State of Connecticut
A barbershop/hair salon layout compliant with state’s Phase 1 reopening guidelines.
The city is boosting its business outreach and revamping its restaurant and hair salon licensing processes in the run-up to the first phase of the state’s “reopening” on May 20.
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City economic development chief Michael Piscitelli at Monday’s virtual presser.
City Economic Development Administrator Michael Piscitelli gave a preview of some of that preparatory work Monday afternoon during Mayor Justin Elicker’s daily virtual coronavirus-related press briefing, held online via the Zoom teleconferencing app and on YouTube Live.
Elicker said that the city now has 2,052 confirmed local Covid-19 cases and 81 related fatalities.
The mayor noted that Gov. Ned Lamont published five detailed sets of guidance late Friday afternoon regarding rules that eligible businesses must follow if they plan to reopen on May 20.
That’s the date that the governor has designated as the beginning of “phase 1” of Connecticut’s reopening, assuming that the state’s daily number of Covid-19 related hospitalizations continues to decline.
A Phase 1-compliant restaurant.
Businesses eligible to reopen on May 20 include hair salons and barbershops, museums and zoos, offices, restaurants, and retail and malls.
Restaurants can reopen only if they have the ability to serve customers outdoors. Salons and barbershops must keep chairs six feet apart from one another and require customers to wear face masks.
And all such venues must maintain no more than 50 percent capacity, follow various cleaning and disinfection protocols, and limit social gatherings, including office meetings, to a maximum of five people.
Click on the following links to read the specific guidance documents for hair salons and barbershops, museums and zoos, offices, restaurants, and retail and malls.
“The governor stressed that the decision to reopen during this phase rests with each individual business owner -– they are not required to open if they do not choose,” states a Friday afternoon email press release from the governor’s office. “[H]owever if they do they must follow the rules as prescribed.”
“We spent the weekend mulling over the guidance and will be continuing to do that as we lead up to May 20,” Elicker said.
“Let me be clear, we are far from out of the woods,” he added. “I know people are anxious to move beyond the pandemic, but it is crucial that our community continues to adhere to social distancing and mask wearing. We have a long way to go.”
A Phase 1-compliant office.
Piscitelli, who is heading the city’s preparation and response efforts for the Phase 1 reopening, said that the city, the Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce, and the Economic Development Corporation of New Haven have scheduled a series of sector-specific webinars for this Thursday. Those webinars will focus on the governor’s recently released reopening guidelines and their local applications.
Piscitelli said that the city has also started reaching out to local businesses by email, phone, and in person with explanations of what will be required of them if they plan to reopen on May 20.
The city’s health department is currently updating its license renewal and application processes for hair salons and restaurants to ensure that they are in compliance with the Phase 1 mandates.
“The more work we do out the gate” in educating businesses about the new rules, Piscitelli said, the fewer the number of local violations.
He said that employees and customers should call the state’s 2 – 1‑1 hotline with any concerns about potential violations after May 20.
Inevitably, he said, some of that compliance enforcement work will fall on the city.
City employees assigned to ensuring a smooth and safe roll-out of the Phase 1 reopening guidelines will be organized into a public health team, a permitting team, and a traffic and transportation team focused in part on curbside food pick-up and outdoor dining.
On March 23, Lamont ordered closed all but state-designated “essential” businesses in an effort to stem the spread of the novel coronavirus in Connecticut.
Dozens of states across the country are slowly beginning to reopen sections of their economy that have been shuttered for weeks thanks to a patchwork of shelter-in-place and social distancing orders. According to the New York Times, many scientists and public health experts fear that this wave of reopenings without a corresponding surge in testing and contact tracing could lead to a significant increase in infections, hospitalizations, and deaths.
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Other updates from Monday’s press briefing:
• Elicker (pictured) plans to get tested for Covid-19 at the CVS-run testing site at 60 Sargent Dr. on Long Wharf Tuesday morning. That’s not because he’s symptomatic with a fever or cough, he said, but because the drive-through site is currently administering fewer than the 750 tests a day that it has a capacity for. The mayor wants to highlight for New Haveners that this site is open and available for use.
He noted, however, that the CVS site is still limiting patients to those who are symptomatic or fear they have been exposed. The city has limited sway over who CVS should test because that testing site has been set up through a contract with the state.
The city has more influence over the walk-up testing site in Day Street Park in Dwight. That site is run by the city in collaboration with Greenwich-based doctor Steven Murphy.
Elicker said that any resident, regardless of whether or not they are symptomatic or asymptomatic, exposed or not exposed, should go to that site to get tested.
• Elicker said that his administration does not plan to submit any major amendments to the $569.1 million general fund budget that the city has proposed for the fiscal year that starts July 1. The Board of Alders Finance Committee plans to host its final public hearing on the proposed budget at 6 p.m. Monday.
Despite the city’s projected $15.3 million deficit for the current fiscal year and the myriad financial uncertainties for the fiscal year ahead, Elicker said that, “at the moment, we felt like it’s premature to change the budget” based on speculation around what the city’s finances might look like next fiscal year. He said that he has seen some indications that the city will be able to tap into federal funds to help balance a budget that has seen revenues plummet, particularly in regards to property tax collection, building permits, and parking meters and tickets.
• City Health Director Maritza Bond shared three graphs showing the increases over the past month in local Covid-19 positive nursing home residents, Covid-19 nursing home resident deaths, and Covid-19 positive nursing home staff. See those graphs above.
Bond said that the city has daily phone calls with most of these nursing homes, and that city public health staff and state Department of Public Health inspectors are closely monitoring the numbers of new infections as well as infectious disease prevention policies in place at these local nursing homes.