Loren Pace, head nurse at the Westport Weston Health District, and Dr. Louis D’Onofrio, WWHD director, clinical care, during today’s drive-through collection of nasal swabs from about 20 persons who had direct contact with a presumptively positive coronavirus person. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Dave Matlow for WestportNow.com

Said the state epidemiologist: “if you live in the southwestern part of the state and have a fever and a cough, you should assume you have Covid19.”

The officials spoke at a Hartford news conference. 

Connecticut has two residents diagnosed with the virus, plus two New Yorkers who work in hospitals in Bridgeport, Danbury and Norwalk.

Lamont said one patient who has tested positive for the coronavirus lives in Bethlehem and has children in the school system there. With that in mind, all Region 14 schools will close indefinitely, he said.

He said she is a female in her 60s who is a healthcare worker at Bridgeport Hospital who recently returned from a trip to Nevada, where it is believed she contracted COVID-19. She is being treated at Bridgeport Hospital.

The first positive Connecticut case — a Wilton resident in his 40s who is being treated at Danbury Hospital — was announced Sunday.

According to a story on the GOODMorningWilton site, the man is on a ventilator at Danbury Hospital because he contracted pneumonia. According to the story, which is based on social media posts from the man’s wife, he has an underlying medical condition — sleep apnea — which makes him susceptible to pneumonia.

The man’s wife and young twins are quarantined at home and do not have symptoms of the virus, the story said.

Connecticut currently has two COVID-19 testing kits, each of which can test between 500 and 600 people.

Lamont said the state has been testing 20-25 people a day in the state lab but hopes to increase that number to about 60. Testing has also been conducted at private labs.

The governor decided to declare the emergency after consulting with state agency heads and municipal officials about their ability to protect public health and mitigate the social and economic dislocation related to an international pandemic.

One immediate impact of the declarations is that they may allow some consumers and businesses whose travel has been impacted by the outbreak to benefit from travel insurance and other related coverage, the governor’s office said.

The Connecticut Insurance Department is in the process of notifying insurance companies that the governor has signed the declarations and will be monitoring their compliance with the terms of their policies. As coverage will depend on the terms of each policy, consumers are encouraged to read them carefully.

A second impact is that they trigger Connecticut General Statutes Section 42-230, the state law prohibiting profiteering during emergencies.

Violations are considered an unfair or deceptive practice and violators may be subject to fines or other action from the Department of Consumer Protection and the Office of the Attorney General.

The declarations also make clear that the chief executive officers of municipalities have emergency powers under Connecticut General Statutes Section 28-8a to take such actions as they deem necessary to mitigate disasters and emergencies.

While the declarations permit the governor to take certain actions related to the closure of schools and large gatherings, at this time those decisions are still being delegated to local municipal and public health officials .

Lamont said they are on the ground closest to the circumstances in each respective community and are empowered to make the best judgments regarding specific events.

—Mark Pazniokas, CTMirror.org contributed to this story.

The lab can complete between 15 and 20 tests per day, and the kit provides for 600 individuals to be tested.

The COVID-19 testing capabilities at LabCorps have become fully operational. Quest Diagnostics is in the process of getting testing online and expects it to be available soon.

All individuals being tested by these facilities must be referred by a physician in advance. Nobody should arrive at any of these facilities requesting to be tested.

Any positive test results that are conducted by each of these providers will be reported to DPH to be calculated and reported in the state’s testing data.

DPH today issued a directive with new restrictions on visitation at all nursing and convalescent homes in Connecticut. Effective immediately, the restrictions permit visitors to enter these facilities only if the person who is residing at one of these facilities is in hospice or end-of-life care and the visitors are wearing proper personal protective equipment.

The directive was issued by DPH after consultation with the Connecticut State Long Term Care Ombudsman, recognizing the elevated risk for COVID-19 to spread in enclosed healthcare facilities with highly vulnerable nursing home residents, some with serious underlying health conditions.

Today, the Connecticut Department of Banking issued a memo advising the mortgage industry and other financial services sectors licensed by the agency that it will take a no action position with regard to employees working from home who otherwise would be required to work from a licensed branch location. This allows employees to work from home if they meet certain requirements:

The 2-1-1 hotline is available 24 hours a day. Multilingual assistance and TDD/TTY access for those with a hearing impairment is also available.

Hospital staff were notified and the “very small number of patients” who came into contact with the doctor were isolated, she said. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has since told them that isolation is not necessary.

“The CDC has advised us that our staff will not require isolation or furlough given the nature of the encounter, but we are asking that all staff self monitor for symptoms in the future,” Diamond said.

State officials did not release any details about the doctor, such as where he works or what type of medicine he practices. He made rounds at Bridgeport Hospital over the last weekend.

“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 said. The risk to staff and patients is low, he said.

Friday night, Lamont and other state officials announced that an employee who works at both Danbury and Norwalk hospitals and is a resident of Westchester County, N.Y. had tested positive for coronavirus.

The woman is quarantined at her home in New York. Health officials said she was in contact with “a limited number” of people and worked in “an isolated geographic area” in the two hospitals.

They did not provide details about her job or the number of patients she cared for, but a source with knowledge of the situation said the woman is a nurse who had been in contact with as many as 20 patients, as well as numerous colleagues across the two hospitals.

The colleagues she came into contact with have been placed on furlough, and hospital patients who begin exhibiting symptoms of the coronavirus will receive priority for testing, the source said.

The woman was exposed to the virus in her home by another person who had tested positive for it. She then worked shifts at both hospitals.

“This is not unexpected,” Lamont said during a news conference at Danbury City Hall Friday night. “We’ve been prepared for this, well prepared for this. We’ve been planning for this for some time.”

“The hospital has been very aggressive – they’ve gone and they’ve figured out everybody that she’s had any contact with over the last several days and those folks have been put on furlough,” he said. “We’re monitoring them very carefully. Anybody, over the course of the 14 days, who shows any symptoms at all will be immediately tested.”

Renee Coleman-Mitchell, the state’s health commissioner, said Friday that Connecticut’s public health lab has tested 42 specimens for COVID-19, and all have been negative. Another 11 are in the process of being tested. The state has received one kit from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that allows health workers to test about 600 people. Lamont has requested additional kits.

Danbury and Norwalk hospitals are under “strict” surveillance, the governor said.