An emergency department nurse at Vermont’s largest hospital on Tuesday was the first person in the state to receive a vaccine against COVID-19.
Cindy Wamsganz of the University of Vermont Medical Center in Burlington gave a thumbs up Tuesday after receiving the vaccination that was live streamed by the hospital.
“I am humbled and honored to be asked to be the first health care worker in the state to receive this vaccine. I am fearful of the virus, not the vaccine, and believe it is our pathway to protection and living life again,” Wamsganz said in a statement distributed by the hospital.
Vermont received its first doses of the vaccine on Monday and is expecting to receive 5,850 doses a week for the next several weeks.
Health Commissioner Dr. Mark Levine says that if, as expected, a second COVID-19 vaccine is approved for use over the next few days, Vermont could receive a total of about 34,000 doses of the vaccine by the end of the month.
The top priority for getting the vaccines will be front-line health care workers and then residents of long-term care facilities. It could be spring before a significant percent of the population is vaccinated and it could be several months after that before the pandemic becomes a memory.
Gov. Phil Scott says the good news about the vaccine comes at the same time as Vermont records its 100th death from COVID-19 since the pandemic started.
Scott told Vermonters the pandemic has tested everyone and the vaccine is good news, but people need to continue wearing masks, maintaining social distance and quarantining after traveling outside of Vermont.
“But the fact is I need you, each and every one of you to make sure we get through the last of this on solid footing with as little loss of life as possible,” he said.
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NUMBERS
On Tuesday the Vermont Health Department reported four additional deaths from COVID-19, bringing the total number of fatalities in the state since the pandemic began to 100.
Vermont Health Commissioner Dr. Mark Levine said three of the people who died had been residents of long-term care facilities.
The Health Department also reported Tuesday 66 new cases of the virus that causes COVID-19, bringing the total in the state since the start of the pandemic to just under 5,925.
The seven-day rolling average of daily new cases in Vermont has risen over the past two weeks from 71.57 new cases per day on Nov. 30 to 111 new cases per day on Dec. 14.
The latest average positivity rate in Vermont is 2.17%. 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 has risen over the past two weeks from 1.69% on Nov. 30 to 2.17% on Dec. 14.
There were 20 people hospitalized with COVID-19, including four who were being treated in the intensive care unit.
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