(WTNH) – Looking at Connecticut’s COVID hospitalizations and wastewater testing results, Yale Medicine physician F. Perry Wilson believes the state is past its peak of cases.
“In the omicron wave, we’re learning that tests sort of work differently,” Wilson said.
He said in particular, at-home antigen tests after someone becomes infectious. He said rapid at-home tests are not great at detecting COVID early. Instead, nasal PCR tests are best for that.
What are the at-home tests good for?
“Once they’ve turned positive, to follow overtime to see when you’re safe to reenter society, to end isolation,” Wilson said.
The CDC recently looked at data from 40 health centers across the U.S. and discovered some consistent findings.
“Minorities and by that, anyone who is not a non-Hispanic white person, was about half as likely to get these monoclonal antibodies when they had COVID-19,” Wilson said.
Wilson said it does not necessarily mean they were denied treatment, saying issues like access to healthcare can play into the situation.
“It reminds us that there really are health disparities in this country and when the system is stressed, those disparities can sometimes widen,” Wilson said.
WEB EXTRA: Dr. F. Perry Wilson, Yale Medicine physician and associate professor of Medicine at Yale School of Medicine, discusses these topics
Wilson said a compelling new Scottish study of pregnant women reveals the safety of COVID vaccinations for both mother and baby.
“They found that there were 450 newborn and fetal deaths to mothers who had COVID-19 and every single one was an unvaccinated mother,” Wilson said.
He said there was no sign of increased risk to the mother or baby among vaccinated women and having COVID increases a woman’s risk of miscarriage. Hospitals here in Connecticut are seeing this happen.