Doctor, staffer linked to Connecticut hospitals ID’d among NY coronavirus cases, governor confirms
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A doctor and a staffer linked to Connecticut hospitals have been identified as testing positive for coronavirus, the state’s governor said Saturday.
The doctor is a New York state resident who visits patients in Connecticut’s Bridgeport Hospital but is not on the staff there, Gov. Ned Lamont said in a statement.
“This most recent case of another New York resident who works in Connecticut testing positive for COVID-19 shows us what we already know — coronavirus is here, and viruses don’t stop at state borders,» Lamont’s statement added.
«Coronavirus is here, and viruses don’t stop at state borders.»
— Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont
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On Friday, Lamont had confirmed that a worker at hospitals in Norwalk and Danbury, Conn., who also lives in New York state, was in self-quarantine after testing positive for the virus.
Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont speaks Jan. 9, 2019, in Hartford Conn. (Associated Press)
Both individuals live in Westchester County, N.Y., north of New York City and just west of the Connecticut border. Westchester has seen a majority of New York state’s reported cases of coronavirus, the Hartford Courant reported.
As of Saturday night, New York state had about 90 confirmed cases of the virus, with 70 of the patients residing in Westchester, the Connecticut Post reported.
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As of midday Saturday, no Connecticut residents had yet tested positive for coronavirus, state Public Health Commissioner Renee Coleman-Mitchell told FOX 61 of Hartford. She added that 21 patients tested at a state lab had shown negative results, while results for nine other patients were pending.
Bridgeport Hospital has placed “a small number” of its patients in isolation as a precaution despite being told by the federal Centers of Disease Control and Prevention that the step wasn’t necessary, hospital president Anne Diamond told reporters Saturday.
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None of the hospital’s other employee will be quarantined or be asked to stay home from work, Diamond said, adding that officials did not believe the doctor who tested positive was contagious at the time of his visit or that he had visited any other Connecticut hospitals.
Neither the doctor nor the hospital staffer were identified.
Meanwhile. Connecticut has launched a coronavirus information hotline. Residents with questions about the outbreak may call 2-1-1 or text CTCOVID to 898211, according to FOX 61.
