Staff report At-home antigen or LAMP Covid-19 tests will now be provided at state-run testing sites, rather than PCR tests, according to state officials. Health Commissioner Mark Levine said PCR tests — which are administered at the testing site and take longer to produce results — will still be available for certain situations, such as…

By Christopher Ross/ Addison County Independent Roughly 14% of Middlebury College students have tested positive for Covid-19 since arriving for the spring semester last month, but the cases have not been severe or persistent enough to warrant a change in campus policies, officials said. Middlebury currently has 2,626 residential students and has logged 383 cases,…

Staff report The Canadian government announced March 17 that fully vaccinated travelers will no longer need Covid-19 test results to enter Canada by air, land or water, effective April 1. “After a challenging two years, we all want the Canadian economy, including the tourism sector, to rebound and grow,” said Randy Boissonnault, PC MP, the…

By Liora Engel-Smith/VTDigger Vermont is at the tail end of its most potent Covid-19 wave to date, but the pandemic’s financial implications continue to squeeze the state’s hospitals. The latest budgetary pressure point were on display last week when executives from Vermont’s second-largest hospital asked state regulators to allow a 9% increase in service charges…

By Victoria Gaither How long has Beth Roberts, the owner and founder of Killington Boot Camp, been in the fitness business? “My mom will tell you that it goes back to when I was 5 years old. I would invite the neighborhood kids over to run obstacle courses in my backyard,” smiled Roberts. Little did…

By Katy Savage Like most business owners, Chris Karr has struggled to find employees in the aftermath of the pandemic. Karr, the owner of six restaurants in Killington, usually employs up to 150 people in the peak season, but when the pandemic hit, he cut his staff by about half. Now he’s hiring those people…

By Liora Engel-Smith/VTDigger The state is moving away from third-party contact tracing as Omicron cases continue to drop in Vermont.  Last spring, the Vermont Department of Health outsourced the bulk of Covid-19 contact tracing to AM Trace, a contractor in Leesburg, Virginia. Vermont has paid the company — now called AM — almost $15 million since…

By Erin Petenko/VTDigger Vermont’s seven-day Covid-19 average hit its lowest point since last fall, one of several indicators that the Omicron variant surge is trending down. Health department Commissioner Mark Levine said the numbers “continue to reinforce the improving picture of Covid-19 here in Vermont.”  Officials have cautioned that cases could be an unreliable indicator…

In the wake of updated Covid-19 guidance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on how communities can approach public health measures to reduce the risk of illness, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) offered considerations for families to inform their decisions in a news release, March 1. CDC’s updated recommendations allow communities to…

Schools attempt to fill academic, social and emotional cracks  By Victoria Gaither Who would have ever imagined on March 18, 2020, when Governor Phil Scott ordered all Vermont schools to shut down, that two years later educators would still be fixing the cracks inside of them — the lingering academic, social and emotional effect of…

By Peter D’Auria/VTDigger and Polly Mikula When Vermont Gov. Phil Scott announced that the state would no longer recommend that students wear masks in schools after March 14, a variety of responses flooded through school districts and communities.  Among about 50 superintendents, more than a dozen said their districts and supervisory unions have already made masking…

By Erin Petenko/VTDigger   At least 20 Vermont communities have repealed their local mask mandates or allowed them to expire in recent weeks. Only a handful of communities — including Waitsfield, Williston and Winooski — still have mask mandates in effect, although they may not be in effect for much longer.  Waitsfield, for example, planned…

By Katy Savage While Covid restrictions are easing and a sense of normalcy is returning, hospitals are far away from “normal.” “We still have patients in the hospital, we still have patients in the ICU that have Covid,” said Rick Hildebrant, the chief medical information officer at Rutland Regional Medical Center. “We’re still dealing with…

Two years of major milestones can become a blur. All the executive orders, mandates and guidance — which at times felt like rapid fire — gone now, in the past. For those who care to remember, here are a few key dates that help put the two-year timeline in perspective.  March 7, 2020, the first…

Hospitalizations and capacity now main factors, CDC focuses on preventing worst outcomes By Polly Mikula The Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) rolled out new guidance qualifying nearly 70% of the nation to unmask, on Feb. 25. Prior to the changes, only about a third of the counties were assessed as low or medium…