Name: Gov. Ned Lamont extends mandatory shutdown in Connecticut to May 20 as coronavirus cases top 10,000; orders rent relief for April, May
Brand: courant.com
SKU: courant-com-3
Availability: OnlineOnly

critic

Gov. Ned Lamont extends mandatory shutdown in Connecticut to May 20 as coronavirus cases top 10,000; orders rent relief for April, May

preview

AdvertisementBy Hartford CourantApr 10, 2020 at 6:37 pmGov. Ned Lamont on Friday ordered nonessential businesses in Connecticut to stay closed for six more weeks and prohibited evictions through June as the state’s count of coronavirus cases topped 10,000.Schools, restaurants, bars, retail stores, gyms and other establishments must remain closed through at least May 20 and until “we have the virus contained,” Lamont said.Advertisement“This is a war that is never won. It’s a war that we have to figure out how we wind it down in the safest way possible for people,” Lamont said Friday morning at his daily news briefing. “I know the urgency many of you feel to get back to your everyday lives, but I’ve got to urge you one more time now is no time to take your foot off the accelerator. Now is no time to relax the social distancing.”The governor’s order protecting renters provides an automatic 60-day grace period for April rent and a 60-day grace period for May rent for tenants who have lost jobs or income due to COVID-19. The order will essentially freeze evictions through July 1.AdvertisementIn other news:Connecticut recorded an additional 754 confirmed COVID-19 cases Friday (for a total of 10,538), 98 new hospitalizations (for a total of 1,562) and 68 additional deaths (for a total of 448). Of the newly reported deaths, 19 were people who tested positive for COVID-19 and 49 were people who died between March 30 and April 8 without being tested but whose death certificate listed COVID-19 as a cause of death or contributing factor.Hospitalizations have increased at a slower rate over the past week than they did previously, buying more time for hospitals to prep for an eventual surge. And whereas confirmed cases had been doubling every three days earlier in the outbreak, they have more recently doubled about every six days.Still, Connecticut’s death toll continues to rise, sometimes sharply, and the state ranks in the top five nationally in cases and deaths per capita.Lamont said life in Connecticut will return to normal only “when I think I can test workers and know that they’re safe to go back to work and won’t be able to infect others, when I know that we will have thermometers so we can test people ... going in and out of stores. I think we’ve seen that done very successfully in South Korea and some other places.“I’m going to do this purely based upon public health We’re never going to get this economy going again unless we make sure we do it on a safe basis, we don’t have a false start, which we worry about.”Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in partnership with Hartford HealthCare, unveiled a new statistical model Friday forecasting more than 70,000 COVID-19 deaths by mid-June across the United States, including 2,626 in Connecticut.The new forecasts vary slightly from those in the widely cited University of Washington model (which projects about 60,000 deaths nationally and about 4,000 in Connecticut). Both models predict Connecticut’s outbreak to peak around April 21.AdvertisementThe MIT/Hartford HealthCare projections are largely based on the experience of countries and regions that have already experienced full coronavirus outbreaks, MIT researcher Dimitris Bertsimas said. The model also weighs factors such as the demographics of a state, its population density and its degree of social distancing.Though the new forecast extends only through June 14, Bertsimas said that doesn’t mean the outbreak will end by then. Researchers will forecast further into the future as more data become available and leaders choose whether to maintain or relax social distancing measures, he said.Bertsimas emphasized that forecasts would be more dire if not for strong social distancing.“Social distancing, especially at this time of the disease, is critical,” he said. “Given that our testing is not so widespread and we don’t know who to quarantine exactly, this is the best method we have at the moment.”UConn has implemented an immediate hiring and spending freeze, university President Thomas Katsouleas announced in an email to employees and graduate students Friday.New non-faculty hires are now allowed only by exception and with Katsouleas’ approval. Faculty searches that already have been approved by the provost will proceed.AdvertisementEssential personnel “will be staffed to meet the service level expectations” of the university, according to the email. Existing contracts for goods and services will continue, but new spending will be undertaken only by necessity.“We do not know what our fiscal future will look like or how long it will take our economy to recover. Given that, it is important that we undertake careful and conservative planning with respect to our budget,” Katsouleas wrote in the email.He said the freezes did not apply to UConn Health “which will develop its own guidance for hiring and expenditures due to its unique mission and the continuing health care crisis.”Colleges and universities across Connecticut have taken varying steps to make up for financial losses related to the coronavirus. Those losses include refunds of students’ room and board fees as they transition to online learning.As it happensGet the latest updates on Coronavirus and other breaking news events happening across Connecticut &gt; Beginning Saturday the Connecticut National Guard will prepare space at the Connecticut Convention Center in Hartford in anticipation of an upcoming surge of COVID-19 hospitalizations.The 646-bed annex would be the largest of its kind in the state, Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin said Friday. It would be operated by Hartford HealthCare.Advertisement“Obviously, we hope that it doesn’t all have to be used. We hope that none of it has to be used, but I think we should all take comfort in knowing that it’s there, because there’s lots of things that go into being ready for the surge when it comes, but making sure there are enough hospital beds is one piece of the puzzle,” he said, in a video posted to Facebook.Similar sites have been set up at Southern Connecticut State University in New Haven and Western Connecticut State University in Danbury. So far, those extra hospital beds have not been needed. State officials have eyed the Mohegan Sun Arena as potential overflow hospital space in eastern Connecticut.“Let’s make it our goal to do everything we can to keep that facility from being necessary, and that means please continue to take social distancing really seriously ... especially as we come into this holy weekend,” Bronin said. “Please, even as you worship and celebrate, be really conscious that this is the time we’ve got to do everything we can to keep each other and our community safe.”Also Friday:Alex Putterman can be reached at . Russell Blair can be reached at . Eliza Fawcett can be reached at . Advertisement

AdvertisementBy Hartford CourantApr 10, 2020 at 6:37 pmGov. Ned Lamont on Friday ordered nonessential businesses in Connecticut to stay closed for six more weeks and prohibited evictions through June as the state’s count of coronavirus cases topped 10,000.Schools, restaurants, bars, retail stores, gyms and other establishments must remain closed through at least May 20 and until “we have the virus contained,” Lamont said.Advertisement“This is a war that is never won. It’s a war that we have to figure out how we wind it down in the safest way possible for people,” Lamont said Friday morning...

Gov. Ned Lamont extends mandatory shutdown in Connecticut to May 20 as coronavirus cases top 10,000; orders rent relief for April, May

No article scores yet.

CRITIC REVIEWS

PUBLIC REVIEWS