Health Department reports Vermont’s Covid levels are ‘low’.

Vermont has “low” community levels of Covid-19, the state Department of Health reported Wednesday.

Some measures of the virus have increased this week — such as hospital admissions, which have risen steadily since late July, an analysis of the department’s reports. Last week, it reported an average of 52 hospitalizations, about seven a day.

That’s below Omicron’s peak in January, when government hospitals admitted about 20 patients a day for Covid.

Data from the Department of Health shows that follow-up visits for the disease are low. As of Wednesday, the state had three people in intensive care for Vivid, in line with last month’s average.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention raised the Covid status of three Vermont counties last Thursday, raising Orleans, Lamoille and Caledonia counties from “low” to “moderate” Covid status. Rutland and Bennington counties were also rated as “middling” counties, as they were in previous weeks.

The CDC and Department of Health rankings are based on case counts, hospital admissions and the percentage of hospital beds occupied by Covid-19 patients. The CDC recommends that high-risk people in middle-class counties take measures to protect themselves from Covid, such as wearing a mask.

The department reported 550 cases of Covid in Vermont last week, down from 581 the week before. The case data do not include in-house antigen tests and are primarily based on PCR test results.

The department reported wastewater data to one facility — Burlington — this week, citing a “laboratory processing outage” that could affect data over the next two weeks. Burlington reports low levels of covid in wastewater samples.

The department has changed the way it reports outbreaks, moving from “active outbreaks” – areas with active Covid cases – to recently reported outbreaks. on him Data pageThe department said reporting new outbreaks “gives a clearer picture of current outbreak activity” than the previous system.

Vermont reported 12 outbreaks in schools and child care facilities in the past week, along with one long-term care outbreak and one health care facility outbreak, the department reported.

The department did not report any additional deaths this week, but reported a total of four deaths in September. That makes this month less than July and August, each with more than 10 deaths.

The number of Covid deaths is based on death certificates that list Covid as the cause of death or as a possible cause of death, the health department said. Because of the time it takes to investigate deaths and prepare death certificates, sometimes deaths can be added back, adding up to a total of weeks and months.

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