Health Director: Coronavirus Community Spread Infecting Schools

EAST HAVEN, CT —With a number of coronavirus cases reported in East Haven schools, East Shore District Health director Michael Pascucilla told Patch that the cases are from community spread and no cases have been identified as being spread from inside schools.

He said that the schools have "solid policies and procedures" and that the cases seen so far, around seven, were brought into the schools.

"We have not identified any case from the schools. We've seen no spread within our schools," he said.

Rather, the virus is coming inside from the outside with Pascucilla pointing specifically to activities like sports, and gatherings in the community of groups of people not from the same household, like parties or "get-togethers."

He said that in the positive COVID-19 cases reported in students and staff, the person immediately told to go home and into isolation. And within an hour, he said, health officials, using contact tracing, know where the person has been and with whom they’ve been in contact and those people are then instructed to quarantine.

Isolation versus quarantine

The words isolation and quarantine are not interchangeable. Isolation is used for someone who is ill with the disease, someone who has a laboratory-confirmed positive test result, he said. Quarantine is for people who may have come in contact with the person with the disease, to determine if they have become infected and, to ensure in the event that they have, they've not infected anyone else.

The distinction matters.

As was the case at Tuttle School this week. A teacher tested positive for COVID-19, schools superintendent Erika Forti confirmed for Patch.

What the district did, she said, was to have the entire class return to distance learning and to quarantine, just to be safe, and to be sure. Forti said that the district’s “priority is the health, wellness and safety” of students and staff. She agreed with Pascucilla who said there is no evidence of virus transmission borne inside schools, rather, he said, cases are coming from community spread from people who are not adhering to coronavirus mitigation measures like social distancing, for example, or by participating in group gatherings from sports to car-pooling.

“We have been and are committed to partnering with (East Shore) and his team to closely monitor the data and the changing situation in our community," Forti said, adding, "But in the interest of maintaining a healthy environment for students and staff we need our parents to continue to monitor and screen their children daily, before they come to school and keep them home if they're not feeling well or have any symptoms related to COVID-19 or have had close contact with anyone who tested positive."

"We're doing our part to keep our schools safe and open."

Pascucilla said, "We're doing our part to keep our schools safe and open. We have enough information about COVID-19, the pandemic, to know how to control the spread and that is through social distancing and other mitigation measures like mask-wearing and making sure that if you're sick, you stay home and you contact your doctor."

His biggest worry though are the “gatherings, parties” and events where more than 25 people gather together and don’t wear masks or socially distance.

“We’re seeing an increase in cases and after Halloween, we’ll see it go up,” Pascucilla said, adding that more cases mean hospitalizations and, “some fatalities.”

“We are doing our part with the schools," Pascucilla said. "We really need everyone to be diligent about doing their part.”

Cases so far in schools

On Oct. 22, two people tested positive; one from the Ferrara School community and one from Joseph Melillo Middle School, based on letters to families.

Prior to that, on Oct. 14, as Patch reported, there were two positive cases announced in letters to families: one a person who attends the adult education night school program and another at East Haven High School.

On Oct. 3, a positive coronavirus case at Joseph Melillo Middle School prompted 17 people to be asked to quarantine, according to the East Shore District Health Department.

Before that, on Sept. 22, a Momauguin Elementary School "community member" tested positive for COVID-19.