COVID-19 cases continue to mount at UConn

STORRS — COVID-19 cases continued to mount at the University of Connecticut’s campus in Storrs, where the school reported 26 new cases Wednesday.

The university placed five residence halls under quarantine Tuesday, after recording 34 new cases— the highest one-day total UConn has seen so far.

Wednesday’s cases involved 13 students living on campus, 12 off campus, as well as one employee.

The school’s Stamford campus, where UConn officials have placed the residence hall under quarantine, reported no new cases.

The surge of new cases comes after several weeks of declining caseloads at UConn, as Connecticut health officials and several other colleges and universities throughout the state report a new wave of infections.

It also comes two weeks before the start of the Thanksgiving holiday.

UConn, like many schools in the state, plans to close residence halls for winter break. That prevents students from going home over Thanksgiving break and potentially returning to campuses with the virus.

The state will also have to contend with students coming home to Connecticut, some of them from hotspot states, a concern the governor has previously raised.

At Sacred Heart University, which announced last week it would go to fully-online learning amid rising infections, university officials have been giving students guidance on how to get tested and quarantine if they opt to leave campus early.

SHU officials reported eight new cases as of Tuesday, including three new infections among employees. The school’s active caseload stood at 212.

Fairfield University has pushed most gatherings and activities outside of classes online.

Officials there reported 14 new cases as of Tuesday, with 155 active cases.

Both Sacred Heart and Fairfield universities are enforcing nightly curfews for students, after the governor recommended residents stay home past 10 p.m.

Quinnipiac University in Hamden reported 80 new cases since Monday. The school reported 321 active cases in isolation, bringing the cumulative number of positive tests for the semester to 422.

Quinnipiac officials have raised the school’s alert status to red and implemented a 14-day campuswide quarantine last week. Classes remain online-only, according to the university’s public dashboard.

Albertus Magnus College in New Haven reported two new cases among students Sunday, the most recent daily data available. Fifteen students there are in isolation, most of them off campus.

The University of Bridgeport reported 24 active cases as of Tuesday, bringing the cumulative total there for the semester to 45, the majority among commuter students.

The University of Hartford in West Hartford

reported eight new cases last week, with nine active cases.

The University of New Haven in West Haven reported 26 new cases in the past seven days, bringing the total active cases there to 36— two of them among staff and faculty.

Central Connecticut State University in New Britain reported two new cases Tuesday, both among commuter students. Two people there are in isolation, two are in quarantine.

Yale University in New Haven reported 18 new cases Monday, the most recent day’s results available. The new infections brought the total reported in the last seven days to 52. Yale has quarantined three residential colleges and moved its alert level to orange.