Norwich — Stressing the importance of COVID-19 testing and the need to continue services to residents in need, Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz visited a mobile test site at the St. Vincent de Paul Place soup kitchen and the Reliance Health facility, which services 1,200 people with mental illness and people at risk of becoming homeless.

Coley Jones, director of nursing for Generations Family Health Center, said the occasional pop-up mobile testing site in the parking lot outside St. Vincent averages about 100 people a day seeking COVID-19 tests, with results reported in two to three days; 65 tests were done Tuesday. Generations has held four pop-up test dates at the Cliff Street location since a surge in COVID-19 cases hit Norwich in late September.

The state declared a COVID-19 alert in Norwich on Oct. 1. The city this week has a positive test rate of about 28 cases per 100,000 population, down from a high of nearly 50 cases per 100,000 on Oct. 1, with about 4% of the tests done in a day coming back positive, down from nearly 10% Oct. 1.

Jones told Bysiewicz that nearly all people she has seen who have tested positive had no COVID-19 symptoms at the time of the test. Some might have experienced mild, perhaps allergy-like sniffles or congestion.

Bysiewicz said she also wanted to stress the need for people to get a flu vaccine as flu season ramps up during the current resurgence of COVID-19 in the state. “We’re trying to get that message out,” she said, “because the last thing we need is to have our health care system overwhelmed during the pandemic.”

Jones said as cold weather sets in, Generations is planning how to continue socially distanced COVID-19 testing, perhaps with heated tents, trailers with open windows and food-truck-style window service.

A short distance away, Reliance Health serves about 1,200 “members” with some 270 staff at its John Morosky service center at 2-6 Cliff St. Bysiewicz toured the facility, which has retained some in-person counseling programs and sessions but has shifted many operations to remote, video or audio-based sessions, outdoor visits and careful interactions with members living in the dozen Reliance Health residential programs throughout the region.

Reliance Health Chief Operating Officer Mike Van Vlaenderen said the agency has received an additional $500,000 in federal COVID-19 response funding, $400,000 from the state Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services and $100,000 from the state Department of Developmental Services. The money was used to buy personal protective equipment, plexiglass and to hire four “floating” employees to fill in where needed if staff members need to quarantine or isolate after exposure.

Van Vlaenderen said Reliance Health has had “a handful” of cases in the past few months but no current cases. He said the only secondary spread that occurred through a Reliance Health exposure was in early spring, before preventive protocols were in place.

State Sen. Cathy Osten, co-chairwoman of the General Assembly’s Appropriations Committee, who attended the tour with Bysiewicz, said the chairmen of several key legislative committees have weekly calls with DMHAS, DDS and other state agencies to make sure federal COVID-19 relief funding that comes to the state is funneled quickly to the service agencies in the field.

“We wanted to make sure the administration was parceling the dollars out quickly,” Osten said.

c.bessette@theday.com