COVID-19 Cases Continue To Spike In CT, Highest Rate In Months

CONNECTICUT — The daily coronavirus positivity rate, which has been slowly trending upward, took a sharp jump in the numbers released by the state Department of Public Health on Tuesday.

The positivity rate is 2.71 percent, the highest it has been since May 3, when it came in at 3.01 percent.

Positivity is a function of the number of new confirmed cases of COVID-19 compared to the number of coronavirus tests performed. Out of 8,055 tests taken, 218 were positive.

Fifty-four patients are hospitalized with the virus in the state, up four beds overnight. The number of hospitalizations has also been rising slowly, and now sits at where it was just before the middle of June.

Although the highly transmissible delta variant of the coronavirus has so far not been an actionable factor in Connecticut's COVID-19 battle, the number of delta cases identified by genetic sequencing in the state was up 36 cases, to 87, in the most recent data released by DPH.

The variant, which was responsible for wide-scale infections in India and parts of the United Kingdom, has been spreading domestically. In Los Angeles County, health officials have blamed the variant for the reinstatement of tighter restrictions against what they are calling a "preventable" surge.

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All the vaccines currently being administered in Connecticut have proven effective against all the known variants in the U.S., and the vaccination rollout program in the Nutmeg State is third in the nation, behind only Massachusetts and Vermont. Less than 0.1 percent of Connecticut's fully vaccinated persons reported to DPH as having contracted the virus.

Schools in Connecticut still await guidance from Hartford regarding what, if any COVID-19 mitigations protocols they are to employ, come September.