COVID-19 Local Resource Guide

Social services
Living with Covid-19 amongst us
Rutland Regional, state prepare for reopening with testing for those symptomatic and contact tracing
By Polly Mikula
Since the beginning of April, at least, the state of Vermont
and all its regional hospitals and health clinics have had
enough Covid-19 tests to test all symptomatic patients for
the virus. All it takes to get one is a doctor’s referral and an
appointment.
With the availability of testing — about 14,000 tests were
given in the state as of April 24— it’s encouraging to see both
the number of tests and the confirmed cases from those
test decrease, Governor Phil Scott, Health Commissioner
Mark Levine and CEO of Rutland Regional Medical Center
Claudio Fort have all said.
This shows that “the overall burden of illness is decreasing,”
Fort summarized.
Because of available testing and consistent trends
showing the virus is no longer spreading exponentially, the
governor has decided to relax some of the social mitigation
measures he put in place last month. “We will continue
to watch the trends,” he said. “Our decisions will be based
on facts and evidence and if we see and uptick in cases, we
might have to increase measures once again.”
Fort and Dr. Rick A. Hildebrant, chief medical information
officer and medical director for hospital medicine
at RRMC participated in a live call-in broadcast about
Covid-19 with PEGTV, April 16, where they explained the
status of testing locally.
Hildebrant explained, “We have adequate testing available
for symptomatic patients, but the testing is really
designed for people who have symptoms of Covid. When
testing people without symptoms the negative rate is high,
even when people actually have the virus. So we do not test
those people because it doesn’t give you an accurate result.
But if you have symptoms of Covid call your doctor and ask
to be tested because there is adequate testing available….
and we’ll hopefully be able to get results in house very
soon,” he said.
“PCR-based is the most common type of test for
Covid-19. It’s a DNA test. It takes a fair amount of time to
validate the test, however, so even when you have the capability
to run it you have to be sure that the testing protocol
gives you accurate information and test results,” Hildebrant
explained of the process. “Our lab has been working very
very hard on this to not only acquire the appropriate testing
material but to validate the tests themselves and we’re very
hopeful that by the end of this month we’ll be able to run
tests locally at RRMC... and within 1-2 hours we can find
out,” said Hildebrant.
The protocol for people who test positive for Covid-19 is
home isolation for most (only severe cases must be hospitalized),
then the state department will trace anyone who
may have been infected.
Why contact trace?
Public health experts say the epidemiological detective
work known as contact tracing can help slow the spread.
Center for Disease Control Director Robert Redfield has
said “very aggressive” contact tracing would be needed to
prevent new outbreaks.
Commissioner Levine said testing and contact tracing
are currently the only proven methods to box in the virus as
the economy slowly begins to open.
On April 20, the Department of Health announced that
it will soon have 48 people tracking down individuals who
may have been exposed to the virus in Vermont.
Dr. Joshua White, chief medical officer at Gifford Medical
Center in Randolph, said that ideally, the U.S. would track
down everyone who’s been in contact with someone who
tested positive for Covid-19 and get them tested to “put an
end to any sort of chain of transmission.”
How it’s done
When someone tests positive for Covid-19 in Vermont,
a contact tracer will first reach out to that person’s doctor
then call the patient, ask about the onset of symptoms and
who else they might have exposed. The aim is to find out
everyone with whom the infected person had prolonged
enough contact within the 48 hours before the onset of
symptoms to put them at “medium to high risk,” explained
Daniel Daltry, program chief of the HIV, STD and Hepatitis
C program for Vermont’s Health Department. The contact
tracers will then call those potentially infected people to
coach them on what to look out for, how to isolate, and how
to get tested if they develop symptoms.
Daltry said the department continually evaluates
whether they have adequate staff to conduct contact tracing,
with the goal of interviewing people within 24 hours of
their positive Covid-19 test result.
Contact-tracing is critical for Vermont to quash outbreaks
that will inevitably pop up until a vaccine is developed,
White, Levine and Daltry agree.
A Special Thank You
to all the people who
are fighting the fight
against Covid-19 Virus.
A Special Thank You
to all the people who are
fighting the fight against
Covid-19 Virus.
Stay Safe
Stay Safe and Healthy
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Covid-19 Local Guide • April 24, 2020 • 15