The Vermont Department of Health reported a record-high 604 new Covid-19 cases Thursday, along with one death.
While new cases were reported in every county, case counts are notably high in Bennington County (66 cases) and Rutland County (70 cases). Recent town-level data indicates that case rates are rising in more towns in southwestern Vermont.
Vermont currently has the seventh-highest per-capita case rate in the nation, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analyzed by The New York Times.
Thursday’s high case total is attributable in part to testing volume. The state typically reports its highest number of tests on Thursdays, and the current total reflects results from 17,205 tests. That’s compared to roughly 2,000 to 5,000 daily tests over the past few days.
But health department data also shows more of those tests are turning up positive. The state’s seven-day average test positivity rate was 5.2% Thursday, the highest it’s been since the opening weeks of the pandemic in 2020, when testing was scarce.
Based on CDC recommendations, state officials had previously used 5% positivity as a benchmark for maintaining stricter public health restrictions. However, Health Commissioner Mark Levine said Tuesday that no new measures would result from Vermont crossing that threshold.
“The next things would be on the level of very, very stringent kinds of restrictions on people's lives, which — a 5% positivity rate would not be the prime force that would generate that,” he said.
Levine suggested that the positivity rate may be elevated in part because people were more likely to get tested over the Thanksgiving holiday if they were already symptomatic.
As of Thursday, a record-high 23 Covid patients are in intensive care. Overall hospitalizations remain elevated at 76, down from a pandemic high of 84 on Tuesday.
State officials said Tuesday that the strain on hospital capacity due to increased Covid hospitalizations was most acute in Bennington and Rutland, but capacity concerns are escalating across the region. The University of Vermont Medical Center in Burlington, Vermont’s largest hospital, announced Thursday that it is repurposing operating rooms to open five more intensive care beds, likely postponing hundreds of non-emergency surgeries.
The health department also reported one additional death on Thursday. A total of 414 Vermonters have died during the pandemic, 156 of them since the Delta surge began in July.
Get the latest statistics and live updates on our coronavirus page.
Sign up for our coronavirus email list.
Tell us your story or give feedback at coronavirus@vtdigger.org.
Support our nonprofit journalism with a donation.
