Vermont Covid-19 cases up by 41 in week, none indicating state ‘hot spots’

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The Vermont Department of Health confirmed five new Covid-19 cases on Friday, for a weekly increase of 41 cases, up slightly from last week’s 38-case hike. The largest single-day increase was 16,  recorded on Thursday, July 9.

During the Friday, July 10 press conference, Vermont Department of Health Commissioner Dr. Mark Levine was asked about variations in reported new case numbers that swung from one or two per day to 16 on another. Levine said that the new cases were widely distributed around the state and did not reflect any particular hot spot and were not a cause for alarm. The total number of cases in Vermont now stands at 1,277 with no new deaths reported since June 18. A total of 56 people have died from Covid-19.

Levine said that the department has continued to monitor both the Winooski outbreak and the Fair Haven cluster but had seen no new cases attributed to either of those groups.

Of the 41 new cases, more than half occurred in people from Chittenden County. Windham County saw an increase of two cases, now totaling 99. Windsor County reported three new cases, totaling 62. The Health Department website’s Data Dashboard has added two new tabs relating to cases by county this week. Dashboard visitors can now see Recent Cases by county over the last 14 days. Both Windham and Windsor County’s 14-day totals stand at six.

The other new tab shows Cases per 10,000 People by county. Windsor County shows 11.2 infections per 10,000 people and Windham’s number is more than double that with 23.2 cases per 10,000 people. However, these statistics come with a warning about interpreting county rates based on small populations. Also, these population counts are based on 2018 American Community Survey numbers rather than the 2010 Census count.

During the Friday, July 10 press conference, Vermont Department of Financial Regulation Commissioner Michael Pieciak outlined several of Vermont’s recent favorable coronavirus trends including the state’s low hospitalization rate. One reason for this favorable number was an average age of under 40 for new Covid-19 cases over the past six weeks.

The number of patients hospitalized with the virus increased from one to two this week. Those in the hospital who are suspected of having the illness have decreased from 15 to nine this week.

The Department of Health says that a total of 74,098 people have been tested in Vermont to date. During the Friday press conference, Levine again said that Vermont was testing over 1,000 people a day although the department’s dashboard put the testing number from last Friday to this Friday at 5,703. That’s a daily average of 815 and down from 6,806 tests performed the previous week. This weekly number may have been less because of the July 4 holiday.

Contacts Monitored, which includes close contacts of people who have already tested positive, has risen slightly from 48 to 56 and Travelers Being Monitored, which includes those participating in Sara Alert (a service that provides 14-day free symptom reminders while they are quarantining in Vermont) is at 1,759 up by over 1000 from last week.

The pop-up Covid-19 testing schedule for Springfield includes the upcoming three Tuesdays on July 14, July 21, and July 28. No August dates have been added this week. To schedule a test, click on this link and scroll down to the appropriate date.

The Vermont Agency of Commerce and Community Development updated Vermont’s cross-state travel information map on Friday, July 10.  (SEE MAP ABOVE.) This map identifies the surrounding counties throughout the Northeast that can now freely travel to Vermont without quarantine including counties in New Jersey, Pennsylvania., Ohio, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia.

This is a county-by-county list for those areas that have less than 400 active Covid-19 cases per million residents. Changes in the eligible travel counties have shifted slightly, reducing the number of eligible quarantine-free travelers from 13.5 million down to 11.5 million according to Pieciak. Although the overall trend showed a decrease in eligible travelers, counties from Maine, upstate New York, New Jersey and other states were added as newly eligible non-quarantined counties.

For more statewide details on Covid-19 information and resources, click here.