“Well, we had the first case in the state and now we have the first surge in the state,” said Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton, after a day jam-packed with free testing in his city for residents with or without symptoms.
Boughton said he, along with other city and state officials, are urging people to social distance, wear masks, wash your hands frequently, and follow state guidance.
“In the last two weeks, we’ve seen 200 cases, a large percentage of them are between the ages of six through 18, so that’s concerning. As well as families, entire families are engulfed in this," Boughton said.
Boughton said the city is seeing a significant spike because of travel, gatherings at church and places of worship, and lastly, youth sports leagues.
“Some of the activities that we thought would be moderate or low risk for transmission actually have been really high risk. One of them is soccer. People think it’s relatively a non-contact sport. We have seen some transmission of the virus in our soccer leagues and even a little in softball, but not so much there. These, you kind of took for granted, because you’re standing away from people and it’s not like football or basketball where you are all over,” he said.
The mayor said athletic fields and boat launches are closed effective Monday. And he said the city has to slow the spread or they’ll have to close even more places down again.
“We have to get our arms around this, I know it’s a cliché, but it’s true, we need to make sure this doesn’t expand more broadly," Boughton said.
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Danbury plans to have another free COVID-19 testing event similar to Saturday’s in two weeks.
In the meantime, Boughton said residents can get tested any day of the week at two federal health centers within the city.
