Local Public Health Teams Meeting COVID-19 Response 3-31-2021
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Local Public Health Teams Meeting
COVID-19 Response
3-31-2021
1. Welcome
Juanita Estrada – Welcome and overview of the agenda
2. Equity Partnerships
Deputy Commission Aaron (see PowerPoint)
• Equity Partnerships are a community-driven effort to ensure COVID vaccines reach
communities of color and vulnerable populations
• Grant funding for local health departments (LHDs) and community organizations:
o Funding is non-competitive and LHDs that submit qualifying applications and
have formed partnerships with at least 1 provider and 1 community group are
guaranteed to receive funding to support their equity partnerships.
o The goal is to quickly get this money to local communities to support their equity
partnerships
o LHDs have the discretion to use funding within their LHD or with community
partners. Eligible expenses include local project managers, micro-grants to non-
profits, and paid media including social and event expenditures.
• Campaign & Outreach
o Door-to-door campaigns, modeled on get-out-the-vote efforts-directly going to
high SVI communities with lower uptake of vaccine or access barriers
o Outbound calling to residents – direct access to appointment scheduling (or in-
home vaccine for homebound residents)
o Mobile clinics - A fleet of mobile units that can directly offer vaccination, support
pre-registration as well as walk-up appointments. The FEMA Mobile Clinic launch
was Monday, March 29th
o Our state contractors will work with LHDs in high SVI areas to coordinate these
outreach activities with other partnership activities.
• Help and Support
o Peer-to-peer learning - Equity Partnership coordinators (either hired with grant
funding, designated from existing staff of LHDs, or performed by an equity
partner) will be in a cohort to exchange lessons learned, best practices through
facilitated monthly meetings
o Access to campaign and public health experts drawn from a range of partners
across Connecticut
o Data and analytics support- Support to track progress and measure results
o Other support as needed
• Upcoming information session is on Monday April 5th at 1pm.LHD Teams Meeting 3/31/2021
o Please email Agnes.Nabasirye@ct.gov and Millicent.Cripe@ct.gov who will be
compiling FAQs
o There will also be time for live Q&A
o We encourage you to start reaching out to your community groups and
providers to begin forming your equity partnerships
3. Epidemiology
Lynn Sosa – Epi Update
• No updates
• Vaccine breakthrough provider correspondence and form
o https://portal.ct.gov/-/media/DPH/HAI/COVID19-Vaccine-Breakthrough-
Recommendations.pdf
o https://portal.ct.gov/-/media/DPH/HAI/Vaccine-Breakthrough-
Form_FNL_FILL.pdf
• The GISAID Initiative promotes the rapid sharing of data from all influenza viruses and
the coronavirus causing COVID-19. This includes genetic sequence and related clinical
and epidemiological data associated with human viruses, and geographical as well as
species-specific data associated with avian and other animal viruses, to help researchers
understand how viruses evolve and spread during epidemics and pandemics.
Kristin Gerard – Contact Tracing
• DPH is fully staffing contact tracers over the holiday weekend; Sunday’s hours are from 8
AM – 5 PM
• DPH’s contracted resources are supporting both ContaCT and the VAAL over the holiday
weekend
• With the increase of cases as well as vaccine opening to the general population statewide
on April 1st, we are expecting an increase in calls. We will still be attempting to contact
your residents; however, it may not be a call every day for three days.
4. Immunizations
Benjamin Bechtolsheim
• April 1st is the day for general availability of vaccine in the State of Connecticut for people
16 years of age and older.
• LHDs should open their schedules through May 2nd for 1st dose appointments and make
sure your schedules are set up before the April 1st start date.
• Please only schedule against your baseline allocation
• 16- and 17-year old will need to find their way to Pfizer clinics, so we are working on
improving the functionality of the COVID vaccine finder to show where the Pfizer sites
are open to them.
• Later in the month, we are looking to do onsite clinics in partnership with LHDs as well as
with some of our school-based health centers in our high schools.
2LHD Teams Meeting 3/31/2021
5. Practitioner Licensing
Chris Andresen, PLIS
• A reminder about the Commissioner’s order that was issued to expand the professions
who can become authorized to administer vaccines. https://portal.ct.gov/-
/media/Coronavirus/20201207-DPH-Order-Expanding-Authorized-Professions-to-
Administer-Vaccines.pdf
• individuals who are licensed, are not authorized to vaccinate until they've taken the
training that is approved by the Commissioner of DPH,
https://portal.ct.gov/DPH/Practitioner-Licensing--Investigations/PLIS/Approved-COVID-
19-Vaccination-Training-Programs
• All the trainings are available on our website. There is al so an in person practical training
to take to authorize them to vaccinate.
• Please note: It is important to make sure that these licensed individuals have completed
the training prior to allowing them to vaccinate at your site. You can verify this on our
staffing website, https://portal.ct.gov/DPH/Public-Health-Preparedness/DPH-COVID-19-
Specific-Resources/Staffing-Resources-for-COVID-19-Vaccination-Sites
6. Public Health Preparedness and Local Health Admin
Ellen Blaschinski
• Commissioner Gifford and Deputy Commissioner Aaron’s memo regarding Equity
Partnerships was sent out via Everbridge at 12:15 PM today.
• An outlook invitation for Monday, April 5th’s informational session will go out after this
meeting.
• We are getting ready to make the ELC 2nd payments in May. If you need your funding
sooner, please let us know so that we can expedite that process.
Mike Mozzer
• There has been a decline in the incoming emails related to COVID-19, so we've decided
to scale back our operations and deactivate the communication centers.
• The Covid19.dph@ct.gov email address will still be in use and will be staffed seven days a
week.
• DPH has asked its programs that are still involved with the communication centers to
provide a program specific email to streamline operations.
• Since March of 2020, we've triaged over 32,000 emails and tried to respond to all
inquiries.
• DPH still wants you to continue to send emails to the covid19.dph@ct.gov email address
and also to direct others to do the same.
Krista Veneziano
• This week we started our automated emails out for homebound intake form.
7. Environmental Health and Drinking Water/Re-Open CT
Lori Mathieu
• A circular letter went out concerning sector rule changes as of March 19th. If you have
any questions regarding these changes you can go to the DECD’s webpage,
3LHD Teams Meeting 3/31/2021
https://portal.ct.gov/DECD/Content/Coronavirus-Business-Recovery/Sector-Rules-for-
Reopen
• We will be standing up an email inbox for questions and concerns regarding the DPH
Reopen CT.
• Documents of interest for LHDs. Finish STRONG is a DPH/CSDE document re: everyone
having a role in ensuring a strong end to the school year, https://portal.ct.gov/-
/media/SDE/Digest/2020-21/FinishStrong.pdf
Tom St. Louis
• In regard to the current sports guidance, DECD has indicated that DPH
recommendations are the sector rules, and so they can and should be enforced.
Out-of-state travel requirements included on pp. 5-6.
https://portal.ct.gov/2021springsportsguidance
Tracey Weeks
• The rules for masks, social distancing, cleaning, and disinfecting are still in place.
• These changes have raised some questions about reopening certain aspects of food
establishments, especially with respect to buffets. Buffets are allowed to be open and
have to follow the rules – social distancing, disinfecting high touch areas, etc.
8. Questions
My staff noticed recently that the CDC guidance had removed the 90-day guidelines for fully vaccinated
individuals. After vaccination, is protection now indefinite? Is there a limit on what they're seeing as far
as, vaccine effectiveness after vaccination?
CDC removed the 90-day guideline for vaccinated individuals in February. The point is that they
are confident in the ability of the vaccines to protect against the disease. There are still
unknowns like how long immunity lasts and if we will need a booster shot. The 90 days still
applies to those with natural immunity from COVID infection.
Our schools are starting to see a lot of allergy related symptoms, things that may mimic symptoms of
COVID. So, following their protocol, they’re sending these kids home. One of the testing protocols within
addendum five is that they need to get a PCR test. Is that the hard and fast rule?
The most recent version of addendum five does address antigen testing. So, this is scenario 1,
no known COVID exposure. A student who has known allergies could get a note from their
doctor. The doctor could decide whether or not to do testing. If the symptoms are persistent
and tests are negative, the student should get a note stating that.
Early on there was a push for testing within schools. Is that program still available if schools want to bring
in testing into their facilities?
DPH just received grant funding, a cooperative agreement, for school testing this week. More
information will be forthcoming.
I would like clarity COVID vaccinations for school aged children. Recently I heard to not hold age specific
or subgroup specific vaccination clinics, but I see this happening. There was some mention by the
Governor yesterday saying that we are going to be having focused clinics for college students and high
school students, sometime after the 19th. Can you please advise?
4LHD Teams Meeting 3/31/2021
The Immunization Program will provide guidance and clarification.
A CDC study was recently released regarding the protective effect of vaccines against asymptomatic
infection. How do you see that impacting the guidance that we provide our residents moving forward?
It will have an impact. We are waiting for CDC to take that information from the MMWR
article and make changes to their guidance.
As you know, a fully vaccinated individual can still contract, COVID-19. Is DPH going to investigate? Can
you help us to identify patterns among these cases, such as a variant of the novel Coronavirus which may
have caused infection?
DPH is collecting and reviewing these data. A memo was sent in February to providers to
report breakthrough cases to DPH.
https://portal.ct.gov/-/media/DPH/HAI/COVID19-Vaccine-Breakthrough-Recommendations.pdf
https://portal.ct.gov/-/media/DPH/HAI/Vaccine-Breakthrough-Form_FNL_FILL.pdf
We just completed a PPE survey for the region. We submitted it last week and was wondering when the
PPE will be distributed to the regions?
It will be delivered next week.
If we were to host student-based clinics, can schools send out parental permission slips ahead of time?
And would that be sufficient for us to vaccinate under 18 years of age? Or is there a requirement for
parents or guardians to be on site for the actual vaccine appointment?
See CoVP Provider Bulletin, Week of March 29, 2021 CoVP Communications (ct.gov)
Parents or guardians of minors must consent to vaccination following your usual legal process—
successful scheduling of an appointment does not serve as a proxy for consent.
Can the authorized COVID-19 vaccinators (pharmacists, podiatrists, veterinarians, etc.) administer vaccine
to individuals who are under 18 years of age?
Yes
To be clear, these expanded practitioners must still work under the supervision of a licensed practitioner
such as RN, APRN, PA or Physician, correct? Additionally, I believe there is a Train-the-trainer which needs
to be completed for those personnel that are going to sign off on these individuals to vax in local clinics.
Yes, they can only vaccinate at a site under the supervision of one of those professions. There is
a train-the-trainer program for people that want to evaluate skills.
Does the sports guidance/rules apply to athletes who travel for sports-purposes only or to athletes who
travel for any reason (i.e. family vacations, etc.)?
Just if the travel involves competing in sports while away (i.e. when someone goes to FL for a
tournament).
5COVID-19 Vaccine Roll-out
COVID Vaccine: Equity strategy
Equity Partnership Overview
1A community-driven effort to
Equity ensure COVID vaccines reach
partnerships communities of color and
vulnerable populations
2$ Funding
Rapid grant funding for Local Health Departments and
community organizations
Campaign & outreach support
Equity Canvassing, calling and mobile vaccine clinics
partnerships
Help & support
Support for local execution, data and analytics
support, peer-to-peer learning, and expert advice
3$ Funding: Rapid grant funding for Local Health Departments and
community equity partners
Funding will be Local Health Departments that submit qualifying
funding is applications and have formed partnerships with at least 1
made available to provider and 1 community group are guaranteed to
Non-competitive
all Local Health receive funding to support their Equity Partnerships
Departments
The goal is to quickly get money out the door and to local
funding is communities to support their Equity Partnerships
Rapid DPH info letter Info session Application due
Awards
March 31 April 5 April 15 $ April 23-
end of April
LHDs have discretion to use funding within the LHD or
funding is with community partners. Eligible expenses include:
Locally-directed Local project Micro-grants to Paid media,
Event expenditures
managers non-profits including social
4Campaign & outreach support: Supporting local partnerships
with canvassing, calling and mobile clinics
About: Offerings
Connecticut is directly Outreach and canvassing support: Door-to-door campaigns,
contracting for services modeled on get-out-the-vote efforts – directly going to high SVI
that Equity Partnerships communities with lower uptake or access barriers
will be able to request for
Calling support: Outbound calling to residents – direct access to
support
appointment scheduling (or in-home vaccine for homebound
residents)
Mobile clinics: A fleet of mobile units that can directly offer
vaccination – can support pre-registration as well a walk-up
appointments. FEMA mobile clinic launch: Monday, March 29
Our state contractors will work with Local Health in high SVI areas
to coordinate these outreach activities with other partnership
activities
5Help & support: Peer-to-peer learning, expert advice, data and
analytics, and support for local execution
The process: What’s included:
All Equity Partnerships Peer-to-peer learning: Equity Partnership coordinators (either
and coordinators will hired with grant funding, designated from existing staff of Local
receive tailored support Health, or performed by an equity partner) will be in a cohort to
from DPH and other exchange lessons, best practices – facilitated monthly meetings
partners
Expert advice: Access to campaign and public health experts –
drawn from a range of partners across Connecticut
Data and analytics support: Support to track progress and
measure results
Other support as needed
6Example Equity Partnership
LHD partners with at least 1 provider and 1 community group to target high SVI zip codes
Align mobile unit and pop- Coordinate with churches, local
up clinic schedules with leaders, and other stakeholders
Providers Community
other providers and LHDs to help determine optimal
groups
to ensure coverage of all locations for additional clinics
high SVI zip codes and to spread awareness in the
Local equity community of additional access
partnerships options
Local Health
Set up the partnership to apply for state Departments
funding and coordinate partnership
activities; these formal partnerships
can become platforms to apply for
additional federal equity funding
7Upcoming info session
• Date: April 5th at 1pm
• Questions?
• Please email Agnes.Nabasirye@ct.gov and
Millicent.Cripe@ct.gov who will be compiling FAQs
• There will also be time for live Q&A
• We encourage you to start reaching out to your
community groups and providers to begin forming your
equity partnerships
8You can also read
