HARTFORD, CT (1010 WINS) -- Connecticut’s COVID-19 death toll surpassed 5,000 over the weekend as the number of people hospitalized with the virus continued to increase, Gov. Ned Lamont said.
The state reported a total of 59 new COVID-19-related fatalities on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, bringing its death toll to 5,020, Lamont said at a news briefing Monday afternoon.
As of Sunday evening, 1,098 people in Connecticut were hospitalized with complications related to the virus, up by 81 from Thursday night, he said.
Of the 106,821 COVID-19 test results that came back over the course of three days, meanwhile, 4,714, or 4.41 percent, were positive.
“I think the 4.4 percent percent positivity is interesting, in the sense that it’s another day that it’s not going up. In fact, [it’s] going down a little bit,” he said, noting that the state’s infection rate was “about 4.7 percent over the last week.”
“We were at 5.8 percent probably a couple weeks ago, so let’s watch the trend line, but that is hopeful,” he said.
Hospitalizations and fatalities, however, are “lagging indicators,” he said. Health officials will not know whether Thanksgiving gatherings or travel caused a spike in COVID-19 cases for “another week or two.”
“So while positivity is going down, hospitalizations continue to go up,” he said. “I’d like to see that number going down over the next couple weeks, and then we’ll know that we really have something to be thankful for.”