Case Prevalence Per 10,000, By Town
For the week ending May 26, 2021
The continuing drop in cases of COVID-19 picked up speed this past week as vaccinations increased and weather improved.
The state reported 1,032 new cases this week, down from 1,807 for the week ending May 19th. That’s a drop of 43%, one of the steepest week-to-week decreases we’ve seen. This is the sixth straight week that cases declined. To give you an idea of just how fast cases have disappeared, there were 8,531 new cases reported during the week ending April 14th. Since then, weekly new cases dropped by 7,499, or 88%.
Case prevalence, or the number of new cases per 10,000 people, fell from 5.05 for the week ending May 19th to 2.89. Test positivity is also down, from an already very low 1.30% to 0.96%.
At this point last year we were also seeing rapidly falling case numbers, but there was a hitch when Memorial Day weekend arrived. Two weeks after the holiday, we saw a spike in cases due to people gathering in large numbers and ignoring masking and social distancing guidelines. This pattern of a rapid increase in cases following a holiday would repeat until vaccines became widely available. If COVID-19 really is on its last legs, and our vaccination program is effective, this year’s Memorial Day weekend spike should be small to negligible.
Let’s take a look at the map.
Almost every town reported between 0 and 5 new cases per 10,000 people; only 17 towns had higher numbers than that. Eastford and Chaplin, the only towns with a case prevalence higher than 10 new cases per 10,000 people, were basically statistical anomalies; both towns are so small that even an increase of one or two cases significantly impacts prevalence. Both towns had only two new cases.
Forty-one towns reported no new cases this week. Once again, most were rural towns, though several larger suburban towns like Wethersfield, Darien, Plainville, and East Windsor also had no new cases.
There were no visible patterns, and no visible outbreaks or case spikes. Cases are falling everywhere across the state equally.
Here is last week’s map for comparison.
Case Prevalence Per 10,000, By Town
For the week ending May 19, 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.
