Some cities could stay at Phase 2
State issues COVID-19 alert for New London as numbers spike
Connecticut’s Department of Public Health issued a COVID-19 alert Thursday for the city of New London, while Gov. Ned Lamont said he may recommend that New London, Norwich, Windham and Preston remain in Phase 2 of reopening, instead of moving to Phase 3 with the rest of the state.
“Wefound a lot of these flareups are sort of town by town,” Lamont said. “So I think we’re going to make a decision over the next few days whether to give towns that discretion not to move to Phase 3.”
New London, Norwich, Windham and Preston have the highest levels of COVID-19 cases of any Connecticut municipalities, according to data the state shared Thursday. Hartford, Danbury, New Britain, East Hartford and Bloomfield have also seen high numbers over the past two weeks.
“There’s some logic to having a more localized approach to some of these changes in the phases,’’ said Dr. Deirdre Gifford, acting public health commissioner.
Lamont said the state will publish a town-level map each week and may recommend areas with at least 15 daily cases per 100,000 residents return to Phase 2, which means lower capacity for restaurants, libraries, places of worship, hair salons and outdoor event venues.
The governor said he was “thinking out loud” about permitting towns to move backward in the reopening process and would decide early next week whether to do so.
The state currently requires every municipality to follow statewide reopening guidance and has, in at least one case, declined to respond to towns requesting permission to enforce stricter rules. Whereas Lamont had previously worried about a “patchwork” of policies, he said that’s less of a concern currently.
“I think now, here we are in
October, we’ve seen the nature of these outbreaks has tended to be somewhat localized,” he said. “That’s why at this point we’re saying, ‘I think we can give some discretion locally. And it follows on what we’re doing with schools and sports.”
Meanwhile, the state’s alert for the city of New London warns residents to limit trips outside the home and take extra precautions against spreading COVID19, as officials focus more testing in the area. The state has previously issued similar alerts in Danbury and Norwich following outbreaks in those cities.
“We are seeing increased levels of community transmission of COVID-19 in eastern Connecticut, and the amount of disease activity in New London is a real concern,” Gifford said in a statement. “We are urging anyone who thinks they may have been exposed to get tested as soon as possible and isolate if you test positive, and stay at home for 14 days if you have been exposed.”
New London, which experienced relatively low levels of COVID-19 for much of the pandemic, has seen its numbers spike recently, with more than 150 cases in just the past two weeks. The sharp increase there is part of a broader trend in the eastern half of Connecticut, where Norwich, Windham and other areas have seen similarly alarming spikes.
New London County, which had only two patients hospitalized for COVID-19 on Sept. 18, now has 27 hospitalized patients, its most at a given time since May.
In a statement Thursday, the Ledge Light Health District, which oversees New London and eight other shoreline communities, said it was “planning interventions” to address the outbreak in New London, including increased testing.
“It is now clear that people may have COVID-19 and be infectious without experiencing any symptoms,” health director Stephen Mansfield said. “By increasing testing, we can help people know when they should stay home and isolate in order to protect their family, friend, co-workers and neighbors.”
Hospitalizations dip, positivity stays steady
Lamont on Thursday announced 384 new positive results out of 27,203 COVID-19 tests, for a rate of 1.4%, identical to the state’s positivity rate over a sevenday average.
The state currently has 128 residents hospitalized with COVID-19, down 10 from Wednesday but still up significantly from recent months.
In a visit to Hartford on Thursday, Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, said the Northeast showed “troubling signs” of a COVID-19 resurgence.
“What we’re seeing in the community is much more spread occurring in households and in social occasions, small gatherings where people have come inside, taken off their mask to eat or drink or socialize with one another,” she said.
County-by-county projections from the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia forecast increased levels of infections throughout the Northeast, including in Connecticut, over the next four weeks.
Connecticut recorded five additional coronavirus-linked deaths Thursday, bringing its total to 4,527 during the pandemic. The United States has now seen 212,420 COVID-19 deaths, according to the Coronavirus Resource Center at Johns Hopkins University.
The state has now recorded 136,675 COVID19 tests over the past week, the most of any sevenday period during the pandemic.