GLOVER — For about 10 days earlier this month, owner Anne Eldridge closed Parker Pie Co. — the only pizza joint in Glover and one of two restaurants in this Orleans County town — after multiple employees tested positive for Covid.
She said the closure was “a pretty big blow,” especially during one of the last weekends of leaf-peeping season. It was the first time she had to close due to Covid cases among her staff.
“It affects a lot of facets of life and it’s just really frustrating, and it’s difficult to feel powerless,” Eldridge said last week. “You try to do what you can, and write policies, and institute testing schedules and take precautions, but at the end of the day, we’re dealing with a global pandemic.”
As Covid-19 cases mounted across the United States last summer, the highly contagious Delta variant was a distant reality in Orleans County, home to about 27,000 people in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom.
Now, at 1,531 cases per 100,000 people, the rural border county’s infection rates are almost three times the state average, according to information shared at the governor’s weekly press conference on Tuesday.
Infection rates are also the highest in the Northeast, according to the New York Times. That’s a first for Vermont, where relatively high vaccination rates have shielded residents from the worst of the Delta wave.
While state data shows that roughly 90% of Vermonters ages 12 and older have received at least one vaccine dose, Orleans County’s vaccination rate remains just over 76% — on par with the nationwide average of almost 78%, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Vermont officials have been monitoring the situation in Orleans County closely, Mike Smith, secretary of the Agency of Human Services, said at the press conference. He said the state hopes to bolster the county’s vaccination rates by holding even more clinics there in the coming weeks.
Gov. Phil Scott plans to get his booster shot at North Country Hospital in Newport on Thursday, when administration and health officials will hold a press conference there about the state’s expanded booster program, underlining state officials’ focus on the region.
“I want to be clear, this is not intended as finger-pointing at any one part of our state,” Smith said on Tuesday. “Rather, it’s a reflection of the data that we see roll in nightly.”
For residents on the ground, the surge has drawn a range of reactions and responses, including business and school disruptions and anxious calls to local health officials. Some residents report frustration or fatigue, and some are implementing new precautions — such as at Parker Pie, where Eldridge has spent $1,000 this month alone on rapid testing supplies for her two dozen employees.
The rising case numbers had already prompted Eldridge to revamp her Covid protocols last month, bringing back measures such as universal masking and disposable menus, she said. The current infection rate in Glover is 72 per 10,000 residents.
In nearby Lowell, a community of around 800 people that had 43 new infections in the last two weeks, “people are pretty frustrated and disoriented,” said Patricia Sears, a community and economic development consultant in town.
She said it “makes it real when a restaurant has to close,” adding that the Derby-based Pie and Pasta Company also had to close because of staff coming down with the virus.
In Greensboro, a town of roughly 700 people where cases have been relatively flat in the last couple of weeks, town health officer Karl Stein has put the county’s infection rates on a large sign across from Willey’s Store, a local hub.
Stein has been updating the numbers every two weeks since January. It’s a habit he plans to keep until the state declares coronavirus under control, he said.
He said it’s been stressful to watch case numbers rise over the past few weeks, and he has fielded several worried phone calls from residents with pandemic-related questions.
“Probably the biggest problem we’re facing is the anxiety and worry and depression,” Stein said. “Covid is here, and to some level, might be here to stay, and it’s got people really, really depressed.”
Disruptions also figure into life in Newport, City Manager Laura Dolgin said. The county’s high infection rate has prompted officials there to cancel the annual costume and trick-or-treating event, which draws hundreds of families to Newport at the height of fall foliage season. The city also has had a wave of last-minute cancellations of private events in city spaces, she said.
Personnel and supply chain shortages also have delayed some of the city’s long-planned construction projects, such as outdoor trail and crosswalk renovations downtown.
The tides may be shifting, however. State officials noted on Tuesday that new infections have declined slightly this week, according to state data. Rep. Woodman Page, R-Newport, takes that as a sign that Orleans County may soon return to baseline.
“People know that we’re not happy about infections in the Northeast Kingdom,” he said. “But I think [a massive rise in new cases] could happen anywhere. It could be in southern Vermont. It could be in Burlington. Right now is just our time.”
Mike Dougherty contributed reporting for this story.
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