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Berkshires Town Closes Buildings After Resident Tests Positive For Coronavirus

The Clarksburg Senior Center in Clarksburg, Massachusetts, in 2019.
Nancy Eve Cohen
/
NEPR
The Clarksburg Senior Center in Clarksburg, Massachusetts, in 2019.

The number of confirmed or presumed positive cases of the new coronavirus has grown to five in western Massachusetts — all in Berkshire County, according to numbers the state public health department released on Monday.

One town in the Berkshires, Clarksburg, decided on Sunday to close town buildings. That's after the state notified local officials that a person in town had tested positive for COVID-19.

"We decided since there was a...case of the Coronavirus, we wanted to take precautionary measures and secure and clean buildings that were accessible to the public," said Rebecca Stone, the town administrator of Clarksburg.

Those include its school, which has about 200 students in kindergarten through 8th grade, and the library, the town hall and the senior center.

Shirley Therrien chairs the senior center's board of directors. She's 83 years old and said the town did the right thing.

"I don't want to get that virus. All I know is that virus is not very nice. He's really bad with the seniors," Therrien said with a laugh. "That's what I'm told."

The town administrator would not confirm or deny if the resident who is sick had spent time in any of the closed buildings, but the cleaning work has begun.

John Franzoni, the school superintendent of the North Berkshire School Union, which includes Clarksburg, said the tentative plan is to reopen the buildings on Monday.

"Obviously this is a fluid situation," he said. "We're just getting information every day from the state and locally as well, and just trying to do what's best for the school and the whole community."

On Sunday, the neighboring town of North Adams announced it had thoroughly disinfected its schools over the weekend.

Before joining New England Public Media, Alden was a producer for the CBS NEWS program 60 Minutes. In that role, he covered topics ranging from art, music and medicine to business, education and politics.
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