Lamont wants extension on his emergency powers
Middletown — Gov. Ned Lamont said Thursday he will seek an extension on his emergency powers, which are set to expire Sept. 30, to deal with the ongoing pandemic.
"The plan is to work with the legislature and get it extended because the pandemic's not over and the need is not going away," he told reporters Thursday in Middletown after a discussion on rental assistance. "Right now, the executive order is working pretty well. I think we work very closely with landlords, very closely with judicial, very closely with legal aid, but I think Sept. 30 is too short."
Lamont added that the legislature can decide to make some of his executive orders permanent in a special session. He said it also has the power to extend his emergency powers another 90 days.
"They do have their leadership committee, the gang of six if you will, and that allows us to move quickly and allows the legislature to weigh in on any new executive orders we may need as booster shots and child vaccines change the dynamics over the course of the next 60 days," he said. He has not yet formally asked the legislature to extend his powers.
In a special session in July, the legislature extended the governor's emergency authority through Sept. 30, mostly along party lines.
Some of the standing executive orders allow the state Department of Public Health to require masking in certain contexts and permit the state Departments of Early Childhood Development and Education to determine policies related to COVID-19 for schools. One of the orders gave tenants more time to repay back rent or obtain federal relief funding.
On Thursday, Lamont was unwilling to express optimism about the latest statistics regarding the delta variant, which appear to show Connecticut's summer swell slowing.
"I'm reserving judgment. The good news is, things have stabilized in terms of infection and stabilized a little bit in terms of hospitalizations," he said. "But there's a seasonality to this thing, too, so let's see what the month of September brings. Kids coming back to college, schools, there's a few more variants in the mix over the next 30 to 40 days."
As of Thursday, 22,868 coronavirus tests were administered in the state and 684 came back positive, for a 2.99% positivity rate, the governor announced on Twitter. That's an increase of 684 since Wednesday. The state had 357 patients hospitalized with COVID-19, a decrease of three from the previous day.
He said 2,461,543 first doses of vaccines have been administered in the state so far, and 2,261,439 residents have been fully vaccinated.
There have been 39 additional deaths related to the disease since last Thursday, bringing the state's COVID-19 death toll so far to 8,394 since March 2020.
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