Where's The Danbury Coronavirus Spike Coming From?

DANBURY, CT — Mayor Mark Boughton said health officials have identified sports leagues, worship services and foreign and domestic travel as the factors central to the city's spike in positive coronavirus cases.

On Friday, the state Department of Public Health issued a COVID-19 alert for Danbury after a significant increase in cases in the last two weeks.

"It's not the zombie apocalypse," Boughton said during a livestreamed news conference Monday. "But at the same time, it's not good."

Earlier in the day, Connecticut Chief Operating Officer Josh Geballe confirmed that contact tracing indicated that travelers to Danbury were "bringing cases in, introducing them at parties or family gatherings where people are not wearing masks or social distancing."

Boughton encouraged all residents, even the asymptomatic, to get tested for COVID-19, as it assisted in the contact tracing.

After shuttering and switching to internet-only services, houses of worship in Danbury have been slowly reopening. That's contributed to the rise in COVID-19 cases, Boughton said, and he has opened a dialogue with local church leaders about the issue.

"Our pastors have been wonderful," the mayor said, adding they have shown the willingness to revert to online services or cut down the size of their services.

Last week, Boughton shut down all youth sports leagues in the city, but he said Monday there was a misconception that only youth sports players had tested positive. Contact tracing has shown positive cases among adult players as well, he confirmed.

In response to the rise in COVID-19 cases, Western Connecticut State University delayed students' return to their residence halls for two weeks and Naugatuck Valley Community College will not open its Danbury campus for the next two weeks, moving to online courses exclusively. Danbury Public Schools, which had been poised to reopen with a hybrid learning model, announced Monday that all the learning will be remote until at least sometime in October.