Hundreds hospitalized, more than 12 viruses circulating in CT. State saw 23 recent covid deaths

Hartford Courant – Monday, January 5, 2026
By Hartford Courant Staff

As Connecticut endures a wave of a variety of flu strains, other influenza-like illness are also circulating and making people sick.

The state saw 9 deaths from Covid-19 in the week ending Dec. 20, with 23 in the month of December. Residents have also been hospitalized with RSV, which primarily impacts the very young and very old.

“The real honest truth is we are not doing great with respect to these respiratory illnesses,” Dr. Ulysses Wu, chief epidemiologist for Hartford HealthCare, said Friday. “Influenza is still the behemoth right now — that has risen very rapidly after a very slow start to the season.”

While last year saw tens of thousands of flu deaths nationwide, more than the annual average, the season was prolonged, Wu said. This year, flu rates rose more rapidly, in part due to the timing of holiday parties and a cold spell.

“The hope is that influenza will peak at some time but there really is no end in sight. We just had New Year’s and it’s freezing cold, which is driving people inside, so I’m hoping around Jan. 12 … it’s going to start slowing.”

According to state data, Connecticut had about 5,000 confirmed flu cases at the end of December and 432 hospitalizations for the illness. The state had seen 18,000 cases of the flu this season, which runs from Oct. 1 through May 31, and more than 7,000 cases of covid. Data has not been updated due to the holiday.

On a scale of disease activity from the CDC, Connecticut is rated very high. According to the Farmington Valley Health District, covid and RSV are both causing some illness and influenza increased by 79% in the Farmington Valley in one week. According to the state Department of Health, 18.6% of emergency department visits in December were related to influenza.

DPH and the CDC also track hospitalizations from Respiratory Syncytial Virus or RSV, a common virus that can be severe in babies and older adults. According to the CDC, RSV “is the leading cause of infant hospitalization in the U.S.” and the “most common cause of bronchiolitis and pneumonia in children younger than 1 year of age.”

While national Centers for Disease Control data tracking illnesses through emergency departments puts covid activity at low but increasing, its community viral activity level, measured through testing sewer wastewater for viruses, puts Connecticut’s covid-19 virus activity at high, meaning that people are sick but not going to the hospital.

The symptoms of all the viruses overlap and it can be difficult to distinguish what is causing symptoms. The Hartford Department of Health and Human Services has been urging people to get a free covid test if they feel sick, warning “Symptoms of COVID-19 may be mild for you, but fatal for others.”

Wu said more than a dozen viruses are circulating, including adenoviruses and pertussis, which has caused outbreaks and fatalities in other parts of the country.

The reason covid, RSV and influenza are tracked, Wu said, is not just because they can cause severe sickness, but also because vaccines can lessen their impact.

“We focus on covid, RSV and influenza because those are vaccine-preventable hospitalizations. We don’t really look at it as disease prevention but the ability to keep people out of the hospital,” Wu said.

The same is true of pertussis and measles, which have been spreading in the U.S. in the past few years.

The CDC notes that pertussis decreased by 90% following the development of the DTP vaccine that protects against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis but that cases have risen considerably in the past few decades as vaccine protection lessened.

Measles, which was declared eliminated in the U.S. in 2000 “thanks to a very high percentage of people receiving the safe and effective measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine,” has spiked in recent years. The CDC says this is because “national MMR coverage among kindergarteners has decreased and is now below the 95% coverage target—with much lower coverage in some communities.” Connecticut recorded its first measles case in four years this year in an unvaccinated child.

While 1.2 million Connecticut residents received a flu vaccine this season, according to DPH, just 364,576 people are recorded as having received a covid vaccine after federal guidance about who should get it changed. Gov. Ned Lamont took action to ensure the vaccine continues to be available and covered under state-regulated health insurance policies but Wu said the federal policy shift discouraged some people.

“The federal action certainly did cause a contraction of people getting the covid vaccine. … It caused a contraction because of misinformation. People had the belief that they couldn’t get it,” he said, noting that it’s not too late to get vaccinated.

“It’s untrue that covid isn’t bad anymore,” Wu said. “A lot of people who get covid do OK from covid but that’s because a lot of Americans are healthy. It is the unhealthy and extremes of age that don’t do well or the immunocompromised” and long covid also impacts a number of people who get the virus.

Still, Wu said, influenza is the “boogie man” that’s causing the most harm in Connecticut and people should consider getting vaccinated against that as well, since the season extends through May.

With months left to the season for respiratory diseases, Wu offered some guidance: “It’s not too late to get vaccinated, you can’t get the disease from the vaccination itself. If you’re sick, try not to get other people sick because if you spread it to someone who doesn’t do OK, we won’t see the downstream effect of someone’s grandmother who got it and passed. Wash your hands and mask up.”

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