CT Coronavirus: Variants, Vaccines & Town-By-Town Case Numbers

CONNECTICUT — Gov. Ned Lamont said this week the state was still at least a few weeks away from providing school districts with guidance on mask, social distancing and other coronavirus mitigation protocols for the coming school year.

The hesitancy on the part of the Department of Public Health is likely due to the spread of the coronavirus Delta variant. The global surge in cases led the World Health Organization last week to double down on its recommendation that everyone, including the fully vaccinated, wear a mask.

Fortunately for those who choose to "follow the science" and are mask averse, there is a choice of scientists to follow, at least in the U.S. Rochelle Walensky, director of The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told NBC's "Today Show" on Wednesday that those fully vaccinated "are safe from the variants that are circulating here in the United States."

Commanding the attention of the health policymakers in Connecticut and elsewhere is the Delta variant's infection rate. Studies indicate the Delta is 60 percent more transmissible than the Alpha variant, which was first reported in the U.K. and sent that country back into lockdown.

In Los Angeles County this week, the local Department of Health recommended that all residents wear masks in public indoor spaces, regardless of whether they’ve been vaccinated for COVID-19. Of the 123 people in L.A. County confirmed to have been infected with the Delta variant so far, 110 were unvaccinated and three were partially vaccinated.

First recorded in India, the Delta has spread to 85 countries, and now accounts for 25 percent of the infections in the United States, and more than 90 percent of the cases in India and Britain. Instances of the variant in Connecticut are up five cases this week, to 48, according to the most recent data from the state DPH.

None of this helps school children and their parents who are trying to determine if their district is going to require them to wear masks in the fall. Young people have shown a high resistance to the virus, as well as a high resistance to getting vaccinated, according to data from DPH.

As of Thursday, Connecticut residents who have received at least one dose by age group include 95 percent of those over the age of 65, 85 percent of those between 55-64, 74 percent of those between 45-54, 70 percent of those between 35-44, 61 of those between 25-34, 57 percent of those between 18-24, 65 of those between 16-17, and 47 percent of those between 12-15.

Connecticut is behind only Vermont, Maine and Massachusetts in the percentage of its population fully vaccinated against the virus, as of July 1.

The most vaccinated town in the state is Canaan, according to DPH, with 91.26 percent of the population fully vaccinated, and 99.15 percent with their first dose. The vaccination picture is less rosy the further east you go. Mansfield has less than a third of its residents fully vaccinated, and just over 34 percent have had their first dose.

The CDC has identified three types of coronavirus variants: variants of interest, variants of concern and variants of high consequence. The agency has also recently introduced a new category, "substitutions of therapeutic concern," which can be found across all variants, and may be more resilient against certain man-made antibodies.

Among the state's other variants of concern, Alpha is up 29 cases to 3,302 cases. Instances of variant Epsilon rose by one case, to 61. Variant Gamma is up nine cases in the state, to 168. Cases of the Beta variant held steady at 40.

There has been considerably less movement among the variants of interest currently found in Connecticut. Incidents of variants Zeta, Eta and Kappa have all held steady at nine, 21 and two, respectively. Cases of the Iota variant rose by 11, to 1,795.

One substitution of therapeutic concern, E484K, was found in 1,078 variant cases, up from 1,062 last week. The other, L452R, was detected in 549 cases, up from 543 previously.

The death toll for the pandemic is 8,279, up four over the past week.

There were no cases of coronavirus this week among residents in a Connecticut nursing home, the first time that's happened since the start of the pandemic.

Marlborough and Prospect were the only Connecticut towns categorized any hotter than "gray" in the latest update of municipal alert levels issued by the state DPH. They remain in the yellow zone, with 5.6 and 6.6 cases of coronavirus per 100,000 population during the last 2-week reporting period, respectively

Towns fall into the yellow zone when average daily cases are fewer than 5-9 cases per 100,000 population over a two-week average. The color codes correspond to guidance from the state Department of Public Health.

An additional 356 cases of the coronavirus have been confirmed in the state over the past week, bringing that total to 349,476. With 15,013 tests reported Thursday, the daily positivity rate going into the 4th of July weekend is 0.59 percent, up 0.15 percent from last week.

The number of Connecticut residents hospitalized with COVID-19 is 42, up six beds over the past week.

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