Friday evening, Aug. 28, First Selectwoman Lynne Vanderslice issued her nightly COVID-19 update, announcing one new confirmed positive case, and another that hasn’t yet officially been counted by the CT Department of Public Health (CT DPH).
The data was last updated by the state as of 8:30 p.m. on Thursday, Aug. 27. With the one new case reported, Wilton’s total case count (since the start of the coronavirus pandemic) now stands at 249. Vanderslice wrote that the “report didn’t include an additional new case known to the Wilton Health Department.”
How does Vanderslice know that one additional new case isn’t in the total case count from the state?
“There are two ways we find out about a case: one, it comes through the state reporting system, or two, someone calls the health department to report positive test results. They know they have information on two different people,” she said, adding, “I would expect that it would show up in the state report either Monday [today] or early [this] week.
While Vanderslice won’t speculate on whether she expects new cases are imminent, she says she wouldn’t be surprised.
“It’s not surprising that you would continue to have more cases because there’s more interaction between people. It’s not surprising that the case numbers have been growing for residents who are younger, because for a long time, those kids were at home and not out socializing or playing sports or doing things with other people. They were pretty much staying just close to their family. So none of this is surprising,” she said.
Vanderslice provided data on cases by age group, noting that “younger residents continued to drive statewide case growth.”
- Statewide, since the start of Phase 2, residents aged 20-29 account for 23% of all new cases; the same age group accounted for only 11% of cases before Phase 1 reopening began.
- Similarly, during Phase 2, residents aged 10-19 account for 13% of all new cases but were only 2% of all cases before Phase 1.
- Children under 9 years old now account for 4% of the cases since Phase 2 began, while they represented only 1% of all cases statewide before Phase 1.
Wilton-specific age breakdowns are not available. The CT DPH doesn’t make age data by town available. “The Wilton Health Department would have to manually prepare the analysis, [but] the result wouldn’t be 100% accurate since CT DPH has not provided data for all Wilton cases due to late reporting,” Vanderslice explained.
CT CASES BY AGE Age Range Since Phase 2 Start Since Phase 1 Start Cases as of May 19 20-29 23% 20% 11% 30-39 16% 16% 14% 40-49 13% 13% 14% 50-59 13% 13% 18% 10 -19 13% 9% 2% 80+ 12% 9% 15% 60-69 8% 9% 15% 70-79 4% 6% 10% 0-9 4% 4% 1%
She again encourages people to follow the recommended precautions, referencing the recent outbreak and sharp uptick of cases in a neighboring community.
“What you have to be really careful about is following all the mitigation protocols so that we don’t end up in a situation like Danbury, because what happened in Danbury can happen in any community, if people aren’t following the rules,” she said.
Clarification on Rules–Gatherings, Social Distancing and Mask-Wearing
Vanderslice said that she has received emails from residents asking her to clarify whether sector rules for social distancing, mask-wearing, and limits on the number of people who can gather applies to events held on private property.
“The Department of Economic and Community Development sector rules do apply to private property,” she wrote on Friday, after confirming that with the governor’s staff and David Lehman, Commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development, which issued and oversees the sector rules.
Vanderslice included a link to the rules online.