State: 17 previously unreported coronavirus deaths plus 16 new

A significant increase in the number of deaths from coronavirus was announced by Gov. Ned Lamont late Tuesday, adding 16 deaths from the disease to the state total in the last 24 hours. In addition to those deaths, the state added 17 deaths from the last two weeks that had not previously been announced publicly. The Connecticut death total now stands at 69 from COVID-19 infection, up from 36 that were reported publicly Monday — a 92 percent jump. That increase added urgency to Lamont’s call for residents to stay home, and led him to say he may order new restrictions — though he had not done so as of late Tuesday afternoon. The 17 fatalities from the last two weeks had not been reported to the state Department of Public Health, said Josh Geballe, the state's chief operating officer, but the state was “able to identify that had been reported to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner over the last two weeks.” Neither Geballe nor Lamont explained how and why the deaths reported to the medical examiner had not made their way into the total count of the Department of Public Health. The number of new deaths from the virus in Connecticut has gone up and down day to day, with the rate of deaths as a percentage of total confirmed coronavirus cases hovering at about 1.4 percent. With the new deaths, the percent of total confirmed cases that have died is 2.2. What hasn’t changed is the percentage of those deaths among older people. The vast majority of fatal infections are in people older than 80 years old. More than 59 percent of the total deaths from coronavirus in Connecticut have been patients over 80. Lamont said during a Tuesday press conmference that the state had logged 557 more confirmed cases of coronavirus, bringing the state total to 3,128, a 21 percent increase from Monday’s total. Because of a la The death toll in the United States increased by 543 as of Monday night, a total of 3,580 people, more than the number of people who died in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

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