Coronavirus Cases Continue Climb Among CT Students/Teachers

CONNECTICUT — Coronavirus cases among students and staff continue to climb and challenge school districts as quarantines push students and staff to remote learning.

Connecticut reported 1,146 cases among students and 487 among staff in the past week; that’s an increase of 159 cases among staff and 471 among students compared to the previous week’s numbers.

Several of the state’s largest districts have gone or will stay at full remote status. They include Bridgeport, Danbury, Waterbury and New Haven. North Haven, Bozrah, Griswold had also gone to full remote status as of Nov. 13. Around 13 percent of Connecticut school districts were fully remote as of Nov. 13. Half of districts have a majority of schools full in-person and about 37 percent are on hybrid status.

About 37 percent of Connecticut students are learning remotely as of Nov. 13, according to the state Department of Education. That number is significantly higher as of Nov. 19 because it doesn’t include Bridgeport or Waterbury schools going fully remote.

Gov. Ned Lamont said he would issue an executive order that would prohibit club and team sports starting Monday. The Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference it would postpone winter sports until January.

There were 29 coronavirus clusters linked to sport activities and 235 teachers had to quarantine due to close contact with a sports team member.

Cases among students by learning model:

• In-person: 348
• Hybrid: 508
• Remote: 274
• Unknown: 16

Every county in Connecticut except Tolland now falls into the state’s high risk category, which favors less in-person learning. Gov. Ned Lamont has pushed for schools to stay open as much as possible and to prioritize the younger grades for in-person learning. Contact tracing data shows that transmission within the classroom is a rarity and most cases come from activities such as sports or gatherings outside of school, Lamont said.

The state’s high risk category learning model indicator is 25 new daily coronavirus cases per 100,000 population over a two-week average. The state as a whole is at 40.7, Fairfield County is at 49.3 and New Haven is at 43.6.