Vermont’s Covid-19 community levels were “low” over the past week, the state Department of Health reported Wednesday.
The department reported a new drop in the number of hospital admissions for the disease, with only 10 reported in the past week. That’s the lowest number of admissions since summer 2021, prior to the arrival of the Delta and Omicron variants.
Vermont currently has the lowest hospitalization rate in the nation, according to a New York Times analysis of data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The department also reported a new low in Covid cases, with 116 cases reported in the past week. However, Covid case data is based primarily on PCR tests and does not include at-home antigen testing, making it hard to make direct comparisons with earlier years of the pandemic when PCR testing was much higher.
But other metrics from the health department suggest low transmission in the state. The department tracks the number of people coming into emergency departments with Covid-like symptoms. The percent of visits for Covid-like illnesses remains lower than at this point in 2020, 2021 or 2022, according to the department.
All wastewater testing sites that send data to the CDC reported a drop in Covid viral levels in recent samples compared with the beginning of 2023.
The CDC also reported that 13 of Vermont’s 14 counties had “low” Covid levels, while Rutland County had “medium” levels. The levels are based on a combination of hospital admissions, Covid case rates and the percentage of hospital beds taken up by Covid patients.
The health department reported two additional Covid deaths this week, for a total of 16 deaths in April, slightly above March’s 15 deaths. Additional deaths may be added retroactively due to delays in processing Covid-related death certificates.
In total, 962 people have died from the disease since the beginning of the pandemic.
