Vermont has “high” Covid-19 community levels, the Department of Health reported Wednesday in its second Covid surveillance report.

The report’s publication coincided with the final update to the department’s Covid data dashboard, launched in the early days of the pandemic two years ago. The move is part of the state’s transition away from an emphasis on cases and daily metrics, and more toward what Health Commissioner Mark Levine has called an “endemic” mentality toward the disease.

VTDigger plans to continue providing some of the data Vermonters have come to expect from the dashboard (see below for details). However, the health department has curtailed daily publication of several key statistics.

The weekly surveillance report contains new details on topics like Covid symptoms and wastewater testing, but experts have criticized the report for lacking certain metrics and targeting an audience of public health professionals rather than everyday Vermonters.

Levine also announced Tuesday that the department planned to phase out state-run testing sites, which provided PCR, LAMP and antigen tests for Vermonters. The closure of test sites could further distort the state’s daily Covid case counts, which tally PCR tests that have mainly been conducted by the state.

Here’s what the data shows, based on the department’s surveillance report, the underlying data from the dashboard and federal sources of Covid data.

The state Department of Health rated Vermont as having “high” community levels of Covid-19, based on recent Covid case counts, recent hospital admissions and the percent of hospital beds taken up by Covid patients.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provided a similar assessment at a county level last Thursday. Eight of Vermont’s 14 counties have high Covid community levels, a drop from 12 high counties the previous week. Five counties had medium levels and one, Essex, had low community levels.

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 state tracks several metrics that are meant to reveal the beginnings of Covid surges, anticipate increases in hospitalizations and signal when a surge may be easing.

Two of these metrics — syndromic surveillance and wastewater testing — are newly analyzed in the weekly health department report. 

Syndromic surveillance shows the number of people arriving at hospitals and urgent care centers with Covid-like symptoms. Experts say it can help provide an indirect insight into Covid activity in the community.

According to the report, the percentage of emergency department visits for Covid-like illness has declined from a peak around early May, but remains higher than it was before BA.2 became the dominant subvariant in Vermont in late March.

Similarly, wastewater testing provides an indirect view of Covid levels by measuring the amount of SARS-CoV-2 viral samples in local sewage treatment centers. Burlington, the only city currenting reporting wastewater data, had about the same viral level as the last couple weeks. 

Covid case data — which is based only on PCR testing, and does not incorporate more commonly used at-home tests — can also provide an early look at the rise and fall of viral surges. For the past two weeks, the number of cases, or people testing positive on a PCR test, has mostly remained flat, going from an average of 342 cases per day on May 4 to 339 per day as of May 17.

Throughout the pandemic, state officials have pointed to hospitalizations and deaths as important markers of not only how far the Covid virus has spread across Vermont, but also how severe an impact it has wrought on individuals, particularly high-risk Vermonters.

For four consecutive weeks, the health department has reported 50 or more patients in Vermont hospitals with Covid. That’s lower than the 14-day streak of more than 100 patients during a wave fueled by the Omicron variant in January, but still elevated compared to late February and early March.

During that time, the state averaged between five and 10 Covid patients in intensive care. The department data does not distinguish between people admitted for Covid and people who tested positive for Covid while admitted for other reasons.

The department has reported 14 people in Vermont have died from Covid-19 so far in May. That puts this month on track to exceed March and April in the number of Covid fatalities, but deaths remain far below December, January and February.

The number of Covid deaths is based on death certificates that list Covid as a cause or probable cause of death, according to the health department. Because of the time it takes to investigate deaths and prepare death certificates, deaths can sometimes be added retroactively, raising the totals for previous weeks and months.

The case and hospitalization data once provided in the health department dashboard contains some details on the demographics of Covid transmission and severe disease.

According to the health department, case rates were high among people 80 and older in the past week, although their overall number remained low, with just 145 cases among that age group in the past week.

Data from the health department on cases and hospitalizations by vaccination status shows that the gap between unvaccinated and fully vaccinated people has narrowed in recent months.

However, the health department does not track whether fully vaccinated people are up-to-date on their vaccines, including any recommended booster doses.

The health department ceased updating its Covid dashboard as of May 18, but the underlying data — including cases and deaths — will continue to be updated each Wednesday with daily totals from the previous week, according to department spokesperson Katie Warchut. Hospitalization data will be updated each Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

VTDigger plans to continue to update its Covid dashboard on weekdays when new data is available. That data will include top-level numbers along with charts of cases, hospitalizations and deaths. VTDigger also tracks updates to CDC community levels, which are released weekly on Thursday evenings.

Because the health department is no longer publishing data on a daily basis, we will no longer feature the daily case chart and top-level numbers on our homepage and in the Daily Digger email newsletter. Instead, we will continue to maintain those charts on our Covid dashboard.

We will also no longer provide daily blog posts with Covid data. The information provided in those posts will be visible in updates on the dashboard, and we plan to provide regular articles — including this weekly analysis of the health department surveillance report — analyzing and conveying important data updates.

These features may change depending on the ongoing availability of Covid-19 data. Levine said the weekly surveillance reports, and the health department’s data strategy, may continue to evolve in the coming weeks. For example, the phase-out of PCR testing from state-run testing sites may curtail our ability to report Covid case data that is mainly reliant on PCR tests.

We want to hear your feedback on how we report Covid data: What metrics are most important to you? How do you use data in your daily life? Are there any numbers you struggle to understand? Please use the form below to share your thoughts.

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Erin Petenko is VTDigger's data and graphics reporter, bringing numbers to life to help Vermonters understand the state they live in.

View all stories by Erin Petenko

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