CT Hospital Worker From New York State Positive For Coronavirus

DANBURY, CT — The first confirmed case of coronavirus in Connecticut is a person who works at Danbury Hospital. The unnamed female health care worker is from Westchester County, New York. Health officials said Friday night that she contracted COVID-19 in New York.

Gov. Ned Lamont and state and local public health officials held a news conference at Danbury City Hall to announce details.

The woman lives in Westchester Country and is at her home under self-quarantine. Lamont said the hospital has "gone to see who she has had contact with" and those people have been "put on furlough" for 14 days and if they display symptoms they'll be immediately tested.

Health officials from the hospital said that the woman was told she came into contact with a person with the coronavirus in New York. She was restricted from duty. And then today, the test for COVID-19 came back positive. Officials said she worked at both hospitals but worked in isolated areas in the hospitals. They believe her contact was limited. She was quarantined based on notification from New York State.

State Department of Public Health director Renee Coleman-Mitchell said the first case in the state is "actually, keep in mind the source ...it started in New York." (Don't miss updates in Connecticut concerning the Coronavirus as they are announced. Sign up for Patch news alerts and newsletters.)

She said there are no positive results of Connecticut residents. Coleman-Mitchell said the state lab has tested 42 specimens for 21 patients and all have tested negative. She said 11 are set to be tested.

Lamont said "we learned that patients and staff at both Danbury and Norwalk Hospitals may have been exposed to COVID-19 coronavirus disease as a result of a hospital employee who lives in Westchester County, New York and has tested positive for the virus. This individual was exposed to the virus while in their home community of Westchester County by another individual who has tested positive, and then the individual worked shifts at both hospitals. The hospital employee is currently at their home, where they are in isolation and recovering."

“We have been expecting exposure of this virus in Connecticut for several weeks, so its presence should not surprise anybody. This is no cause for panic or anxiety as our public health officials and medical experts have been making every effort to put every precaution possible in place," Lamont added. “...People in our state should continue adhering to the basic but important steps we’ve been emphasizing for weeks to protect themselves, like washing your hands frequently, avoid shaking hands, avoid close contact with people who are sick, and stay home when you are sick."

U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a member of the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee and U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee, released the following statement after it was announced that a Danbury Hospital and Norwalk Hospital worker tested positive for COVID-19.

“We always knew it was a matter of when, not if, the COVID-19 would touch Connecticut. As we continue to monitor possible exposures related to a hospital worker — I stand ready to do everything I can at the federal level to make sure the governor and Connecticut's state and local health officials have all the resources they need to contain and stop the spread of the coronavirus in Connecticut,” said Murphy.

Earlier Danbury Hospital tweeted that there is "some misinformation out there," but to what its referring is not clear.

Nuvance Health owns Norwalk, Danbury and New Milford hospitals and four other "nonprofit hospitals spanning New York’s Hudson Valley and western Connecticut."

The chief operating officer said "if we identify anyone with symptoms we will follow appropriate guidelines."

Danbury Mark D. Boughton was upbeat noting the state is prepared and "has been a head of the curve."

"If there's a message for the community, 'we got this. It's going to be unnerving, it's disruptive, it's scary, but at the end of the day, we're gonna be OK if we work together ..."

Friday morning Lamont said during a press briefing at St. Francis Hospital, "so far, there's no sign of infection," but noted that "we're surrounded by states that do" have confirmed cases.

In New York, 76 cases have been confirmed and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has declared a state of emergency. Massachusetts has 13 cases and Rhode Island has three confirmed cases as of Saturday afternoon.

According to Johns Hopkins University, which compiles data hourly on COVID-19 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the World Health Organization and others, as of Saturday afternoon, there were 376 confirmed cases in the United States, 14 have died and of those diagnosed with the disease, eight people have recovered. There have been 105,559 confirmed cases globally in more than 90 countries with 3,555 deaths. Around 55,000 people with the new coronavirus have recovered. Note that these figures change hourly.

Lamont said earlier Friday that the state is "ramping up" testing for those who have respiratory health issues among other populations that are vulnerable. The state health lab and soon hospitals will expand testing, Lamont said. Private labs Quest Diagnostics and LabCorp announced they are rolling out testing, officials said at the briefing.

State Epidemiologist Dr. Matthew Carter said the pandemic will "feel a lot like a really bad flu season and it will last for three to four months in any one place, maybe two to three months, we really don’t know for certain."

Thursday, Lamont sent a letter to CDC chief to ask for more coronavirus testing kits"to comply with new federal guidance for clinicians on which patients should be tested."

The state health department got testing kits for just 500 people. Lamont said he was concerned that new CDC testing guidance casts a broader net on the population of patients who should be tested and will result in a shortage of kits in the state.

Currently, the state lab has capacity to test specimens from approximately 500 individuals and priorities for testing are focused on patients hospitalized with symptoms so the state's acute care hospitals can care for those patients. Lab testing capacity will be greatly expanding in Connecticut soon with the help of private sector labs, and testing capacity at the state's hospitals is expected to be available within the next two weeks.

Read more here.

Meanwhile, CVS Health announced Friday morning that insurer Aetna will waive co-pays for coronavirus testing, for the next 90 days, it will offer zero co-pay telemedicine visits for any reason, members who are diagnosed with COVID-19 will receive a care package, and the insurer says it will "proactively reach out to members most at-risk for COVID-19."

See related:

• Person In New Haven Exposed To Someone Who Had Coronavirus: Mayor
• CT Got Just 500 Coronavirus Test Kits; Lamont Tells CDC Send More
• EPA Releases List of Disinfectant Products To Fight Coronavirus