Vaccine sign-up starts this week
COVID-19 inoculations set to begin Jan. 18 for those 75 and older
Connecticut residents age 75 and over who are not in longterm care will be able to register for the COVID-19 vaccine starting Thursday and inoculations will begin Jan. 18, Gov. Ned Lamont said Monday.
Don’t call or show up at your doctors’ offices, Lamont’s chief operating officer warned residents, because the free vaccines will be given in larger clinics that can handle the crush of patients.
Opening the shots up to those over 75 with registration — on a federal website — marks Connecticut’s first step toward vaccinating people in the general population, Phase 1B. It’s an effort to minimize the chaos other states, notably Florida, have seen as they opened up the vaccinations.
The first groups in Phase 1A, which began in December, include health care workers, residents and staff at nursing homes and assisted living facilities and medical first responders.
The rollout came as the state announced 7,364 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 since Friday, a positive test rate of 6.3 percent. The number of people in Connecticut hospitals with COVID-19 increased by 33 to 1,142, still below the recent peak of 1,269.
Lamont reported 92 more deaths reported Monday, increasing the Connecticut death toll to 6,416.
Registrations for elderly people living independently will be in two steps: A signup, followed by a message from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention enabling people to make an actual appointment.
On Thursday, the governor’s office plans to give out a website those who qualify can visit and a phone number they can call to help them set up an appointment if they’re not able to do it online. But on Monday, the town of Fairfield Health Department jumped out early, posting a link to the federal Vaccine Administration Management System, or VAMS, where residents over 75 could go to register.
“Proof of age will be required at the clinic,” the department noted in a post on its Facebook page.
“We’re going to make
sure that no vaccines are left on the shelf at the end of the day,” Lamont said at his regular Monday briefing from the state Capitol.
While those 75 and over make up about 5 percent of the population, they represent about 60 percent of the fatalities attributed to the coronavirus. Debate continues on which groups should be included in Phase 1B, which will likely include front-line nonmedical workers and state prisoners.
“We’re doing this carefully, just so we can measure the flow-in,” Lamont said.“It’s not a question of how big I expand 1B. There’s only so many vaccines. Please be patient. We’re going to get this the best we can.”
Connecticut rejected the first-come, first-served vaccination centers, which have created long lines, headaches and disappointment in some states, in a system the governor called unwieldy and time-con
suming. His guest of the day, Patrick H. Charmel, president and CEO of Griffin Hospital in Derby, backed him up.
“I think it would create a negative scenario,” Charmel said of the first-come, firstserve system. “A moredisciplined, structured approach, we believe will work.”
Charmel said 10,000 people in the six-town Lower Naugatuck Valley have been vaccinated since Dec. 15 in the hospital’s pro
gram, which will soon expand to a site on Progress Street in Shelton that can vaccinate 1,200 people a day, twice the current total. There will be a program to supply free rides for seniors to get to vaccination locations.
Charmel said the hospital is working with social service agencies, religious organizations and physicians’ offices to contact the elderly directly to register, especially those with transportation challenges.
Church basements are also being considered for vaccination centers.
“We are setting up a call center,” he said. “We know that there may be challenges with access to technology, so we’re actually going to be calling those individuals we’ve identified that we need to get to and schedule appointments with them so that we can get them vaccinated as soon as possible.”
The Phase 1B roll-out does not include unpaid caregivers for seniors, such as family members who care for elderly relatives. The allocation subcommittee of the Governor’s Vaccine Advisory Group will meet on Tuesday and will likely discuss caregivers, as well as other groups, Lamont’s chief operating officer, Josh Geballe, said.
“One thing needs to be clear here: Don’t call your doctor,” Geballe said. “They don’t have vaccine in their office, they’re not going to be able to help you get an appointment.”
The Fairfield site informed people that people who register can expect an email from CDC within 24 hours, instructing them on how to make an appointment for their vaccination through the federal system.
Health officials believe that the proliferation of mask wearing in the state has cut down on the number of flu infections so far in the season by 95 percent. “The number of flu cases at Griffin is down dramatically, which is wonderful only because it creates capacity for the number of individuals presenting with COVID,” Charmel said.