Case Prevalence Per 10,000, By Town
For the week ending April 7, 2021
The race to vaccinate as many people as possible to blunt the effects of more contagious variants of the COVID-19 virus, especially the variant first detected in Britain, continues in Connecticut.
This week, as vaccinations were opened to everyone over 16 and an ever-increasing percentage of the population of the state got that first shot (including your columnist), cases actually fell a little after a month of increases.
This is good news, and could mean that Connecticut’s vaccination program is finally holding the line against the variants. It could also be another false spring in the seemingly endless, White Witch-snowing-in-Narnia winter of the pandemic. We’ve had those before.
The state recorded 7,879 new cases of COVID-19 during the week ending April 7, down 987 from last week’s 8,886. Case prevalence, or the number of cases per 10,000 people, also dropped slightly from 24.81 to 22.05. Test positivity actually rose a bit from 3.65% to 3.74%, but this has more to do with about 30,000 fewer tests administered than with a jump in cases. This level of test positivity means that the state is likely catching most cases, and that mass undetected community spread is probably not happening.
Looking at the map, we see that case prevalence dropped in the majority of towns across the state this week; 103 of 169 towns saw that number fall. Six towns had the same case prevalence as last week, while 60 towns saw an increase. This is consistent with a slight drop in case numbers.
The southwestern third of the state is still the region with the highest prevalence numbers, especially in two spots around Waterbury and New Milford. The New Haven region and the lower Naugatuck Valley also recorded case prevalence numbers above the state average. In general, however, these numbers are also much better than they were last week.
Case prevalence in Greater Hartford and the lower Connecticut River valley fell noticeably, while other parts of the state saw a mixed bag of changes.
Six towns recorded no new COVID-19 cases: Bridgewater, Canaan, Eastford, Scotland, Union, and Voluntown. Five towns recorded a case prevalence of over 40: Bethlehem, Brookfield, New Milford, Waterbury, and Wolcott. Bethlehem’s was the highest in the state at 49.68. This is a marked improvement from last week, when 14 towns clocked in at over 40 new cases per 10,000 people.
Here’s last week’s map for comparison:
Case Prevalence Per 10,000, By Town
For the week ending March 31, 2021
Susan Bigelow is an award-winning columnist and the founder of CTLocalPolitics. She lives in Enfield with her wife and their cats.
The views, opinions, positions, or strategies expressed by the author are theirs alone, and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or positions of CTNewsJunkie.com.
