Covid Updates: Nursing Homes Cases Rise; CVS Eyes New Testing Site; City Receives 10K Masks

Nearly 50 elderly residents at Yale New Haven Hospital’s Grimes Center have tested positive for Covid-19, as have 10 seniors at Fair Haven’s Mary Wade Home, prompting the city to double down on its efforts to mitigate the spread of the infectious respiratory disease at local nursing homes.

Mayor Justin Elicker gave that update Friday afternoon during his administration’s daily coronavirus-related virtual press briefing held on the Zoom teleconferencing app and YouTube Live.

The city now has 488 confirmed positive Covid-19 cases and 14 related fatalities.

Following up on his announcement Thursday that several local nursing homes have seen a recent spike in positive Covid-19 cases (see more below), Elicker identified Friday the two nursing homes of greatest concern to this city at this moment. He also spoke about the guidance that city health officials are offering these homes alongside public health workers from the state, which is the governmental body that regulates nursing homes throughout Connecticut.

The mayor said that the Grimes Center, a rehabilitation center associated with YNHH, has 49 residents who have tested positive for the novel coronavirus. He said that 14 of those residents are currently hospitalized.

Elicker also said that Mary Wade Home has 10 residents who have tested positive for Covid-19, and that nine of those residents are currently hospitalized.

“Our Health Department has been in ongoing contact with both groups, and they’re working very hard to address the problem,” he said.

Mary Wade President and CEO David Hunter said in a Friday afternoon press release that the residents in question were admitted to Yale New Haven Hospital and that nursing home staff have notified family members, city and state public health officials, and are following procedures recommended by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“At this time, our focus is on ensuring the safety and well-being of our residents and staff, and we are following proper infection control and emergency preparedness to ensure their safety and well-being,” Hunter is quoted as saying in the press release. ​“We are communicating all updates on a daily basis to our residents, their family members and employees through a multitude of internal communication channels, and will provide ongoing updates through our webpage and social media channels for families, media, and the greater community.” Click here to read the full statement.

Elicker said during his press briefing that both state and local health officials have advised both nursing homes to take a variety of preventative measures to mitigate the spread of the virus.

Those include screening healthcare workers when they come to work by taking their temperatures and asking detailed questions to determine if they are symptomatic. Those recommendations also include making sure that healthcare workers and residents are wearing protective masks at all times to reduce the likelihood of spread in case someone in the building is asymptomatic but still carrying the virus. And ensuring that there is regular, adequate cleaning of congregate bathrooms shared by multiple people.

He praised both senior living centers for proactively working to protect residents and for collaborating with state and local health officials.

Elicker said that the hospital will not release coronavirus-positive patients back to nursing homes until they have received two negative Covid-19 tests.

He said that, despite the governor’s designation of four nursing homes throughout the state as housing facilities for coronavirus-positive nursing home residents who no longer require hospitalization, ​“I know that no facility in the state has been offered up to New Haven nursing homes as an alternative for Covid positive individuals to go.”

He said that one of the key challenges going forward as Connecticut approaches its expected peak coronavirus hospitalization period later this month will be to find safe places for people to self-isolate outside of hospitals so as not to overwhelm the state’s limited supply of hospital beds.

“If we’re going to get on top of the virus, we need to provide many opportunities for people to self-isolate,” he said.

He urged city residents to follow federal recommendations on how best to provide care at home for someone who is symptomatic or tested positive. 

“One of the main contributors to spread is people getting it from other people they live with,” he said. He added that the ​“viral lode,” or the intensity of someone’s exposure to the virus, is a ​“strong indicator of just how bad their sickness will be.” So people who spend 18 hours a day caring for a sick loved one are likely that much more vulnerable to suffering more severely from the virus than are those who might briefly shake the hand of someone who has tested positive.

Other updates included:

• The city received 10,000 n95 respirator masks from the state Department of Emergency Services from the federal Department of Homeland Security. Elicker said those masks will likely go to city police officers and firefighters, though top city officials are also working on how best to triage the newly available personal protective equipment (PPE) and potentially bolster the supplies of other local frontline workers, like public school food service workers at the schools’ various free meal distribution sites.

‘This will provide a significant buffer as the cases continue to rise,” he said about the 10,000 new masks.

• A total of 10 city firefighters and four city police officers have tested positive for Covid-19. One city police officer has made a complete recovery and is back on the job. And the city now has two homeless individuals staying at the Career High School isolation shelter, which the city has been working for weeks to convert into a shelter for homeless people who test positive for Covid-19 but do not require hospitalization.

• Elicker said that the state is currently in negotiations with the pharmacy and healthcare giant CVS to set up a new drive-through coronavirus testing site somewhere in New Haven. He said that the potential new testing site would not be located at a current CVS store, but rather at an alternative location easily accessible by car.

He said that the potential new testing site would be a boon for the city, where residents not already in the hospital need a doctor’s note in order to get testing at YNHH’s current public drive-through testing site on Long Wharf. He said he is concerned about this potential new CVS testing site being inaccessible to those without a car. The city is therefore still looking at ​“potentially standing up other smaller sites around the city,” and at identifying safe ways to transport people who need to be tested.

“We are concerned at the city level about making sure that everyone has easy access to testing, that there are low barriers to testing,” he said. That way more people know whether or not they have the virus and need to self-isolate or seek further medical care.

State and CVS representatives had little to share about the status of a prospective new New Haven testing site.

CVS Health Senior Director, Corporate Communications Joe Goode told the Independent by email on Thursday, ​“We’re in discussions with numerous states about the potential to open additional sites, including one in Connecticut, and we will share more details when they are available.”

David Bednarz, a spokesperson for the governor’s office, wrote about the state-CVS negotations, ​“At this time all of those details are still under development and we expect to have more info within the next several days.”

• And in non-coronavirus news, the city plans to close the Grand Avenue Bridge for repairs an anticipated 18 months starting Monday, April 13. Detour signage will be placed at both sides of the bridge.

Covid Updates: Nursing Homes See Infection Spikes; Career Shelter Takes In First 2 Patients

The city has seen a spike in positive Covid-19 cases at two local nursing homes, as the confirmed number of New Haveners infected with the novel coronavirus climbed to 463 and the number of local fatalities rose to 14.

Mayor Justin Elicker and top city officials gave that update Thursday afternoon during their daily coronavirus-related virtual press briefing held online via the Zoom teleconferencing app and on YouTube Live.

Elicker said that several New Haven nursing homes have seen a recent ​“spike in cases,” and that city officials are most concerned about two local nursing homes in particular.

“We’re having active conversations with the leadership of those nursing homes to limit any additional spread,” the mayor said. ​“This is something we’re concerned about.”

Elicker and city Health Director Maritza Bond refused to share the names of those two nursing homes during Thursday’s press briefing. Elicker justified the decision by expressing a concern that disclosing the names would lead to those sites being inundated by the media. He also said that city officials need to have further conversations with representatives from those nursing homes before potentially reconsidering and going public with the site names.

“We’re not going to release the names of nursing homes right now,” he said. ​“We may in the future.”

Elicker (pictured) and Bond have spoken publicly multiple times over the past few weeks about several confirmed positive coronavirus cases at the Bella Vista senior apartment complex on the far east side of town.

The mayor and city health director said that city officials are working with the state to provide site-specific public health recommendations to these nursing homes about how best to stem the spread of the infectious respiratory disease. These nursing homes are ​“entities of the state,” Elicker said.

He added that each of these nursing homes is configured a little differently, with some having shared bedrooms and shared bathrooms, and others with primarily single-occupancy rooms.

Some of the preventative steps that city health officials encouraged at Bella Vista included limiting visitations, daily well-being calls by staff, and posting of signs in hallways and common areas that display public health tips about social distancing, frequent handwashing, and other measures designed to protect one from contracting the virus.

While people of all ages can contract the novel coronavirus, the elderly and immuno-compromised have proved particularly vulnerable to suffering the most adverse health effects from Covid-19. Gov. Ned Lamont has identified four nursing home facilities throughout the state — in Bridgeport, Sharon, Meriden, and Torrington — to house nursing home residents who have been discharged from the hospital after contracting Covid-19.

Other updates included:

• A total of nine city firefighters and four city police officers have tested positive for Covid-19. Fourteen city firefighters who have not tested positive but need a place to stay during the pandemic so as to minimize exposure to their families are now living in dorms at the University of New Haven per a recently struck accord between the city and that private West Haven university.

And the city has moved its first two Covid-positive homeless individuals from Yale New Haven Hospital to Career High School, which has been converted into a 50-bed isolation shelter for homeless individuals who have the novel coronavirus but no longer require hospitalization.

• New Haven Public Schools Superintendent Iline Tracey (pictured) said that the Internet service provider giant Comcast will be providing free WiFi through its Xfinity hot spots through May 15. She advised any public school students who don’t have reliable access to the Internet at their homes to reach out to NHPS administrators to figure out how they can best take advantage of this newly available free Internet service in order to do their homework and participate in online learning.

Tracey also said that roughly 85 percent of students, or around 17,500 students in total, have been showing up for online classes, based on NHPS’s latest attendance data. In-person classes at city public schools were cancelled in mid-March when the mayor and superintendent shut down the school system indefinitely to prevent the spread of Covid-19 amongst students, staff, and teachers. The governor announced this week that his statewide closure of public schools will remain in effect through at least May 20.

Asst. Superintendent Keisha Redd-Hannans said that the city school system plans to distribute another 800 Chromebooks to public school families in need of Internet-accessible devices starting Monday. She said those devices will only be made available to families who have signed up to receive Chromebooks through their individual schools. NHPS has already handed out roughly 7,000 Chromebooks to local public school students.

And NHPS Chief Operating Officer Michael Pinto (pictured) said that the school system has distributed 22,915 free meals during the first nine days of April, and a total of 78,400 meals since March 16.

He said that the sites distributed additional meals to families today since the schools-turned-food distribution sites will be closed tomorrow for Good Friday. And starting next week, the free meal distribution schedule will drop from five days a week to only Mondays, Wednesday, and Fridays so as to limit exposure for families and school staff. Pinto stressed that seven days’ worth of meals will still be distributed, just over three days instead of five days.

Click here for a list of all of the school system’s free meal sites.

• And Elicker said that he has spoken with officials in his administration about setting up some kind of direct cash assistance program for needy New Haveners, but that the city’s budget, tight in good times and stretched even thinner during this pandemic, likely cannot afford the program. ​“Given our financial situation, it would be very, very difficult for us,” he said.

He added that he was on a conference call with ​“large funders in the region” earlier Thursday to talk about the struggles many New Haveners are having simply accessing cash. He said the city is particularly concerned about undocumented immigrants and other local populations excluded from receiving direct cash assistance through state and federal relief efforts so far.