By Paul Hughes, Republican-American
HARTFORD — A top adviser to Gov. Ned Lamont said Thursday that Connecticut should be positioned to start reopening parts of its economy in June.
Indra Nooyi, a former CEO of Pepsi, said she expects testing and contact tracing regimens will be in place then that will permit the loosening of emergency restrictions on commerce and workplaces.
“We’ll start sometime in June, and then keep progressing to the end of the year,” Nooryi said.
Lamont has ordered many businesses to shut down completely or close to the public through May 20 to check the spread of the new coronavirus that has swept through state
Through mid-day Thursday, there were 23,100 laboratory-confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the state and 1,639 deaths associated with the disease. There were 1,947 hospitalized patients at that time.
The Naugatuck Valley Health District reported there have been 145 laboratory-confirmed cases of coronavirus in Naugatuck and 29 in Beacon Falls as of Thursday. The health district this week reported the first coronavirus-related death of a Naugatuck resident, a woman in her 80s.
The Chesprocott Health District reported there have been 33 laboratory-confirmed cases in Prospect as of Thursday.
Nooryi and Dr. Albert Ko, a Yale epidemiologist, are co-leaders of the Reopen Connecticut Advisory Group that is preparing recommendations for Lamont on the reopening the state’s economy and the education system.
Nooryi said she anticipates presenting a series of scenarios for getting businesses and people back to work in small, carefully planned steps to avoid a resurgence of COVID-19.
The governor has stated a preference for statewide approaches because reopening regions of the state could lead to infected people traveling parts that are closed to the sections that are opened.
“I’m as anxious to reopen our economy and get back to business as usual as everyone else, but if we don’t do this in a thoughtful way, all of our efforts to mitigate the spread of this virus to date will have been worthless,” Lamont said. “The actions we’ve taken so far in Connecticut, while painstaking, have been helping to slow down its spread.
Nooryi also saw the same drawbacks to a piecemeal plan. She said the reopening plan will lay out the trade-offs to the various scenarios for selectively reopening commerce staring in June.
“I think that anything we look at in the plan suggests a big bang opening in one-shot in June seems unlikely at this point, but, you know, we’ll do all the analysis,” Nooryi said
“What we are modeling now is if you can’t do the big bang opening how do we layer in pieces of Connecticut that can be opened, and can we actually control those pieces so that there is not another outbreak,” she added.
Ko said widespread testing and health assessments in all communities will be critical to making reopening decisions.
“We need a robust detection and surveillance system to inform us and guide us,” he said.
A NEW EXECUTIVE ORDER issued Thursday requires all nursing homes and assisted-living communities to report COVID-19 statistics to the state daily.
The order states that any nursing homes or managed residential communities that fail to report in the manner required will be subject to civil penalties of $5,000 per violation.
The nursing home population is one of the most vulnerable to COVID-19. The Lamont administration was due to issue updated numbers on infection and date rates Thursday, but the release was pushed back a day.
The Department of Public Health reported last week that slightly more than 50% of the state’s 215 nursing homes have had at least one resident test positive. There were deaths recorded in more than 80 nursing homes. At that time, 375 residents had died after having tested positive for COVID-19.
LAMONT IS WEIGHING what to do about negotiated pay raises for state employees that are due to take effect July 1 when the state’s new fiscal year starts.
The increases include a 3.5% general wage increase and an annual step increase of 2%. The estimated cost to the state budget is $134.3 million.
Lamont said state employees are contributing to the state’s response to the coronavirus outbreak, and he sees the risks to front-line workers
“I also understand the fact that as I look around the state of Connecticut people are losing their jobs and taking pay cuts, and this hits a note with people, and it is something I have to think about seriously in terms of trying to get that right balance there, and I am going to think about that,” he said.
Senate Minority Leader Leonard A. Fasano, R-North Haven, wrote Lamont on Thursday requesting Lamont pause the scheduled raises. He sent another appeal to the State Employees Bargaining Agent Coalition.
In both letters, Fasano suggested that the $134.3 million could be redirected to support nonprofit organizations that are providing social services to state’s most vulnerable populations.
Attorney Daniel Livingston, the chief negotiator for SEBAC, wrote back dismissing Fasano’s appeal as “merely a cynical effort to get a headline.”
Lamont declined to say if he planned to use his emergency powers to suspend the pay raises, or to ask the legislature to intervene. He only said he would reach out to SEBAC first.
Elio Gugliotti contributed to this report.
