By Kathy Mccormack and Wilson Ring
Associated Press
Here are the latest developments regarding the ongoing novel coronavirus pandemic throughout New England:
New Hampshire
Dartmouth College has decided to delay the return of undergraduates to campus next month because of concerns about the surge in COVID-19 cases around the country and in New Hampshire.
Students were scheduled to return following the holidays on Jan. 5-6, with classes starting on Jan. 7. Classes will start remotely, instead, Provost Joseph Helble said Monday in a campus email. Students are now scheduled to return on Jan. 16-17.
Helble said students will take COVID-19 tests five days before arriving on campus, and that most students will be out of quarantine by Jan. 26. Students and employees on campus will be tested twice a week as of January.
Community transmission through November has grown and reached “far higher levels” than Dartmouth had anticipated, a trend that is expected to continue, Helble said.
As of Friday, Dartmouth had six active COVID-19 cases among students and staff. Seven Dartmouth community members were in quarantine and 18 in isolation.
Veterans Home staffing: At least 60 people have responded to a call for staffing help at the State Veterans Home in Tilton, which has been dealing with a COVID-19 outbreak.
“LNAs, LPNs and RNs, we’re really looking for and the licensed positions,” Margaret LaBrecque, commandant of the home, told WMUR-TV on Monday. “We’re looking for some housekeepers just to go around, sanitize, remove the trash.”
Since the virus was first detected at the home Nov. 10, at least 53 residents and 64 staff members have tested positive, and 15 veterans have died, according to state figures released last week.
On Saturday, LeBrecque called for an “all-hands on deck response” for help with clinical and non-clinical staff to help in day-to-day operations for the veterans home
Sununu staffer tests positive: A member of Gov. Chris Sununu’s office tested positive on Monday for COVID-19, but the governor was not determined to be a close contact.
The person hasn’t been in the office since Dec. 2, and is feeling fine, the governor’s office said in a news release.
The person woke up with a fever Thursday and began quarantining. Contact tracing found only one person who was in close contact. That person also was quarantined, the news release said.
Sununu said he and other staff in his office will continue to monitor for any symptoms.
“Transparency is paramount in public health crises, and this instance is no exception,” Sununu said in a news release. “Like many other workplaces across the state and country, the State House is not immune. I would like to thank the member of my team for immediately quarantining and following all public health guidance, and wish them good health as they recover from COVID-19.”
Small businesses: The coronavirus pandemic has forced many small business owners to rethink their strategies to stay afloat, especially as federal assistance has waned, the director of the New Hampshire Small Business Development Center said at a forum Monday.
Funds from the federal Paycheck Protection Program and state emergency grant programs assisted a number of small businesses early on, but now, that money’s been spent and uncertainty remains. Businesses have had to get creative, finding new ways to market and connect with their customers, Liz Gray said during the forum hosted online by U.S. Sen. Maggie Hassan.
Mary Ann Kristiansen, executive director of the Hannah Grimes Center for Entrepreneurship in Keene, said that unlike larger manufacturers, smaller businesses don’t have the resources to navigate challenges like workers who get sick, and analyzing likely trends. She said they need the benefit of personal connections with others to deal with their experiences during the pandemic.
“I think entrepreneurs are feeling really alone,” she said.
Carla Vanderhoof, who runs an Exeter-based app development platform for business software, said since having to go remote instantly earlier this year, she’s had to pivot her strategy and work on a different model for clients. She said they will better off, but the amount of pressure, combined with the economy being in question has “put us more at risk than we wanted to be at.”
For Jay Curcio, a co-owner of The White Apron Catering in Dover, the pandemic has “flatlined” his business, and he doesn’t see another model that will work for the long term. A healthy, safe environment for his employees and a vaccine are what he needs, he said.
“I need it to be like it was prior to COVID,” he said.
The numbers: More than 25,000 people have tested positive for the virus in New Hampshire, including more than 1,000 cases announced Monday that included results from several days earlier in the week. Two additional deaths were announced, bringing the total to 566 since the pandemic began.
The seven-day rolling average of daily new cases in New Hampshire has risen over the past two weeks from over 415 new cases per day on Nov. 22 to more than 610 new cases per day on Sunday.
Vermont
Some long-term care facilities in Vermont are reporting dramatic increases in the numbers of people infected by the virus that causes COVID-19, officials said Tuesday.
While the number of cases in facilities such as nursing homes were high during the early weeks of the pandemic, they dropped to near zero over several months from late spring through the summer but began rebounding last month.
The increases followed rises in October that were caused by more social gatherings that helped drive up the amount of virus circulating in the community, statistics show.
Speaking Tuesday at the state’s twice-weekly virus briefing, Health Commissioner Dr. Mark Levine said that despite efforts to keep it out, people can bring the virus into long-term care facilities without knowing they are infected.
“I think that’s what happens, all it takes is one case where you have a vulnerable group of people and it can take off,” Levine said.
He said efforts are underway to determine whether more can be done to help limit transmission into and within the facilities.
But Levine said that there are more than 200 care facilities of different types in Vermont and that eight have seen infections that account for 283 current active cases.
“The ones that are impacted, it is very unfortunate and we feel terrible about the necessary illnesses, hospitalizations and sometimes loss of life, but don’t get the impression it’s impacting every facility in the state because it certainly is not,” Levine said.
Judicial emergency: The Vermont Supreme Court has extended a judicial emergency set last March until March 31, 2021, but criminal jury trials are not formally suspended and civil jury trials may start after Jan. 1.
To hold a jury trial, courts must first get approval from the chief superior judge and court administrator. The administrator and judge must ensure that steps are taken to protect trial participants and public health and that there’s adequate staff for the trial, the judiciary said.
Already scheduled trials may be canceled.
The court has authorized the judicial bureau to hold remote events and to require all participants to appear remotely. Anyone who objects to remote participation must make that known as soon as possible, the judiciary said.
If a hearing officers finds good cause for in-person participation, the hearing will be postponed, the judiciary said.
The numbers: On Tuesday, the Vermont Health Department reported 100 new cases of the virus that causes COVID-19, bringing the statewide total since the pandemic began to 5,180.
Currently there are 28 patients hospitalized in the state with COVID-19, including four in intensive care.
The seven-day rolling average of daily new cases in Vermont has risen over the past two weeks from 100 on Nov. 23 to 112 on Dec. 7.
The latest average positivity rate in Vermont is 2.35%. State health departments are calculating positivity rate differently across the country, but for Vermont the AP calculates the rate by dividing new cases by test specimens using data from The COVID Tracking Project.
The seven-day rolling average of the positivity rate in Vermont has risen over the past two weeks from 1.53% on Nov. 23 to 2.35% on Dec. 7.
The state Tuesday reported four new deaths from COVID-19, bringing the statewide total since the pandemic began to 85.
Statistics from Vermont Financial Regulation Commissioner Michael Pieciak, who has been tracking COVID-19 data across the state and the country, said the 718 new cases reported in the last week were the largest one-week increase since the pandemic began.
“This means that our communities continue to have an elevated risk of COVID-19 and that we all have an elevated risk of encountering someone who is infectious,” Pieciak said.
The state is forecasting a 50% increase in new cases in Vermont over the next three weeks, but officials still need to know more about whether the Thanksgiving holiday is going to help drive the increase in cases, he said.
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