CT Spurs Coronavirus Vaccinations As It Loosens Restrictions

CONNECTICUT — The clocks have sprung forward, the snow in most of the state has melted, and a young man's thoughts turn to... herd immunity.

After a drop-off due to a series of winter storms that blew across the country, efforts to vaccinate enough people to at last halt the spread of the coronavirus have resumed like gangbusters. As of last week, more than two million Americans a day are being vaccinated, and the public health community is just getting started. Vaccine manufacturers Johnson & Johnson, Moderna and Pfizer figure they will be delivering more than three million doses a day to the Federal government come April.

In Connecticut, around 76 percent of all residents 75 and over have received at least their first dose of the vaccine as of Thursday. Vaccination rates among that population barely budged since last week. Around 67 percent of people between 65 and 74 and 32 percent of people between 55 and 64 have received at least one dose.

Residents currently eligible to receive the vaccine under Connecticut's program include everyone over the age of 55, as well as all health care personnel, medical first responders, residents and staff of long-term care facilities, residents and staff of select congregate settings, and preK-12 school staff and professional childcare providers. Beginning March 22, those aged 45-54 will be eligible for the vaccine, and on April 12 residents 35 and older can start rolling up their sleeves.

During his first prime time address to the nation on Thursday, President Joe Biden challenged governors to make the vaccine eligible to all adults by May 1. Gov. Ned Lamont was quick to pick up that gauntlet early the following morning.

No surprises there: Judging by the schedule his own Department of Public Health established back in December, Lamont is ahead of the game, and Connecticut currently ranks 5th among states in the vaccine rollout. The governor's original vision called for the final phase of vaccinations to commence May 3. On Thursday, he projected that coronavirus vaccines will open up to everyone 16 and older — the latest "last phase" — around late April.

But that's still well over a month after the start of the state's next big reopening phase. This Friday, all capacity limits for retail, restaurants, libraries, personal services, museums, aquariums, zoos, offices, gyms, and personal services such as nail salons and tattoo parlors in the state are lifted. Mask and social distancing protocols are still in effect, an 11 p.m. curfew will be imposed, and no more than eight will be allowed at one table in a dining area. Bars that don't serve food remain closed.

In other sectors, performing arts venues and movie theater will still be limited to 50 percent and gatherings at private residences will be limited to 25 people indoors and 100 outdoors. At commercial venues, the cap will be set at 100 people indoors and 200 outdoors. Sports teams may practice and compete, subject to guidance from the state Department of Public Health, and even tournaments will be permitted.

The first wave of tongue-wagging following the news of the relaxed regulations worried it was all too little and too late. The Connecticut Restaurant Association wrote a letter to Lamont urging the governor to fast-track the removal of all curfew and table capacity restrictions in an effort to bring back the more than 160,000 jobs the pandemic has already cost his industry in the state.

But last week, some members of the public health community took to social media and the airwaves with concerns that Connecticut was eliminating too many regulations too quickly.

Unaccounted for in Lamont's accelerated reopening scheme, according to Nathan Grubaugh, associate professor of epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health, are two variant forms of the coronavirus, B.1.1.7, the so-called U.K. variant, and B.1.351, the South African variation.

The U.K. variant was of particular concern to Grubaugh, who took his case to the newspapers and National Public Radio, as well as Twitter:

As of Friday, B.1.1.7 has infected 174 residents in 48 Connecticut communities, with 93 new cases reported Friday. There have been six cases of the South African strain reported.

The good news, as Lamont stressed during a news conference the same day the state Department of Public Health reported the first death from the variant, is that the three vaccines currently available to Connecticut residents are all effective against the new strains. The bad news is that they had better be: One study logged the U.K. variant as up to 90 percent more contagious than the original one.

Nationwide, we're very much not ready to relax restrictions, according to Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and Biden's chief medical advisor. He told CBS News last week that the 60,000 new COVID-19 cases the U.S. is racking up daily is "unacceptably high" and "risky for triggering another surge." He wants to see that number below 10,000 before he recommends any kind of nationwide regulation loosening to his boss.