A wastewater treatment plant in Burlington reported its highest SARS-CoV-2 levels in months, a sign that the Covid-19 virus may be rising in the region, according to data from the City of Burlington.
The data, released Friday, covers testing conducted through April 4. According to the results, Burlington’s main plant reported its highest viral load since early January, during the height of the Omicron variant surge. The plant’s latest measurement is the fourth-highest viral load reported by any Burlington plant since July.
The two other Burlington wastewater treatment plants reported a decline in viral load from the previous week but remain elevated from their levels in mid-March.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also released new details about other wastewater treatment plants in Vermont. The three plants that publicly release data to the CDC are at St. Albans, Winooski and Springfield.
Although the three plants have not reported data for the past two weeks, data from late March shows that the St. Albans and Winooski plants had rising levels of the SARS-CoV-2 virus at that point.
Wastewater testing is a relatively new form of Covid monitoring that measures the level of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes Covid, in a single community over time using sewage sampling.
Also on Friday, the Vermont Department of Health reported 30 people were hospitalized with Covid, the highest number of patients since early March.
That’s a 76% increase from the previous Friday, when the health department reported 17 Covid hospitalizations. The number of patients in intensive care has also increased from zero to five in the past week.
In the latest county-by-county Covid report, the CDC removed Essex County from its list of counties with “medium” Covid levels but kept Washington County and added Orleans, Addison and Chittenden counties to its list of “medium” areas.
The CDC measures Covid levels in a community based on the case rate, the number of new hospital admissions and the number of Covid patients compared to hospital capacity. It recommends that high-risk people take additional precautions in medium- to high-level communities.
Vermont reported 243 new Covid-19 cases on Friday. The state’s seven-day average for new infections is 170, up from 158 on Thursday and up from 136 a week ago, according to the health department.
Vermont’s seven-day average test positivity rate was 8.7% Friday, up from 8.2% on Thursday. The test positivity rate includes only PCR tests, not at-home antigen tests.
The health department reported no additional Covid deaths on Friday. Sixteen people died from Covid in Vermont in March, and 620 people have died in total since the beginning of the pandemic.