Sam Gurwitt Photos
Lamont, far right, with Francis Evon, second from right, and Steven Choi in white.
After camouflage-clad National Guard troops spent just five hours unloading cots, pillows, curtains, and bed pans, Gov. Ned Lamont wandered between the 250 beds of Connecticut’s newest field hospital Wednesday afternoon.
Using FEMA assistance, the National Guard had set up those 250 beds for overflow from Yale-New Haven Hospital in the James W. Moore Field House at Southern Connecticut State University.
YNHH Chief Quality Officer Steven Choi said the facility will be used for patients who have recovered enough from the virus to be discharged from the hospital, but are not yet well enough to return home. The hospital will be in charge of the facility, and will choose someone to take charge there soon. Click here to read a previous article.
Lamont also announced a tragic piece of news during his visit to New Haven: The state is now home to what may be the youngest Covid-19 victim ever.
“Probably the youngest person ever to die of Covid-19 has died here in Connecticut,” he said in his daily press briefing, which was held outside the doors of the field house after his tour. A seven-week-old baby was brought to a hospital in Hartford already unresponsive, and tested positive for the virus postmortem.
Steven Choi
Lamont also announced that the state has an additional 429 confirmed cases and 16 more fatalities since Tuesday.
According to Lamont, it took the National Guard five hours to set up the beds and other equipment in the field house.
As they waited for the governor, troops stood talking among the metal cots with blue padding laid atop. Pillows and blankets were still wrapped in blue plastic.
Lamont entered through an open door at the back end of the gym. Connecticut Chief Operating Officer Josh Geballe trailed him, as did Major General Francis Evon, Jr. of the state’s National Guard.
Geballe said the state is looking for more places to open facilities like the one at SCSU. “We’re operating under the assumption that we need more than we have now,” he said.
In a press release Wednesday afternoon, Connecticut State Colleges and Universities announced that the National Guard is opening a similar, 200-bed field hospital in a gym at Western Connecticut State University.
Southern will also make 2,500 dorm rooms available “for emergency use,” the release said, which should be ready by the end of the week. Some of those rooms will be for medical workers who don’t want to infect their families.
Once he had stopped for a brief conversation among the beds, Lamont and his entourage made their way to the front entrance. Lamont stood for a moment in the entryway before emerging to a bank of TV cameras and reporters.
He said there are over 3000 medical volunteers in the state who have stepped up to help with the response, and that the facility should have the staffing it needs. Personal protective equipment (PPE) is another matter.
“Gear was promised last week, then they rescheduled for this week,” he said. “It was promised this week, and right now we have very good authority that it will be here next week, and we need it.”
He said he had just issued an executive order that grocery stores must not have more than 50 percent capacity at any time.
He also announced that the state will soon have another testing facility that will be able to perform 1,000 tests a day.
