The Vermont Department of Health reported 283 new Covid-19 cases and disclosed four new deaths Friday, raising the death toll to 332 people since the start of the pandemic.
On Tuesday, state officials said a downward trend of new cases was a positive sign of the state’s recovery. But the latest data shows the numbers may again be rising.
The latest case numbers boosted the seven-day case average to 192 cases per day, up from 177 cases per day as of last Friday. Comparing data on a weekly basis tends to be most reliable, since testing volume varies by the day of the week and tends to be higher on Thursdays and Fridays.
Thirty-two people are in Vermont hospitals with the virus, including seven people in the ICU.
The health department also shared new data on case demographics, clinical outcomes and outbreaks. The report, published every other Friday, is also the only regular release of data on the vaccination status of new cases, hospitalizations and deaths.
The latest summary includes cases recorded through Wednesday, Oct. 6.
The state reported 819 new breakthrough cases — infections among fully vaccinated people — over the two-week reporting period.
Health officials have said breakthrough cases are to be expected, given that Vermont has a large and expanding fully vaccinated population, and the vaccines primarily aim to prevent severe illness and death as opposed to stopping all infections.
Breakthrough cases should also be analyzed as a proportion of the total vaccinated population. Over the two-week reporting period, cases occurred in 182 out of 100,000 vaccinated Vermonters. That’s compared to 889 out of 100,000 people who are not fully vaccinated or whose vaccination status is unknown.
Unvaccinated people were 4.9 times more likely to get infected than fully vaccinated people, up from a ratio of 4.4 in the previous reporting period.
[Looking for data on breakthrough cases? See our reporting on the latest available statistics.]
The state also reported 29 new hospitalizations and 14 new deaths among vaccinated people, compared to 31 new hospitalizations and 13 new deaths among unvaccinated people.
Using the same calculation as above to adjust for the size of Vermont’s overall vaccinated and unvaccinated populations, the numbers indicate that unvaccinated people were 2.7 times more likely to be hospitalized and 2.3 times more likely to die from Covid-19 over the two-week period.
Those mortality rates are a shift from the previous two reporting periods, during which deaths from Covid-19 in Vermont were occurring in vaccinated people more often than unvaccinated people.
A majority of overall deaths over the past three months have occurred in the 80-plus age group, in which people are statistically more likely both to be vaccinated and to have other health conditions. Trends during the Delta wave, in Vermont and nationally, have indicated that age remains a critical factor in mortality risk despite the protections offered by vaccines.
Health officials have encouraged all people 65 and older to sign up to receive a booster shot. Boosters are available to anyone in that age group who received their second dose of the Pfizer vaccine at least six months ago. (A range of other adults are also eligible based on health risk, occupation or racial identity.)
The new hospitalization rates, however, show a shift in the other direction. While the hospitalization rate for the unvaccinated dipped sharply, the decrease was less for fully vaccinated people. The state Department of Financial Regulation, which leads Vermont’s Covid-19 modeling efforts, illustrated the trends in a chart presented Tuesday.
According to the data, 100% of recent hospitalized patients who required intensive care were unvaccinated.
The health department data summary also provides a glimpse of the rising number of outbreaks in Vermont, defined as three or more cases from a single setting. There were 90 active outbreaks as of Oct. 6, up from 70 in the reporting period ending Sept. 22.
New cases associated with outbreaks were reported over the two-week period in five types of settings:
- Congregate care: 32 new cases among residents, 17 new cases among staff.
- Health care settings: 12 new cases.
- Schools and child care: 213 new cases among children and staff.
- Workplaces or businesses: 65 new cases.
- Community, referring to social gatherings or events: 13 new cases.
The health department reports separately on cases in long-term care facilities and schools every Tuesday. (The total counts in the chart below may differ from the above because the reporting periods vary, and school data may include cases not specifically associated with outbreaks.)
According to that data, eight long-term care facilities have active outbreaks, defined as a new case within the past 14 days. Those eight facilities have reported 163 Covid cases.
Schools reported 107 new Covid cases among students and staff who were infectious while in a school building. That’s a decline from a peak of 174 cases reported in a single week in mid-September, although both numbers may be an underestimate, since the department does not report if cases are retroactively added to their data.
Racial divide continues
As cases have risen during the Delta surge, they’ve affected every racial group, Department of Health data shows.
The Delta surge has slightly narrowed the gap between white Vermonters and people of color — but the divide remains extremely high.
In May, before the beginning of the Delta surge, the cumulative case rate of Black people in Vermont was 2.5 times that of white Vermonters, according to an analysis of earlier department data. Asian people’s cases were 2.2 times higher than white people’s, and Hispanic people’s cases were 1.4 times higher.
In the latest weekly update, the rate of Black people was 2.2 times higher, the rate for Asian people was 1.6 times higher and the rate Hispanic people was 1.2 times higher than white people in Vermont, showing how the Delta variant may have slightly lessened the racial divide.
