Even Eden, the snowy paradise of northern Vermont, is poisoned by omicron.
The near-vertical rise in new coronavirus cases in recent weeks, before peaking in mid-January, affected virtually every small mountain village, every closed factory town, Every frozen pastoral college campus.
Of all the states, Vermont seems ready for the omicron battle: it’s The most vaccinated states in the nation Nearly 80% of residents are fully vaccinated against Covid-19, and 95% of residents are 65 years of age and older, an age group considered most at risk of serious risk of contracting Covid-19.
However, even this super-numb state is not impenetrable. The state of mid-January strikes Residents hit record high Hospitalizations due to covid-19; elective surgeries suspended at some Vermont hospitals; schools and day care centers roiled by staff and faculty absenteeism and the number of students quarantined at home. Hospitals rely on FEMA paramedics and EMTs.
And, for the rest of the winter months, a troubling sign: About one in 10 people in Vermont tested positive for Covid-19, compared to the delta variant scattered elsewhere in the country compared to the summer months. Few are registered here, a surprising number.
“It shows how contagious omicron is,” said Dr. Trey Dobson, chief medical officer at Southwest Vermont Medical Center, a nonprofit hospital in Bennington. “Even if someone is vaccinated, you inhale it, it replicates, and if you test, you’re positive.”
But experts were quick to note that Vermont could also serve as a window into what might happen as the U.S. learns to live with Covid-19. While near-universal vaccination won’t stop the highly mutated omicron variant from sweeping across the state, Vermont’s collective measures do appear to be protecting residents from the worst infectious diseases.Vermont COVID-related hospitalization rates, Although higher than last winter’s peak, it still ranks last in the country. The overall mortality rate was also relatively low.
Children in Vermont test positive for COVID-19, and pediatric hospitalizations have increased.but accompanied by decreases in other seasonal pediatric diseases, such as influenza and respiratory syncytial virus, and Inoculation status The majority of eligible children in the state have relieved pressure on hospitals faced by many other states.
“I have to remind people that cases don’t mean disease, and I think we’re seeing that in Vermont,” said Dr. Rebecca Bell, Pediatric critical care specialist at the University of Vermont Health Network in Burlington, the state’s only pediatric critical care hospital. “We have a lot of cases, but we don’t see a lot of severe cases and hospitalizations.”
“I haven’t had a vaccinated child hospitalized with Covid-19,” she added.
Vermont embodies in many ways the future that the Biden administration and public health officials aim to usher in: high vaccination rates of all races and ethnicities; adherence to evolving public health guidelines; and persistence and society when the virus swarms cohesion. Vermont is not “good enough,” with only 645,000 residents. While vaccination efforts for adults and children have stalled elsewhere, Vermont is working to improve its near-perfect score.
“We have a high percentage of our kids vaccinated, but we can do better,” Dobson said.
He continues to urge unvaccinated patients to attend his weekly vaccination clinic. The “firsts” appear to have been delayed because of scheduling or apathy, rather than major reservations about vaccines. “They were indifferent to it,” he said. “I asked, ‘Why now?’ They said, ‘My job needs it.'”
Replicating Vermont’s success can be difficult.
“There’s a New England town vibrancy,” says Dr. Tim Leahy, Director of Clinical Ethics at the University of Vermont Medical Center in Burlington. “It’s easy to imagine how your actions affect your neighbors and our expectations of looking after each other.”
While other rural states in the Midwest and South have struggled to increase vaccination rates, New England overall is catching up. After Vermont, Rhode Island, Maine and Connecticut have the highest percentage of fully vaccinated residents in the country.
“It’s not just about size,” says Dr. Ben Lee, Associate Professor, Robert Lana School of Medicine, University of Vermont. “There’s a unique sense of shared responsibility here.”
In a state with a motto of “Liberty and Unity,” where liberty has largely given way to unity, the state’s pandemic response has been eagerly followed. “The prevailing attitude here is to want to be safer,” Lahey said.
Lahey praised the state’s Republican Gov. Phil Scott for having been “unequivocal about his message of support for vax.” Add to that “the tendency to believe in vaccines, and you get different results than where political leaders exploit minority voices and anger people.”
Vermont’s medical leaders are advising state leaders to move from the basics of the coronavirus war — surveillance testing, contact tracing, quarantines and lockdowns — to reconciliation: testing for coronavirus only if the results will change how doctors treat patients ; discontinue school-based surveillance testing and contact tracing; and advise symptomatic students to recuperate at home.
Dobson said that once the omicron wave passes and there is less virus circulating, a highly vaccinated state like Vermont “can really drop almost all mitigation and society will function well.” Vermonters, he said, will be accustomed to Taking appropriate steps to protect yourself is not the same as wearing a seat belt and driving carefully to reduce the risk of a car accident. “However,” he added, “it is by no means zero risk.”
Vermont doesn’t have the acerbicity and bitterness that other states’ neighborhoods alienate, and there may be something else in short supply elsewhere: stamina.
“We’re all exhausted,” said Ethics Director Leahy. But “we were exhausted with friends.”
Photo: santima.studio, Getty Images
KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that provides in-depth news coverage on health issues.Along with policy analysis and polling, KHN is one of the top three operating programs in the U.S. KFC (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is a donating non-profit organization that provides information on health issues to the state.
