Westport Coronavirus Update: Local Business Furloughs Workers

WESTPORT, CT — Paper Source, a stationary store on the Post Road East in Westport, is furloughing its seven employees due to unfavorable business conditions due to the new coronavirus (COVID-19), officials said.

The furloughs began this week and "will continue indefinitely, but are intended to be temporary and last less than six months," the store's human resources department said in a letter to state officials and Westport First Selectman Jim Marpe.

"We are taking these employment actions because of COVID-19-related business circumstances that were not reasonably foreseeable," wrote Rhonda Dutmer, vice president of Human Resources. "We would like to have given more notice of this action, but were unable to do so because of how quickly our operations were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, the World Health Organization's pandemic declaration on March 11th, the President's declaration of a national emergency on March 13th, and other related governmental announcement and actions."

(To sign up for Westport breaking news alerts and more, click here.)

As of Tuesday, Westport had 120 confirmed cases of COVID-19, as Fairfield County remained a hot spot for the virus in Connecticut, according to state health officials.

Statewide, the number of deaths due to the virus reached 69 as of Tuesday, an increase of 16 over Monday. The total number of coronavirus cases in Connecticut was 3,128 as of Tuesday.

In Fairfield County, the number of new positive cases reached 1,870, up from 1,445, or more than half of the cases in the state.

This article originally appeared on the Westport Patch