Gov. Ned Lamont is now mandating vaccines or regular COVID-19 testing for kindergarten through 12th grade teachers and staff and early childhood staff.

Additionally, state employees in hospital facilities must be vaccinated, but all other state employees must be either vaccinated or regularly tested. However, Lamont and state Department of Public Health Commissioner Deidre Gifford said testing is the less effective option in combating the virus.

The new vaccine or testing mandates, announced during a news conference Thursday, are effective Sept. 27. A previously announced mandate for vaccinations for long-term care employees begins Sept. 7.

Gifford went in-depth on the exemptions to the vaccine mandate.

"The order defines it as a sincerely held religious belief. Obviously people will be able to describe that in a way that's appropriate for their religious belief," she said. "It's not intended to be an exemption for other types of objections, but it is meant to be for those individuals whose religious beliefs would prevent them from having a vaccination. The specific ways an individual would describe their sincerely held religious belief is something that we will be working through the details with."

State Chief Operating Officer Josh Geballe discussed the consequences for those who refuse to get vaccinated or tested.

"The order will specify that for an individual who refuses to get vaccinated or for employees who have the testing option, refuse to get tested, will not be permitted in the state facility," he said. "From there the discipline will be determined through the employee contracts and the details of that will be worked out through the collective bargaining process. Obviously for K-12 education and early childhood, that will be determined and worked out between those employers, as well."

Norwich Free Academy spokesman Michael O'Farrell said Thursday that NFA was aware of the governor's executive order requiring school staff to be vaccinated. The academy has been "encouraged" by the number of employees who received COVID-19 vaccines during on-campus clinics last spring. More staff received shots elsewhere since then, he said.

The percentage of NFA staff now vaccinated was not available.

Preston Superintendent Roy Seitsinger said about 96% of Preston school staff are vaccinated, and the governor's new order "will provide a deeper sense of safety, predictability and stability as we open school and work through the early fall." The district is reviewing options on whether to host a vaccination clinic.

In North Stonington, the Board of Education remained hopeful at the conclusion of last school year that when students and faculty returned this fall, mask-wearing would be optional. But then, the delta variant erupted. In July, the board began revisiting discussions around student masking.

At its last two meetings, the board heard pleas from concerned parents on both sides of the discussion. However, due to Lamont's decision earlier this week that students in kindergarten through 12th grade wear masks for at least the first month of the school year, North Stonington's students will not have the mask-or-no-mask option.

In addition, students will be adhering to guidance of 3 feet of distancing in classrooms, and 6 feet of distancing in assemblies and larger gatherings. With the updated guidelines, the former education building no longer will be used for classes. Last year, it was used for some band and music classes to maintain 6 feet of social distancing.

Despite the surge in coronavirus cases, Superintendent Peter Nero remains hopeful that COVID-19 will not disrupt student learning. "Like everyone else, we thought when we entered last year, we'd be in a different situation this year," he said. "We're just hoping everybody gets vaccinated and we can get back to being as normal as we can."

Still no statewide mask mandate

The Southeastern Connecticut Council of Governments sent a letter to him on Wednesday urging him to issue a statewide indoor mask mandate for public buildings until the state's counties no longer are in the CDC's substantial or high coronavirus transmission categories. To date, five of the state's eight counties are in high category, including New London County, and the remaining three are listed as substantial.

Lamont has repeatedly said in recent weeks that he would leave mask mandates up to municipalities and let private enterprises decide whether patrons need to wear masks or provide proof of vaccination. He has cited the state’s solid vaccination rate for avoiding aggressive mask mandates.

On Thursday, when asked to respond to municipal leaders who argue that a town-by-town approach doesn’t work to stop the spread of the coronavirus if a neighboring town doesn’t participate, he held fast.

“Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York, none of them (has) a statewide mandate on masks at this point. New York is sort of interesting ... They’re emphasizing vaccinations as opposed to mask mandates,” Lamont said. “You’ve got some cities where you have a very low vaccination rate, and I understand why Hartford and New Haven want to take the lead in terms of making sure everybody within their confines is wearing the mask indoors. There are other places that are 95% vaccinated. So I think I’ll give a little more discretion because I think mayors know their communities pretty well.”

He added that “if the world changes, if we see that flattening of the curve going up dramatically, we may have to make some changes there.”

Though Lamont's emergency powers end on Sept. 30, he confirmed Thursday that he would seek another extension.

COVID-19 update

Lamont singled out Norwich and New London as red zones during the news conference. “We had nobody in the bright red just three months ago,” he said in reference to a map of the state. “Bright red is where you have the highest infection rate ... It’s sort of interesting that Southeast Connecticut, Norwich, New London, sadly are the most infected towns at this point.”

The state’s latest data on Thursday showed that 534 new coronavirus cases were detected among 15,865 tests in the prior 24 hours in Connecticut, a positivity rate of 3.37%. Related hospitalizations decreased by four to 344, while 23 deaths in the past week pushed the state’s COVID-19 death toll since March 2020 to 8,330. In New London County, 18 people were hospitalized with the disease Thursday.

Almost 75% of those aged 12 years or older are fully vaccinated. The 12-15 age group has the lowest rate, at about 60%, while those older than 65 have the highest rate, at 97%.

Melina Khan, special to The Day, and Day Staff Writer Claire Bessette contributed to this report.

s.spinella@theday.com