The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
New Milford offers free COVID testing, more vaccines this week
NEW MILFORD — The town is revving up its testing capabilities this week while adding another vaccine option.
The clinic at the John Pettibone Community Center will add free drive-thru testing on Wednesdays from 9 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. and Friday mornings.
The plan to increase testing ability has been discussed since July, when Health Director Lisa Morrissey outlined the town’s needs during a town council meeting.
With school starting soon and an increasing number of the delta variant, the town hopes to offer more ways for residents to get tested and vaccinated. Morrissey anticipates new testing requirements for schools and workplaces and wants to meet that demand.
To offer additional testing options, the town applied for a special state waiver and an outpatient clinic license. The testing site will offer PCR testing, with a plan to expand to full, on-site testing this fall, cutting wait times and adding rapid-test options.
During the height of the pandemic, residents could get tested at several pop-up locations and free state-run testing sites, which have since been closed. While
private doctors’ offices offer testing, only one remaining free testing site remains available for those without a primary care doctor or provider: Urgent Care.
Drive-thru testing at Pettibone will be available Monday through Wednesday and Friday, from 9 a.m. to 10:30 p.m., according to Morrissey. Those interested can sign up for a slot online.
The clinics will be staffed by Nuvance Health and volunteers from New Milford, Morrissey said.
Mayor Pete Bass and Morrissey are keeping a close eye on vaccinations.
This week, the town is adding the Moderna vaccine to its rotation, which already includes Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson. Clinics take place on Wednesdays from 4 to 5:30 p.m. at the John Pettibone Community Center.
“Whatever the vaccine is that you’re looking for, we will have it at the clinic,” Morrissey said at last week’s virtual town hall with the mayor.
The town’s Wednesday vaccine clinic nearly doubled in attendance last week, Morrissey said, with New Milford residents making up 45 percent of the attendees and the rest from towns nearby.
Morrissey said that most of the increase was in those under age 25, but included several people over 60.
Some colleges are requiring vaccines and others could be trying to get their 12- to 18-year-olds vaccinated before the start of school.
“We saw an uptick and Lisa [Morrissey] was pretty optimistic about that,” Bass said. “We’ll see more after this Wednesday if that holds true.”
The clinics at New Milford’s community center have continued throughout the spring and summer even as vaccination rates dropped, with staff adjusting and cutting clinic days and hours to meet demand.
Brookfield has begun to schedule more Johnson & Johnson vaccine clinics at Town Hall starting Aug. 17. The clinic days will run from 1:30pm to 3:30pm on Aug. 17, 19, 24, 26 and 31, the town’s website states.
As of Aug. 4, state data shows that 64.1 percent of the town is fully vaccinated and 68.4 percent have at least one dose.
Morrissey said those numbers “really [are] encouraging.”
“I say congratulations to the town,” Morrissey said. “I think folks have really made it a priority to get out and get vaccinated.”