More Vermonters will be screened for coronavirus in the coming days as the state relaxes its testing protocols to further contain the spread of COVID-19, Health Commissioner Mark Levine announced on Friday.

The state leveraged its connections with “people in high places” to procure more test kits, Levine said. He didn’t reveal the source beyond saying they “have some connection to Vermont and actually have some understanding of what Vermont is going through.”

The state will continue to prioritize testing for vulnerable populations — including health care workers and patients who are hospitalized, in long-term care facilities or with underlying health conditions — but doctors will have more latitude to order tests for patients with mild and moderate symptoms, Levine said.

“We’re going to do it full bore even if it means we [put ourselves] at risk for eventually not having enough supplies 10 days or more from this point,” he said. “This is really the critical juncture.”

The United Way of Northwest Vermont's new coronavirus relief fund got a major boost Thursday thanks to four major donors courted by Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger.

The mayor was able to round up $85,000 for the fund, which will help organizations that support families and communities impacted by COVID-19.

The first recipient is the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity and, specifically, Feeding Chittenden, one of three food shelves operated by CVOEO that distributes nearly 2 million pounds of food every year.

The lead donors include the Pomerleau family of Vermont real estate and philanthropy fame; Roxanne and Russ Scully, developer of the Hula tech campus and Burlington Surf Club founder; and Laura and David Stiller, son of Green Mountain Coffee Roasters founder Robert Stiller. Each donated $25,000.

An additional $10,000 came from Spruce Mortgage, whose founder and CEO is Gene Richards, whom Weinberger appointed director of aviation at Burlington International Airport in 2013.

Seven more staffers and three more residents at the Burlington Health & Rehabilitation Center have tested positive for the new coronavirus, the company said Thursday.

It's another worrisome sign from the site of Vermont's most concentrated outbreak, which has already killed six of the nursing home's elderly residents. 

With 26 total cases — nine staff and 17 residents — the Pearl Street facility accounted for more than a third of the 75 coronavirus cases in Chittenden County confirmed by the Vermont Department of Health as of Thursday afternoon.

Meanwhile, the Health Department's plan this week to evacuate 10 residents from the lower floor went sideways after a discovery that they, too, may have been exposed to someone with the virus.

Five rehab patients on the short-term care floor  were taken by ambulance Tuesday to the DoubleTree by Hilton, where the University of Vermont Medical Center had agreed to take over their care.

On Wednesday, the evacuations were halted, and patients at the DoubleTree were moved again — to the hospital.

The original plan fell apart for two reasons, UVM Medical Center said in a statement. First, the patients at the hotel ended up requiring care that was "slightly more intensive than expected."

Further, the statement said, "state health officials determined that a person with whom some of these patients may have come in contact has tested positive for COVID-19."

A spokesperson for Genesis HealthCare, the nursing home's parent company, did not specify whether that individual was a staff member or another resident. But as the evacuations were underway, reports surfaced that a woman who had been discharged from rehabilitative care at Burlington Health & Rehab less than two weeks ago had tested positive for the virus.

She was being quarantined in her room at the Residence at Quarry Hill, an eldercare facility in South Burlington, according to that home's parent company company, LCB Senior Living.

Albert Petrarca, one of the five patients transferred to the DoubleTree, said by email that caregivers came to his hotel room around 2 p.m. on Wednesday to take him to the hospital.

"I asked three different people why we were leaving the DoubleTree and no one had [a] reason I could understand," he wrote.

The rehab patients, who make up a small fraction of the 80-plus residents at Burlington Health & Rehab, may decide whether to receive the remainder of their care at the nursing home or be transferred to the UVM Medical Center, the organizations said.

The employees who tested positive in recent days were among 14 who were already under a precautionary quarantine. Genesis brought in more than a dozen nurses this week to make up for the staff shortage.

Burlington Health & Rehab and the Residence at Quarry Hill are the only two eldercare facilities in Vermont with confirmed coronavirus cases, the Health Department said.

Correction, March 26: A previous version of this story misstated the total number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Chittenden County.

Updated 7:05 p.m.

Gov. Phil Scott on Thursday ordered Vermont schools to remain closed for the remainder of the school year due to the continued spread of the coronavirus.

Scott had initially ordered all schools from pre-K through 12th grade closed until at least April 6 but said that directive could be extended. His new order comes on a day in which Vermont saw its biggest spike in coronavirus cases yet.

“The education of our students and the bonding and learning experiences they have at schools are tremendously important, so I fully appreciate the impact and difficulty of this decision,” Scott said in a press release.

Districts will need to continue remote instruction and must adopt learning plans that reflect this new reality by April 13, per the order. The Agency of Education will provide technical assistance to schools by the end of the week and will then issue guidance no later than May 8 about graduations and end-of-year school gatherings.

Scott administration officials have acknowledged that learning plans will vary depending on the community. Some schools — particularly ones in rural areas without reliable internet access — may need to adopt hybrid systems, supplementing online learning with take-home learning packets, officials said.

Crisis management is Heather Bush’s forte, and in the age of the coronavirus, she’s never been more in her element.

Bush is the coordinator for Burlington’s only low-barrier homeless shelter on South Winooski Avenue, a 40-bed facility that’s typically open from November through April. But as Vermont’s COVID-19 cases continued to climb, Bush realized her clients couldn't socially distance themselves in the crowded, poorly ventilated basement.

“We were sort of sitting ducks just waiting for the virus to come in,” Bush said.

Last Saturday, she told her boss at ANEW Place, the Burlington nonprofit that oversees the shelter, that they needed another option. Four days later, the plan is in motion: The shelter-goers are going camping.

Vermont House Speaker Mitzi Johnson (D-South Hero) punished and publicly chastised a fellow Democrat who demanded a quorum vote Wednesday that forced dozens of lawmakers to rush to the Statehouse to pass emergency legislation related to COVID-19.

Johnson announced Thursday she had removed Rep. Cynthia Browning (D-Arlington) from her post on the powerful Ways and Means Committee. She replaced her with Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (D-Brattleboro).

Johnson noted that Wednesday’s plan to vote on a package of bills without a quorum had been approved by the House Rules Committee, had overwhelming support in the chamber, and was pursued as a way to keep lawmakers and their constituents safe.

“Yet one member unnecessarily required every other member to choose between their duty to Vermont and the health and safety of their communities, peers, and loved ones at home,” Johnson wrote in a searing letter to colleagues. “Being a legislator requires that we know the rules. True public service requires the wisdom to know when to use them. Yesterday’s quorum call was not wise.”

The move signaled a remarkable fall from grace for a Democratic legislator who has never been afraid to buck leadership but still managed to do so in a way that party leaders respected.

Just last month, Johnson praised Browning as someone with whom she doesn’t always agree but who has “honesty and integrity” and lets leadership know her concerns up front. She contrasted Browning with another representative, Linda Joy Sullivan (D-Dorset), whom she chastised for casting a surprise vote against overriding Gov. Phil Scott's veto of a paid family leave bill. The bill, one of the House's highest priorities, failed by one vote.

Johnson told Seven Days the vote was “not the first time that [Sullivan's] gotten squirrelly.” Sullivan and Browning are friends, and Browning didn’t take kindly to the remark. The following day, she lambasted the speaker from the floor.  Browning’s disdain for Johnson was evident after her quorum vote. If Johnson was so concerned about lawmakers’ health, Browning argued, then Johnson should simply drop the resolution authorizing the House to hold a remote vote to approve remote voting.

"It is important to note that I did not call members into the House yesterday — she did," Browning said, after Johnson kicked her off  the committee.

Browning called the bill flawed for its "circular reasoning" and argued that it wasn’t proper. She insisted House rules needed to be followed even during an emergency. She did not raise any objections about the actual practice of remote voting during a health emergency, just the way it was being approved. 

Burlington maker space Generator has begun prototyping personal protective equipment for area hospitals in response to nationwide shortages amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Members of the maker space are currently working on designs for face shields, N95 masks and ventilators — all of which are in short supply as hospitals prepare for an expected hike in patients due to COVID-19.

The face shields — which allow health care professionals to wear a single mask for longer durations — are ready for mass distribution, according to Generator's executive director Meg Hammond. Officials from the University of Vermont Medical Center planned to test out the prototypes Thursday afternoon, she said.

"If we get approval, then we can immediately start going into production," Hammond said.

Data released Thursday by the Vermont Department of Health show that 35 more people, including 20 in Chittenden County, have tested positive for the new coronavirus as the number of people infected in the state continues to grow exponentially.

The new cases are the most announced in a single day since Vermont's first case was discovered 19 days ago. A total of 158 people in the state have tested positive for the disease.

One more person has died, bringing the total number of deaths to nine. At least six of those deaths are related to an outbreak at the Burlington Health & Rehabilitation Center nursing home.

Updated at 9:02 p.m.

Tags: Cynthia Browning , Vermont House , coronavirus , Web Only , Image