Area towns planning for more COVID test distributions
The limited number of COVID-19 test kits sent to the Danbury area were exhausted quickly over the last few days, with cars lining up hours before they were available.
On Monday, Redding began distributing its about 600 at-home test kits about two hours before the drive-thru event was scheduled to begin because so many cars were waiting. The town ran out of kits about 15 minutes before noon — when distribution at the Redding Community Center was meant to start.
In Danbury, cars lined up around 7 a.m. Sunday — eight hours before kits were to be distributed at 3 p.m. Traffic started piling up around Western Connecticut State University’s Westside campus, so distribution began a couple hours early. But pretty much everyone who wanted a test kit received one by 6 p.m. closing time, officials said.
Matthew Cassavechia, the city’s emergency management director, said he saw many “smiling faces” as residents picked up the kits.
“We covered our objective and we’re breathing a little easier this morning knowing there were quite a number of kits distributed in our community,” he said.
Towns received fewer test kits than expected after the state’s plans to distribute 500,000 kits fell through late last week. The state secured less than half of that on Friday.
These at-home, rapid kits have been hard to get otherwise. Amazon sells a pack with two tests for $18, and it usually ships within 11 days. Meanwhile residents have waited in line for hours to be tested at community sites.
time it was this high was May 4, 2020, when 1,500 patients were in the hospital with COVID-19.
The number of those who are fully vaccinated in Connecticut hospitals has been rapidly rising to more than 450 patients as of Monday. For the first time since the state started reporting the percentage of hospitalized patients who are not fully vaccinated, the amount has dropped below 70 percent. According to the state’s data, 453 out of the 1,452 patients — 31.2 percent — were fully vaccinated.
“If you test positive, don’t rush out to the emergency room,” Gov. Ned Lamont said Monday. “There’s no need to overwhelm our hospitals. Go home, spend a few days, quarantine and then get tested again to make sure you can get back to work.”
The COVID positivity rate, which has soared to record levels in the past week, reached a new high on Monday when 21.52 percent of tests came back positive over the long weekend. According to the state data, 23,678 cases were found among 110,017 tests over the holiday weekend.
The rapid spread of COVID-19 set new highs last week when the positivity rate jumped to nearly 15 percent on Tuesday, nearly 18 percent on Wednesday and then just over 20 percent on Thursday.
Despite the rising infections and hospitalizations, Lamont reiterated on Monday he will not reinstate a statewide mask mandate.
“Use some common sense here, I can’t mandate common sense,” Lamont said about COVID-19 mandates.
The governor and state Department of Public Health Commissioner Manisha Juthani urged people to stay home if possible.
“One thing I want to be clear to everybody, if you do not feel well, stay home regardless. … We do not need people who do not feel well out there spreading COVID or any other respiratory virus,” Juthani said.
While many have attributed the latest surge to the omicron variant, evidence is pointing to less severe infections than with previous strains. But it appears, from early studies, omicron is much more contagious than previous strains.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden’s chief medical advisor, said this weekend that the sheer volume of cases involving omicron could ultimately lead to a sharp increase in hospitalizations.
“The only difficulty is that if you have so many cases, even if the rate of hospitalization is lower with omicron than it is with delta, there is still the danger that you will have a surging of hospitalizations that might stress the health care system,” Fauci said, according to a Reuters report.
While officials have said there is still ample capacity at Connecticut hospitals, they said the health systems have still been stressed since people have been coming in with non-COVID ailments, including flu and other respiratory diseases.
At Stamford Health, officials said there were 140 employees out sick with COVID-19. But Stamford Health’s President Kathleen Silard cautioned that there are over 3,000 employees and not all those who are sick are direct-care staff.
Yale-New Haven Health, one of the state’s largest hospital networks, said it too is seeing a number of employees out with COVID-19. A spokesperson said 535 employees were out as of Monday, but that represents just 1.7 percent of the network’s more than 30,000 employees.
Hartford HealthCare officials did not have an exact number of employees out with COVID-19, but stressed that services are not being impacted.
“We don’t have the exact number — as you know it changes every day. We are at full capacity to manage all of our services at this time,” said Dr. Ajay Kumar, Hartford HealthCare’s chief clinical officer.
Juthani said she is concerned about the stress this surge in COVID infections has had on hospitals.
“I’m concerned about our hospital staff, I’m concerned about nurses and doctors that have been working on the front lines. As we’ve heard what’s happening in New York and New Jersey, we’ve seen throughout this pandemic that generally what happens there eventually makes its way to us. Which is why we really need people to do the things they know they can do right now, and those mitigation measures of wearing your mask, staying home as much as possible,” Juthani said.
While officials have asked people to stay home, if possible, they are also urging those who are ill with COVID symptoms to get tested. Faced with unparalleled testing demand, state officials say they are still working to secure more at-home test kits.
Lamont said the state has secured nearly 1 million at-home test kits as of Monday. It was unclear when a new shipment received Sunday of nearly 500,000 kits would be distributed.
“This is not 2020 and this is not 2021. We are in a very different position than before,” Lamont said. “We have all the tools to keep you safe. Meanwhile, you have all the tools to keep yourselves safe.”
Lamont and Juthani also stressed the importance of vaccines and boosters given the “rampant” community spread of COVID-19. As of last week, 2.65 million residents were fully vaccinated and 1 million Connecticut residents had received a booster.
While booster eligibility is still not as comprehensive as vaccine eligibility, the Food and Drug Administration authorized on Monday the use of the Pfizer vaccine for a booster in children ages 12 to 15.
“For the unvaccinated, this is still a very serious disease, as you have heard 70 to 80 percent of the people in the hospital are unvaccinated,” Juthani said. “The unvaccinated have reason to be scared. For people who are vaccinated, we are looking at a better future . ... People who have not been boosted, are having more symptomatic disease.”