CONNECTICUT, USA — It’s the winter season. You have the flu, RSV, and three years into the pandemic, still, the virus persists.
“I feel like naturally, numbers were gonna spike in the winter for the simple fact that it’s cold and flu season,” said Destiny Reyes.
Currently, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ranks 7 out of 8 counties in Connecticut at a high level for COVID-19 community transmission.
Some health experts say COVID-19 cases may have peaked for the season.
“COVID numbers climbed right after Thanksgiving and from what we saw anywhere from January 4th-6th was the highest numbers that we were seeing in terms of the new positive and then it’s a little bit of the drop,” Hartford Hospital, Infectious disease specialist, Dr. Paul Anthony.
That being said, health professionals are still airing on the side of caution.
“I’ll just have one reserve with this new subvariant XBB 1.5 which is highly contagious. Let’s see how that plays into the numbers for the next few weeks,” said Dr. Anthony.
Hospitalizations and deaths are much lower in Connecticut than they were this time last year.
This time last year, there were nearly 2,000 hospitalizations, about as many as during the first COVID wave in 2020. Now, we're in the 700’s, with numbers trending down.
It's the same with COVID-related deaths. This time last year, the state was averaging 25 to 30 deaths a day, a big decline from the first wave in 2020.
Now, the state is averaging 3 to 8 deaths a day.
“What changed last year was the introduction of Omicron. So you had both Omicron and Delta competing for hosts and Omicron was very contagious compared to the ones we had before,” said Dr. Anthony.
Dr. Anthony said that even though things are a lot different from a year ago, COVID-19 hasn't ended.
“What we do still see is people coming to the hospital and we still see people dying with COVID so I want to say to the folks who think this is over, it’s not,” said Dr. Anthony.
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