Thursday, January 6, 2022
The number of new COVID-19 cases in Vermont is soaring amid a holiday-fueled surge, and hospitalizations are also back on the rise.
The Vermont Health Department reported 2,188 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday, 540 more than the previously daily record set earlier this week. The state has averaged more than 1,000 cases daily over the last week. The true number of infections may be higher given the likelihood that some people who tested positive using at-home rapid tests have not reported the findings to the state.
Perhaps more troubling: The number of people hospitalized with the virus has spiked from 54 to 91 over the last nine days, coinciding with a marked increased in the rate of infection among older Vermonters. There has yet to be a similar jump in the number of people in intensive care units, a figure that has hovered below 20 for nearly a month.
Tags: COVID , Infections , Record , Hospitalizations , Web Only , Image
Tuesday, December 28, 2021
Priority Healthcare Group withdrew its application to the Vermont Agency of Human Services to assume full control of Burlington Health & Rehab and similarly named homes in Bennington, Berlin, St. Johnsbury and Springfield, according to a spokesperson for the current owner, national health care conglomerate Genesis HealthCare.
Tags: Priority Healthcare Group , Genesis Healthcare , Vermont Agency of Human Services , David Gamzeh , Akiva Glatzer , Akiko Ike , Ephram Mordy Lahasky , Web Only , Image
Tuesday, December 21, 2021
Demand for rapid tests has vastly outstripped supply in recent weeks, emptying pharmacies and leaving workers unsure when they will be restocked. Even Vermont's well-oiled state-run testing machine has been pushed to its limit: Lines are stretching out the door at popular walk-in sites, while the most populous county was booking appointments into next week.
The arrival of the highly contagious Omicron variant has raised the stakes, placing even the fully vaccinated at an increased risk of infections and threatening to send another wave of sick patients into Vermont's strained hospitals. The variant accounted for nearly three-quarters of all U.S. cases over the last week, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, making it the dominant strain nationally fewer than eight weeks after it was first identified globally.
If Vermont cases were to jump 50 percent after the holidays — which happened last year — the state could wind up averaging 600 new infections a day, and single-day tallies could eclipse 1,000.
At a press briefing on Tuesday, state leaders urged people to take precautions whenever possible heading into the holiday weekend.
"I know many of us are eager to celebrate with loved ones that are exhausted by everything COVID keeps throwing at us, but any way we can lower the risk, the safer we will all be," said Health Commissioner Mark Levine. "We don't want the lasting memory of 2021 to be regret that our holiday gathering could have been done more safely."
Tags: COVID-19 , Christmas , Holidays , Surge , Testing , At-home , Rapid , Gov. Phil Scott , Web Only , Image
Saturday, December 18, 2021
The specimen was collected on December 8 from a Lamoille County resident in their 30s, the state health department said Saturday, adding that the individual was fully vaccinated and has been experiencing mild symptoms.
“We knew it was only a matter of time before we saw Omicron in our state,” Health Commissioner Mark Levine said in a press release.
Tags: COVID , Omicron , Vermont , Delta , Surge , Confirmed , Web Only , Image
Friday, December 17, 2021
The City of Burlington has found indications that the new Omicron COVID-19 variant may be spreading locally, Mayor Miro Weinberger's office announced Friday.
The city's wastewater monitoring program has detected a "very limited" presence of mutations associated with the variant, which was first detected in South Africa last month and has since been confirmed in 39 states, including all of Vermont's neighbors.
The state health department will still need to confirm the presence of Omicron through genomic sequencing of a positive PCR test result. But most experts believe the variant's arrival in Vermont was inevitable.
Tags: Omicron , Vermont , Burlington , Wastewater , COVID , Tests , V , Web Only , Image
Tuesday, December 7, 2021
"I still believe with the information that I have that that's the right decision for us," Flanagan said. "I understand it is a harder decision now after the new action levels ... but I think we are not in a significantly different place than we were five months ago as it relates to our need for a new building."
"One of my biggest concerns has been hurdles like the one we are facing now get in the way and delay the inevitable need for a new school building for Burlington High School and Burlington Technical Center," he added.
Tags: Burlington School District , PCBs , Institute Road , Tom Flanagan , environmental testing , Web Only , Image
The state reported the most cases in a single day with 641 on Sunday. Hospitals were treating 90 patients overall and 31 in intensive care units, both all-time highs. A few counties — Bennington, Rutland and Essex — have among the highest rates in the nation.
Vermont officials chose not to dwell on these dim data points during their weekly press briefing Tuesday. Instead, they spent most of their time highlighting more promising developments in the fight against the pandemic, from high uptake of boosters and the children's vaccine to a nation-leading testing rate.
Tags: COVID , hospitalizations , ICUs , Gov. Phil Scott , Web Only , Image
Wednesday, December 1, 2021
Next week, the state’s largest hospital will stop using seven of its operating rooms to create five more beds for people who need intensive care. The move will prepare UVM Medical Center to accommodate a swell of COVID-19 patients who are entering Vermont hospitals and intensive-care units at levels never before seen.
The change, to last through the end of the year, comes at the expense of other patients who had surgical procedures such as hip and knee replacements scheduled for December.
Tags: UVM Medical Center , COVID-19 , Vermont ICU Capacity , COVID-19 Hospitalizations , Stephen Leffler , Patrick Bender , Anna Noonan , Web Only , Image
Tuesday, November 30, 2021
A group called Vermont PFAS/Military Poisons Coalition says water samples it took at the Salmon Hole, just below the Winooski Falls dam, showed elevated levels of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances.
That’s the same class of chemicals that contaminated hundreds of wells in the Bennington area, leached into the groundwater at the Air Guard base, and regularly seep out of operating and closed landfills in Vermont.
The group says its test samples contained 40.5 parts per trillion (ppt) for the five PFAS compounds regulated by Vermont for drinking water, which must be below 20 ppt for those five compounds.
Vermont has no specific threshold for surface waters such as those the group tested, but the state is conducting its own tests of surface waters and fish for the presence of PFAS.
Tags: PFAS , contamination , forever chemicals , Air National Guard , Winooski , Web Only , Image
Vermont hospitals were caring for 84 COVID-19 patients on Tuesday, 20 of whom were in intensive care — both record high figures.
The spike is putting renewed pressure on ongoing efforts to preserve hospital capacity, which state officials have said is a top priority as they shift toward managing COVID-19 as an endemic virus instead of an emergency pandemic. The number of COVID-19 patients overall far exceeds figures at any other point during the pandemic.
Tags: COVID-19 , COVID-19 hospitalizations , Vermont hospital capacity , ICU beds , Gov. Phil Scott , Michael Pieciak , Web Only , Image