WHITE RIVER JUNCTION — Riverbank Church halted in-person worship for two weeks earlier this month due to three families testing positive for COVID-19, according to the church’s executive pastor.
Church officials first became aware of the cases on May 10, said Matt Burge, the executive pastor of the White River Junction church located on Holiday Drive, in an email last week.
Then, “out of an abundance of caution,” they decided to switch to online-only services for the subsequent two weekends, he said.
“There doesn’t appear to be a clear tie in terms of a common event,” Burge wrote. “We are a large church community of over 1,000 people across the Upper Valley region, so any increase in cases at large is bound to impact our church community in some way.”
The church plans to resume in-person services this coming weekend, Burge said.
ENFIELD — Mascoma schools also saw a spike in COVID-19 cases recently, most tied to an unspecified event over Mother’s Day weekend, according to the superintendent.
In the eight days between May 13 and last Friday, eight people at Mascoma Valley Regional High School and one each at Indian River School and Enfield Village School have tested positive, according to messages Superintendent Amanda Isabelle posted to the school district’s website.
In an email last week, Isabelle declined to detail where the virus appears to have been transmitted.
“The only information I can confidently share is that the majority of the cases seem to be tied to an event that occurred outside of the school setting,” she wrote.
She added that 137 students received their first dose of COVID-19 vaccine at a school clinic held last week.
UNITY — A COVID-19 outbreak at Sullivan County nursing home added three cases last week, bringing the total infected to 26, according to the facility’s administrator.
All of the new cases are in asymptomatic residents, wrote Ted Purdy, the facility’s administrator, in a Friday message to families.
The outbreak now includes a total of 21 residents and five staff, all of whom have returned to work.
Nora Doyle-Burr can be reached at ndoyleburr@vnews.com or 603-727-3213.
