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COVID-19: Health Director Urges Residents To Abide By Travel Guidance

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Though the town primarily is seeing new positive COVID-19 virus cases among the unvaccinated, some “breakthrough” cases among those who have received vaccine also are being reported, according to New Canaan’s health director. Those breakthrough cases are “associated with travel” and “they can transmit to the unvaccinated,” Jenn Eielson told NewCanaanite.com. “So in some cases they have brought it home to under-12 unvaccinated children,” she said during an interview. Eielson said the main problem now is the Delta variant of the virus. She encouraged families that are traveling to check a COVID activity tracker on the CDC website that includes a continuously updated “Integrated County View” page that people can use to understand transmission rates in specific areas where the virus is spreading while making plans. Asked about her concerns as they relate to public health, Eielson said, “From our perspective, number one, we want to make sure that a month from now, we will be able to open schools safely and have all kids back in full learning, and number two, we want to make sure those who are unvaccinated get vaccinated so we can begin to curtail this pandemic.”

“The more bodies it has to mutate in, it is just going to keep mutating,” she continued. 

The comments came after First Selectman Kevin Moynihan reported in a town-wide outcall last Thursday that New Canaan had seen an uptick to total cases the prior week and 12 positive cases through Thursday of last week.

Alicia Meyer

Health Director: State Funding for New Canaan’s Public Health Nurse Now Uncertain

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New Canaan’s health director said Thursday that state officials “dropped a bombshell” this week regarding funding for a nurse whose responsibilities include administering vaccine. Hired in November through an Epidemiology and Laboratory Capacity or “ELC” grant, the public health nurse has helped with COVID-19 virus testing, contact tracing and vaccinations amid the pandemic, and is to work on program expansions such as in telehealth, Health Director Jenn Eielson told members of the Health & Human Services Commission during a regular meeting. “Obviously, I cannot lose my public health nurse—there’s going to have to be a solution to that,” she said during the meeting, held via videoconference. 

“With the potential of another wave coming in the fall with the Delta variant—because even though we have very high vaccination rates, we still have the unvaccinated, the under-12 group that can’t get vaccinated yet,” Eielson added. “And there’s no timetable on that until ‘some time in the fall,’ is all we kept hearing for the under-12.”

The comments come as town officials decide how to spend $6 million in federal American Rescue Plan Act funding that’s been allocated to New Canaan. One specific category that the funds may be applied to is “public health expenditures” and bolstering local public health response, officials have said.

Health Director on New Mask Rules: ‘Those That Are Fully Vaccinated Can Feel Safer’

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Longstanding requirements to wear masks both indoors and in some outdoor settings changed this week, eliminating many of the rules that residents and businesses have grappled with since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic last year, officials say. As of Wednesday, following CDC guidance, Gov. Ned Lamont ordered that masks are no longer required outdoors and also relaxed many of public-health related rules for those who are fully vaccinated. “It’s a huge change,” New Canaan Health Director Jenn Eielson told NewCanaanite.com. “I mean everyone’s been wearing masks now since last April.”

Specifically, people who received their final vaccine dose at least two weeks ago need not wear a mask or social-distance indoors or outdoors, except in schools, childcare settings, nursing homes, healthcare facilities, public transportation or private businesses that require them. (Unvaccinated people are still required to wear masks indoors, Lamont said.)

When asked if fully vaccinated people could enter businesses without a mask, Eielson said businesses “can still decide if they want to require masks or not.”

She added, “My advice would be just to keep a mask handy because you never know what business is going to ask you to put one on.”

Masks are only recommended in large outdoor settings where young unvaccinated children may be, she said.

Dr. Harrison Pierce

COVID-19: New Canaan Health and Human Services Chair Urges Residents To Continue To Be Cautious

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Though thousands of New Canaanites are being tested and vaccinated at clinics that are filling to capacity and receiving high praise for their efficiency and effectiveness, health officials are urging residents to be cautious amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Even on the high side, some of the vaccines now being administered to town residents are perhaps 95% effective and “it’s still 5%” outside of that protection, according to Dr. Harrison Pierce, chair of the Health & Human Services Commission. “We have had three or four people locally who have been vaccinated and have gotten the disease, or at least tested positive,” Pierce said during the Commission’s regular meeting, held Thursday via videoconference. 

“And it’s happening in the community, too. So we have to take all the precautions that we were taking previously and reinstitute them if we are not continuing with them. The travel issue is big and you are going to have to, via the DPH [Connecticut Department of Public Health]/CDC, you are going to have to quarantine seven days coming back and then negative test before you re-enter society.”

The comments came following a general update from New Canaan Health Director Jenn Eielson.

Dr. Harrison Pierce

Health Director on Complaints from Residents 55-and-Over: ‘We Have Been Getting Screamed At’

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As the town turned its focus this week to vaccinating New Canaan Public Schools educators following a state directive, residents 55-and-older who also became eligible for vaccine shots March 1 have been forcefully lodging complaints, according to the municipal health director. School faculty and staff members were “crying tears of joy” Wednesday during the clinic at Lapham Community Center at what Jenn Eielson called “by far the best clinic we have ever had.”

Even so, “This week has been awful for me,” Eielson said during a regular meeting of the Health & Human Services Commission, held Thursday morning via videoconference. “I’ve been beaten up beyond belief, because we are not doing the 55-and-over,” she said. “We have been getting screamed at every single day. So yesterday was a welcome relief of people that were actually happy.