By David Fortier

By 8:10 a.m. this morning, 48 cars had lined up at the Bristol Hospital coronavirus specimen collection station, some of the cars with two occupants and many were elderly.

The hospital began limiting the number of test kits that would be collected each day to 40 on Wednesday, the same day I noticed the gates to the station were closed, which was unusual. I called hospital spokesperson Christopher Boyle yesterday to ask about this.

Boyle confirmed and said that the test kits had to be limited because the hospital did not have any word about when more would be available. The hospital had collected around 1,100 tests, since March 13.

This morning I did not stop to talk to anyone in line. I took a few photos. In both cases, I wanted to respect people’s privacy. Any photos appearing here will have their license plates obscured. However, as I counted the cars, I did take note of the occupants.

I arrived at the collection station around 8 a.m. Hospital personnel in their blue protective gear and masks arrived around 8:05 a.m. The first car in line was waved through shortly afterwards. I walked up Queen, down Brewster and up Bradley, counting as I went. Apparently, the cars had been waiting a while.

In other Covid-19 news, Mayor Ellen Zoppo-Sassu has sent an email to religious leaders and others. Click here for a copy.

For Coronavirus Updates and Information from the City, follow this link: http://www.bristolct.gov/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=769.

Here is an April 9 interview with Zoppo-Sassu and Connecticut Conference of Municipalities communications director Matt Ford, posted on CT NewsJunkie: https://www.ctnewsjunkie.com/archives/entry/20200409_ccm_chats_mayor_ellen_zoppo-sassu_of_bristol/.