Health Director: Newtown Front Liners, Care Facilities ‘Can’t Get COVID Vaccine Fast Enough’
As in-town coronavirus positivity accelerated past 30 percent (30.1 per 100k), and several new fatalities were reported since this time last week, Newtown Health District Director Donna Culbert said she was relieved to see Connecticut begin administering its first minute fraction of COVID-19 vaccines.
She acknowledged that local front line care workers and those in Newtown congregate and skilled care facilities are “chomping at the bit” to receive even a few doses.
“I can certainly understand that our health care agencies and front line medical providers are frustrated right now,” Culbert told The Newtown Bee late Wednesday, December 16. “Everybody wants to be first, and the state can’t get the COVID vaccine out fast enough.”
With the ceremonial events surrounding the first few vaccine arrivals now seemingly in the distant past — even though the supply just began arriving at key state medical facilities two days earlier — Governor Ned Lamont said at a Wednesday press briefing that nursing homes will start getting coronavirus vaccine doses “as early as Friday” (December 18).
Maplewood at Newtown, Newtown Rehabilitation & Health Care, and Church Hill Village each offer some level of nursing or memory care services, and along with the Commons at Newtown Rehab, could be among the earliest locations to see the vaccine arriving for limited local distribution.
Long-term care facilities across Connecticut have agreements with either Walgreens or CVS for vaccine administration.
There are also hundreds of front line physicians, nurses, medical technicians, emergency responders, and health support personnel who reside in town who work in other skilled care, emergency care situations, and hospitals where they may qualify to receive one of the earliest rounds of COVID vaccines.
Along with now preparing to support vaccine distribution, Culbert’s office was inundated with new COVID cases, adding 89 and bringing the townwide case count to 777 — more than a dozen a day since last week’s report. Almost 11,770 residents have been tested, representing more than one-third of Newtown’s total population.
The state’s latest reporting stands at 52 virus-related Newtown deaths — an increase of four in a week — although Culbert has maintained for months that reported death numbers may have a slight variable each week based on a number of reporting criteria.
As of December 16, the total of COVID-19 cases reported among Connecticut residents is 157,781, including 148,383 laboratory-confirmed and 9,398 probable cases; 1,254 patients were hospitalized with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 at that time, and 5,506 COVID-19-associated deaths had been confirmed.
Executive Directives, Implications
On December 15, Lamont signed Executive Order 9R enacting the following provisions:
*Suspension and modification of tax deadlines and collection efforts for tax bills that become due and payable on January 1, 2021.
According to the order, two programs established under Executive Order No. 7S, Section 6, offering relief to any eligible taxpayers, businesses, nonprofits, and residents who had been economically affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, and applied to municipal tax payments that were due and payable from April 1, 2020, through July 1, 2020, shall apply to tax deadlines and collection efforts for tax bills that become due and payable on January 1, 2021 — provided the municipality has been or chooses to participate before December 30.
More details are available at
*Alcoholic liquor sales by caterers.
Effective immediately, statutes are modified to authorize the Commissioner of Consumer Protection to allow caterer liquor permittees to sell and provide closed or sealed containers of alcoholic beverages, including mixed drinks, to persons or businesses for which they have been hired to provide catered food service for off-premise private gatherings or special events, including events that will be held virtually or remotely.
*Suspension of municipal assessor certification program requirement for the duration of the public health and civil preparedness emergency.
The last directive regarding assessor testing could have direct implications in Newtown, as the community has been searching for a new full-time assessor for several months. Town Finance Director Robert Tait said the Certified Connecticut Municipal Assessor Committee, which offers a certification program annually along with setting the corresponding requirements for a minimum number of training and examination events each year, has already been restricting the number of assessors being tested and certified annually.
Tait said there are currently more municipalities, including Newtown, seeking to hire or appoint a certified assessor than there are certified assessors to fill those posts. Tait also said Newtown is flagged by the Assessor Committee as a community where the tax assessor is appointed versus being hiring as a full-time municipal staff member.
While he has not seen or heard of it happening, the finance director said qualified assessor candidates may be more inclined to dismiss working for Newtown just because their position is appointed — further constricting the pool of possible candidates to fill the open position.
Travel, New Vaccine Details
Connecticut’s travel advisory — which directs incoming travelers from states and territories with a significant community spread of COVID-19 to self-quarantine for a 14-day period — remains the same this week, as no locations have been added or removed.
The requirement to quarantine applies to any person traveling into Connecticut from one of the impacted locations.
Impacted locations include those — other than New York, New Jersey, and Rhode Island — with a positive case rate higher than 10 per 100,000 residents or higher than a ten percent test positivity rate over a seven-day rolling average, and countries for which the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued a Level 3 Travel Health Notice.
Anyone arriving to Connecticut from any of the impacted locations is required to complete a travel health form upon their arrival. The form can be filled out online at ct.gov/travelform.
Circling back to COVID vaccine news, by Thursday morning a second COVID-19 vaccine moved closer to joining the US fight against the pandemic as government advisers convened for a public review of its safety and effectiveness.
It was the next-to-last step for the vaccine developed by drugmaker Moderna and the National Institutes of Health. The panel of physicians and medical researchers was expected to endorse it, followed by the Food and Drug Administration’s OK within hours or days.
The action would provide a boost to the largest vaccination effort in US history, which kicked off this week. More shipments of the first green-lighted vaccine, developed by Pfizer and BioNTech, were going out Thursday, earmarked for health care workers and nursing home residents around the country.
Moderna’s vaccine is largely following the same path as Pfizer/BioNTech’s and relies on the same groundbreaking technology. Most traditional vaccines use dead or weakened virus, but both of the new vaccines use snippets of COVID-19’s genetic code to train the immune system to detect and fight the virus. Both require two doses, weeks apart.
Associated Press content was used in this report.