Department of Health town-by-town data showed that Barre City’s Covid outbreak has slowed down, but the city remains one of the highest municipalities in the state for its Covid case total.
While the number of cases per day remained about the same as reported in Nov. 18 data, the cases have broadened geographically, with 130 towns reporting six or more cases of the virus compared to about 100 on Nov. 18. Vermont has 246 cities and towns.
The state did not report data for Nov. 25 due to the holiday, according to the health department website. It also changed the way it reports town data this week, coloring towns based on their recent cases per 10,000 residents rather than by their cumulative case total, as it had been doing.
That makes it harder to do a direct comparison with case spread in previous weeks. But the state map indicates that Barre City remains one of the top towns in the state with the most recent cases.
Other towns with a high number of cases in the past two weeks compared with their population are Stratton, Plainfield, Norton, Canaan and Troy.
VTDigger analyzed state data to find the towns with the fastest-growing case totals. Burlington, Barre City, St. Albans City and Northfield had the biggest number of cases added in the past two weeks.
Barre had the fastest-growing outbreak in the state on Nov. 18, adding 100 cases in just a week. Now, it’s added roughly 100 cases over two weeks, a sign that the outbreak may be slowing down.
However, there are potential issues that could affect some of the testing and reporting of cases, particularly in Barre. Officials said a shipping delay meant that the state had to toss out 249 tests performed at the Barre Auditorium on Nov. 27.
Based on percent change growth, Hardwick, Troy, Canaan, Barton, Richmond and Ludlow’s case growth were the highest in the state, excluding towns that were added to the data for the first time.
The state excludes towns with fewer than six cases from its cumulative data reporting, citing health privacy issues.
