44 towns in state have no reported COVID-19 deaths
While COVID-19 has drastically altered life in Connecticut and is linked to the deaths of 4,371 state residents since the first fatality in mid-March, 44 towns have been spared any fatalities.
In fact, two towns — Canaan, in upper Litchfield County, and Scotland in Eastern Connecticut’s predominantly rural Windham County — have reported neither fatalities nor any cases of the coronavirus.
Local health directors
say the formula for avoiding COVID-19 seems relatively simple: smaller towns with lower populations, larger properties, fewer places for public gatherings and few, if any, nursing homes where the virus has infected — and killed — many of the state’s oldest and most vulnerable.
“It’s a combination of things,” said Robert L. Miller, director of the Eastern Highland Health District, which includes Scotland. “I think the community as a whole is pretty respectful of the governor’s guidance on how to protect themselves and the community. I know their local government is.”
The health district also includes Andover, Ashford, Chaplin and Willington,
none of which has had any fatalities, according to the state Department of Public Health’s weekend statistics.
“I think also by nature it’s a relatively tight-knit community,” Miller said of Scotland. “They don’t have a lot of mass gatherings or even small gatherings. The bottom line is low population density makes it easier to social distance. That’s the lifestyle the residents enjoy, while still staying
close.”
While the crowded cities Stamford, Waterbury, Hartford and Bridgeport account for 679 COVID-related deaths, the list of towns without fatalities have populations with small fractions of the cities. According to the 2010 Census, Scotland has 1,726 inhabitants, while Canaan has 1,234.
Robert Rubbo, director of the Torrington Area Health
Distict, which covers 18 towns, including Canaan, Cornwall Goshen, Kent, Norfolk, Salisbury and Thomaston, all communities with no COVID-19 fatalities, agreed that it seems easier to slow the spread of the coronavirus in smaller spots. But he doesn’t have an overall formula.
Asked about Canaan in particular, Rubbo said it was tough to explain.
“I do believe that the rural communities are more spaced-out, with less congestion,” he said. “None of our towns have an abundance of cases. It’s in the cities where people live in apartments and congregate settings, close to one another, where the virus spreads. Here, it shows how social distancing works.”
Rural residents have to travel farther for groceries and gasoline, so they make fewer trips to crowded places where they could become more likely to inhale COVID-19 droplets.
While Rubbo has been working seven-day, 60-hour weeks, his focus in recent days has been the logistics of future mass-vaccination campaigns when a vaccine is discovered. His office in downtown Torrington has fielded many complaints about lapses in publichealth protocols.
“I think a lot of the people in our area are taking it seriously and when they see someone not social distancing, they call us,” he said.
Of the 44 towns that have escaped fatalities, Montville, with 18,716 residents in New London County, is the largest. Thomaston, also with no fatalities, has about 7,560 residents.
Beacon Falls, with a population of about 6,200, in New Haven County, is the only town in southwestern Connecticut among the
44.
Jessica Stelmaszek, director of health for the Naugatuck Valley Health Department, which also covers Ansonia, Derby, Naugatuck Seymour and Shelton, said the lack of nursing homes in Beacon Falls is a key to its success in staving off fatalities.
“Beacon Falls is one of our smaller communities, and being a small town there are not a whole lot of large stores and things like that,” she said. “Most of the Valley decedents were, unfortunately, nursing home residents.” She said that most of the town’s cases have been in the 40to-60 age group.
“The hard thing to say about it, is when we get lab reports for positive cases, we’re not always able to obtain full medical histories for people, so we can’t say whether there were underlying health issues,” Stelmaszek said. Shelton, the largest city in the district, has had 133 fatalities.
“Beacon Falls is very fortunate in keeping the case count low and definitely fortunate that anyone ultimately contracting the virus has survived,” she said, praising residents for their overall cooperation in contact tracing when COVID-19-positive cases are found.
“We’ve had great compliance from our residents,” she said. “They’re getting the message to help flatten the curve.”