Vermont COVID-19 Cases Near 700

VERMONT- Governor Phil Scott and his COVID-19 task force held their daily press breifing Monday morning to update the public on the latest updates for COVID-19. 

As of Monday morning, Vermont's COVID-19 cases have closed in on 700 with 679 positive cases and 24 deaths. On a positive outlook though, Govornor Scott says out of 500 tests yesterday, only 21 were positive.

"While we may have seen a flattening of the curve, we still don't know if we have reached the peak. So as difficult as it is, we must continue to stay home, we cannot overwhelm our hospital system and we must keep our healthcare workers safe on the front line of this pandemic," says Scott. 

This all comes as Governor Scott announced he was pushing the new stay at home order back to May 15 in which Dr. Levine says, the number of cases per day are getting smaller. 

"The number of new cases per day, is getting smaller and it is leveling off. We seem to be approaching a plateu, we will see if that is a sustained phenomenon or a trend over several days." 

Governor Scott wanted to remind everyone the sacrafices they are taking by staying home, is what will help flatten this curve, and save hundreds of lives. 

"Your sacrifices are making a difference," says Scott, "Just a few weeks ago, our worst casinario showed that if we had done nothing, our hospital system would have been overrun with two to three times as many cases as we had hospital beds" 

With so many obeying the Governors orders, Vermont was recognized as one of the top five states when it comes to complying with mitigation measures. 

With this COVID-19 outbreak came a drop in Tobacco production use as Dr. Levine says that many are trying to quit. 

"If we look at registrations to our 802 quits program both by phone and by internet, in the month of March compared to March a year ago we find that there was a 41% increase in phone registrations and a 167% increase in web registration."

In all of this, Governor Scott's biggest topic he wanted to voice to Vermonters is that we are all still in this together.

"Vermonters united together can achieve anything and will get through this, stronger than ever before," says Scott.

Dr. Levine and Governor Scott highlighted that it is still very importaint to be wearing masks when going out in public such as grocery stores and other retail locations.

For more information you can visit HealthVermont.gov