Bond: Nightlife Mask Crackdown Coming

So we have a Mayor and his Health Department trying to do the right thing in protecting us all, but no support from his police department which refuses to get vaccinated. Shame on them. They leave the heavy lifting to the Building Department.

Bars and nightclubs are the last place you should be without a mask. Alcohol impacts your sense of judgement and crowding and sweating drunk and filled with hormones in a bar or club trying to find someone to hook up with is the perfect Petri dish to spread covid germs among other viruses.

So, exactly what are the current pandemic rules for restaurants and bars in New Haven???

[Paul: Masks on except when eating and drinking.]

Where's the crackdown on dirtbikes?
Where's the crackdown on loitering?
Where's the crackdown on juvenile crime?
Where's the crackdown on cars with modified mufflers?
Where's the crackdown on slumlords?
Where's the crackdown on illegal dumping?

I think we'd all be better off with a crackdown on career politicos

Seeing the lines of non socially distanced people in line for these clubs, I think it's time. New Haven goes the way of Oregon and mandates outdoor masking where social distancing is impossible. Also, if any of these folks attend one of the local colleges or universities, are their schools okay with this extracurricular activity?

DATELINE NEW HAVEN:

THRONGS OF RETURNING YALE STUDENTS FILL THE WEEKEND SIDEWALKS, MASKS IN HAND, MAKING RESPONSIBLE AND SOCIALLY DISTANT FOOT TRAFFIC A SHEAR IMPOSSIBILITY!

Uh Oh! Elicker is going to threaten Yalies' good time partying around town !!! This will not stand!!

This news has revealed more about New Haven than our local government wanted to. Anyone who voices opposition against New Haven's policies is labeled a member of an extremist right-wing faction. WTF (What the fiddlesticks)?

Covid is practically over in New Haven. The 7-day average death rate is zero and hospitals are far from being overwhelmed. Vaccination rates are high, especially among the vulnerable population. If some people continue to not get vaccinated, it's no longer my problem.
It's beyond time to lift the mask mandates imposed by power-crazed and unelected bureaucrats like Bond.

All those townies bashing the Yalies should know that Yale long ago required all its students, faculty and staff to be vaccinated. Plus, those Yalie looking folks I have seen are wearing masks, in spite of being outdoors and young. Meanwhile, New Haven's own cops and teachers are resisting vaccination. You are at far more risk from an encounter with a New Haven cop or NHPS teacher than from a Yalie. (Last year, Yale's aggressive testing and quarantine kept campus infections far below those off-campus.)

Pathetic. Heavy handed. How do you go to a restaurant or bar and wear a mask? We're back to that? What metric will this duo apply to allow us to move about the city absent the police and nanny state? We were told hospital rates, infection rates, deaths, vaccines, bending the curve - all that happened. What's the new benchmark when you people will go back to doing your real job?

Dennis: Exactly.

Gosh Dennis, this is the first time I've heard that dirt bikes, loitering, juvenile crime, modified mufflers, slumlords, and illegal dumping are contagious!

Having spent a solid three decades in nightclubs here, I do feel bad for the youth.

Having said that, wtf would go to a nightclub, in a pandemic?
The point is to get up close and personal, drink (remove masks), dance and hook up.
It's not eyes wide shut.

The precise point is not to socially and physically distance.

And a nightclub in a mask? All to oneself?? In a corner???

One the bright side, the youth have Tinder, Grinder and other apps if they really feel the need to meat and greet.

And if this crown price pestilence ever subsides in this region (and I think we are close) I would gladly be willing to be, as Chris Rock said, "that old guy at the club, not that old, but just a lil too old to be there" just to revel in the pandemic passing.

But for now, people going to crowded nightclubs should have an IQ test. Provincetown is proof positive: 77% vaccinated and infected because people were crowded indoors like sardines, on a rainy weekend, socializing and getting their grooves back on.

The city hasn't yet put back the bike shares, because bike shares are thought to be potential super-spreader events, but not packed nightclubs??

As an educator I'm all for youth being youth and balancing academics w/ fun, but if QU is not providing passwords to WiFi among unvaccinated students w/o a valid reason neither should any school to any student going to a nightclub and coming back to a dorm.

And a shout out to QU: the first utterance in any classroom is: "whats the WiFi password??"
Literal panic ensues when the Wi-Fi is down.

"No wi-fi" is today's "fire" in a crowded theatre.

Esteban - Not sure about being contagious, but there is definitely an epidemic in New Haven and some of these activities can certainly be fatal.

The previous article was about lack of bus transportation to SCHOOLs.

Are the colleges like UNH, QU, SCSU REALLY providing free shuttle service to downtown NIGHTCLUBS this semester?

As someone who has supported that to mitigate any alcohol related crashes, I also firmly oppose it in a pandemic.

Government and policy making is usually a risk-calculus (like medicine) and metrics shift.
So too should sound decision making.

ShadowBoxer : Your figures for P'town are all wrong. There were about 60K people, most overweight and some HIV positive, in town for Bear Week, not only crowded into bars and onto dance floors, but engaging in, not zero, but negative social distancing with multiple partners over the course of the week. Less than 1K of that 60K became infected, about 15%, or an 85% vaccine effectiveness under the best conditions imaginable for transmission. Yes, most of those infected were vaccinated, because most of the 60K were vaccinated. Yet only seven were hospitalized, and only two of those were healthy, vaccinated people.

Bill Saunders and CityYankee2 and 1644- it's not just Yale's students at the clubs and bars downtown, it is Quinnipiac, University Of New Haven, Southern CT State U, Albertus Magnus students and also lots of non-college young people from all over the state that flock to the city when the colleges are back in town. Young people from all over the state go to New Haven for its nightlife.
baker and Dennis and Noteworthy-
The delta variant and other variants of concern are creating breakthrough infections. The new c.1.2 variant mutates far more rapidly than previous variants and is showing resistant to the vaccines. The more we pass around the covid virus by refusing to get fully vaccinated and wear our masks properly and to socially distance and sterilize our hands, the more we transmit the virus, mutate the virus, and create more dangerous and contagious variants.
https://www.biospace.com/article/although-delta-is-at-the-top-of-the-list-c-1-2-is-a-new-covid-19-variant-of-concern/
And
https://www.science.org/news/2021/08/new-sars-cov-2-variants-have-changed-pandemic-what-will-virus-do-next

@Dennis for Mayor...

If the city would put as much effort in to other quality of life and safety issues as they are doing with making sure people are safe from CIVID 19 and its variants , New Haven would be awesome beyond Downtown and the other affluent neighborhoods.

Heather C. : On the other hand, after shooting up from 25, hospitalizations have stalled at about 400 statewide. Only four per cent of New Haven County beds are CoViD-19. We may well have passed the apex of the pandemic curve.

The mayor and Bond should be so concerned about the rapid escalation in overdose deaths. Of course, crickets only on that subject. It's easier to just hand out mandate and fines for masks to protect those too self absorbed to get vaccinated.

What exactly is the benchmark for being done with this? No Covid at all?
Has anyone been paying attention to the news or the numbers? CT is 70%+ vaccinated. The death rate has been close to zero for months. Hospitals are not overwhelmed. Can you get Covid after getting vaxxed? Of course you can... but the vaccine works, and with it, you will kick Covid like a case of the flu... very little chance of it killing you or sending you to the hospital. The number of cases alone does not tell the whole story.

This is a pandemic of the unvaccinated, so let's stop freaking out and losing our minds here, and penalizing businesses that had to close for more than a year (some never came back). At this rate, the responsibility lies on those who have chosen to skip the vaccine. Let the cards fall where they may.

It's unfortunate that schools are not stressing Covid protocols strongly in the midst of the delta Variant - students are crowned in classes with not even three feet as my kids have told me. Parents, its going to be a a long fall and winter. Especially, if ventilation is not working properly, and windows open. We are going to have big problems at our schools!

@Dennis, Club nights and parties downtown lead to quality of life issues including excessive noise at late hours of the night, motorcycles that loudly rev their engines for minutes before pulling away, etc. The police have to get on a megaphone when the bars and clubs close to tell people to go home. A few months back, there was a party at the Omni but police were hired only for the duration of the party and not to see people left the area after. That led to an illegal firework show right next to apartment buildings.

@mcg2000; I totally agree. it's also why residents outside of downtown have to wait a few hours for the police to respond on a Fri or Sat night. The madness of the clubs brings no benefits to the City; low wage jobs, noise, police distraction, and the sales tax goes right to the state. Other venues like restaurants, theatre, concert halls at least have some redeeming features.

1644 " We may well have passed the apex of the pandemic curve."-

• Don't bet on it. School is just starting grades K- college will be in person and indoors this year almost everywhere and will be exacerbating the Delta variant transmission and virus mutations. Vaccine rates are going up, especially will the full FDA approval of the Pfizer vaccine and increased hospitalizations in states that had downplayed the virus. (There's just something about seeing people you know dying or experiencing covid yourself that makes you see the light on vaccines and masks,) but there are still people that to their dying breath insist that covid is a hoax and that's not what is killing them. We also have people who feel like they got their vaccine so they don't have to mask up, and they don't care if they infect other people, and people who are tired of following the precautions and have decided to give up on them because they weren't 100% perfect. We have people who have legitimate concerns about vaccines that they don't feel are being addressed, and we have people who think that wearing a little piece of cloth over their nose and mouth is too hard for them to handle, (try getting a serious case of covid or losing a loved one to covid, and see how hard that is compared to wearing a mask.)
  Until everybody takes this seriously and gets fully vaccinated, always sterilizes their hands and wears their masks properly every single time they are around people outside of their households, we will continue to pass this virus around, increasing the mutations, and raising the risk of more severe variants. I see no end in sight until everybody decides to take this seriously and follow the preventative measures and pays attention to the most recent scientific research on the currently circulating variants and stops being so selfish and whiny about personal liberties and instead care more about socially responsible behavior for the common good and to prevent future catastrophes facing us.

Heather: Look at the data, most available at CT DPH. The first wave peaked at 2K hospitalizations, the second 500, and this one, with far fewer physical litigation measures in place, only 400. With each wave, natural immunity, deaths, and now, vaccination, reduce the pool of susceptibles, meaning less stress on the health care system. I guess that's why Albert Ko expects this wave to end by the end of this month.
We have, for the most part, been able to carry on with everyday activities during this wave. Some people will continue to fall ill, and some die, from CoViD-19, just as they do from other causes. Like cancer, it's a horrible death, at least if fought to the bitter end. Like cancer, however, that pain can be avoided with proper end-of-life care.

mcg2000 & Dennis: I thought the clubs were a major driver of the development downtown. SINKS and DINKS want to be able to party at night, walk home, and walk to work in the morning. The whole point of living downtown is the proximity to nightlife. North of Chapel, at place like The Union and Novela, one can be away from the clubs and still close to the theaters and restaurants. For real peace and quiet, try Woodbridge, at least until he low-income housing gets forced in. (I was going to say Westville, but now there are now rap concerts at the Tennis/Music Center.) City Point should be nice, too, and sections of the East Shore (yes, I know, the airport).

@1644 for me, the appeal of living downtown is that I can walk to work, do local errands on foot, and am near a CT Transit hub and train stations. While I used to do pub trivia at local bars prepamdemic, the proximity of clubs was not an incentive for me to live here. I don't think my building consists of many tenants who frequent these clubs either.

1644: Clubs aren't a major driver of the development downtown. They add no value to anything. Nobody develops downtown or moves downtown to be able to go to clubs.

People live in my building bc they want to be close to Yale-NH, Yale University, other local places of employment, etc. They choose to live in a location close to work for a shorter commute so they can sleep later than if they lived farther away. Ironically, the club and bar noise and early garbage pickups (they're allowed the come downtown earlier than in other parts of New Haven) rob residents of sleep. While noise pollution isn't contagious Iike Covid, it is a public health issue affecting the sleep of residents including doctors at Yale-NH. I'm used to hearing if I don't like the noise, move. I understand downtown will be noisier than Woodbridge but there's a difference between ambiance background noise of traffic and the noise at closing time at 1 am when people are spilling out onto sidewalks and are slow to leave. Also, people like to tout having a walkable city and not needing a car to get around. Yet people who try to adopt that lifestyle by living downtown are hit with noise and criticism for choosing to live there.

mcg2000...

Exactly!! So where is the Mayor and the city and the crackdown?

And why is the Mayor straddling Mr. Turcio and the building dept with this task. Turcio is one of the most knowledgeable and respected employees in the city and his department is short handed.

mcg2000: As I said earlier, there are areas of downtown and within walking distance of employment that are not near clubs. Bar closing time is always raucous, so it would behoove any lessee to look about for bars and clubs if he would be bothered by the noise. For residents who want quiet, there's the new, Randy Salvatore buildings in The Hill. Otherwise, there's The Union, or upper floors on 900 Chapel, 360 State, Novella, etc. all walking distance of downtown. For me, the reason to live near bars would be so I could patronize them, and sleep in late but still get to work in the morning. College and Crown? Noise comes with the territory, and a good deal of the Ninth Square, too.

I'm surprised this turned into a bunch of people complaining about downtown noise. I sympathize with the extra-early garbage trucks, but the noise of closing time is something that really does come with living downtown in a city that has some nightlife. You could say clubs don't drive development downtown, but nightlife is attractive to young people, and if they like coming into town to have a good time, that IS good for business, and it's good for the city as a whole. Every piece plays its part, even clubs. I can understand not wanting unruly noise still going on at 3 a.m. and later, but bars close late, and people like to cut loose on weekends, so what can I tell ya?

Back to the main topic, Heather et alia, look at the data in these charts from CT DPH:
https://data.ct.gov/stories/s/q5as-kyim
Hospitalizations have peaked, far, far below the peaks of spring, winter, and spring 2020. Deaths are in single digits, with many days having zero CoViD-19 deaths. Importantly, these low, sustainable numbers are happening without the physical mitigation measures we had in prior waves. People are out socializing, but few are getting really sick. Those who are unvaccinated, sick and dying by choice. (over 98% of the hospitalized are unvaccinated.)
https://www.ctpost.com/news/article/Hospital-costs-for-unvaccinated-over-2-months-may-16429483.php
Rising infections mean a shrinking pool of susceptibles. The more folks who get infected, the closer we are to really low numbers.