CT records the lowest COVID positive rate in a few months: 1.34%

State officials acknowledged that demand for vaccination is slowing, especially among young people, and the state was the worst in months on Thursday, despite providers slowly starting to reintroduce the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. We recorded a COVID positive rate.

The state’s COVID positive test rate dropped to 1.34% on Thursday, the lowest since early October, with hospitalizations just over 400, the lowest since early March.

“I’m not a day trader, but this is … a four-week trend …. for the last few weeks, [the positivity rate] Governor Ned Lamont said Thursday. “So I think this is a long-lasting trend for us … and again, because the vaccine is working.”

Lamont said the state has administered about 1,000 Johnson & Johnson vaccines since the suspension was lifted last weekend. The state’s chief operating officer, Josh Geballe, said about 500 doses were given each day.

“So we will see. We will make demand drive how that J & J will continue to evolve,” Geballe said.

Geballe said many small independent pharmacies offer J & J, where they are booming.

“Therefore, we look forward to continued strong demand for J & J,” he said.

Small crowd at the first J & J clinic
The state’s first Johnson & Johnson-only vaccination clinic gathered a relatively small crowd in Norwich and Vernon on Tuesday since the federal government declared it safe to use.

At the 4-hour clinic at the Rose Senior Center in Norwich, 32 people were vaccinated with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine and 17 canceled their appointments. The numbers are a little better in Vernon. There, 46 people were vaccinated at a two-hour clinic at Rockville City Hall. Among them was a group of migrant workers from a local apple farm.

“I wanted to try it out and see what the reaction would look like,” said Patrick McCormack, director of the Uncas Health District, referring to the Norwich Clinic. “I don’t think it’s just J & J’s fault, as demand is declining in all clinics.”

McCormack said he is considering using the rest of Johnson & Johnson for home vaccination, which is more likely to be older than the group with blood clots after vaccination.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the US Food and Drug Administration have ordered the use of Johnson & Johnson vaccines to be suspended. This is because there are 15 rare cases of blood clotting and thrombocytopenia in Shot recipients, most of whom are women between the ages of 18 and 18. 49. 3 people have died, 7 have been hospitalized and 4 have been in intensive care.

Over the weekend, federal officials reinstated the vaccine after examining the data and determining that the risk was not too high compared to the need to vaccinate people. The State Department instructed vaccinated people over the weekend to start using 136,000 doses of vaccine stored in the state.

Court workers and apple pickers
Michael Purcaro, director and emergency services director at Vernontown, said he was pleased to be able to vaccinate nearly 50 people on Tuesday.

“It was basically a pop-up walk-up clinic with no publicity, so I think it’s a strong indicator that people still want to be vaccinated,” Pulcaro said.

The clinic was held outside the Rockville City Hall, not far from the county hall, bus routes, and town centre, in anticipation of traffic. Purcaro said about six workers have been vaccinated by Johnny Appleseed Farm in Ellington. The town had a Spanish-speaking nurse working to explain the process.

Purcaro said the dose of vaccine to be distributed is still around 150, which will ensure that Johnson & Johnson will have a reservation-free clinic in the coming weeks.

“It is the government’s responsibility to break down the barriers and vaccinate those who need to reach it,” he said.

Hartford HealthCare officials announced this week that they will be hosting a Johnson & Johnson-only clinic at the Xfinity Center on Saturday to measure public interest.

Dr. James Cardon, Chief Clinical Director, said hospitals in the system have begun to use the Johnson & Johnson vaccine in emergency rooms and their programs to vaccinate patients transitioning from acute care.

“We will be hosting our first J & J Clinic at the Xfinity Center this Saturday to see how it all happens,” said Cardon. “We all want to see what our interests are, and hopefully we can see a strong uptake of the vaccine.”

Supply that exceeds demand
The J & J suspension occurred just as the state’s vaccination rate began to decline. Over 66% of the state’s population has been vaccinated at least once. The state has been vaccinated more than 3 million times on Thursday and is currently receiving more than 1.87 million initial vaccinations.

State officials said they are reducing the doses ordered by vaccinated people because demand is not as high as they were just a few weeks ago. Many mass vaccination sites are now walking up rather than scheduling appointments.

“There will definitely be times when the demand for these vaccine reservations is slightly weakening, so there is ample availability and this is a good issue,” said Cardon. “We expect to be here and recognize that we need to continue to remove access barriers.”

Cardon said Hartford Healthcare aims to “distribute the workforce so that vaccines can be administered in more targeted areas.”

“We need to make sure that access isn’t a barrier. For now, I think most of the work is to provide easier access,” Cardon said. “I’m not going to do this for large megasites that can take thousands of shots a day. We’ll make it easy to shoot even sites that can take hundreds of shots at a time. Is possible.”

Lamont focuses on people aged 16-44, the youngest age group, as the number has already leveled off, even though only 45% have been vaccinated. He said he needed to hit.

Lamont said there is more work to be done in that age group, especially when compared to people over the age of 65, who are “more than 80% vaccinated.”

“Therefore, we need to be more aggressive in terms of incentives and ensure that everyone in that age group is vaccinated,” Lamont said.

Lamont listed incentives such as discount cards at local Stop & Shop and CVS stores, and said more than 160 restaurants are currently enrolled in the state’s “Drinks On Us” program. The governor said more than 200,000 people visited the state’s website listing participating restaurants.

Most hospitalized COVID patients are unvaccinated
The daily COVID numbers released on Thursday showed four deaths after only one death was recorded in the number on Monday. Lamont said he hopes that the decline in deaths will catch up with the decline in cases and hospitalizations.

Despite the slow decline in these numbers, the total number of deaths is consistent, with an average of 6-8 deaths per day in the state.

“These unfortunate deaths still clearly remind us that the pandemic has not been resolved and we need to focus on our vaccination efforts,” said Ajay, executive vice president of Hartford Healthcare. Kumar says.

Kumar said his age has changed slightly, as almost all COVID patients are currently unvaccinated, especially with almost no deaths in nursing homes.

Keith Grant, senior system director for infection prevention at Hartford Healthcare, said at a press conference on Tuesday that the Hartford Healthcare hospital system still has more than 100 COVID-infected people, saying, “The virus is still here. There is. “

“The majority of infected people who are dying now probably don’t fit into the same group we’ve seen before,” Grant said when the deaths of nursing home residents overwhelmed the hospital last spring. It was.

“But nevertheless, individuals are still dying from this virus. It’s very important to focus, especially in this new mission from the CDC.”

Grant mentions Tuesday’s CDC recommendations that vaccinated people no longer need to wear masks when outside, and vaccinated people know but mask among strangers. Must be worn.

Governor Ned Lamont said he would encourage Connecticut residents to comply with the CDC’s decree, but residents masked in public places, especially as the state prepares to fully reopen on May 19. Said you need to wear.

Grant understands and agrees to the science behind the CDC’s recommendations, but said people still need to be careful. Grant recently said he attended the funeral of his 48-year-old cousin, who died of COVID-19.

“Be careful. If you have any symptoms, be sure to wear a mask, regardless of recommendations,” Grant said. “Be careful and be careful. If you have symptoms, especially if you have certain comorbidities, we recommend that you also consider wearing a mask.”

The varieties discussed
On Thursday morning, Nathan Grubaud, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the Graduate School of Public Health, and Mark Adams, deputy director of the Jackson Institute for Genomic Medicine, gave a presentation to legislators about the COVID variants that are prevalent in the state. ..

Grubaugh said the UK B.1.1.7 variant is present in more than 60% of COVID cases. He said the B.1.526 or New York variant was the second farthest in terms of case. He added that Connecticut has not yet seen cases of new variants emerging in the outbreak in India.

Grubaugh’s and Jackson’s labs have been sequencing virus samples since December and will continue to monitor the potential for some new variants and spikes already here. It’s a schedule.

Since both Yale University and the Jackson Laboratory use samples from their own testing facilities, Grubaud said the testing samples are primarily limited to New Haven and Hertford counties. He added that he wanted to collect samples from a much larger area to better understand the spread of the subspecies.

Grubaugh mentioned an ongoing study at Yale New Haven Hospital. There, we sequenced more than 1,100 unvaccinated individuals and 40 cases of individuals who tested positive after vaccination.

“The take-away messages from this preliminary analysis are those found in vaccinated people, mainly from Moderna or Pfizer, consistent with those seen in unvaccinated individuals. “I will,” said Grubaugh. “There is no enhancement of one thing that may suggest that this is leading to breakthroughs. Therefore, this suggests that vaccine breakthroughs are likely to be triggered by host reactions. Therefore, we have not developed enough antibodies in response to the vaccine, or we have not developed the appropriate antibodies, and the particular mutant itself is not the cause. “

With lower infection rates and reduced hospitalizations, Adams said the vaccine outperformed the Connecticut variant.

“In summary, I think it’s a real race between defensive vaccines and mutants that can spread more rapidly or infect vaccinated people. Current data are: The declining number of cases in the state is a sign of successful vaccination, “says Adams. “But it’s really important to look ahead.”