Local Businesses and COVID-19: New Canaan Healthfare

For today’s Q&A with a local business, we hear from Margaret Wenzel, who owns New Canaan Healthfare with her husband, Jim. The Morse Court provider of organic foods—including wheat-free and gluten-free—as well as vitamins, pure cosmetics and more, is offering outside pickup and delivery in addition to its safe in-store shopping. 

Here’s our exchange. New Canaanite: New Canaan Healthfare is a business in the field of health and wellness. What has it been like for you to experience the onset of the COVID-19 virus? 

Margaret Wenzel: Overwhelming. There were so many unknowns and so much fear, but we knew we were crucial to our customers.

First Selectman: New Local COVID-19 Cases Include Two at Party, Family of Four

New Canaan’s top elected official said the town learned last Monday of a party where a resident who had traveled to South Carolina ended up bringing COVID-19 virus back here and, at the gathering, infected one other local person. The two new cases account for some of the seven reflected in state Department of Public Health figures that appeared Monday in the agency’s statistics, according to First Selectman Kevin Moynihan. Other new cases include a New Canaan woman who tested positive at a hospital where she’d gone in for a heart procedure, an employee of the New Canaan YMCA, a woman who had a wedding at her house on Ponus Ridge where out-of-state relatives were invited, and a local family of four that is hosting a Stamford teen, Moynihan said during a regular meeting of the Board of Selectmen. “That is a rather unusual case,” Moynihan said of the last, “but another indication that COVID is coming from outside rather than local transmission.”

“All of these cases are people under 50 and primarily teenagers, younger people,” he added during the meeting, held via videoconference. 

The comments came after Selectman Nick Williams said during a discussion of general matters before the town that he had thought Moynihan might do a town-wide outcall Monday night to address the DPH data on new cases in New Canaan. “You indicated over the weekend that you were collecting data and maybe didn’t have a chance to get the data that you wanted for purposes of the outcall,” Williams told the first selectman.

Data: New Canaan Has 7 New Confirmed Cases of COVID-19 Virus 

New Canaan as of Monday had seven new confirmed cases of COVID-19 virus, data show. As of Friday, New Canaan had 172 confirmed and three probable cases, according to data on file with the Connecticut Department of Public Health. 

On Monday, the total number of confirmed cases stood at 179, according to figures available on the DPH website. It’s unclear how the virus was transmitted, whether the new cases represent town residents, whether or how the new cases are related to each other, whether there’s a risk of wider spread in New Canaan, when town officials became aware of the positive tests, whether and how they planned to inform residents or whether new safety measures are to follow. First Selectman Kevin Moynihan could not be reached for comment. 

In his most recent town-wide outcall, from last Wednesday, Moynihan noted that an employee of the New Canaan YMCA’s nursery school had tested positive for the virus. It’s not clear whether the first selectman had information on the additional new local cases of the virus at that time and, if so, why he withheld the information during the update.

Local Businesses and COVID-19: Halo Fitness 

For today’s Q&A with a local business, we hear from Charlotte Zabrodsky of Halo Fitness. The Grove Street gym reopened June 17. Here’s our exchange. 

New Canaanite: Halo Fitness reopened June 17. How’s it going? 

Charlotte Zabrodsky: It has been wonderful to reopen our doors and re-entry has been a very smooth process. We followed the Connecticut guidelines as exactly as possible and feel our facility reopened in a safe and efficient way.