RANDOLPH — Vermont health officials have called on residents in Washington and Orange counties to step up their efforts to prevent the spread of COVID-19, now that those counties have become the “epicenter” of the state’s current surge in cases.
Of the 789 cases reported over the previous two weeks, 68 were in Orange County, according to a news release from the Department of Health. That’s 23.5 cases per 10,000 people, twice the state average incidence rate of 12.6. Just to the north, the situation in Washington County — the center of a hockey outbreak last month — is even more serious with case rates three times that of the state as a whole.
Vermont Health Commissioner Dr. Mark Levine and other members of Gov. Phil Scott’s administration are meeting with town and elected officials in the two counties “to organize and mobilize efforts to reduce the number of new cases in their communities,” state officials said in a news release this week.
Most municipalities in Washington and Orange counties are discussing or have already decided to close their town offices for in-person transactions and moved to a remote format, Levine said during a Tuesday news conference.
Infections continued to rise across the state Tuesday, with 95 new cases announced, including 16 new cases in Orange County. To the south, Windsor County reported no new cases on Tuesday. Over the past two weeks, there have been 24 new cases in Windsor County.
Dr. Josh White, the chief medical officer at Randolph’s Gifford Medical Center, said in an email that the reason for the increase in cases in Orange County is “fairly simple.”
“People are experiencing COVID fatigue and are bending the rules, gathering together, and not following masking/social distancing rules,” he wrote. Health officials have pointed to social gatherings such as baby showers, Halloween parties and deer camps as some of the sites where people have failed to wear masks and practice social distancing in order to prevent the spread of the virus.
Additionally, during Tuesday’s news conference, Levine said that some of the cases in Washington and Orange counties are due to close contacts of people who tested positive during the hockey outbreak failing to abide by quarantine rules, which require that people stay away from others for 14 days after their potential exposure to the virus.
Among the schools affected by the increase in cases in Orange County is Randolph Union High School, which reported on Monday that at least one person was on campus during their infection period recently. Schools in the Orange Southwest School District are now operating in a remote format due to possible cases in the school community.
Whether schools in Randolph, Brookfield and Braintree return to the usual mix of in-person and virtual lessons after Thanksgiving break will depend on people in the community complying with COVID-19 precautions, OSSD Superintendent Layne Millington said in a Monday message to families.
Orange East Supervisory Union Superintendent Emilie Knisley said in a Tuesday message to staff that surveillance testing for all staff in OESU schools in the Bradford area will begin on Wednesday and then continue monthly.
“It is certainly possible that we will see positive test results in our schools as a result of the testing — and indeed rather likely,” she wrote. If the testing reveals cases, Knisley said the affected schools may have to move to remote learning for Monday and Tuesday of next week. She said her leadership team considered moving all schools to remote learning as a proactive step, but opted to wait for a positive result.
“After discussion and debate, the majority of us continue to feel that keeping schools open for children is in the best interest of our learners,” she said.
State officials announced the surveillance testing program to be offered to staff in all K-12 schools across the state — about 25,000 people — last week as case numbers began to rise. After the Thanksgiving break, testing will be conducted on a rotating schedule, with tests offered to one-quarter of Vermont schools each week, so that every teacher and staff member is offered testing once a month. The testing is voluntary and will continue indefinitely.
While school staff are not at a greater risk of contracting the virus, state health officials said they can help provide a picture of the prevalence of the disease in the state.
Nora Doyle-Burr can be reached at ndoyleburr@vnews.com or 603-727-3213. Material from VtDigger was used in this report.
