In West Hartford, there have been 33 new cases reported among nursing home employees in the past week, and two cases among residents (full report can be found here).

By Hugh McQuaid, CTNewsJunkie.com 

Connecticut hospital and nursing home employees will soon be required to get COVID-19 booster shots through a combination of an executive order and agreement with the state’s hospital association announced Thursday.

During an afternoon press conference, Gov. Ned Lamont said he would be issuing an executive order, which would mandate booster shots for employees of the state’s nursing home and elder care facilities as well as staff at Connecticut’s state-run hospitals. Meanwhile, Patrick Charmel, president of Griffin Hospital and head of the Connecticut Hospital Association, said the state’s privately-run hospitals would follow suit.

“That will pay dramatic dividends,” Lamont said. “That will open up capacity at our hospitals, make it easier for us to transfer people from the hospitals to the nursing homes and allow us to get back to more regular and normal hours in our nursing homes.”

The additional mandate impacts workers who had previously been required to be vaccinated against the virus and comes as Connecticut’s COVID infection rates swell amidst spread of the highly-contagious omicron variant.

On Friday, the state’s infection rate was 24.55% and hospitalizations, which have continued to increase, reached 1,810 with 26 more patients hospitalized than the previous day.

Click here to read the rest of the article at CTNewsJunkie.com.

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