By Anne Sosin Editor’s note: Anne N. Sosin is a public health researcher and Policy Fellow at the Nelson A. Rockefeller Center at Dartmouth College and the co-lead on research on Covid-19 and rural health equity in northern New England.  Delta, we learn in science, means change. Delta changed the course of the virus in…

By Madeleine Kunin Editor’s note: This commentary is by former Gov. Madeleine Kunin, a Democrat and the first woman to serve as the governor of the state of Vermont. It’s dismaying to see Republicans and some conservative Democrats hacking away at President Biden’s historic budget reconciliation act. They say it’s too expensive, without looking at…

By Vicki Ward Editor's note: This commentary is by Vicki Ward of Barnard, who holds a master’s degree in family nursing and a post-master’s certificate in psychiatric and mental health nursing. This piece was published in VTDigger Oct. 8. I once thought Vermont OneCare was a functional fox guarding the henhouse when Dartmouth-Hitchcock and UVM…

By Tanya Vyhovsky Editor’s note: State Rep. Tanya Vyhovsky, P/D-Essex, is a licensed independent clinical social worker, works in the public school system, and has a private counseling practice in her hometown of Essex. September was Suicide Awareness Month, and I am sure many of us felt inundated with frightening statistics and information about mental…

By Bill McKibben Vermont gets good press, and I’ve generated my share of it — especially after the pandemic years I’m proud of the Green Mountain State. But this is a different kind of story: a story of a state that’s failing to understand we’re actually in a climate emergency, and so continuing with business…

By Brian Ricca Editor’s note: Brian Ricca is the school superintendent in St. Johnsbury. There has been a great deal of discussion in the abstract about the impact of the Delta variant in Vermont schools since the academic year began. Here in the real world, with real students, faculty, staff, and families, it’s been excruciating.…

By Marvin Klikunas, M.D. Editor’s note: Kilkunas practices medicine in Williston. As I write this commentary, the seven-day rolling average of daily Covid cases in Vermont is 209. Even during the depths of last winter, before a vaccine was available, the daily average as plotted in VTDigger never reached 200. Forty-eight people were hospitalized with…

By Madeleine May Kunin Editor’s note: This commentary is by former Gov. Madeleine Kunin, a Democrat and the first woman to serve as the governor of the state of Vermont. I was driving home on a September evening when the air started to turn cool. I glanced out my side window and caught a pink,…

By Lt. Governor Molly Gray A year and a half after the onset of the pandemic, Vermont remains in the midst of ongoing recovery efforts. While there is so much uncertainty about the future, one thing we can be sure of is that our state is in a unique position to emerge from this pandemic…

By Royal Barnard, Editor Emeritus I am saddened to learn that the Killington Region has lost a wonderful and important person. I, and other “pioneer” Killington residents and visitors, met Claude Blais when he became chef at the once popular Alpine Inn on the Killington Road in the mid 1960s.  Claude migrated to Killington from…

By Chloe Learey In 2012, the Local Child Care Planning Council of Humboldt County in California uploaded its video “A Day Without ChildCare” to YouTube. Nearly 10 years later, the points it raised are even more salient, especially magnified by the Covid-19 pandemic. The premise is basic: People who do not have child care are…

By Lewis Mudge Vermonters should be proud that we continue to outpace the country in vaccines. I say we double down and once again show the rest of the country how we are a little state with big ideas. I tip my hat to Gov. Scott’s recent request to the White House for more refugees…

By Ivy Scott and Camille Caldera, Boston Globe correspondents Better late than never, as the saying goes. Massachusetts residents who only recently got immunized against Covid-19 cited a variety of reasons for waiting: a torrent of misinformation on social media, concern that the vaccine would exacerbate preexisting medical conditions, and skepticism of the health care…

By Reps. Michelle Bos-Lun, Westminster, and Mike Mrowicki, Putney Climate change and its resulting weather variations are contributing to floods and massive roadway erosion in some parts of Vermont and floods and droughts in other areas this month. A large section of northern Vermont experienced abnormally dry conditions in July, but southern Vermont endured two major storms…

By Shayne Spence Editor’s note: This commentary is by Shayne Spence of Johnson, who was a Republican candidate for the Vermont House in 2020. With an ongoing battle taking place over the future of voting rights and access, on the federal level and in many states, we often hear about the For The People Act,…