Vermont starting to ease visits with senior citizens

The state of Vermont is starting to ease restrictions on visiting hospital patients and senior citizens in long-term care facilities, Gov. Phil Scott said Wednesday.

The initial rules for Vermont’s approximately 200 long-term care facilities require that visits be held outdoors and include no more than two visitors per day for each resident, Scott said during his regular briefing about the state’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I realize this step is small, but it’s meaningful,” Scott said.

Assuming the number of cases of the virus in Vermont remain low, the restrictions will be further eased in the coming weeks, he said.

One of the first restrictions imposed by the state in March as COVID-19 bore down was to prohibit visitors to senior care facilities. As it is, about half of the state’s 55 fatalities were in the care facilities.

The new regulations also allow single visitors for hospitalized patients, patients in emergency departments and urgent care facilities. For children, two parents are allowed.

There are numerous exceptions and details to each policy. The details of each are listed on the state’s website.

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NUMBERS

On Wednesday the state reported no new positive cases of the virus that causes COVID-19, leaving the statewide total since the pandemic began at 1,130. Currently there is one patient hospitalized in Vermont with COVID-19 and there are four hospitalized patients who are being investigated for the disease.

Vermont has not seen a COVID-19 fatality since late May. The number remains at 55.

Health officials are continuing to monitor an outbreak in Winooski that led to 83 cases.

Health Commissioner Dr. Mark Levine said no new cases have been linked to that outbreak in four days, but he’s not ready yet to say it’s over.

“While I would like to speak with the utmost of confidence, I have to caution everyone that this virus has a 14-day incubation period,” he said.

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PRISONS

Human Service Secretary Mike Smith said an inmate at the Marble Valley Regional Correctional Facility in Rutland has tested positive for the virus that causes COVID-19 and he has shown symptoms of the disease.

The inmate had recently been brought to the facility after being returned to Vermont from Florida. The inmate is being kept separate from other inmates, and the staff who brought him back to the state are being tested.

Earlier during the course of the pandemic, more than 40 inmates at one of Vermont’s six prisons tested positive for the virus, but the cases were contained. Last week the Department of Corrections said it had completed testing of all inmates and staff and found the system free of COVID-19.

Smith said Marble Valley is now considered a COVID-positive facility and decisions will be made about what additional measures will be needed to ensure the virus doesn’t spread.

“The greatest danger right now at the correctional facilities is from the outside, not from the inside,’’ Smith said. “That is why the quarantine protocols are in place.”