Elicker: City Won’t Be ​“Distracted” On Covid-19 By Trump

Mayor Justin Elicker committed to ​“stay[ing] the course” with New Haven’s emergency social distancing orders amidst the Covid-19 pandemic even as President Donald Trump signaled that the federal government might soon revise its business shutdown guidelines.

And four city firefighters and one city police officer have been taken off duty and are being tested for the novel coronavirus after they displayed symptoms consistent with the infectious respiratory disease.

Elicker joined Fire Chief John Alston and city Health Director Maritza Bond to deliver those updates Tuesday afternoon during the mayor’s daily virtual coronavirus-related press briefing, which was held via the Zoom tele-conferencing app.

The mayor announced that the city now has 16 verified Covid-19 cases, an increase of three from the day before. He stressed that his administration believes that New Haven likely has many, many more positive cases that have yet to be identified due to the sustained relative difficulty for members of the public to get tested.

The mayor was asked if he would consider rolling back any of the city’s current emergency reduced occupancy and social distancing orders in light of President Trump’s declaration to the press that he ​“would love to have the country opened up, and just raring to go, by Easter.”

“We will not change course given the erratic response from Washington to this pandemic,” Elicker responded. ​“I think that local governments need to stay the course, focus, and not be distracted by leadership that is making light of a situation that is wreaking havoc on communities around the world, including our nation.”

The mayor said that he does not currently have any plans to issue a ​“shelter-in-place” order following his issuance of an order last week that prohibits social gathering larger than 10 people each. He said that the city has received a few complaints about people gathering in public parks.

“We’re very reluctant to close a park,” he said. If the city receives such a complaint of a gathering of more than 10 people in close proximity to one another, he said, then he contacts Police Chief Otoniel Reyes, who then sends out the district manager to talk with people and ask them to disperse.

Other updates included:

• Reyes and Fire Chief John Alston said that one police officer and four firefighters are being tested for Covid-19 after displaying symptoms consistent with the novel coronavirus-caused disease. Alston cautioned the public not to jump to conclusions that these public safety personnel definitely have the disease just because they have displayed symptoms. ​“We have to be very careful,” he said. ​“We’ve moved into allergy season,” and sometimes sneezing and runny noses could simply be related to allergies or the common flu and not Covid-19.

“They have all been relieved of duty,” Alston (pictured) said about the four affected firefighters. ​“They’re being cared for. And we’re making sure that they have expedited testing.” Alston and Reyes said that their departments’ protocols for if one of their personnel displays Covid-19 symptoms is to work with the city’s epidemiologist to run a roster of all of the calls they’ve been on, all of the patients they might have treated, and to look at their entire respective shifts.

Alston also said that the fire department now has a cleaning tool called an AeroClave, which he said ​“disinfects gear, people, vehicles, and rooms to hospital grade. It is certified to kill coronavirus on contact.”

• Bond said that the three new local Covid-19 cases ​“came in through our Connecticut surveillance system. We’re following up and doing contact tracing” now. She said that the three new cases are not affiliated with the rehab clinic where one employee and one patient have already tested positive.

That clinic is Cornell Scott Hill Health Center’s Grant Street rehabilitation program. The mayor and the city health director declined to identify that program, again citing privacy concerns. Click here for an interview with Hill Health CEO Michael Taylor published earlier Tuesday about what steps the local community healthcare system is doing to protect its patients and staff after an employee and a patient tested positive and another patient has displayed Covid-19 symptoms.

• Elicker said that the New Haven Public Schools distributed 6,400 meals to over 3,000 families on Monday through the school system’s free breakfast and lunch distribution network.

• Elicker said that Yale New Haven Hospital has conducted 1,419 Covid-19 tests locally so far. The hospital runs a drive-through, appointment-only sample collection and testing center at 150 Sargent Dr. on Long Wharf.

• The city is still looking for donations of N95 masks and other personal protective equipment (PPE). Donors can drop off supplies at their local firehouses. Elicker said that Sound School recently provided the city with 400 N95 masks, ESUMS provided another 100, and the school system supplied roughly 1,000 rubber gloves to the city.