BENNINGTON — Bennington County is the only county in Vermont classified as having “high” community levels of COVID-19 by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.
While state and local health officials don’t dispute the CDC’s data, they say the most recent data shows a decline in test positivity — an indication that the most recent upswing of cases is back on the way down.
According to CDC data, the three counties bordering Bennington — Windham, Windsor and Rutland — are at medium community levels, as well as Orleans County in the Northeast Kingdom. The remainder are all at “low” community levels.
Among out-of-state neighbors, Berkshire County, Mass., is categorized by the CDC as having medium community levels, while Rensselaer and Washington counties in New York are categorized as high.
Asked if the high community levels in Rensselaer and Washington Counties are impacting Bennington County, given commuting patterns, Dr. Trey Dobson, the chief medical officer at Southwest Vermont Medical Center, said that’s entirely possible, given commuting patterns between New York and Vermont.
“Certainly throughout the pandemic, that has been the case,” he said.
The most important thing is there’s still a prevalence of virus in the community, even as new cases seem to be stabilizing and slowing down, Dobson said.
“There’s still significant transmission,” Dobson said. “Fortunately the hospitalizations remain low and the virulence of the virus remains low due to our being protected by vaccine and prior exposure.”
SHOTS NOT TAKEN
When it comes to vaccine protection, Bennington County is lagging behind the rest of the state in some age groups.
According to Vermont Department of Health vaccination data, 55 percent of Bennington County residents 5 and older are up to date on COVID vaccines — close to the state overall percentage of 59 percent.
But the percentage of Bennington County children ages 5-11 who are up to date on vaccines is 43 percent, well below the state percentage of 56 percent.
For adults ages 30-39, the statewide percentage is 51 percent; in Bennington County, it’s 41 percent. And for adults ages of 40-49 and 50-59, 56 percent of Vermonters are up to date on their shots, compared to 49 percent in Bennington County.
Among teens, young adults ages 18-29 and seniors 60 and older, Bennington County is within 5 points of the state percentages for up-to-date vaccination. However, the statewide percentage for adults 18-29 is a paltry 33 percent, and stands at just 28 percent in Bennington County.
“People have the idea that they don’t need to be vaccinated because they’re young and it doesn’t protect them anyway. The truth is it actually does give protection,” Dobson said. It also decreases the risk of some COVID side effects, including blood clotting disorders.
“It’s important that people understand that although vaccination and being up to date on vaccination does not completely protect someone from becoming infected, it does limit the risk of spreading the virus to other people and actually shortens the duration of illness,” he added.
“I don’t know about you, but if I catch the flu or COVID and I could have it for a day and a half or four days, I would definitely jump on the day and a half.”
TRENDING DOWNWARD
Bennett Truman, a spokesman for the Vermont Department of Health, said the most recent seven-day average for test positivity in Bennington County has declined to 6.92 percent. He said the same rate of decline is being seen in recent hospital admissions with confirmed COVID-19, in the percentage of staffed inpatient beds with a COVID-19-positive patient, and the percentage of ICU beds with a COVID-19-positive patient.
“All that said, we don’t recommend looking at county-level indicators on a weekly basis,” Truman said. “Our counties are geographically small, particularly compared to many other rural and low-population states, and many Vermonters may live in one county, work in another, shop in another, get medical care in another, etc.”
According to the CDC, people in high community level areas should be wearing masks in public regardless of vaccination status, stay up to date with COVID vaccines and boosters, and follow CDC recommendations for isolation and quarantine.
Dobson said the hospital has not seen static levels of COVID cases over the past four to six weeks, with between four and eight hospitalizations for the virus at any given time.
“It is extremely hard to get any kind of accurate data on new cases” because so many cases are being diagnosed through non-reportable sources, such as home antigen testing, Dobson said.
But that said: “Bennington happens to have a very robust drive-thru testing site,” he said. “If you have a good place to be tested, people will come. So I’m certain we are capturing a larger percentage of the population than a county that does not have a testing site.”
