Lamont: Vaccine sites to stay as CT awaits adolescents

With federal regulators expected to decide whether to approve the use of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine as soon as next week, Gov. Ned Lamont on Thursday said the state plans to keep mass vaccination sites open a while longer in anticipation of greater demand.

The state will order additional doses to meet the need, the governor said during his news conference, and plans to hold clinics on the weekend when parents will have the easiest time taking their child to get a shot.

Separately, the governor said Connecticut’s moratorium on evictions will continue after a federal judge struck down a national hold on evictions Wednesday, claiming the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention overstepped its authority when it put the meausre in place, the Associated Press reported.

“My instinct is we’ll probably continue the moratorium for another month postMay 20th,” Lamont said. He said the moratorium is necessary to provide time for relief payments to reach residents, including landlords.

As of Thursday, the state’s one-day positivity rate stood at 1.92 percent as 711 new cases of COVID-19 were reported out of 36,968 new tests. Hospitalizations for the disease dropped by a net nine patients, bringing the statewide total to 324.

Another seven deaths attributed to the virus brought the state’s official death toll to 8,131.

“In all of these fatalities — 99-plus percent — are people have not been vaccinated,” Lamont said Thursday during his COVID-19 news conference. “For that we’re really thankful,” he said, calling it another example that vaccines work.

For the first time in over a year, the state’s weekly report on the virus’s effect on nursing homes showed no deaths were reported from the virus.

As of Thursday, 1,939,401 people have received at least one dose of a vaccine in Connecticut or roughly 54 percent of the state’s population of around 3.6 million. A total of 1,467,381 are considered fully vaccinated, or about 41 percent of the state.

The governor’s office said the state is expected to reach 70 percent of its adult population having had at least one dose by the end of the week — a key milestone President Joe Biden announced earlier this week he hopes the nation as a whole will reach by July 4.

The Food and Drug Administration is widely expected to expand the emergency use authorization for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to adolescents between the ages of 12 and 15 in the coming days. Lamont said the FDA is expected to vote on the expansion next Wednesday. Canada already authorized the use of the vaccine for people as young as 12 on Wednesday, the Associated Press reported.

The expansion could help reassure parents worried about sending their children back to school this fall. The state’s Department of Education has already told districts they will not be required to provide virtual instruction in September.

Lamont said Thursday he does not plan to order schools to provide a remote learning option in the fall.

That comes as the governor admitted the state’s vaccination rate has fallen off. “I think we always anticipated ... as we get to a younger demographic, the socalled ‘invincibles,’ it was going to take a lot more persuasion,” Lamont said. He said the final 30 percent of each age group opened up to the vaccine has also proved tougher.

“It doesn’t work unless we all get vaccinated,” he said.

But state Sen. Doug McCrory, one of Lamont’s guests for the day, did not pull punches when it came to how the vaccine was rolled out to communities of color.