Nora Grace-Flood Photo
Symone White masked up outside Walmart: Taking no chances.
Sophie Sonnenfeld photo
Elicker: “Common-sense” step.
Amid a Covid-19 resurgence, New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker ordered people to wear masks in public indoor spaces in the city, while Hamden Mayor Curt Leng “strongly recommended” that his town do the same.
They issued their statements a day after Gov. Ned Lamont issued an order allowing municipalities to issue their own rules on masks. (Earlier in the pandemic, Lamont had issued an order preventing them from doing so.)
“We have some towns that have 99 percent of their people vaccinated and some towns that have less than 50 percent. I think mayors and first selectmen ought to have a little more discretion so they can have the right tools to combat Covid given the particularities of their situation,” Lamont said at a separate pandemic-related press announcement Friday morning at Fair Haven Community Health Care. (The announcement concerned a statewide affordable health care coverage expansion; more about that later in this article.)
Elicker’s order takes effect Monday at 12:01 a.m.
It requires “indoor masking at all establishments — such as bars, restaurants, theaters, and office buildings — regardless of people’s vaccination status,” according to a City Hall press release issued Friday afternoon.
The mayor said he acted in response to “the increasing spread of the Delta Variant.”
“I’ve been quite clear that we’re going to use every tool that we can to make sure that we keep residents safe,” Elicker said while appearing alongside the governor at Friday’s Fair Haven event.
The federal Centers for Disease Control Thursday reported that over a seven-day stretch, New Haven County now has more than 100 Covid-19 cases per 100,000 residents. City Health Director Maritza Bond noted that the state’s positivity rate has almost quintupled in five weeks. The latest statistics released Friday afternoon by the governor’s office show a 3.52 statewide positive rate, with 19 Covid-19 patients newly hospitalized since a day earlier. New Haven County reports 59 hospitalized Covid-19 patients.
Elicker urged New Haveners to get vaccinated if they haven’t already, since that’s the most effective way to avoid getting sick. An estimated 65 percent of eligible New Haveners (12 years old or above) have received at least one Covid shot, according to mayoral spokesperson Kyle Buda; 58 percent have been fully vaccinated.
Next door in Hamden, meanwhile, Mayor Leng prepared to issue a “strong recommendation” for residents to mask up in indoor public spaces. As for potential further steps, he said is in discussions with the Health Department and plans to continue through the weekend and into next week.
On Board At The Magic Mile
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Heidi Schutz: Young folks’ vaccine hesitancy is “scary.”
At Hamden’s Magic Mile, many shoppers were already masking up Friday, order or not.
“When I first heard about a virus spreading in China, I went out and bought 10 bottles of alcohol, boxes and boxes of wipes, and a bunch of bleach,” Symone White recalled while perspiring on a stretch of Walmart sidewalk, reaching her plastic-gloved hand out to adjust her granddaughter’s face mask.
“Everybody thought I was crazy. My husband was laughing at me. A month later, he’s scared out of his mind.”
White, who lives in New Haven, drives out to Hamden regularly to browse through consumer goods at Burlington Coat Factory, Dollar Tree, Marshalls, and to restock her steady supply of Lysol.
Other than trips to the retail outlets, she has been proactively isolating since the start of Covid-19 last winter. She left her job as a home aide for seniors six months ago because her employers couldn’t provide her information as to whether or not clients and workers were vaccinated, she said.
Even though she got vaccinated herself back in May, she said, she wears a mask indoors and outdoors. She takes it off when she’s alone at home with her husband and 4‑year-old granddaughter, Ariana, whom she cares for. She also uses disposable gloves to navigate crowded places where cross-contamination is otherwise inevitable, like the aisles of Aldi’s.
“I don’t know what the hell is going on, and they don’t either,” she said of government officials.
Heidi Schutz, who stopped by Dollar Tree for a pack of chocolate puddings and a bottle of Sprite, said she also has not let up on masking, constant hand washing, and vigilant sanitation practices since she contracted Covid-19 herself back in January — right after she got the first shot of the Pfizer vaccine.
Schutz theorizes that she contracted the virus through a simple exchange of cash in a store. She had been so careful about protecting herself, she said, that her tendency to scratch her face in response to bad allergies could have been her only downfall.
Schutz said that she has COPD and severe asthma. Before she got to a hospital and tested positive, she said, her lungs filled up with fluid in under two hours. “I was spitting it out and breathing it in when I tried to inhale,” she recalled. “I don’t know why young people keep playing it off.”
She sighed, noting that two of her five children refuse to get vaccinated. “It’s very scary!”
“It only takes one meet up. and you got it,” she warned, stating that she has continued to social distance and wear a mask every day regardless of having finally gotten her second dose, various rises and falls in cases, and changes in governmental guidelines.
Christina Pettengill: Not “super-concerned.”
While others maintained strict safety standards, Christina Pettengill was feeling relatively relaxed while out on a maskless paper-towel run.
Pettengill said she has become comfortable showing her face around town again since upgrading her status to “full vaccinated” in April. Her toddler son, Traycen, who is not vaccinated, struggled with keeping his tiny mask over his nose.
Pettengill said she now wears a mask only in “really crowded” spaces. She said she isn’t “super concerned” about the prospect of getting sick; any precautions she still takes are “mostly” for her son.
Joe Zaino (pictured), who is 84 years old, was also wearing a mask when he showed up to Dollar Tree to “see what they have” on Friday morning.
His mask philosophy: “I don’t want to take any chances.”
Zaino lives in Hamden with his 67-year-old wife and her 95-year-old mother. He has five grandkids and three great grandchildren who live out in Washington State. He hasn’t seen them since 2019, right before everything shut down in March.
“Now I’m at war with my daughter, ‘cause she won’t get the needle,” he said. If her work schedule allowed her and the rest of his family to come visit Connecticut, he said, “I’d just have to take my chances!”
Health Insurance Boost
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Lamont Friday, asked about mask mandates: “If we have to do something more broadly, time will tell. We’re not there yet.”
The governor cited the pandemic surge, meanwhile, at the Fair Haven Health event Friday morning as he announced an expansion of a state health insurance program.
The program, called Covered Connecticut, offers health insurance to people who earn too much money qualify for Medicaid but not enough to purchase private plans through Access Health CT (the state’s version of Obamacare) — “folks caught between the cracks,” as State Sen. Matt Lesser put it at Friday’s announcement. The program offers either free or “extremely low cost” premiums and deductibles to people caught in those cracks (depending on their income.)
The governor unveiled the program earlier this year after he decided not to support an effort by Democrats in the legislature to create a “public option” plan to cover more people in the state.
So far it has enrolled only 600 people. Open enrollment (through the Access Health program) was supposed to end Aug. 15. Friday’s announcement is that open enrollment has now been extended until Oct. 15.
Officials are hoping in that time to reach 40,000 individuals they’ve identified as qualifying for the program. Undocumented children up to age 8 are also eligible.
“If there was one truth that we, unfortunately, learned the hard way during Covid, it was that people who did not have frequent access to medical care and had comorbidities, if and when they contracted Covid, they would undoubtedly get much sicker and some cases tragically die because they were not able to have access to regular healthcare,” State Rep. Sean Scanlon said at Friday’s event.
“With going back to school, they’ll be able to get preventative health checkups and their vaccinations without worrying about the cost of care,” said Department of Social Services Commissioner Deidre Gifford.
We could see this coming a mile away. Mayor Elicker is playing us for a fool and spreading fear and reductions in freedom so he can appear to be doing something. Give the rulers power, they always grab it and hang on until you pry it away.
There is only one thing this mayor should be doing - urging the unvaccinated to get the shot. That is the solution. It is the only solution. It is the best solution. Those getting severe covid is entirely because they are not responsible enough to get the vaccine. All they have to do is show up twice for a shot that's free. WTF is wrong with these people - and now we are faced with another restriction which Elicker has used to control the population. Remember his predilection that we were going to be the next Italy?
I should not have to wear a mask when I've been vaccinated for months. I've done my part. I did my part before. If I happen to get covid, it will be akin to getting struck by lightening. If that happens, it's little more than a cold. That's science. We should all mask up to avoid a cold? No.
Maybe Elicker thinks there's going to be a problem with hospital availability? Really? Where's the evidence? There are five towns/cities in New Haven County. That the county has a high rate is not reflective only of New Haven. Further - Elicker guesstimates that 65% of New Haven residents are vaccinated - based on what evidence? Where are the unvaccinated? Let me guess as if we don't know. Go to those neighborhoods.
I will not mask up - and as long as Elicker demands it - I will shop and visit restaurants and go about my business in any place but this one. Have car, will be happy to travel a few extra miles. I'm tired of standing by and standing down while the emperor issues mindless edicts that escalates this misery. Instead of punishing all of us for the sins of an alleged minority of residents - Elicker should show some backbone and righteous outrage that anybody is not being a responsible family and community member.