- Announcement expected Thursday on potential rollback in COVID-19 business restrictions in Connecticut
- Actions could include higher capacity limits and an elimination of the state’s travel advisory
- Connecticut’s COVID-19 hospitalizations have steadily decreased as the state rolls out vaccines
Summary by Dirk Langeveld
Connecticut is expected to loosen its capacity limitations on businesses and ease travel limitations, with details to be revealed on Thursday.
Governor Ned Lamont has said that he will issue the new guidance tomorrow after consulting with his advisers and other governors. The relaxed rules could include increasing capacity limits to 75 percent, or potentially allowing businesses to operate at full capacity as long as visitors continue to wear masks and observe social distancing. Connecticut may also end its travel advisory, which requires long-term visitors from most states to quarantine after arriving.
Connecticut briefly loosened its restrictions last fall and advanced to Phase 3 of its reopening plan, but rising COVID-19 cases soon forced a rollback to Phase 2.1 – a modified version of Phase 2 that has remained in place ever since. This sets a 50 percent capacity limit for venues such as retail, entertainment venues, and indoor dining at restaurants and a 75 percent capacity limit for personal services.
Lamont has taken some steps to ease restrictions as Connecticut’s COVID-19 numbers improve. These have included an extension of restaurant curfews, increasing capacity limits at entertainment venues and houses of worship, permitting larger scale events to resume by March 19, and easing some rules on youth sports, such as a resumption of interstate competitions and an increase on the number of spectators allowed at games.
Connecticut’s COVID-19 hospitalizations have been steadily declining, with 413 people hospitalized statewide with the virus as of Tuesday afternoon. The state’s daily test positivity rate has also been holding at under 3 percent.
As of Monday, Connecticut had administered 963,943 COVID-19 vaccines, including 336,155 second doses. Three-quarters of residents ages 75 and older have been vaccinated, along with half of residents ages 65 and older. The state has also started its age-based vaccine distribution, which aims to streamline a process that originally prioritized frontline essential workers and residents with pre-existing health conditions. Any residents ages 55 and older are now eligible to receive a vaccine.
Several states have started to relax their restrictions, including the lifting of mask mandates. Public health officials have criticized such actions, warning that complacency risks a resurgence in infections due to the time needed to roll out vaccines and the emergence of more infectious COVID-19 variants.
