WATERBURY, Vt. (AP) — State public health and emergency management officials are planning for the possible cases of COVID-19 in Vermont, though there are none so far, officials said Friday.
Currently, 27 people in Vermont who could have been exposed to the virus are being monitored and an additional 15 people have completed monitoring and were found to be free of the virus, Vermont Health Commissioner Dr. Mark Levine said at a briefing.
If a serious outbreak develops in Vermont, both Levine and Republican Gov. Phil Scott have the authority to close schools and ban large public gatherings to prevent the transmission of the virus.
“I think the public would actually respond very positively to that because many won’t be interested in exposing themselves to large groups of people who could have an infection,” Levine said, emphasizing the state is nowhere near the need for such closings.
Levine urged routine public health measures to reduce the risk of spreading the virus, such as washing hands regularly, coughing into your sleeve and staying home when sick.
The Health Department has been in constant contact with federal public health officials while monitoring developments and preparing their response as more becomes known about the virus.
The health department opened its health operations center earlier this month to monitor the situation, and Vermont Emergency Management is in the process of creating a task force to help confront any outbreaks, said Vermont Emergency Management Director Erica Bornemann.
“There are scenarios that people have trained in regarding pandemic flu that can be quite scary and keep you up at night,” Levine said.
“But what we know from other nations’ experience, and we are gathering this information now, is that somewhere in the range of 80%-plus of people who have been infected with coronavirus in the nations it has spread in have had a milder illness,” he said.
But in some serious cases, it can cause pneumonia. In cases that have proved fatal, most of the people who have died, such as the elderly, have been susceptible to serious illness, he said. COVID-19 is caused by a member of the coronavirus family that’s a close cousin to the SARS and MERS viruses that have caused outbreaks in the past.
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