HARTFORD, CT (1010 WINS) -- Hair salons and barbershops in Connecticut won’t reopen this week after all, Gov. Ned Lamont said Monday, as the state reported 41 new COVID-19 deaths and 697 new cases.
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The two types of businesses were supposed to reopen on Wednesday as part of the state’s May 20 “phase one” reopenings, but Lamont on Monday said they would open on June 1 instead, to align with Rhode Island’s reopening timeline.
“We’ve been hearing a lot of feedback from many owners and employees, and at this time I think the best approach is that we hit pause on the reopening of hair salons and barbershops, take a step back and allow some more time as preparations continue to be made,” Lamont said in a statement.
During his daily briefing, the governor said his team made the decision based on “a pure health point of view.”
“I heard from a lot of the stylists, I heard from a lot of the folks that run the hair salons, and they said, ‘Give us a little more time. We’re just not ready. We’re not ready from the employee point of view, feeling comfortable coming back, getting some of the cleaning agents….’” he said. “They wanted an extra week or two, so we’ve said June 1.”
A total of 38,116 Connecticut residents have now tested positive for COVID-19, and 3,449 have died, Lamont said.
As of Monday, 920 people were hospitalized with the virus, down by 17 from Sunday, Lamont said. The state has seen nearly four weeks of declining hospitalizations, he noted.
“We’re about 53 percent below peak,” he said.
Connecticut will be ramping up its contact tracing and testing ahead of a possible second phase of reopenings on June 20, Lamont said.
The weeks between May 20 and June 20 will give the state time to observe the effects of the initial reopenings, he said.
Asked if there was any chance of Connecticut either postponing the May 20 reopening date or reversing reopenings, Lamont said any decision would depend upon the state's COVID-19 statistics.
“I don’t want to have to change direction but if I saw that there was a spike in infections, I saw that there were flare ups… then we’d have to change gears,” he said. “(But) I don’t think that’s going to happen. Not in Connecticut.”