COVID-19 hospitalizations spike in state

0
280

By Paul Hughes, Republican-American

HARTFORD — Hospitalizations for COVID-19 reached on Monday a five-and-a-half month high of 548 patients as the second wave of the coronavirus continues to intensify in Connecticut.

State health officials on Tuesday reported that hospitals across the state saw a net increase of 52 patients since Sunday between new admissions and discharges. This followed an increase of 94 patients over the weekend.

There were 197 patients hospitalized with confirmed cases of COVID-19 in New Haven County on Monday, 155 patients in Fairfield County and 143 patients in Hartford County. The three counties accounted for 90% of hospitalizations.

In contrast, there were 23 patients in New Haven County hospitals on Oct. 1, 22 in Fairfield County hospitals and 41 in Hartford County hospitals. Overall hospitalizations increased fivefold in the intervening six weeks.

Lamont in Meriden on Tuesday commented that although hospitalizations are rising now the length of stay is shorter compared to the height of the first wave of the outbreak in the spring.

“The relative good news compared to where we were eight months ago is people are spending half of the time in the hospital, and that is a big deal, and there are many, many fewer fatalities so we’re making some progress on that front,” he said.

Through mid-October, close to 20% of hospitalized patients had died. The Lamont administration has since halted its weekly reporting on the cumulative number of hospital admissions and discharges.

The Department of Public Health reported an additional 1,524 positive results for COVID-19 out of 22,612 molecular and antigen tests that were received Monday. This represented a positive rate of 6.4%. There now have been 82,987 cases of COVID-19 since early March.

The number of coronavirus-associated deaths continue to rise. An additional 11 were reported since Monday. There now have been 4,707 people who have died from COVID-19 or complications from the disease, according to officials.

Day-to-day changes in COVID-19 statistics reflect newly reported cases, deaths, and tests that date back several days to a week earlier. The daily reports are preliminary, and data for previous dates is updated as new reports are received and errors are corrected.

The Naugatuck Valley Health District on Sunday, its latest update, reported there have been 589 cases in Naugatuck and 81 in Beacon Falls since March. The number of cases in Naugatuck increased by eight between Friday and Sunday, while Beacon Falls had four more cases in that time.

There have been 41 coronavirus-associated deaths in Naugatuck and none in Beacon Falls as of Sunday, according to health officials.

In its most recent update, the Chesprocott Health District reported Friday there were 29 new cases in Prospect last week, bringing to town’s total to 166 since March.

There have been no coronavirus-related deaths in Prospect, according to the health district.

Elio Gugliotti contributed to this report.