COVID-19 cases continue steady growth in Waterbury
Dec. 17, 2021 | By Lisa ScagliottiWaterbury continues to log a steady stream of new COVID-19 cases headed into the Christmas and New Year’s holidays.
Vermont Health Department town-by-town data updated Friday shows Waterbury with a total of 493 cases so far for the pandemic, that’s up by 24 in the seven days ending Wednesday, Dec. 15. The new cases in the past week were just a few less than the previous week when the 29 cases recorded was the highest one-week total for the entire pandemic.
Nearby communities saw some increases in cases through Dec. 15, but Waterbury remained the highest of the towns in the Harwood Union school district and those towns adjacent to Waterbury. Stowe had 19 new cases in the past week for a total of 344 since March 2020; Warren had 5 (total 76) and Waitsfield had 3 (total 118), according to the Health Department. The state also logged two cases for Bolton and one each for Moretown and Middlesex.
In all, 35 new cases were reported in communities in the Harwood school district compared with a school-year weekly high of 42 in the previous week.
Omicron detected in Burlington wastewater
These latest counts come as it appears the latest variant of the virus has been detected in Vermont. On Friday, Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger announced that the city’s monitoring of its wastewater for the COVID-19 virus has picked up evidence of the Omicron variant.
Vermont Health Commissioner Dr. Mark Levine issued a statement saying that news “does not come as a surprise.”
“While we have not yet identified a case in a specimen from a COVID-19 positive patient in Vermont, this variant of the COVID-19 virus has been found in 39 states, including those on our border as well as in Canada. I fully expect that our genetic sequencing results will confirm the first case soon, perhaps in a matter of days,” Levine said.
While scientists and doctors are learning about the latest variant as it spreads around the world, Levine said several facts about it are known: First, it “spreads quickly, even faster than Delta, which has triggered our current surge in cases and hospitalizations. Second, and key to our ability to slow Omicron’s spread, we do know that vaccines are still the most effective protection against bad outcomes – serious illness, hospitalizations and death. But this protection depends on Vermonters being fully protected. This means for everyone who can, being vaccinated AND getting your booster shot as soon as possible.”
Public health officials expect that Omicron will become the dominant strain worldwide.
Vermont officials are urging the public to get vaccinated including booster shots to protect against getting infected and seriously ill. They also urge testing as a way to gauge whether you are infected but not having symptoms before people gather for the holidays.
In Waterbury, testing continues daily at the Waterbury Ambulance Station at 1727 Guptil Road. Vaccines are available free to individuals age 5 and older and boosters for those 16 and over from state clinics, pharmacies and doctors’ offices. A pop-up vaccine clinic is scheduled for Sunday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Waterbury Area Senior Center; no appointment is necessary. Details on times and locations for testing and vaccines are online at healthvermont.gov/covid-19.
Key school COVID-19 data points
At the Harwood Union School Board meeting on Dec. 15 this week, Superintendent Brigid Nease offered an update to various data summaries regarding COVID-19 in the schools. Some of the key points included:
Attendance: Data covers both students and staff. Nease noted that the district is “still grappling with coverage” and continues to have an urgent need for substitute teachers. Last month, Nease noted staff absences numbered 95 per week. That’s increased recently to 119 absences the week after Thanksgiving and 130 staff out the week of Dec. 6-10, she said.
Vaccination: As of Dec. 7, 98.5% of the district’s staff was vaccinated, according to the report. Harwood Union MS/HS had the highest percentage of vaccinated students (86% received first dose; 84% have received second shot), given that older students have been eligible for the vaccine since the spring. The vaccine only was approved for children ages 5-11 in November. Crossett Brook Middle School, Waitsfield Elementary, and Fayston Elementary schools had the highest percentages of younger students with their first vaccine dose. (see table)
Board member Jonathan Clough from Warren asked Nease what school officials think of the announcement this week from the state saying that they are looking to give the go-ahead in mid-January for school districts to drop mask requirements once 80% of their students are vaccinated.
Nease noted that the state’s guidance this year is advisory and not mandatory. She said the administrative and nursing teams are discussing the issue but do not anticipate changing mask requirements anytime soon. School nurses have credited masking with low spread of the virus in schools.
“We’re considering it,” Nease said. “But we don’t believe we will unmask. This could change of course.” She said given the time of year when everyone will be largely indoors and goals of keeping staff and students healthy and in school, coupled with uncertainty around the new virus variant emerging, “we are not comfortable unmasking at school at this point,” she said.
Pace of new cases quickening
Cases in the school district now total 46 for the school year as of Friday afternoon when two more were reported, one each at Crossett Brook Middle School (its fourth for the month) and Harwood Union MS/HS (its third in December).
Nease pointed out that the school only logs the cases in students and staff who were determined to have been contagious while in school. Those who test positive but were contagious when not in school are not counted in the school cases numbers.
December has seen a particularly strong spike in cases, especially at Brookside Primary School in Waterbury where 9 cases have been identified this month. Overall, the district’s schools logged 11 cases from opening in August through October; another 18 cases were added in November; so far 17 have been identified in December.
The school district issues a bulletin each time a case is identified, emailing the information to staff and families and posting on social media and on the district’s website homepage, HUUSD.org.
Board member Lisa Mason of Moretown asked Nease about virus spread in school given the increasing case numbers. Nease said school nurses don’t believe that much spread is happening among classmates because contact tracing and testing after cases are identified are not turning up many new cases. “Whatever is happening for kids to turn positive is happening outside of school,” she said.
She acknowledged the spike in new cases at Brookside Primary School and pointed out that the school is three to four times the population of the elementary schools in the valley. The Test-To-Stay effort is working to return students and staff who are unvaccinated and identified as close contacts but do not have any virus symptoms back to school quicker than if they were to quarantine, Nease said.
In addition, weekly surveillance testing is helping find positive cases early. Nease’s report notes that about 700 tests were collected each of the past two weeks.
“We are coming up with two or three asymptomatic positive cases every time we test,” Nease said, “where people would not even know they were positive.”
Superintendent Nease’s COVID-19 data update is online in the Dec. 15 school board packet, page 6.