New Britain Has Apparently Had Fourth Highest COVID-19 Rate

The cumulative number of New Britain residents who have apparently contracted COVID-19 has been more than nearly all the cities and towns in the state, close to a year state health of data shows.

Over almost a year of struggling through the COVID-19 crisis, state data show more New Britain residents appear to have contracted the illness than all of the state’s cities and towns, except three.

The cumulative number New Britain residents appearing to have contracted COVID-19 during the pandemic was 8,353 people out of the city’s 2018 population of 72,453.

That meant that more New Britain residents appear to have contracted COVID-19 than in most of the state. New Britain’s cumulative infection rate has been 11,529 per 100,000. Only Danbury, Waterbury and Hartford have had higher rates than New Britain.

The statistic of rate per 100,000 is a common way of showing the proportion of a population affected by something. New Britain had the eighth highest number of total apparent COVID-19 infections, but a greater proportion of New Britain residents were infected, the data shows, than nearly every other city and town.

The statewide population in the 2018 state Department of Public Health figures used in the state COVID-19 data was 3,572,665. The statewide cumulative infections as of March 4, 2021 reported by the state was 285,330, making the cumulative state COVID-19 infection rate 7,986 per 100,000.

That would make New Britain’s apparent infection rate of 11,529 more than 44% higher than the rate of the state as a whole.

New Britain also had the eighth highest number of deaths, 189, apparently from COVID-19. That figure appears to be more than 20% higher than the rate of the state as a whole.

The infection and death rate data, reported by the state, was as of the March 4, 2021.

Currently the state is reporting that infection rates, hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19 are dropping, and the state’s most recent data shows New Britain’s rate of new cases per 100,000 is 17. With vaccinations currently underway, many have hope that the crisis is finally ending.

Yet data appears to show that the pandemic, as difficult as it has been for so many people, impacted a wider population in New Britain than in the state as a whole.