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The Health Department says the number of coronavirus cases has risen to 123.
That’s four times the number reported five days ago. The total represents an increase of 28 since yesterday.
Dr. Mark Levine, the commissioner of the Vermont Department of Health, described the growth in the number of infections as “exponential growth,” pointing to a chart that showed a relentlessly upward trajectory.
“We don’t know what the coming days will hold, but the number will be higher,” Levine said.
Gov. Phil Scott and Levine said they weren’t sure how long the governor’s “stay home” order, which takes effect Wednesday, March 25, at 5 p.m., would remain in place.
Scott was asked about President Donald Trump’s goal to have the U.S. reopen for business by Easter, which this year falls on April 12.
“I think that is a bit over optimistic, to say the least,” he said. “You know this is going to take weeks and months. And this is going to be difficult. So, we’ll let the science and the data drive our decision-making.”
Levine reported that the death toll in Vermont has risen to eight. Six of those fatalities were patients at Burlington Health and Rehab.
“It’s only been about two weeks that we’ve been involved with coronavirus in Vermont and in that time we’ve had eight deaths,” Levine said. “Each one of the deaths at Burlington Health and Rehab is a tragedy in itself.”
The patients at Burlington Health had medically complex conditions, he said. Many had dementia and “did not have goals of care to go to a hospital for full resuscitative efforts.”
All of the fatalities were characteristic of how the disease is impacting older populations around the world, especially in the countries that are hardest hit, including Italy and Spain, which have seen COVID-19 deaths in the thousands and a doubling in fatality rates every few days.
Certain states, including New Jersey and New York, are showing similar trends, Levine said.
Louisiana, for example, reported its first case two weeks ago. Now more than 1,000 cases have been confirmed.
The commissioner said Vermont continues to learn from strategies employed by other states and nations. The primary strategy for stemming the continued spread of COVID-19 is social isolation.
“I’m giving you this for perspective, because I want to make sure that we’ve caught this exponential growth in terms of the number of cases, looking into the future, at the right time,” Levine said. “And that we don’t mirror some of those death rate curves, where things are definitely getting very rapid and concerning.
“So this is why I view this as the perfect time for the governor’s latest mitigation strategy in his emergency order,” Levine said.
In order to flatten the curve in Vermont, he said residents can only help slow the spread of COVID-19 by complying with Gov. Phil Scott’s order requiring Vermonters to stay at home and limit all contact with others.
Even with this mitigation strategy in place, Levine and Scott both emphasized in a press conference Wednesday morning that the increase in infections will continue for weeks and likely for months.
“Assessing the magnitude of the impact is challenging,” Levine said. “This is a major lifestyle change for us to experience.”
Everyone will be impacted, Levine said. Scientists have developed predictive models for the pandemic that show while 80% of people who contract COVID-19 are mildly or moderately ill — about 20% are hospitalized, based on research from cases in China and elsewhere in the world. Older people are more susceptible to higher hospitalization rates, but a small percentage of younger people are also vulnerable and can become seriously ill and even die.
“You have to realize … in that 80% category there will be some people who are in the 20 to 40 or 50 age group who may get sick, much sicker than we would have advertised so to speak,” Levine said. “And we’re finding worldwide, that some of the deaths fall in those categories, too.
“So I’m not saying this to be scaring anybody but at the same time, we have to be realistic in large-scale outbreaks of disease,” he said.
If 100,000 people in Vermont get sick, 20% may be hospitalized, Levine said.
The social distancing policies the governor has put in place over the past few weeks — closing schools, restaurants, bars, limiting gatherings to under 10 and now requiring all but essential personnel to stay home — are necessary to prevent a situation in which a large number of sick patients overwhelm the health system, he said.
At this juncture, Vermont has 575 hospital beds available, 163 ventilators and 78,000 surgical masks, according to Mike Smith, the secretary of the Agency of Human Services.
Smith says if there is a sudden surge in seriously ill patients with COVID-19, the state will need at least twice as many beds, respirators and masks.
“These numbers I gave you are not enough as we’re looking at the surge here,” Smith said. “And looking at what Dr. Levine showed on his charts, I think, at a minimum, we’ve got to double all the numbers I just gave you.”
Mike Schirling, commissioner of public safety, said the state has ordered an additional 202 ventilators and has more personal protective equipment on the way.
In addition, three surge facilities have been erected in northern Vermont. Burlington has a 150-bed surge site; the one in St. Albans at the Perley gymnasium has capacity for 50 beds and the Barre auditorium also has 50 beds.
Six months from now, Levine said, the population will have more immunity and public health experts will be able to employ more testing, case tracking and will be able to recommend more isolation methods.
“The [stay at home] strategy is a wise one, it’s scientifically sound,” Levine said. “It has some elements of mystery to it, in terms of not being able to tell you exactly what will happen on a given day and when. But, it will work.”
The state Department of Public Safety’s guidance issued to local police departments later Wednesday on potential enforcement of the order said it and Vermont State Police recommended that enforcement be handled primarily through education and voluntary compliance.
The order does not permit law enforcement to conduct motor vehicle stops or detain people for questioning about their travel. Nor does it close roads, establish roadblocks, checkpoints or the authority to demand identification.
Correction: A previous version of this article mistakenly stated that 1,000 people had died in Louisiana of the coronavirus. There are more than 1,000 confirmed cases in Louisiana.
