With 45% of Connecticut’s 75-and-older population vaccinated against COVID-19, and the numbers of new cases of the disease and hospitalizations declining, Gov. Ned Lamont said Monday it’s time to start easing restrictions on businesses.

All he committed to, though, was allowing restaurants to stay open an hour later — until 11 p.m. instead of 10.

For months, restaurants have been operating “professionally” amid limits on their hours and their capacities, Lamont said, and neighboring states, including Rhode Island and Massachusetts, have lifted similar restrictions. He said the change in Connecticut's rules would take effect within the next 24 hours.

Last week, Lamont said he would ease restrictions on houses of worship, which have been limited to 50% of capacity and gatherings of no more than 100 people. He said Monday the 50% capacity would remain in effect while the cap on gatherings would be lifted, based on legal advice. Pandemic-related caps on church attendance have prompted lawsuits in other states.

Connecticut’s success in vaccinating the elderly figured in his decision to relax restrictions, Lamont said. The latest data on vaccinations show 338,859 first doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines have been administered as well as 86,285 second doses for a total of 425,144 doses.

The state expects to receive a total of 98,000 first and second doses this week, according to Josh Geballe, the state’s chief operating officer.

Monday’s storm caused most vaccination sites to shut down, a setback resulting in the cancellation of more than 10,000 appointments. Geballe said that providers would be contacting people to reschedule their appointments and that the state is hopeful all of the canceled appointments can be made up by the end of the week. He said providers were being strongly urged to extend their hours.

As of Monday, town-by-town statistics show vaccination rates among those 75 and older widely vary across the state. Some small towns like Roxbury, Oxford and Essex boast rates of more than 80% while larger, more urban municipalities like Bridgeport and New Britain have rates lower than 25%. Among New London County cities and towns, Bozrah’s rate of 78% was highest, while in both New London and Norwich, 32% of elderly residents have been vaccinated.

Lamont reported that since Friday, 3,932 COVID-19 cases had been detected among 101,971 new tests, a positivity rate of 3.86%. Hospitalizations fell by 73 to 912. Seventy-three additional deaths pushed the toll in Connecticut to 7,119.

“A lot of our key metrics are trending in the right direction,” the governor said. “We went through this before and things got worse again. I’d like to think this time is different.”

Lawrence + Memorial Hospital in New London reported it had 25 COVID-19 patients while Westerly Hospital had 13. For L+M, it was fewer COVID-19 patients than it had on any day in January, a month it began with nearly 50 COVID-19 patients.

b.hallenbeck@theday.com