In the last week, Connecticut has seen some of the highest rates of new COVID cases in the country.

Local health experts, including the state health commissioner, say they're not surprised.

"We predicted that we would be going in this direction," said State Health Commissioner Dr. Manisha Juthani.

The New York Times is reporting there were 74 new cases reported per 100,000 people in Connecticut during the seven-day stretch ending Wednesday. That's more than double the nationwide average.

Connecticut had the highest number of new COVID cases on Monday, and the second highest on Tuesday and Wednesday, behind Rhode Island.

"People have been looking forward to doing many things they haven't done for the last two plus years and graduations are continuing and proms are continuing," said Juthani.

Juthani says these swells seem to last about two months. So doctors think by June we may possibly get another break.

"We keep learning about this virus, fortunately and unfortunately, because it plays out in different ways and human behavior is different," said Juthani.

Juthani says despite the spike in cases, Connecticut has done well for a populated area, particularly Fairfield County.

She says hospitalizations have been nowhere close to where they were previously.

Dr. Asha Shah at Stamford Health agrees with the health commissioner that since mandates have been lifted, cases have risen.

"The masks are off, they're off in schools, they're off in the community," said Shah.

On top of that, doctors say COVID-19 cases are being substantially undercounted, because of at-home testing.

Doctors say in the meantime they are watching what's going on in South Africa with the BA4 and BA5 variants, which could possibly cause another surge.