With cases of COVID-19 surging in Norwich, more than 1,000 residents sought free tests over the weekend, with early results showing a drop in the city’s percentage of positive cases.

Several sites in Norwich were set up in response to the recent outbreak. Backus Hospital doubled its weekend hours at its test site from four to eight hours per day and tested 406 people on Saturday and another 425 on Sunday, hospital officials said. Previously, the drive-thru averaged 160 to 180 tests per day during shorter four-hour periods.

A weekend testing site at the Norwich Regional Adult Education school in Greeneville administered 120 COVID-19 tests, and another site set up at the Kelly STEAM Middle School processed 170 tests.

New London, meanwhile, saw 70 new reported cases over the last week, the most among communities served by the Ledge Light Health District. That was almost four times more case than the 18 cases reported the week before.

Overall, more than 3,000 tests were administered at sites throughout Southeastern Connecticut over the weekend, Josh Geballe, the state's chief operating officer, said Monday during the governor's coronavirus briefing.  

Gov. Ned Lamont said Monday that the positivity results from the recent Norwich tests was about 2%, an encouraging drop from the 6.7% positivity rate last Thursday for the city, which prompted the state Department of Public Health to declare a COVID-19 alert for Norwich.

"We'd like to think with fast action, we can make some progress," Lamont said.

Lamont said the positivity rate for southeastern Connecticut was about 3%, compared to the new statewide positivity rate of 1.64%. Half of the 19 new hospitalizations in the state over the past three days are in New London County, Lamont announced. An additional four people died from COVID-19 over the weekend, bringing the total number of deaths in the state to 4,517 since the pandemic started in March.

Ledge Light Health District, which covers nine southeastern Connecticut towns, has reported a steady increase in COVID-19 numbers since the start of September. Numbers peaked from Sept. 26 and Oct. 2 with 154 new cases. Ledge Light serves East Lyme, Groton, Ledyard, Lyme, New London, North Stonington, Old Lyme, Stonington and Waterford.

New London seeing increased cases

New London Mayor Michael Passero said the city is tightening its safety protocols and expanding community testing in reaction to the increase.

The New London police department confirmed Monday that an officer tested positive last month. The officer remains in quarantine and is feeling better, said Capt. Brian Wright.

New London city offices have never fully reopened to the public and Passero said a memo was sent to employees last week reminding them of safety protocols that include social distancing and mandate to wear masks. Committees and boards are barred from meeting in person.

In-person contact with the public remains limited and the city’s finance offices at 15 Masonic St., which had been allowing limited in-person visits in the lobby, now restricts visits to a drive-through. The New London Senior Center remains closed.

“We never really eased up,” Passero said of safety protocols.

New London Director of Human Service Jeanne Milstein said an aggressive COVID-19 testing initiative starts this week in response to the increase in positive cases. The initiative will include a variety of new testing sites and a renewed push to reach people who do not have transportation.

The testing initiative is a joint effort from the governor’s office, the city, the New London school district, Community Health Center of New London, Lawrence + Memorial Hospital, Ledge Light Health District and other partners. Testing sites this week include the New London Elk’s Lodge at 81 Washington St. where testing will be available from 8 to 10:30 a.m.

According to Ledge Light, Groton Town had the second highest number of new cases in its area between Sept. 25 and Oct. 2, with 25 new cases reported. Groton City also experienced an uptick with 13 new cases over that period. 

Groton Town Manager John Burt said he'd like to ask everyone to continue to follow best practices including wearing masks, social distancing, and maintaining hand hygiene. He said the town "isn't changing its operations at this point since it had instituted a very safe reopening plan," but he will continue to monitor as the situation evolves.

Groton City Mayor Keith Hedrick said he does not plan to close the Municipal Building, which opened about a month ago, but if the city saw a further increase in numbers, he may consider that. The city is minimizing the number of people in the building, has a greeter in the front and requires people to wear masks and stay 6 feet apart from other people. He said about 15 people are coming into the building each day, while the city redirects another 30 to 40 people, for example, telling them that they can put tax payments in the mailbox.

L+M spokeswoman Fiona Phelan said the mobile testing van will be in Groton, Stonington and New London throughout the month and Yale New Haven Health is working with the state and local community organizations to schedule testing.

Norwich leads region in new cases

Uncas Health District Director Patrick McCormack said Norwich had 32 confirmed new positive cases on Friday — a daily peak, topping the previous high of 27 on Thursday — and 23 new confirmed cases reported Saturday. Norwich had 20 new positive cases Sunday and 15 on Monday, McCormack said.

Backus and other local health agencies plan to host additional testing events. The schedule for new test sites was not available Monday evening. Backus is working on plans to move its mobile test site from the hospital campus parking lot to the Thomas J. Dodd Memorial Stadium.

McCormack stressed that expanded testing is one key to bringing the Norwich COVID outbreak in check by catching positive cases early enough to get infected people to self-quarantine and avoid infecting others. On average, about 100,000 tests are being administered across the state on a weekly basis.

“We’re trying to minimize the community spread,” McCormack said. “People who otherwise might not have been aware of their status can now take measures to take care of themselves and their families. We also want to remind people, if they are sick, they should still stay home, regardless of the test result. The best thing, whether you’re COVID positive or have something else, it’s important that you not make others sick.”

McCormack said some other towns in the 11-town Uncas Health District also are seeing increases in COVID-19 cases coinciding with the Norwich outbreak. During the seven-day period running through Oct. 2, Norwich had 164 new cases. For the same period, Montville had 17 new cases, Griswold 16, and Preston 13.

Lower numbers were seen in other district towns, with Lebanon having eight new confirmed cases for the week ending Oct. 2, Salem, eight new cases, Sprague four cases, Lisbon three, Franklin two cases, Voluntown one case and Bozrah no new cases.

Norwich City Manager John Salomone said city offices will remain open by appointment only. Most city employees are at their offices, with a few city employees working remotely, Salomone said.

Last week, Salomone said he would consider asking more employees to work remotely if the city’s COVID-19 spike continued.

Phase 3 still proceeding 

Lamont said at Monday's press conference that he was planning to proceed with phase 3 of reopening the state on Thursday, which increases capacity for indoor dining and allows larger gatherings such as graduations and weddings. Asked whether there was a specific metric that would cause him to roll back that plan, the governor said there's "no absolute number."

"If I see a big change, I'm not afraid to change strategies. If we get (to a positivity rate of) 4% - 5%-, then we've got to reconsider what’s been going on if that happens quickly," he said.  

The governor said given the increase in cases in the Connecticut and other parts of the country, and the recent outbreak among White House officials, that senior members of his and Lt. Gov's Susan Bysiewicz's staff - about 40 people total - will begin being tested twice a week for the foreseeable future.

"It's a good time to err on the side of caution," Lamont said.

Staff writers Claire Bessette, Julia Bergman, Greg Smith and Kimberly Drelich contributed to this report. 

c.bessette@theday.com