 Connectivity hitting time equals disappearance of isolated vertices

Couple the process with independent uniform edge labels, and expose $p_{-}=(\log n-\frac{1}{4}\log \log n)/n$. A spanning-tree union bound excludes components of orders $2$ through $n/\log n$, and a cut bound excludes orders up to $n/2$. The graph has one large component and at most $\log n$ isolated vertices, with at least one isolated vertex. Before $p_{+}=(\log n+\frac{1}{4}\log \log n)/n$, the probability of any new edge between those isolated vertices is $O((\log n{)}^2\log \log n/n)=o(1)$. All have joined the large component by $p_{+}$ by the isolated-vertex threshold in the Erdős-Rényi model. Throughout this window the only obstruction to connectivity is an isolated vertex, establishing the equality of hitting times.