The Norwalk Hour

50K appointmen­ts on day 1

CT sees rush as eligibilit­y expands to residents age 45 and older

- By Peter Yankowski and Ben Lambert

About 50,000 first-dose COVID vaccine appointmen­ts were booked in Connecticu­t on Friday when those 45 and older became eligible, a state official said.

Josh Geballe, the state’s chief operating officer, said the progress is a “great start.” Geballe said state officials are aware many newly eligible people were not able to schedule an appointmen­t on Friday, but said more slots will soon be available.

Geballe said it was not immediatel­y known how many of those appointmen­ts were for the newly eligible group of 45- to 54-year-olds.

“We’re confident everyone who became eligible (Friday) will be able to get an appointmen­t in the next couple weeks,” he said.

Geballe said the only hiccup was one provider’s website running slowly, but he declined to say which one.

The state this week received 130,000 first doses of vaccine, which is expected to increase to about 150,000 next week. Geballe said the increased supply is from additional shots of Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

Geballe said there has been more demand for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine because it requires only one shot. Geballe said demand appears to be balanced between the two-dose mRNA vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.

Dr. Thomas Balcezak, chief medical officer for Yale New Haven Health, said his health network opened appointmen­ts at 6 a.m. Friday. Within 20 minutes, 5,000 users had populated the

online system and booked all of the available slots.

“It was a very fast pickup, and that was not dissimilar to what we’ve seen (with past age groups),” Balcezak said. “We’ll see this for the next couple of days.”

Balcezak said the health system continues to be restricted by the limited supply of vaccines it’s received. He said the network had been receiving about 6,000 doses per week. The amount surged to as much as 16,000 doses and Balcezak said the state said the network could expect to receive about 10,000 weekly doses.

We’re in the home stretch, he said.

“No one wants to trip at the end of the marathon … we are at the end of the marathon,” Balcezak said. “Let’s just stay strong.”

On Friday, when many of the state’s pandemic restrictio­ns eased, 18 more COVID hospitaliz­ations were reported, increasing the total to 402. The daily positivity rate stood at 2.87 percent, with 1,207 new infections reported out of 42,075 tests. Another 10 fatalities attributed to the illness brought the state’s death toll to 7,832.

Gov. Ned Lamont has urged caution as the restrictio­ns are eased. While capacity limits have been lifted at gyms, restaurant­s and houses of worship, the state’s mask mandate and social distancing requiremen­ts remain in effect.

Lamont and other leaders gathered Friday at Aquila’s Nest Vinyards, a farm and winery in Newtown that opened during the pandemic.

“We’re reopening the state (Friday), the vaccine is the key to fully reopening our economy, and Connecticu­t’s been doing great on that but we need to keep our pedal to the metal here,” said David Lehman, commission­er of the state Department of Economic and Community Developmen­t.

 ?? John Moore / Getty Images ?? Nurse manager Lucy Golding prepares a dose of COVID-19 vaccine in Stamford.
John Moore / Getty Images Nurse manager Lucy Golding prepares a dose of COVID-19 vaccine in Stamford.

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