Lamont Hints At Changes To CT Restaurant Capacity Limits

CONNECTICUT — Gov. Ned Lamont teased coming changes to capacity limits at restaurants, stores and personal services as well as loosening restrictions for the state’s travel advisory. More information will be released Thursday on all of the above, Lamont said.

“We’re going to be able to make some announcements in terms of our cautious reopening in terms of capacity for our stores and our restaurants, in our retail and personal services,” he said.

Lamont is talking with other governors about loosening travel advisory restrictions as well, he said.

Connecticut’s coronavirus positive test rate was around 2.6 percent for the past seven days and coronavirus hospitalizations fell to a four-month low of 417 patients.

Most of Massachusetts entered a new reopening phase Monday with no capacity percent limit at restaurants. Tables will still need to be spaced 6 feet apart or separated by partitions. Many other businesses will be able to expand to 50 percent capacity.

Meanwhile, Connecticut’s increased vaccine eligibility roll-out was off to a somewhat rocky start with some people complaining that they weren’t able to get an appointment.

Connecticut opened up vaccination appointment sign-ups for people between the ages of 55 and 64.

“It’ll probably take a week or so, so I urge you to be patient,” Lamont said about people who weren’t able to get an appointment slot. “...if you can telecommute, or you don’t have any great urgency there, give others a chance to go forward.”

“Tens of thousands” of new appointments were made Monday, he said.

Around 500,000 Connecticut residents are between the ages of 55 and 64 and the state typically receives around 100,000 first vaccine doses weekly, Lamont said. It’ll likely take a few weeks to go through the age bracket assuming that around 70 percent of people want the vaccine.

The state will receive an unexpected shipment of around 39,000 Johnson & Johnson vaccine doses in the coming days. The doses will largely be used for education and child care worker clinics, which will allow those scheduled later in the month to be moved up, state Chief Operating Officer Josh Geballe said.

Around one out of every five Connecticut resident has received at least one vaccine dose as of Monday, according to the state Department of Public Health. Around 75 percent of residents 75 and older and half of residents between 65 and 74 have received at least one dose.

The brand of vaccine will be visible during the appointment registration process, Geballe said. So far there seems to be strong demand for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine as there were far more requests from clinics than there were available doses.

Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine only requires one dose.

Equity concerns

Connecticut had made a commitment to administer at least 25 percent of its vaccine supply to people living in the 50 most disadvantaged zip codes in the state. Work is also being done to better track the race and ethnicity of people who are receiving the vaccine, Lamont said.

Lamont has received some criticism that the age-based vaccine system will lead to inequity since the state’s minority population tends to skew on the younger side.

Black and Hispanic residents also die at disproportionate rates compared to white residents of the same age, according to the CT Mirror.

Lamont argued during his Monday news conference that adding front-line essential workers and people with health comorbidities would increase the pool of eligible residents to more than 1.5 million people at once — people with means and better access would end up getting the vaccine before those who don’t, he said.

“Sometimes, there’s considered a false choice between speed and equity,” he said. “But first of all, simplicity means that nobody can cheat the system, simplicity means that there are no line jumpers.”