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The state reported Wednesday morning nine new cases of the coronavirus, including one death, between Tuesday and Wednesday, slightly more than the four new cases reported a day earlier, but still much lower than the numbers that reached into the 70s reported daily over the past month.
A total of 759 people in Vermont have tested positive for Covid-19, resulting in 30 deaths as of Wednesday morning, including one reported between Tuesday and Wednesday.
The latest figures were released Wednesday ahead of a press conference from Gov. Phil Scott to provide an update on the state’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The latest death reported Wednesday was a patient at Birchwood Terrace Rehab and Health in Burlington’s New North End, according to Ben Truman, spokesperson for the Vermont Department of Health.
That patient’s death is the third at the facility stemming from an outbreak there, according to the numbers from the health department.
“As an indicator of how we’re doing in the epidemic, we’re doing very well,” said Dr. Mark Levine, the state’s health commissioner, while noting the tragedy of all the deaths so far.
He warned of a future, however, where Vermonters will have to be vigilant and practices such as “contract tracing” would need to continue.
Gov. Phil Scott, during the press conference later in the morning, called the results “encouraging signs.”
Levine said that the most recent modeling has shown that the state this week would be at its “peak” for Covid-19.
“I’m going to be very cautious as I say this, but cautiously say that perhaps we are in that peak zone,” he said.
“All of the projections that were very thoughtful and said that we would not be a worst case scenario, we might be in between the best and worst case scenarios, were probably right and that we’re even going to be on the side of a more best case scenario,” Levine said. “I’d like to see the rest of this week go by to the beginning of next week until I would be more definitive about that, but that’s what we’re leaning toward.”
Mike Smith, secretary of the Agency of Human Services, added that doesn’t mean that the state is going to be closing any of the medical “surge” sites that have been put in place in Vermont.
He said the state would close those surge sites when “we’re rest assured that we are past the peak and that we are in trend where we can close them safely.”
Smith cautioned that the steps the state has taken to get to this point still need to be followed.
“We have got to make sure,” Smith said, “that we continue doing what the governor has said in terms of social distancing, stay at home, or else the progress that we made can be undermined.”
The number of tests conducted by the state over the past 24 hours did show an increase from the previous day. From Tuesday to Wednesday morning, the state reported conducting 496 tests.
From Monday to Tuesday morning, the state reported conducting only 220 tests. That was far lower than the 583 tests the state reported conducting the previous 24 hours, from Sunday to Monday morning.
The numbers released Wednesday did not include results from mass testing this week at the Vermont Veterans’ Home. Those results are still pending. However, it wasn’t immediately clear if the figures made public Wednesday took into account blanket testing at the Decker Towers in Burlington.
Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger said Wednesday that Levine told him Tuesday night there was only one additional positive test at Decker Towers.
Truman, the spokesperson for the health department, said the department tested 136 people at Decker Towers and that the numbers would be publicly available after all individuals had been notified.
The state announced Monday that it would be conducting blanket testing of staff and residents at the state-run Vermont Veterans’ Home in Bennington and at Decker Towers in Burlington, a senior housing facility run by the Burlington Housing Authority.
In making that announcement, Smith, the secretary of the Agency of Human Services, said the state was acting out of an abundance of caution.
Neither facility had reported outbreaks.
Smith, speaking Monday, said there were two recent deaths at Decker Towers, one death was found to be unrelated to the coronavirus while the other was under investigation. He added that there was also one self-reported case of Covid-19 in the building.
Smith said there had no reported cases of Covid-19 positive residents at the Veterans’ Home, though a staff member did test positive for the coronavirus on March 15. That worker then went into self-quarantine and has since returned to work.
The Vermont State Employees’ Union called last week for the mass testing of all staff and residents at the Veterans’ Home. The home has about 125 residents and roughly 200 staff members.
The state’s recent testing at the two senior homes represented a change in procedure for the state. Previously, the state did not do mass testing at other senior living facilities and nursing homes, such as Burlington Health and Rehab, where at least eight residents have died, until outbreaks had already occurred.
Smith has said the results from the latest testing at the Veterans’ Home and Decker Towers would be instructive in how the state approaches large facilities without confirmed cases or symptomatic residents or staff.
Editor’s note: This story was updated with new statistics from the Vermont Health Department. Officials revised the total number of cases of the coronavirus confirmed in Vermont after two positive tests that had been reported on an earlier date were determined not to be Covid-19 cases, according to a Health Department spokesperson.