The Vermont Department of Health reported 52 people were hospitalized for Covid-19 as of Wednesday — the lowest number since the end of December.
Vermont officials said Tuesday that the rate of patients newly admitted for Covid has declined as well. But intensive care usage has dropped more slowly. As of Wednesday, 15 people were in intensive care with the virus, about the same as in the past week.
The health department also reported 375 new Covid infections for Wednesday, lowering the seven-day average to 283 cases per day. That’s a massive drop from the more than 1,800 cases reported at the peak of the epidemic, and the lowest seven-day average the state has reported since Nov. 5.
But there’s a caveat to that comparison: In recent months, self-administered antigen tests have become more common, while the department mostly reports cases from PCR tests. For the first time Wednesday, the health department released details on the Covid antigen test results that Vermonters submitted to them.
The results are from the department’s self-test results reporting form. It’s impossible to say how many Vermonters who tested positive actually used the form, so it may not be representative of all the antigen tests taken in the state.
The results show a similar pattern to PCR tests: A rise in mid-January, followed by a decline in recent weeks. The department received about 20,000 Covid test results, of which about 7,600 were positive.
Vermont’s seven-day positivity rate for Covid PCR testing was 6.3% on Wednesday, a drop from 6.5% Tuesday and 8.2% last week.
No additional Covid deaths were reported on Wednesday. In total, 575 people have died in Vermont since the beginning of the pandemic.
