Some long-term care facilities in Vermont are reporting dramatic increases in the numbers of people infected by the virus that causes COVID-19, officials said Tuesday.
While the number of cases in facilities such as nursing homes were high during the early weeks of the pandemic, they dropped to near zero over several months from late spring through the summer but began rebounding last month.
The increases followed rises in October that were caused by more social gatherings that helped drive up the amount of virus circulating in the community, statistics show.
Speaking Tuesday at the state’s twice-weekly virus briefing, Health Commissioner Dr. Mark Levine said that despite efforts to keep it out, people can bring the virus into long-term care facilities without knowing they are infected.
“I think that’s what happens, all it takes is one case where you have a vulnerable group of people and it can take off,” Levine said.
He said efforts are underway to determine whether more can be done to help limit transmission into and within the facilities.
But Levine said that there are more than 200 care facilities of different types in Vermont and that eight have seen infections that account for 283 current active cases.
“The ones that are impacted, it is very unfortunate and we feel terrible about the necessary illnesses, hospitalizations and sometimes loss of life, but don’t get the impression it’s impacting every facility in the state because it certainly is not,” Levine said.
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NUMBERS
On Tuesday, the Vermont Health Department reported 100 new cases of the virus that causes COVID-19, bringing the statewide total since the pandemic began to 5,180.
Currently there are 28 patients hospitalized in the state with COVID-19, including four in intensive care.
The seven-day rolling average of daily new cases in Vermont has risen over the past two weeks from 100 on Nov. 23 to 112 on Dec. 7.
The latest average positivity rate in Vermont is 2.35%. State health departments are calculating positivity rate differently across the country, but for Vermont the AP calculates the rate by dividing new cases by test specimens using data from The COVID Tracking Project.
The seven-day rolling average of the positivity rate in Vermont has risen over the past two weeks from 1.53% on Nov. 23 to 2.35% on Dec. 7.
The state Tuesday reported four new deaths from COVID-19, bringing the statewide total since the pandemic began to 85.
Statistics from Vermont Financial Regulation Commissioner Michael Pieciak, who has been tracking COVID-19 data across the state and the country, said the 718 new cases reported in the last week were the largest one-week increase since the pandemic began.
“This means that our communities continue to have an elevated risk of COVID-19 and that we all have an elevated risk of encountering someone who is infectious,” Pieciak said.
The state is forecasting a 50% increase in new cases in Vermont over the next three weeks, but officials still need to know more about whether the Thanksgiving holiday is going to help drive the increase in cases, he said.
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