An election worker in Connecticut has tested positive for COVID-19, prompting a dozen colleagues to go into quarantine

• An election employee working in the City Hall in New Haven, Connecticut has tested positive for the coronavirus, prompting another 12 workers to go into quarantine, city officials said on Wednesday.
• The other employees who have been asked to quarantine spent Tuesday in the city clerk's office counting absentee ballots but did not come into contact with voters and were wearing face masks.
• Coronavirus cases are rising in Connecticut, with the state reporting more than 300 coronavirus-related hospitalizations on Wednesday, the highest number since early June.

An election employee working in the City Hall in New Haven, Connecticut, has tested positive for the coronavirus, prompting another 12 workers to go into quarantine, city officials said on Wednesday.

The infected employee, who has not been named, has not been to work since experiencing symptoms last week. However, City Hall offices have been disinfected, said Maritza Bond, the city's public health director, according to the Associated Press (AP).

The 12 other election employees asked to quarantine spent Tuesday in the city clerk's office counting absentee ballots.

According to Bond, they had no contact with voters and were all wearing face coverings.

A spokesperson for Mayor Justin Elicker said it didn't appear vote counting was affected, but that they were looking into it.

The risk of contracting the coronavirus while voting in person is about the same as when ordering takeout, one epidemiologist previously told Business Insider.

"There are so many safety protocols being put into place for safe voting that it is really a lower-risk activity," Saskia Popescu, an epidemiologist and leading expert on coronavirus transmission at the University of Arizona told Business Insider.

Around 530 new coronavirus cases were reported across Connecticut on Wednesday and another 11 people died, according to a tracker on the state's official website.

A further 374 people were hospitalized with COVID-19, the highest number since early June.

"Our hospitalization rate went up a lot a couple of days ago," Gov. Ned Lamont said, according to AP. "It went down a little bit yesterday. I take no comfort in that, except to say that the rate of hospitalizations went up a lot faster in April than is going on in October, November."

The country has recorded nearly 9.5 million coronavirus cases since the start of the pandemic, and more than 233,000 deaths, according to a tracker by Johns Hopkins University.

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