By Bob McGarry, First Selectman, Haddam.
I want to provide you with an update on where we stand with the pandemic. We now have 43 cases in town; still only one fatality. I’m a little concerned about a possible trend that’s developing with our cases. They appear to be occurring more frequently. On June 9th, we had the 37th case reported. We had no more cases until July 7th when cases 38 and 39 were reported, followed by cases 40 and 41 on July 25th, and cases 42 and 43 on July 28th. Given our low number of cases, this may just be a statistical abnormality or skewed by the timeliness of reporting. However, the infection rate in Connecticut which measures how quickly or slowly the virus is spreading in the state, has also started to increase. (For more information on the infection rate see Rt Live.) My take away from this is the virus is still here and we still need to do what we can to contain its spread – wear a face mask or covering, maintain social distance, wash your hands and avoid crowds. Business owners please encourage your patrons to wear masks. You can see what’s happening in most of the rest of the country with spikes and increases in cases. We don’t want that to happen here.
The Governor has issued nine Executive Orders (EO) since my last update. The ones that are either the most widely applicable or of particular interest to us are:
EO 7CCC – Issuance of duplicate licenses and ID cards
EO 7DDD – Extended protection for residential renters
EO 7GGG – Temporary mortgage relief
EO 7III – Mandatory quarantine for travelers from certain states (the list of states continues to expand)
On the good news side, it appears we’ll have enough workers to staff our three polling places for next week’s Presidential Primary. Thanks to all who have volunteered to work the polls.
The town office building is back to normal operations and open during our normal hours. I still recommend doing business with us remotely but we’re here if you need to come in.
