Digital Coronavirus Vaccination Cards In CT? Gov. Lamont Says Yes

CONNECTICUT — Vowing the program will be voluntary, Gov. Ned Lamont said Friday that Connecticut will institute a coronavirus digital vaccination card system this month, reported the Hartford Courant.

State officials are working with their counterparts in Massachusetts and Rhode Island on the new system, which Lamont envisions will allow restaurants, stores and other businesses to know who is vaccinated and who is not.

But unlike New York, which is reinstituting an indoor mask mandate next week, Lamont says Connecticut will not head down that path at this time.

"I don't think we need more mandates than [the digital card]," Lamont told the Courant.

He is resisting statewide shutdowns and more mandates, even though Connecticut is in the midst of a surge in cases. Municipalities can institute their own coronavirus mandates as those officials see fit.

As of Friday, Connecticut's infection rate dipped slightly from Thursday's 6.48 percent to 6.08 percent, according to the latest data from the state Department of Public Health.

On Thursday, the number of coronavirus deaths reported in the state grew by 37 to 8,946 since the pandemic began. The death toll was 44 the previous week.

There were 3,280 new confirmed coronavirus cases, with 585 people hospitalized with the virus.

While the delta variant remains the dominant strain in Connecticut, there were nine new cases of the omicron variant, which brings that total to 11.

"Specimen collection dates in the nine cases ranged from November 28 to December 7," officials said about the new omicron cases. "They involve five women and four men between the ages of 20 to 85 years old. They are residents of Hartford County (1), New Haven County (5), and Fairfield County (3). Seven of the affected individuals were fully vaccinated."

Of those 585 patients currently hospitalized with COVID-19, 450 (76.9 percent) are not fully vaccinated, according to state health officials.

For the week beginning November 28, 2021, unvaccinated persons had a 5x greater risk of testing positive for COVID-19 compared to fully vaccinated persons, the state said, adding that unvaccinated persons had a 16x greater risk of dying from COVID-19 compared to fully vaccinated persons.

Hartford, New Haven and Fairfield counties continue to lead in coronavirus hospitalizations by a considerable amount over the other counties in Connecticut.

For a town-by-town breakdown of new COVID-19 cases in Connecticut, see the Connecticut Data Portal.