By Richard Kaufman
Sentinel Reporter
With vaccines on the horizon, Greenwich is preparing to receive its first round of doses.
On Wednesday, First Selectman Fred Camillo and Greenwich Hospital President Diane Kelly gave an update on COVID-19 in town. Kelly said the hospital is working closely with the state department of public health as the country awaits the first emergency use approvals for a vaccine from the Food & Drug Administration.
“We’re hoping mid-next week we’ll start to see those doses be available. We have our teams ready to go, our processes are in place. It’s just simply about when [the vaccines] will be released to us,” Kelly said on Wednesday.
Camillo said the town and health department is going to roll out public information about vaccinations in the next few weeks.
“Our department of health is not sure yet about how many [vaccine doses we’ll get] or how it will be distributed. We will get that information out there very, very shortly. We will certainly alert the public every step of the way until we’re done with this,” he said.
In the meantime, from Dec. 2 until press time on Wednesday, Dec. 9, Greenwich saw an increase of 211 COVID cases. Active cases went down, however, over that timeframe, from 110 to 98. The death toll since March from the virus increased, though, from 58 to 59 since last week.
Overall, as of this Wednesday, there have been 1,867 Greenwich residents who have tested positive for COVID-19 since the pandemic began.
At Greenwich Hospital, there is some good news. As of press time on Wednesday, there were 34 patients being treated in-house, down from 38 on Dec. 4. There were only two patients in the Intensive Care Unit on ventilators.
“I can’t stress enough that, yes, we are hitting a small wave. It’s nowhere near where it was six months ago, and we’re discharging more patients sooner than we were,” Kelly said, noting that the hospital may be hitting a plateau with numbers as they relate to gatherings from the recent Thanksgiving holiday.
“We are at a very important point in this juncture. People need to maintain social distancing, wear their masks and wash their hands. If we can just get through these next couple of months where hopefully we’ll start to see the vaccine be available to more people in the population, we’ll start to break the curve here.”
Camillo said that while he continues to monitor policies, guidelines and restrictions related to COVID-19, the town is not yet at a point where closures to parks need to take place.
Camillo noted that according to Parks and Recreation Director Joe Siciliano, the town admitted 2,000 cars to Greenwich Point last week and turned away 519. Right now, Greenwich Point is only open to Greenwich residents.
“The trails are open, the tracks are open, the parks are open, it’s just the playing fields that aren’t open. So far, I see compliance, but we have to keep monitoring the beach,” he said. “I feel bad, because a lot of people beyond Greenwich’s borders look forward to coming to Tod’s point on Dec. 1 every year [for dog season]. We look forward to having them back, but we just can’t do it right now.”
Camillo hopes that by the middle of January, with holiday gatherings in the rearview mirror, there will be stabilization in COVID-19 numbers.
“We may also see the effects of the vaccinations that are starting to weave their way through our towns and states, and that will only get better. But right now to think about that is foolish, because we have some tough times ahead of us in the next few weeks,” Camillo said.
