Data: State’s COVID numbers creeping up
COVID numbers continue to creep up in Connecticut, though hospitalizations are increasing at a somewhat slower pace than case counts, the latest figures show.
The state said Wednesday that 4,604 COVID cases had been identified over the past seven days, out of 59,930 reported tests, which means the positivity rate was 7.68 percent.
Hospitalizations rose by 39 over the same time period to 165. Scott Roberts, associate medical director of infection prevention at Yale New Haven Hospital, said this week that the slower rate of hospitalizations is a bright spot. “We did trickle up,” he said.
The increase in COVID metrics comes as mask mandates continue to be lifted. In Connecticut, an executive order mandating masks in hospital settings expired last week. A court ruling Monday ended a federal mask mandate on airplanes.
Simultaneously, the omicron subvariant known as BA.2 has become the dominant coronavirus strain in the United States, making up more than 75 percent of all sequenced samples in New England, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.
Ulysses Wu, chief epidemiologist at Hartford HealthCare, suggested a strategy he referred to as “spot masking.”
Wu masking is often seen as a “binary” decision: “You never mask or you always mask.”
“I believe there is this in-between that you can do,” he said. “If we were more agile, I would love to do spot masking but that would drive people crazy.”
Wu also said he expects COVID metrics to show an increase in transmission following family gatherings for Easter, Passover and Ramadan.
“I’m curious to see in about seven days what the case positivity is,” Wu said. “Maybe we should mask for maybe the next two weeks? That would never fly.”
Wu also suggested that transmission will increase with the seasons, and should a new, more infectious variant emerge.
“We’re going to have this again with the next variant or in the fall so people should get used to this,” he said.