Steven Murphy discusses newest test center, at Monday’s virtual briefing.
A new testing site is slated to open Wednesday on a basketball court in one of New Haven’s Covid-19 “hot spots,” in the Dwight neighborhood.
That news was announced Monday afternoon during the Elicker administration’s daily Covid-19 Zoom press briefing.
The practice of Steven Murphy, a Greenwich doctor who was born in New Haven, will operate the site, which city officials had originally hoped would be located in the Stop & Shop Plaza parking lot. (Negotiations fell through on the Stop & Shop plan.)
New test site.
Murphy, who participated in the press briefing, said the testing site at 1319 Chapel St. — on the hoops court in the park behind Amistad Middle School — will be open on weekdays from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. People need to make an appointment online here in advance. (Those who lack internet service can call the health department at 203 – 946-4949 to reserve a spot.) Registration requires filling out several forms, including information on health insurance. Medicaid will be accepted. People without any insurance will still be able to be tested, at no charge, according to Murphy. No car is needed for the tests, but advance registration is required.
Other highlights of Monday’s briefing:
• Four more New Haveners have died of Covid-19 since Saturday, bringing the total to 53. City Health Director Maritza Bond said all four were elderly. To date, the ages of New Haveners who have died have ranged from 26 to 99. The number of confirmed cases to date is 1,457.
• The city released updated charts on the breakdowns of the cases. (See above.)
• The administration has been discussing how to prepare for when the city will begin to reopen, once that time arrives.
Mayor Justin Elicker said several principles have guided the emerging strategy: Reopening will happen gradually. There may be steps back as well as forward if outbreaks reoccur. The city will play a role in helping individual businesses learn about and put in safety measures like plexiglass and takeout windows. It will also help businesses with efforts to be deemed “essential” by the state. It is important for cities and towns throughout the regional to coordinate their gradual reopenings, he added.
City government will also gradually reopen functions that have closed, as officials learn more about how to keep employees safe. For instance, the city now feels it can protect parking ticketers, who will begin issuing warnings this week and fines the next. The public works department, which has focused on refuse collection in the first weeks of the pandemic, will soon restart its street crews.
“The strategy is slowly inching into this and making sure every step of the way we’re cautious so we have public confidence and we’re keeping everybody safe,” Elicker said.
City Health Director Maritza Bond at briefng.
• Elicker issued a plea to officials at all level of government to de-politicize the decision-making process.
“There’s going to e a lot of pressure understandably to reopen,” he noted. “It’s also a little bit too political in my mind. Generally more Republican-leaning individuals are pushing for faster reopening than Democrats. That concerns me. We should be deferring to epidemiologists and medical experts on the best strtagey to do this rather than on political pressures. I hope that leaders around Connecticut will have a steady hand when we make these sorts of decisions.”
Ted Littleford