By Associated Press - Wednesday, May 26, 2021

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — A week after lifting most COVID-19 restrictions in the state, Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont said Wednesday that his focus is now on getting people back into their offices and back to normal summer activities.

Lamont joined other state officials and business leaders at the Connecticut Convention Center in Hartford to tout the state’s high vaccination rate and low coronavirus infection rate.

“I have spent the last year-plus saying stay safe, stay home and today I’m telling you, get out of the damn house, come enjoy Hartford, get on a plane, visit a restaurant, visit an amazing hotel,” he said.

Connecticut has seen new cases go from a seven-day average of about 427 cases per day on May 10 to just about 167 new cases, according to data from John’s Hopkins University. That’s down from more than 2,000 a day in January.

More than 1.8 million people have been fully vaccinated in the state and more than 60% of Connecticut residents have received at least one dose of the vaccine, according to the governor’s office.

Connecticut Economic and Community Development Commissioner David Lehman said Connecticut’s economic activity is about 92% of what it was pre-pandemic, which ranks 19th in the nation.

“So, we are better than average, but we need to get that to 100% and really we need to get that beyond 100%,” he said.

One of the state’s first large-audience events in more than a year is scheduled for this weekend at Rentschler Field in East Hartford, which will host the NCAA lacrosse national championships.

Michael Freimuth, the executive director of the Capital Region Development Authority, said more than 10,000 tickets had already been sold for Saturday’s opening games. The event runs through Monday. Over 600 hotel nights have been booked for the event, half of them in downtown Hartford, he said.

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