'Blip' Or 'Trend': East Haven Schools See Spike In COVID Cases

EAST HAVEN, CT — The entire East Haven High School girls’ basketball team is in quarantine after a player tested positive for COVID-19, three more Momauguin cases - including a staff member - were reported today even as the school is shut down due to an outbreak and two full classes at Tuttle School are in quarantine after two new cases were reported today, schools superintendent Erica Forti confirmed for Patch Monday night.

The school district now has a total of 245 cases, with 74 of those cases being school staff and a total of 274 students and staff are in quarantine. 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. It’s a precaution agonist contracting the virus. The term isolation is used for someone who is ill with the disease.

Momauguin was shuttered due to an outbreak, East Shore District Health director Michael Pascucilla told Patch last week and again Monday night. He said the health department is still investigating “what happened” at the school that lead to it being closed until at least March 15.

“What we’re doing now is looking at the data to see what happened. We just don’t know. It could be coincidence. Contact tracing was done by the (school) district and we’re following up and looking at data and positivity rates. We just can’t say yet,” if the outbreak was through in-school transmission: “We’re still investigating,” he said.

Meanwhile, Pascucilla said that sports teams across the state, in Branford and now in East Haven are in quarantine due to positive player's cases, though he said it’s mostly ice hockey teams statewide where the cases are being found. The girls basketball team is in quarantine, meaning for the next 10 days they will not be practicing or playing, due to a positive case.

Why the uptick in cases? Is the COVID variant responsible?

Pascucilla said that while cases statewide may be trending down, in East Haven and Branford, that’s not the case. When asked why are cases spiking in East Haven and Branford, he said they're still trying to figure it out.

“We’re just not sure,” he said. “I can’t put my finger on it and say this is the cause. Unfortunately we have seen an uptick. But whether it’s an outlier, a blip or a trend, only time will tell.”

Branford and North Branford were two of the towns in the state that saw the first COVID-19 variant, dubbed B 1.1.1.7 from the United Kingdom. He said that he could not rule out spread of the variant in shoreline towns the health district serves, including East Haven and Branford.

Pascucilla said that on March 5, a person died of COVID-19 in North Branford. He said that since he’s not received data from the state showing fatalities from the U.K or South African variant. What he can confirm is that the B 1.1.1.7 variant is “pretty prevalent here.”

People should not let down their guard on the virus, he said, despite the increasing number of vaccinations, something he said he’s “proud of.”

East Shore has vaccinated thousands in the past several weeks and in just the last week, more than 1,250 schools staff from five towns. He sai the goal is to have all eligible school staff from East Haven, Branford, North Branford, Guilford and Madison vaccinated in the next two weeks.