Tuesday, December 22, 2020
Officials had previously refused to say whether ransomware was used, citing guidance from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. But the FBI recently gave the hospital permission to describe some aspects of the attack, said Dr. Doug Gentile, the medical center's chief medical information officer.
"What I can tell you is this was in the class of ransomware attacks," Gentile told reporters on a Zoom call. "We did not get a phone call. We did not get a letter. But we did have a file deposited [on our system] that gave instructions on how to contact the attackers."
That file provided a web address and instructed the hospital to contact the perpetrators if it wished to free its system, according to Gentile, who said he could not be sure of the motivation behind the attacks because the hospital ultimately never made contact — nor did it receive any ransom request.
"But we assume they were asking for money," Gentile said.
Tags: Cyberattack , UVM Medical Center , Ransomware , Web Only , Image
More than two-thirds of residents received their first shots in their rooms, while half of the home’s workers took turns getting inoculated in a common area. The clinic marked a milestone in the fight against a virus that has proven especially devastating to nursing homes.
“It feels hopeful,” the home’s medical director, Dr. Karen Fromhold, said.
Tags: covid-19 vaccine , helen porter rehabilitation and nursing , long-term care , mark levine , karen fromhold , mary ann nottonson , healthdirect , Web Only , Image
Friday, December 18, 2020
The North Ferrisburgh mom is vice president for programs at an educational nonprofit based on Main Street in Essex; her job sometimes requires that she works in-person with students at North Country schools. Her boys, ages 3 and 6, attend the Lakeside School at Black Kettle Farm, just a few minutes from the Essex ferry dock.
Smith has been commuting to work on the ferry for about eight years. But starting January 4, she’ll have to figure out an alternative option — as will others who rely on the route for professional, educational and medical reasons. That's the day the Burlington-based Lake Champlain Transportation Company will suspend Charlotte-Essex ferry service.
“Due to the significant decrease in ridership as a result of the pandemic, LCT has temporarily suspended service at our Charlotte/Essex Crossing and consolidated our resources to maintain service at our Grand Isle/Cumberland Head Crossing,” the company said in a statement on Friday. “We will resume service at our southern crossing as soon as we are able.”
Tags: Lake Champlain Transportation Company , ferry , Charlotte-Essex , travel , commute , Web Only , Image
Thursday, December 17, 2020
The gift was unsolicited, came as a total surprise to the organization and was kept quiet until Scott announced it Tuesday in a blog post.
“It was a little bit of a shock,” Vermont Foodbank CEO John Sayles said. “It’s by far the largest gift the Foodbank has received.”
In a post titled "384 Ways to Help" — a reference to the number of organizations that received gifts — Scott wrote that she and her advisers looked at nonprofits "with strong leadership teams and results, with special attention to those operating in communities facing high projected food insecurity, high measures of racial inequity, high local poverty rates, and low access to philanthropic capital."
The post did not reveal the amount each organization received.
Sayles told Seven Days on Thursday that he doesn’t know how the $9 million was determined, but it's approximately equivalent to the nonprofit’s entire 2019 operating budget.
“I would call this a transformational gift,” Sayles said. “It will give the organization the opportunity to do things that certainly we would dream about doing but really wouldn’t have realistic expectations of executing.”
Tags: MacKenzie Scott , Vermont Foodbank , donation , Web Only , Image
Tuesday, December 15, 2020
Cindy Wamsganz rolled up her sleeve, then turned to the camera and gave a thumbs up.
The injection she received on Tuesday afternoon was over in just a few seconds. With it, Wamsganz, an emergency department nurse at the University of Vermont Medical Center, became the first person in Vermont to receive a COVID-19 vaccination.
The first 1,950 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine arrived in Vermont on Monday, just three days after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency-use authorization for it.
Health Commissioner Mark Levine said the state received another shipment of 1,950 doses Tuesday morning. By the end of the week, another 1,950 are expected to arrive at pharmacies that have contracted with the federal government to provide vaccinations to residents and staff in long-term care facilities.
The news of the first Vermont vaccination came on the day the state reported the 100th death of a Vermonter with COVID-19 since March, and the day after the U.S. surpassed 300,000 deaths.
"With these vaccinations, we mark the beginning of the end of this terrible pandemic," UVM Health Network president and CEO John Brumsted said during a livestream of the first vaccination.
At the event, Vermont Human Services Secretary Mike Smith addressed frontline health care workers, who will be in the first group to receive the vaccine in the coming weeks and months.
"We know you are tired," he said. "But I can think of no greater gift, after such a long, hard year, than the relief that will come with a vaccine."
Just 15 people were vaccinated Tuesday, including first responders from Essex Rescue and the Williston Fire Department. UVM Medical Center will ramp up access to vaccinations for its frontline workers by the end of the week, hospital president and COO Stephen Leffler said.
The state is expecting to receive 5,850 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine each week through the end of the year. And Levine said that the state has placed a preorder for doses of the Moderna vaccine, which the FDA said Tuesday is "highly effective." That finding sets the stage for an emergency-use authorization, which could come later this week. If that happens, the state could receive more than 16,000 doses of that vaccine by the end of the year.
Though the arrival of an effective vaccine is something to celebrate, state officials on Tuesday urged Vermonters to continue social distancing, wearing masks and washing hands.
Vermont continues to average more than 100 new cases per day, and is still tracking dozens of outbreaks.
Both the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines require two doses spaced several weeks apart. Pfizer-BioNTech trial data indicate that it takes about a week after receiving the second dose to achieve full protection.
Even if the state does receive the shipments it's expecting, it won't have enough supplies to reach all of the estimated 60,000 people in its highest-priority group — that is, frontline health care workers and residents and staffers of long-term care facilities — by the end of the year.
The vaccine will most likely become available to the general public starting sometime in the spring, Levine said.
"I know hearing we still have months of sacrifice is disappointing to many," Gov. Phil Scott said on Tuesday. "But I really hope that seeing that light at the end of the tunnel gives everyone hope, because I know we will get through this."
Tags: COVID-19 , UVM Medical Center , health , vaccination , Web Only , Image
The infusion of additional federal relief funds into the state’s Expanded Economic Recovery Grants program will increase the average size of the awards that eligible businesses receive by about $6,000.
The extra funding brings the size of the current program, which caps grants at $300,000, to about $164 million. That’s on top of an earlier $152 million grant program announced in July.
The total funding, from the state's $1.25 billion in federal CARES Act money, is still far from the more than $700 million needed to make whole the many businesses hammered by the pandemic, said Joan Goldstein, commissioner of the state Department of Economic Development.
“We know the unmet need is humongous,” Goldstein said.
Tags: Expanded Economic Recovery Grants , Tim Ashe , Joan Goldstein , Web Only , Image
Monday, December 14, 2020
The first 1,950 COVID-19 vaccination doses arrived in Vermont on Monday, and state officials heralded the delivery as a turning point in the fight against a pandemic that has sickened thousands of Vermonters, killed nearly 100 and led to an extended state of emergency.
“This is a pivotal moment, one that marks the beginning of the end of the pandemic,” Health Commissioner Mark Levine said in a statement.
The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was only approved via an emergency authorization by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration last week. Vermont is expected to get 5,850 doses this week, according to the Department of Health.
The initial shipment was divided up between the University of Vermont Medical Center and the State Vaccine Depot, which each got 975 doses, according to the department. State officials have said that Vermont will first immunize health care workers, first responders and residents of long-term care homes. Initial shipments will not be enough even for that population, however.
Tags: vaccine , phil scott , mark levine , moderna , pfizer-biontech , Web Only , Image
Friday, December 11, 2020
The facility has been locked down since Monday, when the staff member in question tested positive for the coronavirus. Those identified as having had close contact with the employee have been asked to quarantine. Late Friday, the department announced in a press release that all 198 inmates and staff tested Thursday were found to be negative.
“Our number one goal in the Vermont Department of Corrections is to keep our facilities clean of COVID-19,” interim Commissioner Jim Baker said in a written statement. “Because of the hard work of staff and our management team, Vermont leads the country in correctional systems that are successfully mitigating the spread of COVID.”
According to spokesperson Rachel Feldman, the department is planning to test inmates and staff again at a date to be determined. She said the facility would remain locked down for the time being.
Tags: Jim Baker , Rachel Feldman , Vermont Department of Corrections , Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility , Web Only , Image
Wednesday, December 9, 2020
Inmates at the South Burlington facility have not been tested for the coronavirus since November 24, Feldman said, but all inmates and staff at the prison are scheduled to be tested on Thursday as a result of the positive case.
Feldman declined to describe the staff member's role at Chittenden Regional, citing medical privacy laws, but said that contact tracing was underway to determine whether inmates had been exposed.
To date, the facility has been relatively unscathed by COVID-19. One staff member tested positive in May and one recently admitted inmate tested positive in June, but neither case led to community spread within the prison. According to Feldman, this is the first time Chittenden Regional has been fully locked down as a result of a positive test.
Tags: Department of Corrections , Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility , Rachel Feldman , Ashley Messier , Mandy Conte , Web Only , Image
Monday, December 7, 2020
Artur Adib, founder and CEO of Biocogniv, told Seven Days on Monday that his company's new AI software relies on blood tests often already performed during emergency room visits and would allow hospitals to gauge a patient's COVID status without using up critical testing supplies.
"What this enables hospitals to do is to protect their stash," he said, estimating that they could save up to 70 percent of their PCR kits.
Adib, who founded Biocogniv last year, said his company trained the AI software with a large dataset that included thousands of bloodwork results from both positive and negative COVID-19 patients.