New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Conn. reaches COVID high; all could receive vaccine by ‘early fall’
Nearly 5,000 new COVID-19 cases were reported Thursday with a daily positivity rate of 7.13 percent — the highest Connecticut has seen during the pandemic — but the state’s health commissioner says they’re hopeful everyone could be vaccinated “by the early fall.”
“Much of that ... is dependent on supply and how many people raise their hand to be vaccinated,” Acting Public Health Commissioner Deidre Gifford said, adding that the estimate includes both doses of the vaccine.
The state reported 4,751 new cases, but 11 fewer COVID-19 hospitalizations occurred since Wednesday. It was the first time in recent weeks hospitalizations have declined.
But Lamont cautioned that it was just a one-day statistic, and raised concerns about the high daily positivity rate.
“That’s the highest we’ve had, let’s cut to the chase,” Lamont said. “I think a lot of that was not unexpected.”
“But it’s a big number,” he said. Lamont discussed the latest data during a news conference that mainly centered on the state’s plan for distributing a COVID-19 vaccine.
Connecticut health officials expect to receive the first shipments of the vaccine developed by Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech on Dec. 14, after the Food and Drug Administration’s review on Dec. 10.
Doses of a second vaccine developed by Moderna are expected to be delivered beginning on Dec. 21, after the FDA’s review on Dec. 17.
That undertaking will see residents of nursing homes vaccinated through a partnership with CVS and Walgreens pharmacies.
That’s in line with guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which released its own vaccine distribution guidance earlier this week.
Health care workers, including nursing home staff, and medical first responders such as EMTs, firefighters and police will also be top priority for the vaccine.
“Right now, the dosage allocation that we have been given would allow us to do a first dose of almost the entire health care and nursing home population by the end of January,” said Gifford, one of the co-chairs of Lamont’s vaccine advisory group.
After that first group, dubbed “Phase 1A,” comes others high on the priority list for the vaccine.
That “Phase 1B” round of vaccinations will focus on the state’s “critical workforce,” the governor said.
“These are folks on the front lines ... day care, food service workers, folks taking care of the most disadvantaged in the community,” he said.
Also included — adults over the age of 65, teachers, those at high risk under the age of 65, and the state’s prison population.
On Wednesday, the Connecticut American Civil Liberties Union called for inmates to be vaccinated at the same time as nursing home residents. But the organization's executive director dialed back that claim Thursday following the governor's press conference.
David McGuire, the organization’s executive director, said Thursday those in the custody of the state Department of Correction who are over 65 or medically vulnerable should be included in Phase 1A of the vaccine rollout.
The rest of the inmates, who he noted are “disproportionately Black and brown folks,” should be in the first wave of Phase 1B, McGuire said.
Lamont has said teachers should be among the first to receive the vaccine in Connecticut, but the timeline for when inmates, guards and other facility staff would receive a shot remains unclear.
Gifford said health care workers in DOC facilities will be vaccinated along with other health care professionals in the first wave.
“I will say for the incarcerated, they had one of the lowest infection rates in the country for most of the summer,” Lamont said Wednesday.
He pointed to efforts to “de-densify” some facilities to give them extra capacity. “But it is ticking up again with facilities, just like it is around the rest of the state.”
He also pointed to efforts to disinfect facilities and provide masks. “My instinct right now is focus on the hospitals, make sure we have enough capacity — beds, nurses, docs ... that means I get them vaccinated, the elderly folks that are most likely at risk, I think that’s going to be our priority for the first 30 days.”
Phase 2 of the vaccine distribution plan will be open to everyone else who wants the shot, including children under the age of 18.
That won’t be until “late spring, early June ... or June,” the governor said, depending on the supply of vaccines.
But Connecticut residents shouldn’t expect to discard their masks at that point.
“Don’t get rid of your masks yet for a couple of reasons,” Gifford said. The first is the availability of the vaccine. Other issues include how many people actually get the shot, and how effective it is in the population.
“We’ll have more information for the potential to back off on some of our mitigation” over the summer, Gifford said, but residents should prepare for the “continued need to protect ourselves … through the majority of 2021.”
The governor said the state estimates it will receive and use 31,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine the week of Dec. 14.
That vaccine, which must be stored at extremely cold temperatures around minus-94 degrees Fahrenheit, has already been approved for use by regulators in the U.K.
However, Pfizer has run into some issues with its supply chain, said Dr. Reginald Eadie, the other co-chair of the vaccine advisory group. Gifford said those issues may be “baked in” to the number of doses the state already anticipates receiving, but said she needed to obtain more information.
It was unclear Thursday night if the Pfizer supply chain issue would impact the estimate of 31,000 doses.
The second vaccine, developed by Moderna, is expected to be delivered around Dec. 21, according to the state’s timeline.
Eadie, who is the CEO of Trinity Health of New England, said people should be able to choose which vaccine they receive — they just can’t be mixed together.
“So long as people are getting vaccinated, that’s all we really want,” Eadie said. “We just have to remind them that, at least for the first two that we’ll have, you can’t mix the injections. So if you start off with Pfizer, you’ve gotta stay with Pfizer, and the same thing relates to the Moderna vaccine.”
Meanwhile, the list of cities and towns considered “red zones” has increased to 160, according to the governor’s weekly report. Bolton and Voluntown we both downgraded from red zones to lower alert levels.
COVID hospitalizations in recent days have reached the highest point since May, according to the state’s data. As COVID-19-positive patients have filled hospital beds, a group of doctors has urged the governor to halt indoor dining at restaurants and gyms to control the spread of the disease.
“The rising hospitalizations from a health care facility perspective are concerning,” said Dr. David Banach, head of infection prevention and an associate professor of medicine at UConn Health.
He said he could “understand the rationale” behind shutting down indoor dining and gyms as a means of preventing infection.
He said hospital intensive care units are not only stressed by caring for COVID-19 patients, but other illnesses that crop up in the winter months as well, such as pneumonia and the flu. Checking patients for those diseases ties up laboratories that are processing COVID-19 tests, he said.
Staffing is also a concern. During the spring, health care providers were able to request help from other parts of the United States not affected by the pandemic. Now cases are spiking everywhere.
“It’s a tough time right now, and I think the next few weeks are gonna be pretty rough,” Banach said.