If a Montpelier ice rink is where the latest wave of the Covid pandemic in Vermont took off, Barre is where it has landed.
Cases in both Barre City and Barre Town have doubled in just a week, rising higher than nearly any other place in the state, according to Department of Health data.
Barre City, the 14th-most-populous community in the state, now has the second-highest total number of cases since the pandemic began, with 202 cases. Barre Town has another 24.
Barre appears to be the site of the single largest instance of community transmission in the state since March. And its effects have been felt across the area.
Five schools in the Barre area have had eight cases of the virus, forcing the public school district, which includes both Barre City and Barre Town, to switch to remote learning on Nov. 11.
Covid scares have hit businesses, nonprofits and the city’s police department, leaving them scrambling to get employees tested and to fill staffing needs.
As officials warn Vermonters to avoid multi-household gatherings this Thanksgiving, residents fear what potential defiance of that order means for a community that already has a high rate of cases.
“The whole idea of the holiday is based around a meal,” Sonya Spaulding said. “And people are not going to want to change their habits.”
Spaulding, a member of the Barre School Board, has lived in Barre most of her life. She pointed out that the low case numbers in Barre Town could be deceiving, because many locals record their address as “Barre” without specifying the specific municipality they’re referring to.
Ben Truman, spokesperson for the Department of Health, said the state uses the address that was provided during testing and confirms it in follow-up interviews for positive cases.
If someone marks their address as “Barre,” it will be coded to Barre City, he said.
How it started/how it’s going
When hockey and broomball teams met at Montpelier’s Central Vermont Memorial Civic Center in late September and early October, Washington County had fewer than 80 total cases, with no new cases at all on many days.
The ice-rink outbreak spread to schools — particularly Union Elementary School in Montpelier, with seven cases — workplaces, and St. Michael’s College in Colchester, which had at least 30 cases connected with the outbreak.
Officials blamed secondary and tertiary spread for the size of the outbreak. The initial contacts at the ice rink passed their infection along to different contacts, who spread it out among more contacts.
But the total number of cases connected with the outbreak topped out weeks ago at about 150, while cases of the virus continued to rise. Gov. Phil Scott said the continued community transmission in the area may be an indirect result of the outbreak.
Now, officials say, the main driver of community transmission is small social gatherings, such as parties, cookouts and informal events. The state put out a press release looking for people who attended a party in Marshfield, a small town not far from Barre.
Nick Petterssen, co-owner of Green Mountain Community Fitness in Berlin, a mile and a quarter from the Barre line, said the gym had a scare four or five weeks ago, when a member came down with the virus. The gym closed for a deep cleaning. No other members or employees were named as a contact or a case.
But as numbers in the area climbed higher and higher, Petterssen grew concerned about the impact of the virus on his staff and members. Fewer members came in, and he thought that was a result of concerns about community spread.
He made the painful choice to close until January.
“In March, we had to shut it down” as the coronavirus invaded Vermont, he said, “so we didn’t really have a choice. But now, the governor is encouraging businesses to stay open. It was super difficult — I know how much people rely on exercising here for their physical and their mental health.”
Thom Lauzon, former mayor of Barre, said he was part of a small group of people gathering for dinner during the pandemic. But seeing the rise in cases in October, the group agreed it was time to take a break.
The case numbers in Barre are “shocking,” Lauzon said. From the outside, it didn’t seem like anything had changed.
“When I shop at the small, neighborhood grocery store, everyone still wears masks,” he said. “I haven’t noticed any change in behavior.”
The snowball effect
Spaulding said that, on her own street, the only change she’s noticed is the quiet each day at the time when the school bus should be making rounds.
But several of her friends and family have contended with “Covid scares.” A single case can cause a snowball effect as close contacts are forced to quarantine, she said.
Several organizations report those snowballs have left them short-staffed for vital work.
Sue Minter, executive director of Capstone Community Action, said the organization had to close down half of its Head Start classrooms and switch to remote learning.
“If teachers need to quarantine, we need some kind of backup,” she said. That’s not always easy to find.
Minter worries about the surge’s effect on the vulnerable population Capstone serves. Fewer people have showed up at its food pantry recently, even though the center runs the program outdoors.
She said Capstone offers delivery and encouraged people who need it to call the center. “We’re doing what we can to serve people who can’t come to us.”
At Good Samaritan Haven, a shelter that serves up to 15 people a night during the pandemic, director Rick DeAngelis said seven of the 20 staff members were in quarantine after one employee tested positive for the virus.
Everyone at the shelter had to be tested, just to be sure, he said. Luckily, the shelter is just a short walk from the testing center in Barre, so transportation didn’t have to be lined up for shelter residents.
DeAngelis is concerned about testing for people who need to be quarantined. Those residents have to be transferred to a hotel in Burlington, which proves tricky in the middle of the night when a case might crop up.
The Barre City Police Department was forced to put police detectives into uniforms after a Covid scare took a few patrol officers off the job, Chief Tim Bombardier said.
“If you have five, six, 10 people in your department, this can wipe out a shift,” he said. He recently wrote to the state, asking if first responders could get expedited testing so there’s less delay once a case comes to light.
Even volunteers are taking a bit of a hit. Capstone ran Vermont’s Everyone Eats program, where restaurants donate food to serve to locals, with a “skeleton crew” last week due to worries about exposure, Minter said.
Lucas Herring, the current mayor of Barre, said one concern for volunteer organizations is that those volunteers are at a higher risk due to their age.
“Vermont is the second-oldest state in the nation, and we have a lot of retirees here in Barre,” he said.
Sonya Spaulding said restaurants in the area were pivoting to takeout in an effort to stay afloat. “It’s different when you could be sitting at a table next to someone who has it,” she said.
Meanwhile, Spaulding is bunkering down this Thanksgiving. “Most people are just having immediate family,” she said.
“I’m hopeful that people will make good decisions,” she said.
