Vermont Health Department urges testing after gatherings

MONTPELIER, Vt. – The Vermont Health Department is urging anyone who gathered with people outside their households over the holidays to get tested for the virus that causes COVID-19 seven days after the get-together.

And those who hosted out-of-state visitors should quarantine for 14 days or seven days and get a negative test.

The Health Department made the rules specially for holiday gatherings. From Dec. 23-Jan. 2 one household may gather with one other trusted household.

But the Health Department reminds people that staying home with your immediate family members is still the lowest risk.

In other pandemic-related developments:

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AIRPORT TRAVEL

The average number of passengers who travelled through the Burlington International Airport over Christmas was down 80%, according to airport officials.

Airport Manager Gene Richards calls the low number “great” because he hopes it will help Vermont avoid a spike in cases following the holidays.

Richards told WCAX-TV an average of 11,000 travellers come through the Burlington airport this time of year, but this year there have been about 2,000.

“This is a real blessing in our eyes to have less people travelling in and out of Vermont,” Richards said. “We know that the bounce from the holidays will hopefully be a little less because of it.”

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THE NUMBERS

Vermont reported 87 new confirmed cases of the coronavirus on Monday for a statewide total of 7,120 since the pandemic began. According to the Vermont Health Department, 18 people were hospitalized with COVID-19, with five in intensive care.

The seven-day rolling average of daily new cases in Vermont did not increase over the past two weeks, going from 105.43 new cases per day on Dec. 13 to 83.71 new cases per day on Dec. 27.

The latest average positivity rate in Vermont is 1.92%. 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 did not increase over the past two weeks, going from 2.18% on Dec. 13 to 1.92% on Dec. 27.

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