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Vermont’s health commissioner, Mark Levine, on Monday said that every person known to have come into contact with someone with a confirmed Covid-19 infection in Vermont will receive follow-up communications from state investigators — from now on.
Health officials have maintained that they have been able to do appropriate contact tracing for all 855 confirmed cases in the state. However, Levine recognized at the Scott administration’s Monday press conference that some Vermonters have complained of a lack of follow-up from state investigators following confirmed Covid-19 cases.
“There have been individuals who didn’t feel that they had adequate attention paid to who their contacts were,” Levine said in response to questions from WCAX.
“That has certainly not been the rule, and I would hope that was the exception,” he said, “but going forward, that’s an absolute necessity that every contact be contacted and understood exactly what likelihood they may have of further spreading disease.”
Levine said “it does not matter how peripheral that contact was,” if the contact was “worthy of comment by the person,” it would prompt follow-up communications with that contact person.
“Clearly, a contact would be initiated, and may not result in the same, if you will, gravity of consequences in terms of what that person needs to do or not do, but certainly at the very least, it would be self monitoring for development of any symptoms, fevers, etc., and at the most, it would obviously require more isolation,” Levine said.
Vermont can now conduct up to 2,185 tests a day, but the state has been running an average of 419 tests a day since the start of April — about a fifth of its total capacity.
In an interview with VTDigger, Levine discussed how the state’s testing supplies were limited when contact tracing would have been most valuable — when Covid-19 started to spread weeks ago — and now that the state’s caseload is falling, there is more than enough.
Though Vermont’s total case and death counts are well below many other states, including those in southern New England, two outbreaks early in the epidemic at Burlington nursing homes left at least 17 elderly residents dead.
The health commissioner said the state would now have a second chance to stop the virus before it becomes an outbreak, this time as the state slowly reopens to some nonessential economic activity.
Gov. Phil Scott on Friday announced his second “turn of the spigot” in reopening businesses, allowing crews of up to five people to work in industries like construction, manufacturing and landscaping — provided they follow the state’s coronavirus health and safety guidelines.
Levine said he was confident that Vermont now had the testing capacity required to monitor the population for Covid-19 as the state gradually reopens, listing four pillars of what is required for reopening to occur:
- A sustained reduction in cases over 14 days.
- Health care system remains safely under capacity.
- Widespread testing is possible.
- Active monitoring of the population.
“I mentioned sort of the big four items for a state to be able to open itself up,” Levine said. “If we didn’t feel that testing — people with symptoms — and … conducting active monitoring of confirmed cases in the context was going to be a reality in Vermont, I don’t think the spigot would have been opened at all.”
Scott and Levine referred to a plan for contact tracing and testing that would be revealed later this week, but declined to discuss the details.
Scott began his press conference on a more somber note, recognizing the 47 Vermonters who have now died from the virus. And he warned that many of the state’s emergency public safety measures would remain in place for some time.
“Social distancing is here to stay,” Scott said. “Facial covering is here to stay for a while as well.”
Scott has issued official advice for all Vermonters to wear face masks in public, but hasn’t issued an order like New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Vermont’s governor said he continues to believe that advice and education is the way to go.
Scott noted that New York was largely alone in terms of state issuing face covering orders, and said that anecdotally — Levine said that 80% or more of the people in the supermarket where he shopped this weekend were wearing masks — most Vermonters seemed to be following his advice.
“And then you have to ask yourself how are you going to enforce? What are you going to do? Are you going to start issuing fines for otherwise burdened Vermonters at this point? I still feel that guidance and education is the best policy — lead them, don’t drive them.”
Levine said that many of the complaints coming from Vermonters are concerns about the behavior of others in the community, who are not following social-distancing and other state guidelines.
Scott said the administration will continue to educate non-compliant businesses. Commerce Secretary Lindsey Kurrle noted that Vermonters can also report non-compliant businesses to a web portal managed by the Department of Public Safety.
Scott was also asked about when Vermont’s hospitals might be allowed to reopen for elective surgeries and other nonessential medical services.
Scott said his administration was reviewing a plan from the state’s hospitals association, and consulting with neighboring states including Maine and New Hampshire about their plans to reopen hospitals to non-Covid patients.
“So, again, we want to make sure that we have the PPE that we need, as well as making sure that we’re doing all we can to preserve the health care system, but right now it looks good,” Scott said. “So, we’ll continue to monitor and that will be a consideration over the next week or two.”
