In their latest video outreach message, First Selectman Dan Rosenthal and Health District Director reflected on this week’s holidays in a COVID-19 world, and the challenges they pose to Newtown families normally gathering together in houses of worship and around family dinner tables.

View the latest video by CLICKING BELOW OR HERE

This is the eighth outreach video produced by the first selectman in partnership with The Newtown Bee. Rosenthal is utilizing both videos and regular Code Red telephone messages to reassure and update Newtown residents on the coronavirus situation locally.

Passersby on Main Street Thursday morning, April 9, got a grim reminder of the price being paid by Connecticut families who are also mourning this week as they face celebrating Passover, Easter, and later this month Ramadan, having lost loved ones. A four firefighter contingent from Hook & Ladder briefly staged to lower Newtown’s iconic flag to half staff in remembrance of those who lost their battle with the coronavirus ravaging the state and nation. Flags will remain lowered until the governor lifts the order.

Between Tuesday and Wednesday, Governor Ned Lamont reported an additional 1,000 Connecticut residents tested positive for COVID-19, bringing the statewide total to 8,781. To date, more than 31,700 tests have been conducted in Connecticut among both state and private laboratories.

Approximately 1,418 patients have been hospitalized, and the total statewide number of COVID-19 associated fatalities is 335. At least 155 of those deaths are exclusive to Fairfield County, where 665 have been hospitalized out of the 4,417 cases identified.

Currently, the local Health District is monitoring an adjusted number of 54 active cases in Newtown, with three cases in each of the district towns of Bridgewater and Roxbury — a number that has held steady for more than a week.

But that landscape of illness and mortality is drastically different directly to Newtown’s north and east as Litchfield County tallied 292 cases with 20 hospitalizations and a dozen fatalities; New London County stood at 120 cases, 16 hospitalized, and five dead; and rural Windham County posted 49 infections with three in hospital and one life lost.

Nursing Home Response

During a Wednesday press update, Lamont and Barbara Cass, RN, the state Health Department’s Chief of Healthcare Quality & Safety, were peppered with questions about outbreaks in nursing homes, and how the state was going to administer sanctioning nursing home residents with and without diagnosed COVID infections.

According to information released late Wednesday, there are currently no reported COVID cases in any Newtown nursing facilities. There are infections in neighboring communities, however, at Bethel Health Care Center; Maefair Health Care Center, and St Joseph’s Center in Trumbull; and Danbury’s Glen Hill Center, Saint John Paul II Center, and Western Rehabilitation Care Center.

Lamont told reporters two inactive nursing facilities in Sharon and New Canaan are being readied as catchment facilities for those diagnosed residents, while Cass assured reporters that most of the state’s skilled care facilities were equipped to handle some coronavirus cases.

The governor announced a partnership with Connecticut’s long-term care facilities to collaborate on a medical surge plan that includes the establishment of COVID-19 recovery centers in nursing homes to accept patients who can be discharged from acute care hospitals, but are still impacted by COVID-19 infection. So far, at least four such recovery centers will be opened in Torrington, Bridgeport, Meriden, and Sharon that will make available more than 500 new beds for COVID-19 patients.

The Connecticut Department of Public Health is also working with hospitals to ensure that more patients can be tested while they are hospitalized in order to receive the two negative COVID-19 test results 24 hours apart that are needed in order for a patient to be discharged to a general long-term care facility. There are currently more than 2,000 available beds in long-term care facilities that could be occupied by patients currently hospitalized who could be discharged when they get their negative COVID-19 tests.

Public Health Commissioner Renée D. Coleman-Mitchell said these new COVID-19 recovery centers will provide hundreds of new beds for COVID-19 care all over the state, and this will help to make hospital beds available to absorb the surge of hospitalizations anticipated in the next couple of weeks. The Connecticut Department of Social Services and the Office of Policy and Management have determined a specific payment rate of $600 per day for the COVID-19 recovery centers, and additional payments of ten percent across the board for all nursing homes in Connecticut during the course of the pandemic.

Athena Health Care systems is one of the first private Connecticut nursing home providers to partner with the state on the effort to open up COVID-19 recovery centers.

Larry Santilli, president and CEO of Athena Health Care Systems, said, “The true heroes in this battle are the amazing teams at Sharon and Northbridge Health Care Centers, as well as the new teams assembling in Torrington and Meriden. I believe that their work will help in the state’s goal to mitigate this pandemic as much as possible and as quickly as possible. These centers can provide nearly 500 beds of post-acute care, providing much needed support to our state’s acute care hospitals during the impending surge.”

PPE Collections & Scams

In response to ongoing complaints to media outlets about critical PPE shortages, Lamont said Wednesday that the state is continuing to process inputs from people, businesses, and organizations who wish to donate Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for use in the state’s hospitals and long-term care facilities. To date, there have been 2,027 offers to donate items.

Those offers are being processed through a collaboration between the Department of Public Health and the United Way 2-1-1 of Connecticut. The state continues to request PPE for health care workers, first responders, and other essential workers. To donate PPE CLICK HERE or visit portal.ct.gov/Coronavirus/Pages/Request-for-Personal-Protective-Equipment.

The Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection (DCP), the Better Business Bureau Serving Connecticut, and Attorney General William Tong are warning families about work from home scams that may be targeting vulnerable workers during this time. DCP has received complaints about re-shipping scams since the COVID-19 pandemic has hit Connecticut.

How the scam works:

*Those out of work may see online job postings offering an easy work-from-home opportunity: simply re-shipping packages.

*After a quick hiring process (that typically involves divulging personal information), victims begin to receive packages.

*Next, they “inspect” packages, and re-ship them with new shipping labels provided by the company.

*When they inquire about their payment, no one at the “company” they are working for can be contacted, and they never receive compensation.

Risk of the scam:

*Items being shipped or picked up in this scam may have been purchased with stolen credit cards or funds — putting those who have fallen victim to the scam in potential legal trouble. This may include law enforcement visiting their home.

*Those who fall victim to employment scams unknowingly put themselves at risk for several other types of fraud and identity theft, especially if they have provided personal or financial information such as a bank account numbers for payroll.

Avoiding work-from-home scams:

*Remember, if an offer sounds too good to be true, it probably is. If anyone guarantees you employment — and a large amount of money — it is a scam.

*No legitimate company will ever charge you money to apply for a job or charge you a fee before you start — avoid any company or individual that says that is a requirement.

*If you do see a job posting, and you are interested in applying, research the reputation of the company first, and even search the name of the company in conjunction with the words “fraud” or “scam” to see if anyone has reported suspicious activity in the past.

Governor Lamont is encouraging Connecticut residents to sign up for CTAlert, the state’s emergency alert system, which provides text message notifications to users. To subscribe, text the keyword COVIDCT to 888-777.

For the most up-to-date information from the State of Connecticut on COVID-19, including an FAQ and other guidance and resources, residents are encouraged to visit ct.gov/coronavirus.

Individuals who have general questions that are not answered on the website can also call 211 for assistance. The hotline and corresponding website is available 24 hours a day and has multilingual assistance and TDD/TTY access.

The Newtown Bee is continuing to provide and mirror information and messages coming from local and state agencies on a daily and sometimes hourly basis. Newtown residents can get more details by visiting:

*Town of Newtown COVID-19 web page - CLICK HERE

*Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - CLICK HERE

*World Health Organization - CLICK HERE

Residents can also review all prior COVID-19 updates and follow the newspaper’s Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube pages for breaking local and state reports.

Please check in regularly, share, and follow the newspaper’s hyperlocal coverage at newtownbee.com through the remainder of this public health emergency.