COVID-19 positivity rate remains near record lows in Connecticut, 2 new deaths reported

Connecticut has maintained its lowest rate of COVID-19 positive tests for a week, despite soaring numbers of new cases across the country that have abruptly ended many states’ plans to reopen.

The state recorded 74 new cases of COVID-19 on Thursday, a positivity rate of just .6% out of the total 11,461 tests administered the day before, data show. The positivity rate has stayed below 1% for the past seven days and dipped to a record low of .5% on Wednesday.

Those numbers indicate the state’s pandemic restrictions continue to work, but Gov. Ned Lamont warned again Thursday that Connecticut is “not out of the woods” and that residents should take special care to keep their distance and masks for the busy Fourth of July weekend.

“That’s seven days in a row of less than 1%,” Lamont said Thursday. “Don’t take that for granted, because you’ve seen what’s going on around the rest of the country, you’ve seen how that can change fast.”

Two more Connecticut residents have died of the virus, the state reported Thursday, bringing the total to 4,326 deaths since the pandemic began. One more person was hospitalized Thursday, bringing the total to 101, up slightly after hospitalizations briefly dipped into the double-digits earlier in the week.

As Connecticut continues to hold steady near the bottom of the so-called curve, cases have surged to record highs in other areas of the country, prompting officials in those states to halt their reopenings and reinstate stricter shutdown orders.

The Southeast, Texas and California have been particularly hard hit by the latest spikes in cases, but parts of the Rust Belt and even portions of eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey have seen large spikes in cases nearer Connecticut’s borders. The death toll nationwide has now surpassed 128,000 and more than 2.7 million have been infected with the virus, according to data compiled by the New York Times.

The backsliding elsewhere has prompted Lamont and state officials to reexamine their plans for reopening here and Lamont on Thursday announced bars would not reopen this month as originally planned. He noted that bars have become hot spots for spreading the virus in other states and said public officials will continue to factor those lessons into the plans for Connecticut.

Lamont, Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz and other state officials gathered to discuss the virus Thursday morning on the deck of a pavilion at Hammonasset State Park in Madison and urged park and beachgoers to stay vigilant when they enjoy the long holiday weekend.

“Connecticut went from a state with one of the highest infection rates to one of the lowest and this was accomplished by implementing policies based on science, data and facts, not politics,” Bysiewicz said. “We know that we are not out of the woods yet, and it’s important and our message today is, when you go to enjoy our beautiful beaches, please wear your masks, wash your hands frequently, carry hand sanitizer and practice social distancing.”

Nursing home deaths continue to slow

The number of new deaths at Connecticut’s nursing homes has slowed to a trickle after months of devastatingly high COVID-19 losses among the state’s most vulnerable.

Six more nursing home residents died over the past week from COVID-19 or its complications and three assisted living facility patients succumbed to the virus in that time, according to data released Thursday evening.

That is only a quarter of the 37 total coronavirus-related deaths reported statewide over that same time period and nursing homes reported only 58 new positive cases. And the new numbers are only a fraction of the about 150 to 200 deaths the state reported in nursing homes each week about a month ago.

To date the virus has impacted nearly half of all the state’s nursing home patients and the slowdown indicates both that efforts to contain the virus in those facilities have worked and it has already torn through so many of the 215 homes.

The state still has not released how many nursing home patients have recovered — officials have said it would be too difficult to establish who has officially recovered from the virus — but providers have said that some of the hardest hit facilities are now almost or completely COVID-free.

Only a handful of locations reported more than one new case this week, but spikes were reported at Harrington Court in Colchester, with 12 new positive cases, and Governor’s House in Simsbury, with 11 new positives, according to the data.

Like many other states, the 2,745 nursing home patients who have died because of the virus make up the majority of Connecticut’s total death toll — marking 63.5% of the more than 4,300 deaths since the pandemic began.

Unemployment benefits top $1 billion

The Connecticut Department of Labor has now paid out $1 billion in unemployment benefits to hundreds of thousands of residents since the pandemic began in mid-March.

The state has received 675,000 applications for state unemployment benefits since then, and it received about 18,000 new applications since last week, according to DOL data released Thursday. About 651,000 applications have been processed in total.

There are still almost 300,000 weekly claims filed with the state for both state and federal assistance programs, the department said.

Processing time for applications remains one to two weeks as the department plans to continue to expand the number of staff members answering applicants’ questions this month.

In addition to state benefits, the DOL has paid out another $2.1 billion in extra federal pandemic unemployment assistance — the $600 weekly benefit above and beyond state unemployment that is set to expire on July 25.

Zach Murdock can be reached at zmurdock@courant.com.