On Wednesday, Fred Camillo was joined by Dana Marnane from Greenwich Hospital to give a Covid-19 update for the town of Greenwich.
As of Tuesday, Jan 12 Greenwich had a total of 2,905 Covid-19 cases, up 240 from 2,665 a week earlier.
There were 180 active cases, which as down 55 from last week.
Deaths hit 75, reflecting two additional deaths since a week ago.
The Town’s cases per 100,000 were 56.1 was plus 4.9 from the previous week.
Ms Marnane said that Greenwich Hospital had 27 positive Covid-19 patients on Wednesday.
“That’s actually nicely down from 34 we reported at this time last week,” Marnane said, adding of those 27 patients, 4 were in the ICU, and 2 were on ventilators.
“Since the start of the pandemic, we’ve discharged 1,010 either to home or a rehabilitation facility,” she added. “We are definitely seeing a flattening of the curve and starting to see a little downward trend.”
“We’re starting to feel a little hopeful. At the height of Covid in the spring, we shut down most of our elective procedures to allow for that large influx we saw of Covid patients. We hit over 110 at the height back in April. We haven’t had to do that in this second round, throughout the health system, because our numbers are staying low.”
By way of comparison, Marnane said the hospital is currently treating 129 non-Covid patients. She said out patient offices remain open and outpatient procedures continue.
The Emergency Room is open and busy and ready to treat anyone.
Marnane said the hospital does not want people to delay care, especially if concerns are heart or stroke related.
“Throughout our health system, we were treating 319 patients across five hospitals,” she added. “This number is also down from last week. This time last Wednesday there were 331 patients.”
Marnane said the state of CT will move to Phase 1B of vaccinations on Monday, which will allow vaccinations of community members age 75 and older.
“Hopefully by the end of this week we’ll start to register people and encourage everyone to be vaccinated,” she said. “We’ve administered more than 1,900 vaccinations to our staff and community medical staff in accordance with state guidelines, and we’re excited for next week.”
Marnane said a public announcement should be forthcoming instructing people how to register and what they should know. She said any changes to what parts of the population are included in 1B would be shared when they are announced.
Camillo said there was an uptick last week in visits to Tod’s Point recently.
Ordinarily, beginning in December the park is open to people bringing their dogs and to non-residents, but not this winter.
Only residents are being admitted, with proof of ID or beach pass, and there is a maximum capacity being enforced.
“I don’t have the numbers from last weekend, but we’ll keep people in the booth indefinitely – at least for the time being,” Camillo said.
“I’m getting a lot contact from people reaching out to me with requests,” Camillo said. “From people who don’t live in town with requests to open the beach back up – and some former town employees looking for a policy change.”
“We’re still in that red zone and it’s a capacity issue,” Camillo continued. “We have to turn away Greenwich people if it’s too crowded.”
The capacity is determined by the total number of parking spaces and the ability to have space between cars.
“Hopefully, with the flattening of the curve and as we see more people getting vaccinated as we turn the corner we’ll be able to back to the normal winter policy,” he said.
Barbara Heins said the capacity at Tod’s Point is about 1,000 cars and the capacity is currently limited to 75% of that, which is about 750 cars.