COVID-19 LATEST: CT hospitalizations down for 2nd day; State death toll at 1,127

For the second straight day, the number of people hospitalized both in Connecticut and in Fairfield County due to complications caused by COVID-19 decreased, Gov. Ned Lamont announced today.

The state recorded 37 fewer hospitalizations but 41 more deaths, while the county saw hospitalizations decrease by 30 and another 15 deaths.

“Whether this continues is dependent upon the actions each of us takes over the next several days and weeks,” Lamont said. “This isn”™t over ”“ we lost another 41 Connecticut residents, and we mourn for their lives. Together, we can have an impact on flattening the curve, but if people tell you the pandemic has ended ”“ they are wrong.”

County-by-county breakdown:

Stamford still has the most positive cases in the state, with 1,758, followed by Bridgeport (1,230), New Haven (1,041), Norwalk (858), Danbury (843), Waterbury (843), Hartford (616), West Haven (454), Stratford (392), Hamden (391) and Greenwich, which remained unchanged from yesterday at 372.

Aid to nursing homes boosted

The governor further announced that his administration is boosting Medicaid payments for all of the state”™s 215 nursing homes by an additional 5% above the recently announced 10% percent increase. Together, the 15% across-the-board financial relief will provide an additional $65 million in Medicaid payment increases to the state”™s nursing homes, he said.

The state”™s increased financial support will be applied toward:

• Employee wages, including staff retention bonuses, overtime and shift incentive payments;
• New costs related to screening of visitors;
• Personal protective equipment (PPE);
• Cleaning and housekeeping supplies; and
• Other costs related to COVID-19.

In addition, the state is implementing the following additional measures to its Medicaid program:

• An across-the-board rate increase of 10% for non-COVID-19 beds, retroactive to March 1 (previously, the 10% increase was to take affect April 1).
• An additional across-the-board rate increase of 5% for non-COVID beds for the period of April 1-June 30, bringing the total increase during this period of 15%.
• Reimbursement at $400 per day for COVID-19 positive residents in non-COVID recovery facilities. That rate is in effect for a maximum of 30 days per bed.
• The state”™s advance of $11.6 million from the initial 10% rate increase, which was received by skilled nursing facilities on April 7, is now being extended back to March 1, thus adding $12 million in immediate revenue.

The state is also assisting with startup costs and $600 per-day payment to all facilities that are designated by the Department of Public Health as suitable to be reopened for the purpose of serving residents with COVID-19 who are being discharged from hospitals and who need nursing home level of care.

Another $15.4 million is dedicated to special nursing home services for COVID-19 positive residents.

In addition to the increased state assistance, it is also anticipated that nursing homes will receive enhanced support through the federal government from Medicare, a program wholly administered by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The federal government is also providing general relief for all Medicare providers under the recently adopted Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act that is expected to provide substantial resources to nursing home facilities.

Site visits to every nursing home to begin
To provide additional support to the state”™s nursing homes and long-term care facilities, the DPH announced that its staff will be making physical, on-site visits to all 215 nursing homes and long-term care facilities over the next seven to 10 days.

The department”™s Healthcare Quality and Safety Branch, with guidance from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, will conduct infection control surveys during each visit — a first among states in the region, as all nurses in the Facility Licensing and Investigations Section have been fit-tested for N95 respirators, which is a federal requirement.

Regional council appointees officially named

Also today, Lamont and the governors of New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware formally announced their appointees to the multistate council to restore the economy and get people back to work.

Connecticut”™s delegation consists of Dr. Albert Ko, professor of epidemiology and medicine and department chair at the Yale School of Public Health; Indra Nooyi, co-chair of the nonprofit AdvanceCT and former chairman and CEO of PepsiCo; and Paul Mounds, Lamont”™s chief of staff.

Ko and Nooyi are also co-chairs of the Reopen Connecticut Advisory Group, which the governor emphasized is a separate entity.

“One thing that”™s undeniable is that this virus does not stop at the border of any county, state, or country, but the impact is the same when it comes to our respective economies and health care systems,” Lamont said. “Working as a regional coalition to make the right decisions will lead to the best public health results for all of our residents. We must solve these problems together.”

D.C. DEVELOPMENTS
A deal to replenish the funds in the Small Business Administration”™s Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) could come as early as today, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told CNN.

“I think we’re making a lot of progress,” Mnuchin said. “I’m hopeful we could get a deal done today.”

The PPP, designed to help small businesses during the coronavirus economic crisis, officially ran out of its initial $349 billion funding on Thursday. Congressional leaders are essentially split along party lines on how to refinance the program: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) favors a bill that would add $250 billion to the program, while Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-California) and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-New York) are seeking an additional $100 billion for hospitals and $150 billion for state and local governments.

On ABC this morning, Pelosi said the refinancing will remain in a “timely fashion.”

“I will say overwhelmingly my caucus ”“ and we’re working closely with the Senate Democrats ”“ knows that we have an opportunity and an urgency to do something for our hospitals, our teachers, and firefighters, and the rest right now,” Pelosi said on ABC’s “This Week.”

“Everything we’ve done ”“ three bills in March ”“ were all bipartisan,” she said. This interim package will be too, and businesses will have the money in a timely fashion.”

In a rare appearance on “Fox News Sunday,” Pelosi called President Donald Trump “weak” and a “failure.”

“Leaders take responsibility,” Pelosi said. “So I said he’s a weak leader. He doesn’t take responsibility. He places blame ”“ blame on others. And that might have been OK before, but we cannot continue down a path that is, again I’ll come back to science, science, science, evidence, data on how we should go forward.”

As for the lack of sufficient testing, Vice President Mike Pence said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that there is “sufficient capacity of testing across the country today for any state in America to go to a phase one level” of Trump’s plan to reopen the country, adding that 150,000 COVID-19 tests are being conducted on a daily basis.

“We’re way late on it and that is a failure,” Pelosi said on Fox. “The president gets an F, a failure on the testing.”

Trump took to Twitter to respond.

“Nervous Nancy is an inherently ”˜dumb”™ person,” he wrote. “She wasted all of her time on the Impeachment Hoax. She will be overthrown, either by inside or out, just like her last time as ”˜Speaker.’”

THE NUMBERS

As of this writing, there are more than 755,500 positive cases and nearly 40,500 virus-related deaths in the U.S., with in excess of 68,000 recovered; globally, there are nearly 2.4 million positive cases and about 165,000 deaths, with over 612,000 recovered.