With omicron poised to become the dominant variant in Connecticut, the state’s weekly COVID-19 test positivity rate reached its highest point Tuesday since widespread COVID-19 testing began last year.

The state’s weekly positivity rate now stands at 7.52%, double what it was just a month ago. On Tuesday, Connecticut reported a 9% daily COVID-19 test positivity rate. Since the peak of the pandemic in the spring of 2020, the daily positivity rate has only reached 9% three other times, in December 2020 and this past January.

Yale New Haven Health chief clinical officer Dr. Tom Balcezak said that he was “very, very worried” about the swift spread of omicron in Connecticut and was anticipating a deluge of new cases in the coming weeks.

“We really need to be careful,” he said. “It’s going to make a big impact, especially with the coming holidays.”

Omicron is likely now the dominant variant among outpatients tested for COVID-19 by Yale New Haven Hospital and may soon become the most prevalent variant in the state, according to data from the Yale School of Public Health.

As of Monday, the omicron variant made up 56% of COVID-19 cases tested by the hospital, according to Nathan Grubaugh, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health who runs a lab tracking the spread of COVID-19 variants in Connecticut.

Omicron cases are currently doubling every three and a half days — roughly triple the speed of delta in the late spring and early summer, according to Grubaugh.

Grubaugh noted on Twitter that while the data does not reflect the entire state, he expects omicron to become the dominant variant in Connecticut “within days.”

The omicron variant, which is especially infectious, is “going to be like a heat-seeking missile for people who are not vaccinated or who have not been boosted,” Balcezak said.

Dr. Scott Roberts, associate medical director for infection prevention at Yale New Haven Hospital, said that until the severity of omicron is better understood, “it’s really prudent to exercise safe behaviors out in the community, which includes masking in indoor settings, getting vaccinated, getting boosted and then at-home rapid tests if those are available.”

Connecticut reported 6,000 new COVID-19 cases Tuesday out of 66,803 tests administered, for a daily positivity rate of 9%. The state’s seven-day positivity rate stands at 7.52%, the highest it has been since widespread testing.

All eight Connecticut counties — as well as the rest of those in the Northeast region — are currently recording “high” levels of COVID-19 transmission as defined by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. With this level of transmission, the CDC advises people to wear a mask in public indoor settings.

As of Tuesday, Connecticut had 834 patients hospitalized with COVID-19, a decrease of three individuals since Monday. On Monday, hospitalizations in the state surged significantly, with more than one hundred new hospitalizations, reaching the metric’s highest level since early February.

According to the state, 75.2% of people hospitalized with COVID-19 are not fully unvaccinated. Hospital officials say the rate is even higher when looking specifically at people with severe symptoms.

Connecticut reports COVID-19 deaths on Thursdays. Last week, the state recorded 56 deaths, bringing its total during the pandemic to 9,002.

The United States has now recorded 808,093 COVID-19 deaths, according to the Coronavirus Resource Center at Johns Hopkins University.

As of Monday, 87.3% of all Connecticut residents and 95% of those 12 and older had received at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose, while 74.1% of all residents and 83.3% of those 12 and older were fully vaccinated, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Additionally, about 37.7% of fully vaccinated Connecticut residents 18 or older have received a booster dose.

The CDC warns that booster shots are sometimes misclassified as first doses, likely inflating the reported number of first-dose coverage and understating the true number of people who have received boosters.