Lamont urges residents to be careful during holidays
As COVID deaths increased by 32, Gov. Ned Lamont Wednesday urged residents to take precautions during the holiday season.
“I’m concerned,” Lamont said about residents possibly traveling, contracting the virus and potentially spreading it when they get back to Connecticut.
He said flight information indicates that more individuals are flying in and out of the region during the Christmas and New Year’s holidays than during the Thanksgiving holiday. Lamont urged anyone who doesn’t have to fly not to.
Lamont said his “strong advice” to everyone is to celebrate only with their immediate family living in their house.
Later that evening, the governor announced an executive order extending the state’s moratorium on evictions through Feb. 9. The governor had announced the move during a previous news conference.
The order, Lamont’s 88th under the declaration of an emergency for the pandemic, previously banned evictions through Jan. 2.
It also bars landlords from delivering notices to quit to tenants, and extends the option for tenants to apply part of their security deposit above one month’s rent to their rent
Deidre Gifford, acting commissioner of the state Department of Public Health, recommended residents keep holiday gatherings small.
“The safest thing is … to limit the gatherings around Christmas and New
Year’s and other holidays to the smallest possible group,” said Gifford.
She said anyone visiting others who don’t live in their home is urged to wear amask, even inside.
The state on Wednesday reported another 28,699 tests performed and 1,745 more confirmed virus cases. That puts the state’s total number of tests and cases at 4,077,236 and 170,705, respectively.
There were another 32 deaths, putting the state’s total virus-linked deaths at 5,735. Hospitalizations dropped by four, to 1,155.
Lamont said the state’s 6.08 percent positivity rate hasn’t changed much since the post-Thanksgiving surge.
“Now things have calmed down and stabilized,” Lamont said, adding that he has concerns about another possible bump in cases after Christmas and New Year’s. He said he is urging residents to be cautious.
“I think things are going to quiet down for the next two or three weeks,” Lamont said.
The governor’s warning came as New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Wednesday sheriff’s deputies would go to the homes and hotel rooms of travelers from the United Kingdom to ensure they observe a two-week quarantine, the Associated Press reported. The move came amid fears of a more contagious strain of the virus reported by authorities in the U.K.
Lamont said he was glad New York and New Jersey authorities are taking more restrictive measures, including requiring tests before travelers get on a plane.
“We’re not sending police to peoples’ homes or hotel rooms,” said Josh Geballe, the state’s chief operating officer.
Connecticut’s travel advisory requires people entering the state from anywhere except New York, New Jersey or Rhode Island to quarantine for 10 days or until they produce a negative test. Other exemptions exist for essential workers and those who have recovered from the virus within the past 90 days.
Lamont said 16,487 vaccine doses have been administered statewide, so far. This week, 76 locations are administering vaccines to health care workers.