A new surveillance system created by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finds that select counties in Connecticut have the highest hospitalization rate for coronavirus disease among jurisdictions in 14 states under review.
In most instances, the hospitalization rate in Connecticut was higher than the comparable rates in select counties in peer states, including New York and California. Connecticut’s rate was approximately 15 per 100,000 people, while New York was approximately eight and California slightly higher than two. Only counties in Michigan came close to Connecticut, with a hospitalization rate of approximately 12 per 100,000 people. Counties in Ohio, meanwhile, had about one.
The results were released Wednesday (April 8) as part of the CDC’s COVID-19 Associated Hospitalization Surveillance Network (COVID-NET). It is the first publication of COVID-NET data and other reports analyzing the same 14 jurisdictions are expected at regular intervals. The 14 jurisdictions represent about 10 percent of the U.S. population.
The Emerging Infections Program (EIP) at Yale School of Public Health worked closely with the Connecticut Department of Public Health and the CDC to gather the results for Connecticut.
“Geographically, we’re right between New York City and Boston, which are both active potential sources of COVID infections,” said Kimberly Yousey-Hindes, M.P.H., an epidemiologist at EIP, and Professor Linda Niccolai, PhD., study co-authors who oversee the data collection in Connecticut. “Connecticut also moved quickly to make COVID-19 a reportable condition so information is flowing from the hospitals to public health about these cases and has been since February.”
The CDC will use the data to better understand the most severe cases (those that are hospitalized) of COVID-19 on a national basis. In addition to hospitalization rates, the surveillance also collected data through medical record review on symptoms, risk factors, coinfections, diagnoses, treatment and outcomes, Yousey-Hindes said.