ANSONIA — All city parks, playgrounds and basketball courts are now closed to the public, the city announced Tuesday on Facebook.
“Attention residents ~ at this time for public safety, we must close all city basketball courts, city playgrounds and city parks to the public. If you are out for a walk in open space, please practice social distancing by staying six feet apart.”
Why?
“We received reports about groups still gathering on the courts to play basketball,” Ansonia Corporation Counsel John Marini said in a response to a Valley Indy question. “The city wants to ensure that all residents take reasonable precautions to maintain a safe distance.”
The action does not include the city’s river walk. But residents are being urged to use common sense. “Flattening the curve” means staying home. (Editor’s Note: If everyone reading this goes for walk on the river walk, you’re helping to transmit COVID-19)
“The river walk is generally open, but again, safe distances should be maintained,” Marini said. “The closed areas should be avoided.”
Please contact Ansonia City Hall with specific questions. Click the link for contact info: https://www.cityofansonia.com/content/8132/8142/8166/default.aspx
The move comes less than 24 hours after Seymour closed parks and playing fields there. First Selectman Kurt Miller, in a recorded interview, had expressed frustration because people in his town were still gathering in tight groups at places such as Gary Park in Seymour.
The federal and state governments have been calling on people to stay at home and not gather in groups larger than 10 in an effort to slow the pace of people going to hospitals to get treated for the COVID-19 virus.
From The CT Mirror, using information from a Monday afternoon press conference in Hartford:
Gov. Ned Lamont announced the coronavirus death toll in the state has risen to 10 and that the number of people who have tested positive for the disease jumped from 327 to 415 in a single day. State health experts now expect Connecticut’s infection rate to double every 3 – 5 days.
“This is still in the acceleration phase,” Dr. Matthew Cartter, the state epidemiologist, said at the governor’s late afternoon news conference on the crisis. Asked how soon Connecticut hospitals might reach capacity, Carter responded: “I think we just don’t know.”
Cartter said the first hospitals to feel the coming surge will be in Fairfield County.
“Right now, the first hospitals that will have capacity issues are Greenwich, Danbury, Bridgeport, Norwalk,” Cartter said. “The hospitals we are talking about, they are all making adjustments as we speak to their room availability, their structures where they can. They’re going to expand their ICUs. Those are things that they are doing. And right now, they are still holding their own.”
Griffin Health Hotline
Questions about COVID-19?
Call the Griffin Health COVID-19 Information Hotline at 203 – 204-1053.
Griffin Health offers this call center for patients, visitors and members of the community who have questions about COVID-19.
Griffin Health caregivers are available to answer your specific questions Monday – Friday from 8 a.m. – 5 p.m.
(From Griffin’s Facebook page)
