Lamont executive order gives pandemic power to local officials
Connecticut is transitioning to a new strategy in response to the coronavirus pandemic, focusing on upticks that are occurring in more-isolated areas while giving local officials the power to retreat from Phase 3 reopenings.
It marks a sharp change from the one-size-fits-all approach that Gov. Ned Lamont and the state Department of Public Health started in March, when the pandemic started in southwestern Connecticut, moved up the Interstate-95 corridor to New Haven, north to Hartford and finally east to locations that are now experiencing the biggest resurgences, including Norwich and New London.
With a new executive order going into effect on Thursday morning, mayors and first selectmen, in association with their local public health officials will be able to reduce restaurant, barber and hair salon capacity, and cut back on the maximum allowed for indoor and outdoor gatherings to Phase 2 levels, including 50-percent seating limits for indoor dining.
Phase 3 began on Oct. 8, allowing businesses to go to 75-percent capacity.
“This represents the latest evolution of our response,” said Max Reiss, communications director for Lamont. “This is a different kind of response, with clear monitoring, what the growth of the infection levels are, and the spread.”
The order is specifically aimed at towns and cities where two-week infections have averaged 15 new daily cases per 100,000 people. The state is expected to
have an updated list Thursday of the two-week daily infection rates for the
169 towns and cities. Likely to remain at the top of the infection rate is Norwich, which had a daily rate of 46.9 per
100,000 in the two-week period that ended October
3. New London came in at
30.5 per 100,000; Windham at 24 per 100,000; and Preston at 23.1. The highest rates in the western half of the state included Danbury at 14.2; New Britain at 14.3 and Fairfield at 11.1, mostly because of hot spots at the two universities there.
The state Department of Public Health on Wednes
day reported 164 new CO
VID-19 cases out of 8,359 tests, for a rate of 1.96 percent, down from Tuesday’s
2.4 percent. The agency reported four new fatalities, bringing the death toll to 4,537. A net increase of 16 patients brought the statewide hospitalization total to 188.
While Lamont had generally aligned his pandemic response with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Lamont is in a much-smaller state, while Cuomo has declared several “red zone” shutdowns in parts of Brooklyn and Queens. Lamont’s tactics with higher rates has been to order
massive increases in testing through the DPH rapid response personnel. Last week he announced the plan to eventually allow local leaders to decide on whether to reduce capacity back to Phase 2 levels.
“Back in March and April, we did not talk about a regionalized basis,” Reiss said. “But now it is a more-isolated version of the spread, compared to months ago.” The state’s first fatality occurred on March 17. “In March and April, people were scared. People are just not as scared anymore. So here we are now with a more local-discretion piece, to
send a clear message to communities.”
The DPH’s municipal case average does not include long-term care facilities and correctional institutions. Under the executive order chief elected officials in cities or towns with rates of 15 or more per day, have four days to give written notice to David Lehman, commissioner of the Department of Economic and Community Development, to either maintain the Phase 3 limitations, or scale back to Phase 2.