On Dec. 14 last year, Hartford HealthCare had 340 patients hospitalized with COVID-19 across its system, down from a peak of 425 the previous April. Now hospitalizations are at 232, including 28 at Backus Hospital in Norwich, after a recent uptick in cases.

Tuesday marked the one-year anniversary of COVID-19 vaccine availability in Connecticut, a milestone that hospital workers and state officials celebrated, though the test positivity rate reported for the day was above 8%.

Eric Arlia remembers everything about this day last year: the weather, the media presence, his Hartford HealthCare colleagues getting the first doses. He remembers how excited he was to mix the doses from the first vial, and how nervous he was to do it.

"It's probably one of the most important things we'll do in our health care careers," Arlia, vice president of pharmacy services for the health care system, said of the vaccine effort over the past year.

He said he didn't know last December that there would still be so much new information available each day a year later, "but it's been an incredible, exciting journey."

Arlia noted that a new monoclonal antibody has been approved, which he hopes Hartford HealthCare will have within the next week. He explained that this treatment is designed for people who either have an allergic reaction to the vaccine or can't mount an immune response, which is the case for some transplant recipients.

Three other monoclonal antibodies already are available, and Arlia said demand has about tripled in the past month for these treatments, which are outpatient infusions meant to prevent COVID-positive or -exposed people from being hospitalized.

He is also "eagerly anticipating" emergency use authorization for oral therapies to treat COVID-19; Pfizer said Tuesday that its pill remained 89% effective — from its interim results released in early November to its full results — at preventing hospitalization and death.

Keith Grant, director of infection prevention for Hartford HealthCare, said the United States has typically tracked about six to eight weeks behind the United Kingdom on COVID-19 trends, and while the vast majority of cases in the U.S. are caused by the delta variant of the coronavirus, about 44% to 50% of new cases in the U.K. are caused by the omicron variant.

He said while research has shown significant benefit from getting a vaccine booster shot, there need to be "bigger cohorts in order for us to really make significant policy changes around this set of data" when it comes to the omicron variant.

Gov. Ned Lamont said Tuesday in a news release that thanks to workers from local health departments, federally qualified health centers, pharmacies and health systems, "Connecticut continues to have one of the best vaccination rates in the country. But we still have work to do, and I cannot stress enough that due to waning immunity and the Omicron variant, that there is no better time to get a booster than before the holidays."

His office reported Tuesday that the daily test positivity rate is 8.16% and 681 people were hospitalized with COVID-19 statewide, up by 36 people from the day before.

According to the governor's update on coronavirus response efforts, 76.5% of people hospitalized with COVID-19 aren't fully vaccinated, though those who aren't fully vaccinated make up less than 27% of the state population. For the week beginning Nov. 28, unvaccinated people had a five-fold risk of testing positive for COVID-19 and a 16-fold risk of dying from the disease, compared to fully vaccinated people.

More than 5.8 million doses of the vaccine have been administered in the state over the past year.

Dr. Melissa Cumberland, chief of medicine at Windham Hospital, said the pandemic has been "surreal" and "quite an emotional roller coaster."

"Physicians and nurses are tired, because it's been a long fight, and it's not over," she said. Her final message in Tuesday's Hartford HealthCare briefing was: "Stay social distanced, stay masked, get vaccinated, advocate for those who are not vaccinated, educate them, stick together."

e.moser@theday.com