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As the COVID-19 outbreak spreads through Vermont, some signs point to the beginnings of success in curbing the rate of spread.
The latest data from the Department of Health shows the number of COVID-19 cases in Vermont is doubling every four days, said Easton White, a researcher at the University of Vermont. That’s a decline from a week ago, when the number of cases was doubling every two to three days.
“I think it is fair to say the doubling time is increasing at this point,” White said via email.
That data may be a reflection of the beginning of social distancing trends that began to take effect around March 15, as Gov. Phil Scott closed schools, limited crowds to 50 people, and ordered businesses to go remote.
White said that any improvements caused by those actions are likely on a delay, since it takes time for the virus to incubate, for infected people to develop symptoms and for patients to get test results.
It also may be the result of increased testing, White said. If more people are tested for COVID-19 and found to be negative, that will increase the total being tested and lower the percent of people testing positive, lowering the case rate.
Vermont continues to have among the highest testing rates in the nation for COVID-19, conducting 63 tests for every 10,000 residents — just below New York, Washington and Louisiana, according to the COVID Tracking Project.
On Tuesday, the Department of Health published new data on hospitalizations, revealing that 21 patients were hospitalized at the time for COVID-19. The new data also shows that even more patients, 52, are hospitalized “under investigation for COVID-19.”
It’s unclear how many COVID-19 cases have been hospitalized in general, or the rate of hospitalization, since the department did not say how many COVID-19 patients have been discharged since the start of the epidemic.
A broader understanding of the pace of Vermont’s outbreak to come is still missing. Vermont is working on a model to show the coming rate of cases based on a variety of data sources, according to Mike Smith, secretary of the Agency of Human Services.
Smith said the state’s ability to expand testing capacity will help it develop a more precise model.
“We are waiting because we needed to have a statistically significant amount of data,” he said.
The Scott administration is using worst case scenarios based on Wuhan, Italy and Spain to prepare for a surge in hospitalizations, according to Conor Kennedy, a spokesperson for the Agency of Human Services.
That peak could occur in the next few weeks, Levine said, and when it hits, “it’s going to be like the opiate crisis.”
“Everyone will be able to say they know someone who died or suffered,” Levine said. “That’s how it’s playing out across the country. It’s only a matter of time. Every state will have its sad set of stories.”
Researchers and hospitals are creating their own models of how COVID-19 could spread. One University of Washington analysis projected Vermont’s peak cases would hit as soon as next week, April 7 — but other researchers cautioned that data may not be accurate. It predicted that Vermont would need 183 hospital beds on March 31, far more than the 73 current hospitalized patients.
CHIME, another model developed by Penn researchers, allows hospitals to plug in their unique numbers and get an estimate of how many COVID-19 patients to expect, but it does not allow for a statewide tally.
The Trump administration’s lead infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, released a model Tuesday that shows 100,000 to 240,000 Americans could die of the coronavirus, in spite of social distancing policies that have banned large gatherings and led to the abrupt closing of businesses and schools. The biggest outbreak is in the New York City metro area, and positive cases have been reported in every state. More than 3,400 people have died since the pandemic took hold in the United States, the New York Times reports.
Editor Anne Galloway contributed to this report.
