Thursday, March 12, 2020
The Chittenden County man, who is in his 70s, was admitted to the hospital on Tuesday and a coronavirus test resulted in “presumptive positive” finding, according to Stephen Leffler, the hospital’s president and chief operating officer.
The patient was being treated in an isolation room at the Burlington hospital’s intensive care unit. The Vermont Department of Health was investigating the man’s social contacts and travel history.
Tags: coronavirus , COVID-19 , University of Vermont Medical Center , Web Only , Image , Video
Wednesday, March 11, 2020
Vermont Law School is closing its South Royalton campus to students from March 16 "until at least March 30," according to a statement on the college's website. Beginning March 18, all classes will be taught online.
"After consultation with other schools and state experts, we need to take steps as a community to help limit the spread of the coronavirus," the statement says. "Our best opportunity to do so is to reduce the density of our population on our campus, thereby decreasing the risk of community spread."
Tags: coronavirus , COVID-19 , St. Michael's College , Vermont Law School , Web Only , Image
State health officials were investigating the man's exposure history and identifying people who were in close contact with him. Those people will be assessed and given guidance as to whether they should self-isolate, according to the Vermont Department of Health.
“We are, first and foremost hopeful for this gentleman’s recovery,” Vermont Health Commissioner Mark Levine said in a statement, noting that the man's diagnosis was confirmed on the same day that the World Health Organization deemed the COVID-19 outbreak a global pandemic.
“The seriousness of this virus and the rate it is spreading in the U.S. and around the world reinforces the importance of everyone staying informed and following CDC guidance about avoiding crowds, non-essential travel, and other recommended steps for protecting your health and preventing germs from spreading,” Levine said.
The case was announced less than a week after the state's first, which was confirmed in Bennington County on March 7.
The health department is urging Vermonters to visit its website for up-to-date information about COVID-19.
Tags: coronavirus , Vermont Department of Health , COVID-19 , Web Only , Image
But Tuesday morning, I woke up with a vaguely sore throat and a headache. I took my temperature (No fever!) and decided that, just in case, I should work from home. I sorted through conference notes, went for a short run and checked a few overdue tasks off of my to-do list.
That evening, a post in a conference-related channel on the Slack app caught my attention: An attendee had just tested positive for COVID-19.
Suddenly, the Vermont Department of Health coronavirus test numbers I'd been monitoring for days seemed a lot less like lines on a page and a lot more human.
Tags: Andrea Suozzo , COVID-19 , coronavirus , quarantine , Rusty , Web Only , Image
The findings are contained in a 63-page report submitted to lawmakers Wednesday by a commission created in 2017 to study law enforcement interactions with people in mental health crisis.
Members of the Vermont Mental Health Crisis Response Commission were split in their assessment of how officers handled the hours-long standoff with the 76-year-old Grenon in his Burlington apartment. But the report vividly recounts the months of communication breakdowns and inadequate health care that precipitated Grenon's fatal encounter with police.
"If there's one thing that's clear to me from this, it's that his death was preventable," said commission chair Wilda White, former executive director of Vermont Psychiatric Survivors. "This was so preventable."
Tags: Phil Grenon , Ralph Grenon , Howard Center , Burlington Police Department , Wilda White , Vermont Mental Health Crisis Response Commission , police shooting , mental health , Web Only , Image
The University of Vermont and Champlain College each announced Wednesday that they will shift to remote learning in an effort to keep their campuses coronavirus-free.
UVM students are currently on spring break and were due to return to campus on Monday, March 16. Classes on that day and the next are canceled, and remote instruction will begin on March 18, according to a statement from UVM President Suresh Garimella.
"This decisive action reflects our commitment to help slow the spread of the virus while also promoting the academic progress of our students and protecting the health and safety of our community," he wrote. The protocol does not apply to UVM's Larner College of Medicine, "which is developing a separate action plan centered on their unique needs."
Champlain College is currently on spring break and will extend it until March 23, after which "remote instruction will be in effect for at least three weeks, and students and faculty should expect that a longer period of remote instruction is likely," interim president Laurie Quinn wrote in an email.
Tags: coronavirus , COVID-19 , University of Vermont , Champlain College , St. Michael's College , Vermont State Colleges , Web Only , Image
Tuesday, March 10, 2020
College president Laurie Patton announced Tuesday morning that students will begin spring break on Friday, March 13, a week earlier than planned. Classes will resume on March 30 but will be taught remotely.
Middlebury is also canceling all sporting events, home and away, and is limiting social gatherings this week to no more than 120 people. The college is also banning all college-sponsored travel, including faculty conferences, and will not allow visitors on campus.
A patient who lives in Bennington County is Vermont's one confirmed case of the coronavirus, also known as COVID-19. Middlebury officials took this into consideration — plus the growing number of cases in nearby New York and New Hampshire — when deciding to take action, according to Patton.
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Monday, March 9, 2020
For four days a week, people from every Vermont county converge inside the Montpelier building, where they spend most of their time brushing elbows in cramped hallways and stuffy committee rooms.
"It is close quarters, long hours and an old building with an old air-handling system — with a lot of members of the public," summarized House Speaker Mitzi Johnson (D-South Hero).
These people then head back to their own communities with whatever germs they may have picked up along the way. That's partly why Rep. Sam Young (D-Greensboro) calls the Statehouse the "perfect place" for the virus to spread.
Tags: coronavirus , Vermont Statehouse , Golden Dome , Mitzi Johnson , Tim Ashe , COVID-19 , Web Only , Image
Sunday, March 8, 2020
The first person in Vermont to be diagnosed with the coronavirus known as COVID-19 is an adult Bennington County resident who was listed in stable condition in Southwestern Vermont Medical Center.
The person arrived at the hospital's emergency department on Thursday with fever, a cough and a high temperature. The patient was immediately placed in a negative-pressure isolation room and was tested for the virus, the hospital said in a statement Sunday afternoon.
The patient was not believed to have traveled abroad to one of the countries with serious outbreaks of the virus, Vermont Health Commissioner Mark Levine said during a press conference Sunday. That raises the possibility the person was infected from contact with someone in the community.
Levine stressed that it is too soon to know how the person became infected, and state health officials were working hard to trace the person’s contacts and contain the spread of the disease.
Tags: COVID-19 , coronavirus , Gov. Phil Scott , Mark Levine , Southwest Vermont Medical Center , Web Only , Image
Saturday, March 7, 2020
A test of a Vermont resident returned a presumptive positive result. Officials were awaiting confirmation by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the department said in a press release.
Gov. Phil Scott will hold a press conference at the Vermont Department of Public Safety headquarters in Waterbury on Sunday morning to provide updates on the case and the state's response efforts.
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