Vermont logged its 4,000th case of Covid-19 this week, officials said at Gov. Phil Scott’s press conference Friday, a figure they called a sobering landmark in the state’s fight against the virus that began in March.
A significant number of Vermont’s cases have come in just the past three weeks: More than 44% of the state’s 4,005 total cases were reported in November, state data show.
Officials reported 72 cases of the virus on Wednesday and 99 Thursday as Vermonters celebrated Thanksgiving this week.
Three additional deaths were reported on Friday, bringing the total since the beginning of the pandemic to 67.
Scott began the press conference by recognizing the Vermonters who died this week. One of those deaths occured at a long-term care facility, one in a resident’s home, and one in a hospital, officials said. Those who died ranged in age from 76 to 91.
“Please remember that this is the consequence of more virus in the community, which is exactly why we’ve taken the steps we’ve taken,” Scott said.
Eighteen Vermonters are presently hospitalized with Covid-19, with two in ICU care, officials said.
Still, Scott said he was heartened by anecdotal evidence that Vermonters may have largely heeded the state’s ban on multi-household gatherings for Thanksgiving. Officials had expressed concern about potential effects from holiday gatherings on transmission earlier in the week.
Health Commissioner Mark Levine said that a New York Times survey estimating only 20% of Vermonters planned to dine with other households Thursday was promising, but that it will take longer to know the true impacts of the holiday on the state’s case numbers.
“We will learn more in seven to 14 days” about the impact of Thanksgiving, Levine said. “Most of us in state government observed the different feel of the holiday this year — the lack of traffic, the airports reporting lower holiday and pre-holiday activity.”
For those Vermonters who didn’t heed the gathering ban, Levine asked that they quarantine and get a Covid-19 test immediately and again in seven days.
Scott also expressed optimism there was “light at the end of the tunnel” of the pandemic because of the swift developments of vaccines. As a way to express hope, he encouraged all Vermonters to put up holiday lights starting this weekend.
Nationwide, the country reports more than 13 million cases, with more than 263,000 deaths.
Concern mounts over long-term care cases
As Vermont’s November surge in cases possibly continues in the weeks to come, officials said that surveillance testing in K-12 schools and long-term care facilities will be a priority.
The state’s new plan to perform surveillance testing for K-12 teachers and staff kicked off last week. Of 9,389 tests performed through that effort, 21 yielded positive results, according to Dan French, secretary of the Agency of Education.
At this point, Levine said the state isn’t concerned about school-level outbreaks stemming from any of those 21 positives. The biggest worry, he said, lies in the potential impact of the virus’s spread in nursing homes and long-term care facilities.
“The health department and I are becoming more and more concerned” about that impact, he said.
Outbreaks have occurred at facilities including Rutland Health and Rehab, where five residents have died.
More than 50 percent of the Covid deaths in Vermont have been at elder care facilities, according to data from the New York Times.
The state plans to up surveillance testing for staff and residents in long-term care facilities after those homes were the site of multiple outbreaks this month. The state will require weekly Covid-19 testing of all staff and residents of long term care facilities beginning the week after Thanksgiving, according to Agency of Human Services Secretary Mike Smith. He said some facilities that the state deems especially vulnerable may see daily testing in the weeks ahead.
Some facilities that have had outbreaks, like Northfield’s Four Seasons Care Home, have tested residents as often as twice-weekly this fall. The state had previously recommended weekly or bi-weekly testing at long-term care facilities, and has offered funding to support those efforts.
“At a minimum, we want to make sure that weekly testing is accomplished,” Levine said.
In the event that a resident or staff member tests positive, Smith said that a “series” of facility-wide tests are performed until the level of infection in that facility is accurately determined.
Officials pointed to a recent “event” at the St. Albans barracks of the Vermont State Police as another example of how rapidly community transmission can affect a population. Fifteen VSP employees at the St. Albans barracks are in quarantine after a possible Covid-19 exposure, according to Department of Safety Commissioner Michael Schirling.
The quarantine “event” started after the significant other of one trooper, a healthcare worker, tested positive for the virus last Saturday. Contact tracing efforts quickly showed that 14 additional employees were at risk of infection, Schirling said, and all have since gone into isolation.
“This is an example of innocent vectoring that can occur, and why the health and safety posture that’s been created for Vermont is so essential,” Schirling said. The quarantine has impacted the barracks’ operations, Schirling said, requiring teams from other parts of the state backfill troopers’ shifts.
Statewide, the Department of Health plans to add more contact-tracing staff next week to prepare for a possible “fallout” of Thanksgiving cases in the at-large population. Expanded contact-tracing efforts would accompany a field hospital set up in Essex Junction last week and pop-up testing sites that the state is still working to expand.
“We’re going to continue to do what we’re doing today, and make a determination whether we need to do anything more” in the days ahead, Scott said. “Our hope is that we don’t. We’ll see in seven to 14 days what effect Thanksgiving had on us.”
Clarification: This story was updated to make it clear that testing would occur at all long-term care facilities.
