HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) - Up to five nursing homes could begin vaccinating staff and residents sooner than the state’s planned Dec. 21 rollout for long-term care facilities, under a joint state-federal initiative involving Connecticut and three other states.
Connecticut officials are currently in the process of working with long-term care facilities across the state, trying to identify which ones can be ready for vaccinations as soon as Friday, Gov. Ned Lamont’s communications director confirmed to The Associated Press on Wednesday.
“From our standpoint, it’s an opportunity for us to get the vaccine in arms as quickly as possible to try to help our long-term care facilities, especially as the surge continues,” Max Reiss said. The names of the particular nursing homes have not yet been released. A spokeswoman for The Reservoir in West Hartford, which is owned by Genesis Heath Care, confirmed to the Hartford Courant that the facility will get vaccinations on Friday.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has said vaccine clinics at select long-term care facilities in Connecticut, Florida, Ohio and West Virginia could begin this week. There are some other states where vaccinations have already begun in nursing homes.
It’s unclear how many vaccine doses will initially be provided to these five facilities in Connecticut, but Reiss said it’s expected to take three clinics per facility to get all staff and residents vaccinated. The pharmacy CVS will handle the process. Reiss said three-quarters of the state’s long-term care facilities have already chosen CVS to administer their COVID-19 vaccinations.
“It was indicated to CVS that HHS viewed Connecticut as a good candidate to do this early,” Reiss said.
The state has been planning for the first vaccine shipments for nursing homes - about 16,575 doses - to be transported to CVS and Walgreens distribution centers by Dec. 21 and then sent to long-term care facilities throughout the state.
Hospital workers throughout the state began receiving their doses earlier this week.
Since Tuesday, there have been 2,319 new confirmed and probable cases of COVID-19 in Connecticut and 40 COVID-related deaths, for a total of 5,506. As of Wednesday, there were 1,254 people hospitalized with COVID-19, a decrease of 15 since Tuesday.
In other coronavirus-related news in Connecticut:
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FIELD HOSPITAL
Lamont said a 600-bed field hospital will be rolled out once again at the Connecticut Convention Center in Hartford over the next two days, calling the move “purely precautional.” The site, to be operated by Hartford Healthcare, will be available if additional capacity is needed in any hospital.
“Right now, we still have pretty good capacity. But let’s be prepared,” he said. “So we’ll have that up and operating, I think, within a few days.”
In the spring, more than 1,800 extra beds are in place at sites such as the convention center, UConn Health and Western Connecticut and Southern Connecticut State universities to handle any surges in COVID-19 patients. Lamont said the state is “ready to go” to restart those sites as well, but right now it’s not necessary.
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RESTAURANT ASSISTANCE
Republican leaders of the Connecticut House of Representatives released a plan on Wednesday that would bring additional financial relief to restaurants and bars across the state that are struggling financially because of the pandemic.
The GOP plan would create a $50 million grant program for those businesses with qualifying monetary losses; suspend liquor permitting fees and food licensing fees for one year for certain businesses, and delay municipal property tax payments for 90 days. They also want the state’s Department of Economic and Community Development to partner with financial institutions to create another low-interest loan program.
The state is currently using some of its federal coronavirus relief aid to issue grants of up to $5,000 to small businesses, including restaurants, but the Connecticut Restaurant Association has said a greater share of that money from the federal CARES Act is needed to help prevent thousands of establishments from permanently closing. Candelora agreed the demand for financial help is huge, noting that 18,000 restaurants applied for the state’s current program and only 55% will be able to get grants.
Candelora acknowledged the GOP’s proposed program would help just about 2,000 businesses, depending on how many apply. But he said it will also help state policymakers “gauge how bad Connecticut is really suffering in this area, which I don’t think we truly understand.”
He and Rep. Holly Cheeseman, R-East Lyme, the ranking GOP House member on the legislature’s Finance Revenue and Bonding Committee, said they’re open to other ways to help restaurant owners, including possibly forgiving an earlier, state bridge loan program or forgiving late fees on certain license renewals.
“This is the beginning, I think, of a long conversation next session,” Candelora said. The new legislative session is scheduled to begin on Jan. 6.
While Lamont said he and the lawmakers are “on the same path” in terms of wanting to help the restaurants, the governor stressed the state only has limited funds available to provide “a bridge” to whatever additional financial help the federal government might provide.
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