Covid-19 cases are rising in Vermont and the Northeast, but it’s hard to say if the holidays have caused a true surge in the state, officials said at a press conference Tuesday.
Cases rose 20% in the past week among Vermont’s neighbors, while testing declined. The regional positivity rate has gone over 10% in the past week, said Department of Financial Regulation Secretary Michael Pieciak, who presented the state’s report. Vermont’s positivity rate was 2.8% on Tuesday.
Gov. Phil Scott said New England, New York and Quebec reported a combined 170,000 new cases over the holidays.
“These numbers alone are troubling,” Scott said. “But it’s not just the cases, because positivity rates in our neighboring states are on the rise as well.”
Vermont itself had 746 new Covid cases in the past week, up from 586 the week before. But that could be a remnant of delays in testing and reporting over the holidays. Pieciak said it has been only 11 days since Christmas, and just a few days since New Year’s.
The state reported 165 cases Tuesday, above the seven-day average of 106, said Dr. Mark Levine, commissioner of the Department of Health. Deaths total 149; on Monday the state added four deaths that occurred since September that it deemed “probable” from Covid-19.
More people traveled to Vermont over the holidays than at any other point during the pandemic, but the traveler total was still far below 2019 levels, Pieciak said.
The state’s model shows that if Vermont has a holiday-related increase in line with what other states experienced from Thanksgiving case numbers should rise in the coming weeks, but will still remain within the capacity of the state’s medical system, Pieciak said.
17,650 vaccine doses given
The state has administered 17,650 first doses of the Covid vaccine, including about 5,000 in the past week, Levine said.
That’s more than half of the 30,000 doses Vermont had received before this past week, well above the national average of about 28% of vaccines distributed, according to data collected by The New York Times.
Vermont also compares well to other states when it comes to the percentage of its population vaccinated. So far, 2,557 doses have been distributed per 100,000 Vermonters, the highest in the Northeast, Pieciak said.
Officials said the delay between vaccines shipped and vaccines distributed is partly the result of the overburdened medical system, and partly the result of uncertainty in how many vaccine doses will get to Vermont.
“From our standpoint, we will ramp up our efforts to distribute the vaccines as quickly as we receive them,” Scott said. “And it would be helpful if we knew what that supply chain looked like and how much we were going to get each workweek on a consistent basis, so that we could ramp up our efforts and can continue to consistently give the vaccinations out.”
Scott said there was also a lag time between when the state receives the vaccine and when it distributes it, as well as a three-day lag between when pharmacies distribute the vaccine and when they report it to the state.
Levine said that if a shipment gets to the state Tuesday, clinics will already be scheduled for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, but that wouldn’t appear in the data yet. “It may look like we’re behind, but this is the reality of how you schedule administration of a treatment like this,” he said.
The state has provided the first dose of the vaccine to about half of all emergency medical services workers and a quarter of targeted health care workers, Levine said.
The state expects vaccinations to be completed this week for skilled nursing facilities’ patients and staff, and will move on to assisted living and other long-term care facilities next, said Mike Smith, secretary of the Agency of Human Services.
Proceeding by age groups
Levine said Vermont’s vaccine advisory board has officially recommended the next phase of the vaccine prioritize older Vermonters. It recommended the state first vaccinate people 75 and older, then people age 65 to 74, followed by younger Vermonters with chronic health conditions. Federal guidelines are more complicated, and state officials have decided that proceeding by age groups is more efficient and easier to understand.
Given the slow rollout of the vaccine, Great Britain is prioritizing first doses of the vaccine, leaving the second shot — which gives greater protection — for a date later than previously planned. Second doses should be administered three weeks after the first for the Pfizer vaccine and four weeks for the Moderna vaccine, according to the CDC.
While some in the United States are discussing that possibility, Levine said he disagrees with that practice, calling it an “off-label” use of the vaccine that leaves too many questions about its efficacy.
Great Britain is also struggling with another problem that may soon come to Vermont: A new strain of the virus that is more transmissible than the one currently circulating in the population.
Levine said that strain, which the vaccine will still be effective against, has made its first appearance in Saratoga Springs, New York, and is expected to arrive in Vermont.
The state may have to redouble efforts to combating the virus, he said. The governor said he wants to wait and see what happens in other states before deciding to close in-person schooling.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is testing samples from states to detect where the more virulent strain of coronavirus has spread. Georgia, Colorado, California, Florida and New York states have all reported cases of the B.1.1.7. variant, which scientists say will likely become the dominant form of Covid.
