Unknown why cases high, but Martin hopes for bigger decline
STAMFORD — Mayor David Martin said new COVID-19 cases in Stamford are on the decline following an upswing last month, but he wants to see a much bigger decrease in the coming weeks.
Stamford’s seven-day rolling average increased steadily during March, eventually hitting 56 cases a day. Since then, the average has mostly been going down.
“But we are still at roughly 41 cases per day, which is an extraordinarily high number given that during the summer, we were between three and five cases per day,” Martin said Tuesday evening during his weekly COVID update via livestream. “And maybe that’s the variants. Maybe it’s the weather. Maybe it is that some people even with the vaccine are not being as careful or as cautious as
they should be.”
He said that “with enough vaccine and a little bit of warmer weather,” Stamford’s cases will hopefully fall to that summer 2020 level in a matter of weeks.
As of April 16, about 42 percent of Stamford residents had gotten at least a first vaccine dose, according to Martin’s presentation.
Martin noted that more than 4,000 people have been vaccinated through programs focused on under-served populations. Those include Stamford Health’s “No Barriers” program and Community Health Center’s pop-up clinics.
Thomas Madden, Stamford’s director of economic development, also joined Martin’s virtual update, noting that more than 400 people have been vaccinated through a city effort aimed at restaurant industry workers.
Overall, Stamford Health has administered more than 90,000 doses at Stamford Hospital and at 1 Elmcroft Road to a total of more than 60,000 people, said Dr. Michael Parry, head of infectious diseases.
“We obviously have been stymied a little bit by the Johnson & Johnson vaccine pause. We’re hoping that by the end of this week, that’s ironed out,” Parry said. “It really hasn’t impacted the mass vaccination sites … because we’ve been using Pfizer and Moderna at those sites, but certainly (when it comes to) making inroads into the folks that are difficult to pull back for a second dose — like the homeless, the shelters, migrant workers that may be difficult to pin down — the J&J vaccine certainly has some advantages.”
Parry also noted that Stamford Health has vaccinated about 500 people aged 16 or 17 since the federal government OKed the Pfizer vaccine for individuals that young. He said he expects the vaccine to be authorized for those between 12 and 15 years old in the next couple weeks.
Parry said that Stamford Health has reported a few “breakthrough cases” — in which someone who has been fully vaccinated still catches COVID — to the state.
Demand for the vaccine has “fallen off” recently, Parry added.
“We’d like to tighten that up and get people jazzed up to get their vaccine,” he said. “There’s plenty of vaccine out there, and we need to get the rest of the community vaccinated.”