Ganim Urges Advanced Covid Testing For Emergency Services

Firefighters, Law Enforcement, News and Events6 Comments

Mayor Joe Ganim wants advanced COVID-19 testing for public safety officers so police and fire personnel who test negative may return to work quickly.

Ganim has made the request to the Connecticut Department of Public Health to access serological tests for first responders across the state. The tests rely on detecting antibodies in a blood sample that will confirm or deny the presence of Coronavirus, and produce results in as little as 10 minutes, eliminating the need to quarantine officers and firefighters for 14 days.

During Ganim’s Virtual Town Halls on Monday and Tuesday, he shared the number of public safety officers currently in quarantine–11 personnel off duty from the Police Department and 22 from the Fire Department–due to potential work-related and family exposure.

“We cannot put our city in a potential position where emergency response is strained due to lack of personnel,” said Ganim. “It is critical that we secure testing for Bridgeport’s bravest and finest to ensure our public safety departments can efficiently and effectively respond.”

Ganim recently tested negative for the virus.

0
Share

6 comments

  1. Mayor Ganim, the nurses and doctors right here in Bridgeport who are in the middle of this war with COVID-19 and they can’t get tested and they work with these COVID-19 patients. Mayor Ganim, why were you able to get tested?

    4+

    1. Bob, what type of precaution are firefighters taking as far as when they are at the fire house, is there social distancing in the bunkroom where sleep or in the kitchen where they eat? That’s one of the reasons that I said that the City budget is dead on arrival, there will overtime that’s way over in the budget for police and firefighters because of COVID-19. Joe Ganim is leading from behind as he usual does like his buddy President 45.

      0

  3. Perhaps the Mayor will shine some educated and informed light on the subject of testing. The subject of testing has been avoided in most advisories, yet more reasonable folks are realizing that the subject of testing is foundational to movement towards re-starting our public economic and social lives.

    How many tests and of what kinds are being administered in Bridgeport today? Are folks other than the Mayor able to become tested, one or more times, while testing supplies are insufficient to test all who wish and/or for epidemiologists to practice surveillance process? Are the asymptomatic ever infectious and when will quarantine mitigate their potential threat to the public? Will folks who show up with the marker require re-testing, or the application of a vaccine in the future?

    For sports fans used to statistical reporting:
    1) The President promised the public about 5-6 weeks ago that we would have 1,000,000 test kits by the following Friday. It did not happen that more than One Million were not US tested for nearly one month.
    2) Trump continues to claim our testing program is the best because it has tested the most folks of any country. Most of the public around here recognize that in baseball the hours of swinging at balls and hitting some while missing others during batting practice do not count in batting averages. Just those when in the game,and if there are not enough balls for the practice, stop talking about numbers.
    3) What are the tests by name and manufacturer? Are test manufacturers and processing organizations the same or different? What info do they provide specifically if different? How long to get results? Any differences in quality, in cost, in any other material sense?
    Remember: lots of data goes on the baseball cards of our youth, but to have a number 1 batting record, you only begin counting officially when there are enough balls for everyone to get a swing. An at bat in a game, that can provide you with vital mortality info. Time will tell..

    0

Leave a Reply