As the region's school districts began sending out letters to parents outlining plans to deal with the coronavirus outbreak, which the World Health Organization classified Wednesday as a pandemic, state officials announced a third Connecticut resident has tested positive for the virus.

Dr. Matthew Cartter, the state epidemiologist, said at a news conference in Hartford the newly diagnosed individual — an elderly person who lives in New Canaan — was the state’s first community-acquired case of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. That means the man did not contract the virus from anyone known to be infected; the state's two other confirmed cases, on the other hand, appear to have stemmed from trips to highly infected areas, specifically California and Nevada.

The latest patient is being treated at Norwalk Hospital, Cartter said.

“What we are going through is incredibly difficult,” he said shortly before announcing the news. “We have not seen a pandemic like this in a hundred years. None of us in this room today (has) ever been through anything quite like this, with a new virus none of us (has) ever been exposed to before.”

“These are challenging times,” Cartter continued. “But like other pandemics, there are things we can do to slow it down and make sure our hospitals stay open.”

He said the state has been working to make testing more widely available and is establishing alternate sites at local hospitals and at locations to conduct testing. Hospitals will work with commercial testing labs, such as Quest Diagnostics and LabCorp. Additional information is expected to be announced in coming days.

The state has requested additional protective equipment, while the Connecticut Insurance Department has issued a notice to all travel insurers regarding cancellation requests in light of the emergencies Gov. Ned Lamont declared Tuesday.

To date, the State Laboratory has tested a total of 74 individuals, three of whom were positive for COVID-19.

As of Wednesday evening, there have been at least 1,190 cases of coronavirus confirmed by lab tests in the United States and 37 deaths, according to a New York Times database.

“It is only a matter of time before we have widespread community transmission throughout the state of Connecticut," Cartter said. “We need to assume that COVID-19 is here.”

He said some state residents will "not survive this" but officials would try “to make that number as small as possible.”

"We are trying to mitigate the first wave now. We don't want everyone getting sick all at once," he said. "We don't want our hospitals overwhelmed. ... The goal is to slow down the transmission so that our hospitals can stay open."

State Chief Operating Officer Josh Geballe said at the same news conference that Connecticut will receive $7.1 million from the recent $8.3 billion federal appropriation to address the coronavirus.

“If you have a fever and a cough and you are in the southwestern part of the state, you should assume that you have COVID-19,” Cartter said. “You don’t need a test to tell you that’s what you have, you should assume that’s the illness you have. Most people will get better at home, especially the younger you are.”

Beginning impacts on schools

After Lamont declared public health and civil preparedness emergencies Tuesday, school districts across the region immediately sent out letters to parents outlining how they’ve been working closely with local and state health officials to prepare for the outbreak.

With emergencies declared, the governor now has the ability to order travel bans, close schools, authorize quarantines and speed up certain regulations.

Already, schools have been closing in some parts of the state, including the Region 14 district, which serves Woodbury and Bethlehem, as well as schools in Stratford and Westport. Wilton Public Schools also shut its doors Wednesday indefinitely, according to a report by the Wilton Bulletin, along with other western districts. New Canaan announced its schools will be closed for the next 14 days.

In New London, Connecticut College President Katherine Bergeron notified students via email Wednesday night that, at the end of its two-week spring break, the college will "transition to remote modes of teaching until at least April 30." Faculty and staff will continue to report to work as usual but students are asked to return home after the break and complete their courses remotely. Remote classes will begin March 25, Bergeron wrote.

Three Rivers Community College in Norwich and Central Connecticut State University in New Britain also announced the cancellation of all in-person classes, shifting to online sessions after the schools’ spring breaks end March 23.

In southeastern Connecticut schools, coronavirus worry has meant ramped up precautions to help slow the spread, for now — efforts include canceling all in-state and out-of-state field trips, as well as gatherings of 100 people or more, including plays, dances and concerts — for the next month or longer, while trips abroad have been canceled extending into summer months.

In Norwich, the district canceled its annual All-City Music Concert Wednesday evening, while in East Lyme, field trips to New York City and Boston, and summer trips to Europe, also have been swiftly canceled.

In Groton, a robotics team trip to Ottawa, Canada, was canceled, among other trips, while Waterford's district was forced to cancel three out-of-state field trips — two to NYC and one to Delaware — and multiple in-state trips, Superintendent Tom Giard said.

Superintendents said they are following Ledge Light Health District and state DPH recommendations and will continue to follow their guidelines as more information becomes available.

If a student or teacher contracts the virus, superintendents told The Day that the affected school would be shut down for a minimum two-week duration. Other measures to contain the virus could change, based on recommendations made by the state.

East Lyme Superintendent Jeffrey Newton said schools won’t be shut down unless an outbreak happens or unless the state or health departments order a closure.

In their letters to parents Wednesday, superintendents also wrote custodians are focusing their efforts on sanitizing the schools during and after school hours.

According to North Stonington Superintendent Peter Nero, custodians are being told to focus on disinfecting hard surfaces, such as desktops, computers, keyboards, door knobs and other “high-touch” surfaces, even if that means temporarily leaving other parts of school more dusty, he said.

“The first priority is sanitizing and disinfecting,” he said. “The second priority is the cleaning of every room. So if you come in and it’s a little dusty, it’s because we have a priority right now. We only have an x amount of staff.”

Nero said the district has already lined up a company to deep clean the schools, should the district need that, and has also ordered more cleaning supplies and fog cleaner.

Waterford’s Giard also wrote to The Day, “We have been in an enhanced cleaning protocol for a couple of weeks now. We will also be conducting another deep clean this weekend.”

In Groton, Superintendent Michael Graner said school buses are being disinfected twice a day: once after morning rounds and again in the evenings.

Besides cleaning surfaces and avoiding large crowds, schools also are trying to encourage healthy social habits among students by putting up posters demonstrating how to properly wash hands and urging students to do so more frequently.

Preventive practices also include "no handshakes, high-fives, or hugging, and avoiding sharing food or water bottles," according to a letter sent out by Colchester Public Schools, while students exhibiting any flu-like symptoms are, of course, being told by every district to stay home.

According to Kris Magnussen, Ledge Light Health District's communicable disease prevention supervisor, slowing the spread of the virus is necessary to help prevent older people from contracting it, give scientists more time to better understand the virus and help keep hospitals open for those who will need in-hospital care.

“I have to say right now, we are being bombarded with lots of questions and lots of information and there are still so many things we don’t have answers to,” she said. “It’s a new virus and we can only go by what we are seeing in China, Italy and now Washington state. It needs to be taken very seriously and we have to be cautious and put strategies in place to help mitigate the spread.”

Preparing for long school closures

School districts are mandated by state law to hold 180 school days per year, all of which must be completed by June 30, 2020. To make up for potential lost class time due to closures caused by the virus, some school districts mentioned in their letters that classes could be held during vacation scheduled in April.

Already, more than 100 school days have passed, leaving an ever narrowing window to fit in missed school days. Waivers can be obtained from the state Department of Education to allow for fewer days to be completed, said Graner, but too many missed days could strain students’ learning.

Graner said he thought online learning in this situation would be impractical, due to state requirements. “We don’t think we could provide 10 days of (online) instruction for 100% of the students (including special education students), when we have more than 4,000 students,” he said.

Despite that, Graner said, he and teachers are organizing efforts to put together learning packets to keep children cognitively engaged during an extended closure. He said teachers will be passing out those packets Monday for families to keep at home in case schools are closed.

“I’m calling them learning activities to engage the children," Graner said. "It’s not really homework, but we thought it would be great to have some activities to engage the children and help them build literacy skills and numeracy skills and so forth if they are home.”

m.biekert@theday.com