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Community Emergency Response Team volunteer Gary Silberberg hands out COVID-19 test kits to a motorist at Grass Island Park in Greenwich, Conn., on Saturday Jan. 8, 2021. Along with CERT volunteers, Greenwich Police Department officers helped check ID's and direct traffic and Greenwich Fire Department volunteers from Glenville Fire Company also came out to assist in the distribution efforts.
Christian Abraham / Hearst Connecticut Media
GREENWICH — The town of Greenwich handed out another 4,800 free at-home COVID-19 test kits over the weekend in the second distribution in the past week.
A total of 1,200 cars came down Shore Road on Saturday to acquire the test kits, police said.
Volunteers from the Community Emergency Response Team and the Glenville Fire Company worked with Greenwich police officers to check IDs, hand out kits and direct traffic at Grass Island Park.
The state of Connecticut ordered the rapid tests and handed them out to local municipalities.
The town distributed 6,000 Flowflex kits Jan. 4 at Grass Island and at the Greenwich Senior Center, and hundreds of N95 masks were also given away to residents. At that giveaway, Kaelan Gillick said he was happy to acquire the COVID-19 test kits. “I’ve got family that’s high risk and vulnerable, and it’s nice to have these if I want to visit them. Peace of mind,” he said.
The distribution on Saturday “ran smoothly,” with few delays for motorists, police said. During the previous distribution, traffic built up around the giveaway sites, with some motorists who showed up early waiting 30 minutes or more.
Town authorities are still working to organize an additional test-kit giveaway — this time for seniors “who are unable to drive or have difficulties with getting to the distribution sites,” according to Greenwich police.
The kits handed out Saturday were reserved for Greenwich residents only. Authorities gave away four tests, packaged with two to a box, to each vehicle on a first-come, first-served basis.
The town senior center, working with Commission on Aging, will develop a list of residents in need and deliver the kits to them in coming days, officials said.
The giveaway followed a disruption in the statewide planned distribution in late December due to a supply-chain mix-up. The state was able to acquire tens of thousands of tests from CVS at a later time.
As of last Tuesday, the total number of active COVID-19 cases in Greenwich was 466, town officials said. Between Dec. 28 and Jan. 4, a total of 650 new cases were reported.
With the spread of the delta and omicron variants in Connecticut, the positivity rate has surged to about 25 percent statewide.
Despite the jump in cases, First Selectman Fred Camillo said he had no plans to reinstate a townwide mask mandate although he did reinstitute the mask requirement in town-owned buildings.
“You know we’ve done (mask mandates) in the past— we did it a few times, and in some cases it was not very popular,” Camillo said last week. “You don’t want to be nanny state, always throwing mandates left and right.”
rmarchant@greenwichtime.com