Thomas Breen photo
One of the city’s “Spread the Facts” banners, hanging over Whitney Avenue.
A total of 5,282 New Haveners have been tested for Covid-19 since mid-March. Of that number, 33 percent have tested positive — a relatively high “test positivity” ratio that likely reflects the limitations of reserving tests for the sick and symptomatic.
Mayor Justin Elicker and city Health Director Maritza Bond shared those testing numbers Tuesday afternoon during the mayor’s daily coronavirus-related virtual press briefing, which was held online via the Zoom teleconferencing app.
Elicker said that the city now has 1,759 confirmed positive Covid-19 cases and 72 related fatalities.
(That latter number is one less than the 73 local fatalities that Elicker reported on Wednesday. The mayor said that the discrepancy resulted from the city Health Department’s discovery that one Covid-19 fatality recently reported by the state to the city was not in fact a New Haven resident.)
The mayor was asked about this recent CTMirror article about how Connecticut’s reported test results have stayed relatively flat at around 2,800 a day for the past few weeks even as the governor has touted a significant increase in the availability of testing statewide. Elicker said that New Haven’s five testing sites are not all operating at full capacity.
“Our capacity for providing tests hasn’t been reached,” he said.
The mayor did not have numerical breakdowns for how many tests have been conducted each day at the two Long Wharf sites, the Dixwell site, the Fair Haven site, and the new Day Street site. He did say that the CVS-run site at 60 Sargent Dr. “had a much lower number of people get tested” last week than it has capacity for. CVS and the state have said that that site can test upwards of 1,000 people a day.
“The Chapel and Day site also has much more capacity than the people being tested there so far,” Elicker said about the new walk-up site located on the basketball court behind Amistad Middle School and run by Greenwich-based doctor Steven Murphy. That site has a capacity for roughly 100 tests a day.
He described the testing site run by Fair Haven Community Health Care at 374 Grand Ave. as “very, very busy every day,” and the testing site run by Cornell Scott Hill Health Center at 226 Dixwell Ave. as “busy, but it has capacity.” Both of those sites have daily testing capacities in the 30 to 40 range,
He did not provide an update on how busy Yale New Haven Hospital’s testing site at 150 Sargent Dr. is. That site has a daily testing capacity of around 300.
In total, Bond (pictured) said, 5,282 New Haveners have been tested for Covid-19 since the start of the novel coronavirus outbreak; 33 percent — or 1,759 — have tested positive.
Such a high test positivity rate often means that a community is not conducting enough tests — either because of lack of availability of testing materials and staff and sites, or because of too stringent testing criteria, such as limiting tests for only those who are already visibly sick.
This article in the Atlantic noted that South Korea, one of the countries that have been most successful in stemming the spread of the coronavirus through large-scale testing and contact tracing, had a test positivity rate of around 1 percent. Connecticut as a state currently has a test positivity rate of 31 percent, according to CTMirror.
Elicker (pictured) said that he believes some of the city’s testing sites are not operating at full capacity in part because of “marketing” and getting the word out that they are open. The neighborhood sites have proven more popular with New Haven residents than the Long Wharf sites. Elicker also cited stringent standards on who gets tested.
He and Bond said that the only site that is definitively providing tests for anyone who wants them, regardless of whether or not they are symptomatic with a dry cough and a fever, is the Day Street site.
“Our goal in the long run is to get many, many more people tested,” Elicker said. He said that likely means “starting to lower our threshold about what’s an appropriate reason to get tested.”
Elicker said that limiting factors for opening up new testing sites around the city included limited supplies of personal protective equipment like masks, gloves and gowns; testing swabs; available physical sites for testing; and staffing.
“Some of the sites are underutilized,” he repeated. “That doesn’t mean that they are not utilized well. They are just underutilized to their capacity. Some sites are very, very popular and being utilized to their full capacity.”
Other updates included:
• Assistant Schools Superintendent Keisha Redd-Hannans (pictured) said that Interim Superintendent Iline Tracey has convened a task force consisting of administrators, teachers, parents, and public school staff, all charged with thinking through and putting together a plan for how the public schools will move forward during the Covid-19 crisis. Gov. Ned Lamont announced that public schools throughout the state will remain physically closed for the rest of the academic year and that instruction will remain online.
Redd-Hannans said that the task force will be focusing on four key areas, including operations, social-emotional well-being, instruction, and technology, as the school system prepares for potentially re-opening its buildings next fall.
• Bond said that Yale New Haven Hospital’s Grimes Center now has 75 coronavirus-positive patients and 21 positive staffers. She said that number recently increased because YNHH has started discharging Covid-19-positive patients who no longer require hospitalization to Grimes for rehabilitation. The city’s spokesperson followed up data showing that Grimes has taken in 18 positive patients from area hospitals and assisted living facilities since April 23, and that one staff member and seven residents have recovered.
The state Department of Public Health recently visited Mary Wade Home’s skilled nursing center to investigate conditions and provide tips on how to stem the spread of the novel coronavirus within that Fair Haven nursing facility, Bond reported. She said that Mary Wade’s Boardman facility has 18 positive residents, and that its skilled nursing facility has 32 positive residents. She said Mary Wade as a whole has 33 positive staff members, including eight who are non-clinical.
RegalCare in Fair Haven Heights has a total of 32 positive residents and 15 positive staff.
And Advanced Nursing has 23 positive patients and 10 positive staff.
• The city’s Blake Field triage and health care pop-up site opened on Tuesday. That site, run by the city in partnership with Cornell Scott Hill Health Center, Columbus House, and the Connecticut Mental Health Center, provides food, “wraparound services,” health care, and connections to more permanent housing services for homeless individuals who have not taken the city up on being relocated to an area hotel during the crisis.
City of New Haven
• After the press conference, city spokesperson Gage Frank distributed up-to-date charts and heat maps showing infections, hospitalizations, and deaths by race and by neighborhood.
The latest numbers show that African Americans make up 42 percent of the city’s Covid-19 hospitalizations, 26 percent of infections, and 49 percent of deaths.
Whites make up 24 percent of hospitalizations, 14 percent of infections, and 42 percent of deaths.
Hispanic people make up 25 percent of hospitalizations, 26 percent of infections, and 10 percent of deaths.
The parts of the story that related to the much lower community preference for the Long Wharf testing site make it clear that the Yale New Haven Health Long Wharf site is not convenient for New Haven residents to use for their medical care. It's not user friendly for bus riders from all over the city, or walkers, and it's about as far away as you can get from all the neighborhoods except City Point and parts of The Hill. Having the Medical Center for physician visits moved to the Route 34 connector somewhere between the Air Rights Garage/Downtown Crossing and Ella Grasso Blvd would make more sense, as it is much easier to take a bus or walk from the hospital campus area or from Downtown or The Hill and the West River and Dwight neighborhoods.
Also, the West side of town needs a testing site with walk ins for the West Rock, West Hills neighborhoods. (See the map and the virus hot spots just between Whalley Ave and Southern Ct State U.)