Covid levels are ‘high,’ says CDC

8 of Vermont’s 14 counties are listed as ‘high’ based on cases, hospitalizations and capacity

By Erin Petenko/VTDigger

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Thursday, May 12, that eight Vermont counties have “high” community Covid-19 levels.

That’s a drop from the 12 counties with reportedly high levels last week. Grand Isle, Lamoille, Orleans and Caledonia dropped down from high to medium levels, while Windham moved up from low to medium, according to the CDC.

Essex county in the northeast corner of the state, was the only county with low levels.

The CDC’s community levels are based on three metrics: recent Covid cases, hospital admissions and hospital beds taken up by Covid patients.

Known Covid cases in Vermont were mostly flat for the past week but remain at a far higher level than before BA.2 became the dominant subvariant in Vermont.

Hospital admissions reached a high of around 20 Covid patients per day earlier this month — close to the numbers in the peak of the Omicron surge — but then dropped to about 11 per day last week, according to CDC data. It did not release data on hospital bed use.

The CDC recommends that people in high-level counties take broad-scale action to prevent Covid transmission, such as wearing masks. In medium counties, the CDC recommends that high-risk individuals take extra precautions to protect themselves.

The city of Burlington also released its latest week of data on the amount of the Covid virus detected in the city’s wastewater treatment plants. It shows that viral levels were roughly the same as the week before.

Vermont reported 211 new Covid-19 cases, 67 hospitalizations, including 6 people in intensive care on Tuesday, down slightly from 69 hospitalizations and 13 in the ICU as of Friday.