https://vtdigger.org/2025/02/28/vermont-stops-publishing-covid-19-death-and-case-data/
VTDigger has been an excellent resource over the years and frequently at the forefront for data analysis and reporting.
The Vermont Department of Health has stopped including data on Covid-19 cases and deaths in its weekly surveillance reports.
The department posted on its website on Feb. 19 that Covid data reporting would transition to “to a format similar to other respiratory viruses like the flu.”
The latest surveillance update contains data on emergency department visits for Covid, the proportion of variants from clinical specimens, Covid levels in wastewater sampling and a count of the latest outbreaks.
Emergency department and wastewater data suggest that Covid levels are on the decline from a relative surge in December and January.
The department said on its website that case data has become “a less meaningful” indicator of Covid trends as individual cases have been reported on a limited basis by health care settings and laboratories. Officials have warned that case data, based on PCR testing, has been less accurate since the widespread adoption of antigen testing in 2022. The department stopped publishing daily Covid case counts in 2023.
“Reporting of individual SARS-CoV-2 infections to public health has become increasingly sporadic as testing patterns have changed (including widespread use of at-home testing),” state epidemiologist Patsy Kelso wrote in an email when asked if there was a specific justification for the more recent shift.
A higher proportion of Covid infections now tend to be asymptomatic, Kelso said, meaning they were less likely to require health care intervention that would result in a Covid PCR test.
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