New England states set up hospital overflow sites

By Holly Ramer And Wilson Ring
Associated Press
Here are developments from the states of New Hampshire and Vermont on new policies and initiatives in the fight against the new coronavirus:

NEW HAMPSHIRE

New Hampshire has set up 14 “flex facilities” to handle hospital overflow if the state sees a surge in COVID-19 cases.

The facilities include 1,600 beds, bringing the state’s total bed capacity to more than 5,000. They will not be used unless absolutely necessary, Gov. Chris Sununu said, and the communities hosting them will not face any costs.

“While we hope the day never comes, we do have to be prepared,” he said. “We will be ready.”

Health care relief: The nonprofit trust that operates Lakes Region General Hospital in Laconia and Franklin Regional Hospital is the first beneficiary of a new $50 million emergency fund for health care facilities. LRGHealth will get a $5.2 million, zero-interest loan that will help it limit the number of staff facing furloughs, Sununu said.

Those furloughed workers also could find temporary jobs through a new Department of Employment Security system to redeploy health care workers.

Money matters: Sununu issued an executive order allowing towns and cities to eliminate the interest and penalties associated with late property taxes. He also said the state is shifting some of its cash reserves to smaller, local banks to provide them with greater liquidity so they can make loans to small businesses.

Grocery guidance: An association representing grocery stores is opening an emergency operations center and will be issuing guidance to stores about keeping shoppers and workers safe.

Stores will be encouraged to limit traffic to 50% of their building’s capacity, mark floors to keep people a part from each other at checkout lines, create one-way aisles to allow for greater distance between shoppers and install plexi-glass barriers in front of checkout workers.

Hiking near home: State parks will remain open, but Sununu issued a challenge to residents to get their fresh air close to home. He urged residents to explore their hometowns and share photos on social media tagged #homehikechallenge.

Crowds of people, including many from out of state, at popular hiking trails raised concerns about spreading the virus.

Some pig: When the coronavirus outbreak hit, Sarah Lang wasn’t worried about feeding her family. She worried about their 550-pound pig, Wilbur.

The pig, named after the “Charlotte’s Web” character, was won by her daughter Grace at a fair. He had grown accustomed to daily scraps of pizza, French toast and pancakes from an elementary school in Bedford, where students threw their leftovers in a bucket with the pig’s face on it.

But with the school’s closing, Lang was forced to serve grain normally reserved for the family’s goats, and Wilbur wasn’t having it. So, Lang turned to Facebook for help, prompting residents in Bedford and several nearby communities to begin dropping off their leftovers this week in a bucket for Wilbur in front of the family’s 22-acre property.

A video of Wilbur eating the pizza donated by a local shop is featured on his Facebook page.

The numbers: Nearly 550 people in New Hampshire have been diagnosed with COVID-19. Seven people have died, and more than 80 have been hospitalized. The two latest deaths, which was reported Friday, were one male and one female who were over 60 years old.

For most people, the virus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia, or death.

Good to go: City employees in Rochester, New Hampshire, are getting lunch or dinner from a different restaurant each day in a “Good To Go” campaign to help support the businesses during the coronavirus pandemic.

“The simple act of ordering a meal to go can make a huge difference to restaurant owners in the city while they are unable to have sit-in dining,” City Manager Blaine Cox said.

Participants in the campaign are encouraged to share photos tagged #GoodToGoRochesterNH.

VERMONT

Vermont officials said they are so desperate to find medical professionals to help with the state’s COVID-19 response, they’re even willing to use veterinarians to help with care for people.

Vermont is in the process of preparing almost 1,000 hospital beds in “medical surge facilities” statewide to help relieve pressure on existing hospitals when the COVID-19 peak arrives, which is currently expected later this month.

While officials are capable of setting up the extra beds, they don’t know who will staff them, so they are asking for help from a Medical Reserve Corps of retirees, students and others with some sort of medical experience, including veterinarians. They posted a volunteer sign-up location online.

“We need to build our reserves,” Gov. Phil Scott said Friday.

On Thursday, acting Human Services Secretary Michael Smith said officials are looking at anything that could possibly help.

“Certainly, veterinarians have extensive medical experience in terms of they’ve gone to school and what they’ve done,” Smith said.

Erin Forbes, a small animal veterinarian in Essex Junction and the spokeswoman for the Vermont Veterinary Medical Association, said part of their oaths as veterinarians was to protect the public and she felt some of Vermont’s vets would probably be willing to help.

“We are good at dealing with stress,” said Forbes, who worked as an emergency medical technician and would be willing to help out in the COVID-19 fight if needed. “I think it’s very intriguing and I think that if people are going to die and we can save their lives, I think most people probably wouldn’t care” that they’re being treated by a veterinarian, she said.

Dr. Tim Lahey, an infectious disease specialist and medical ethicist at the University of Vermont Medical Center who is helping the hospital confront the COVID-19 epidemic, said the medical community is being creative in looking for ways to confront the outbreak by finding people who can support the front-line medical professionals. He seemed skeptical that veterinarians could provide patient care to humans.

“They have some incredible skills we could use, but we want to make sure that anybody who is putting their hands on a person… is trained to do that work,” Lahey said.

Masks: Vermont Health Commissioner Dr. Mark Levine said Friday he is now recommending that Vermonters wear cloth face masks in public, even if they have no symptoms of COVID-19. It was previously thought that masks weren’t needed for healthy people, but that has changed as it has become clear that some people infected with COVID-19 can spread it before they show symptoms.

“Wearing a face mask may help (keep) people from spreading the virus,” Levine said.

But the most effective tool to fight COVID-19 is social distancing, he said.

The numbers: As of Friday, Vermont reported almost 400 positive cases of COVID-19 and 17 deaths. Almost 30 patients were being treated in the state’s hospitals.

For most people, the virus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia, or death.