Vermont’s Covid-19 levels were “low” in the past week, the state Department of Health reported Wednesday.
Hospital visits have declined from a small surge in mid-October, when the state admitted about 12 patients per day for Covid. Now, about seven Covid patients are being admitted to Vermont hospitals each day, the department reported.
As of Wednesday, 24 Covid patients were hospitalized in Vermont, according to the department, representing the lowest levels in about a month. None were in intensive care.
Other Covid metrics show mostly low levels of the disease. The department reported 385 Covid cases in the past week, down from 442 the week before, although case data is primarily based on PCR results and doesn’t include at-home antigen testing.
Syndromic surveillance figures — indicating the number of people arriving at emergency departments and urgent care centers with Covid symptoms — were lower than around the same time in November 2021, the department reported.
At a county level, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention rated 12 of Vermont’s 14 counties as having “low” Covid levels, down from only one county with low levels two weeks ago. It also has downgraded Rutland and Bennington counties from “high” to “medium” Covid levels.
The state also did not report any additional deaths from Covid in the past week, putting November on track to record far fewer deaths than in October. There have been four deaths reported so far in November, compared to 30 in October, which had the highest death toll since May.
In total, 763 people have died from Covid in Vermont since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020.
Cases and hospitalizations remain relatively low at a national level, but some states — particularly in the Southwest — have reported a recent rise in hospitalizations, bringing up the national total. The “four corners” region shared by Colorado, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico has reported particularly high Covid cases in the past two weeks, according to The New York Times.
Vermont has the 14th-lowest hospitalization rate and the 13th-lowest case rate in the nation, according to The Times.