Southbury Residents:
This past Monday, December 27, Governor Lamont announced without prior notice to Towns that at-home Coronavirus test kits would be distributed by the Towns to their residents. The State urged towns to distribute this material prior to the New Year holiday. Given the short notice and the tight deadlines with which we were expected to distribute the testing kits, we worked as quickly as possible to put together a plan to comply with the State’s guidance. We assembled a distribution plan within 24 hours of the Governor’s Monday announcement and communicated it to the public Wednesday morning. We were told that the testing kits would arrive in the State of Connecticut on Wednesday and be distributed to the Towns Thursday morning.
We received notice at 3:30 PM yesterday that there would be an emergency call of all CT municipal leaders at 4 PM. During that call, we were notified that the test kits had not yet arrived and State officials cannot guarantee that they will arrive in time for distribution events scheduled Thursday or even by Friday.
At 11:40pm last night, the State notified municipal leaders that the shipment had not arrived, and we received communication from our regional coordinator at 8:00am today that the distribution pod was cancelled.
We will update the Town website and Facebook with a new date and time as soon as Southbury officials can take delivery of the limited supply of test kits.
We understand and share your frustration. Our priority now is ensuring that we can receive and distribute the kits as efficiently as possible. Thank you for your patience.
Sincerely,
Jeff Manville
First Selectman