GovNedLamont relaxing restrictions on indoor gatherings - like bars/restaurants - on 3/19.

**It was too soon**

Now we are seeing a surge in COVID-19 cases, in which the in B.1.1.7 (transmissible & disease severity) is likely exacerbating. https://t.co/Y2HmUA8VGT pic.twitter.com/bDtmLySXxP
— Nathan Grubaugh (@NathanGrubaugh) March 28, 2021

Scott Dolch, executive director of the Connecticut Restaurant Association, said linking the infection spike to the lifting of restrictions ignores contract tracing data from neighboring states.

"While the State of Connecticut has opted to publicly release sporadic and very limited data relating to cluster tracing, other states in our region have published more robust and consistent data. What these larger, thorough reports continue to show is that the vast majority of COVID spread is taking place in homes and social gatherings, not restaurants," Dolch said in a statement Wednesday.

Data released by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health covering March shows that just 0.5 percent of COVID-19 cases can be traced to restaurants and food courts. Massachusetts eliminated its restaurant capacity restrictions March 1.

The daily coronavirus positivity rate in Connecticut has dropped from 5 percent to 3.84 percent in the latest data released by the state Department of Public Health on Wednesday. The positivity rate is a function of the daily number of positive COVID-19 cases versus the number of tests. There were 1,038 new confirmed cases logged out of 318,767 tests.

The spread of the United Kingdom variant through the state was of particular concern to Grubaugh when the restrictions were lifted last month. After being tracked at 40 percent of all COVID-19 cases at the end of March, cases of the variant may be leveling off now, supplanted by the South African and Brazilian variants, according to Grubaugh.

Appearing recently on CBS' "Face the Nation," Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the rising COVID-19 cases and infection levels can't be pinned on the new variants alone: "Even if on the planes people are wearing masks, when you get to the airport, the check-in lines, the food lines for restaurants, the boarding that you see, how people sometimes can be congregating together, those are the kind of things that invariably increase the risk of getting infected."

Pedro Mendes, a researcher and professor in computational biology at UConn, told the Connecticut Post, "Dine-in at restaurants is a risky activity because, by necessity, people can't wear masks while eating, and most restaurants will not have the level of ventilation to make that indoors environment safe from airborne viral transmission."

Nine more residents with COVID-19 were admitted to Connecticut hospitals Tuesday, increasing hospitalizations to 514.

Coronavirus deaths across the state rose by five Tuesday. The COVID-19 death toll in Connecticut stands at 7,935.

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