Vermont officials are beginning to make plans to allow residents of long-term-care facilities to have more contact with each other and the outside world, Vermont officials said Tuesday.
The move comes after 85% of people living in Vermont long-term care facilities, which include skilled nursing facilities, residential care and assisted living facilities, have had at least the first of the two doses of the vaccine that provides immunity to COVID-19, Vermont Human Services Secretary Mike Smith said during the twice weekly virus briefing.
No date has been set to ease those visiting restrictions, but with such a large percentage of residents having received the shots, it is a big step toward allowing those people to have more contact with each other and the outside world.
“Our seniors living in long-term care facilities have been isolated for far too long and it is our hope to reestablish those social connections as soon as possible,” Smith said.
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VACCINE INCREASE
Vermont Gov. Phil Scott, who joined Tuesday’s event late because he was on a conference call with other governors and federal officials, said he had been told that for at least the next three weeks, Vermont would be receiving more than 20% doses of vaccine than had been expected.
The total will increase to about 10,800 doses of vaccine a week.
“Suffice it to say, this is good news for Vermont,” Scott said.
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NEW CASES
Statistics released Tuesday show that the number of new cases in Vermont is continuing to go down, but Bennington County, in southwestern Vermont, continues to see increases.
As of Tuesday, Bennington County had three times as many active cases of the virus per capita than Chittenden County, Vermont’s most populous area.
When Bennington County is included, the number of people hospitalized in Vermont with COVID-19 is increasing. When Bennington County is excluded, the number of hospitalizations in the state is going down.
“Our data teams have not pinpointed any one cause for the spread in Bennington county,” Health Commissioner Dr. Mark Levine said Tuesday.
A number of the cases are related to New York residents who either work in Bennington or receive their medical care there. The COVID-19 activity in the county is more akin to what is happening in New York than the rest of Vermont, Levine said.
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TAX DOCUMENTS
The Vermont Department of Labor is going to replace tens of thousands of tax documents that were sent to the wrong people.
The department says some people who received unemployment benefits were sent 1099-G forms that had the correct first name and address of the recipient, but the information, which included tax identification numbers, was for someone else.
“We do know even if there’s one person impacted by this, it’s one too many,” Labor Commissioner Michael Harrington said Monday. “Just based on preliminary information it looks like when those documents were finalized and processed for printing and mailing is where the mixup occurred.”
The department is now recalling all 1099s.
It will be mailing further instructions to everyone who received a 1099, along with a self-addressed stamped envelope, to return the incorrect 1099 to the department.
The department will also be providing all impacted individuals with the option to enroll in ID protection services.
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