CT Unemployment Claims Top 500K, Hit Great Depression Levels

CONNECTICUT — Gov. Ned Lamont announced that coronavirus hospitalizations dropped by 70 patients between Thursday and early Friday, the biggest single-day drop in some time.

Hospitalizations continue to move in the right direction and are down 40 percent from Connecticut’s peak, Lamont said. Lamont has repeatedly said the number one metric he uses to decide on the state's reopening is the hospitalization rate.

“What does not continue in the right direction are job numbers,” Lamont said. "It's the stuff we haven't seen since the Great Depression, much worse than what we saw just in '08 and '09."

The state Department of Labor has processed more than 500,000 unemployment claims since the pandemic began and around $1.3 billion in benefits have been paid out, Lamont said. The level of unemployment hasn’t been seen since the Great Depression and is much worse than the 2008 Great Recession, Lamont said.

The claims disproportionately impact women, young workers and people of color, he said.

So far Connecticut gone through the pandemic without laying off state employees. Lamont hopes that can continue, but it may take federal assistance, he said.

Lamont said Connecticut is looking to states like Georgia that have reopened rapidly. In Georgia’s case, there hasn't been flare-ups of coronavirus infections, but the economic impact has been limited as consumers are slow to go back to stores.

One of the cornerstones of Lamont’s reopening plan has been to give consumers confidence that the limited reopening puts health first.

Connecticut is aiming for June 20 for the second reopening phase, but plans aren’t set in stone as to what will reopen at that point.

“Let us figure out June 20 a little after May 20,” Lamont said.

CVS expands testing, virtual mental health services

CVS is opening 12 drive-thru testing sites Friday and plans to expand to 25 testing locations throughout Connecticut by the end of May, said Tom Moriarty, CVS executive vice president. The new testing locations will use the nasal swab test and results will take about 48 hours.

CVS Health uses the Abbott Laboratories rapid coronavirus test at the New Haven testing facility it first opened up a few weeks ago. The Food and Drug Administration recently announced it is looking into whether the false-negative results linked to the test could be connected to the type of swab used or the material used to transport samples.

The FDA is recommending that another type of test be performed for anyone who tests negative with the rapid test, but has typical coronavirus symptoms.

Moriarty said that CVS’s own data shows that the positive rate with the rapid test is higher than the average of positive cases across the board. He said so far the test isn’t raising red flags for CVS, but the company will take direction from the FDA.

The state is starting to roll out expanded testing guidelines, including asymptomatic testing for vulnerable populations including nursing home residents and workers as well as the homeless, Lamont said.

CVS has seen a 200 percent increase in virtual mental health visits since March 1 compared to the same time period last year, Moriarty said. Many of the visits are for health care workers who are dealing with stressful coronavirus situations and are self-isolating to keep their families safe.

CVS has also waived its cost for home delivery of prescriptions to help keep vulnerable people out of stores.