Coronavirus Hot Spots Crop Up In Connecticut: Here's Where

CONNECTICUT — Connecticut will make a big push to vaccinate people in Naugatuck Valley cities and towns as infection hot spots begin to crop up in the area.

State officials didn’t immediately have answers as to why the large increase is happening in the area and not other parts of the state.

“I’m not quite sure why this is happening, but we are paying particularly close attention to it,” Gov. Ned Lamont said during his Thursday news conference.

Waterbury currently leads the state with the highest infection rate at an average of 69.3 daily cases per 100,000 residents. Torrington Brookfield, New Milford and Naugatuck are among other towns with an infection rate above 50 daily cases per 100,000 residents.

Connecticut’s overall infection rate was 30.1 average daily cases per 100,000 residents between March 14 and 27.

Connecticut will bring more of its mobile vaccination vans to places like Waterbury and throughout the Naugatuck Valley in an effort to curb infections soon.

Contact tracers continue to reach out to people who test positive for the virus, said state Chief Operating Officer Josh Geballe.

“There has been a lot of additional follow up and analysis there,” Geballe said. “It’s often very hard to trace back to exactly where and when someone got Covid.”

The leading hypothesis state officials could offer Thursday was that people were letting their guard down too early, especially with mask use indoors.

“We want to remind people to keep their guard up, keep the masks on a little longer especially until you’re fully vaccinated,” Geballe said.

Don't miss local and statewide news about coronavirus developments and precautions. Sign up for free Patch alerts and daily newsletters from all across Connecticut.

About 1,000 new coronavirus cases were reported Thursday along with a daily positive test rate of 2.41 percent. Coronavirus hospitalizations went up by one patient to 515 currently hospitalized. Another five deaths were reported, which brought the state total up to 7,940.

Comparatively, April 8, 2021 looked a lot better than April 8, 2020 when Connecticut was in the midst of a statewide coronavirus outbreak, Lamont said. There were about 1,400 coronavirus hospitalizations a year ago, 58 fatalities reported in a single day and a positive test rate of more than 30 percent when testing was still scarce.