SC Vermont News

Bennington Banner issued the following announcement on March 14.

In late 2019, the World Health Organization first heard of a cluster of illnesses, a pneumonia-like virus that emerged from the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, China.

By March 2020, Southern Vermont was locking down. Grocery store shelves were quickly stripped bare. Ordering online and Zooming increased at record levels. Many of us were absent from school and work, feeling at-risk from a danger we can’t see, hear or touch.

Two-plus years later, where are we? It must feel like what 20th-century Americans experienced after the Spanish flu of 1918 to 1919. Masks are starting to come off for some; for others, like the elderly and people with other serious underlying conditions, not so much.

As of Monday, the Vermont Department of Health was reporting 23 new cases and four hospitalizations. Neither Windham County nor Bennington County reported any new cases that day.

Deaths from COVID have topped 600, with 608 in Vermont dying from the virus — 0.5 percent of all cases — as of Monday since the start of the pandemic.

Vermont Health Commissioner Mark Levine announced on Dec. 19 that Vermont’s first omicron case had been detected. That highly transmissible variant quickly overtook the delta variant that had been predominant in Vermont and the U.S. Since then, at least two other variants have emerged, but the numbers in Vermont are now in decline, and have been since earlier this year.

“Trends in our region are encouraging,” Gov. Phil Scott said Jan. 24, with COVID continuing a downward track after hitting record highs of 2,000 cases a day in the previous months. The number of open hospital beds and availability in intensive care units had also steadily increased.

Throughout the pandemic, Vermont was among the top states — often No. 1 — in vaccination rates. As of Monday, just under 350,000 Vermonters were up to date on their vaccinations. That means 58 percent of those 5 years and older have received all recommended vaccinations, according to the Health Department.

The governor announced on March 3 that schools could go mask-optional (meaning students and staff had the choice of attending school unmasked), and many districts, including the Mount Anthony Union School District in Bennington, voted to take that step. Others, including the Windham Southeast Supervisory District in Brattleboro, chose to delay that action.

The governor said he worried about the effects mask-wearing was having on young children and was eager to allow kids to attend school without masks. Scott said in February that he spoke with a mother whose two young children had never attended school without a mask, and therefore had not seen their friends’ faces or expressions. “I thought, ‘How sad is that?’”

Wish masks coming off across the state, Vermont News & Media reporters took to the streets to speak with residents about where their lives are at, and their outlook, after two years of pandemic.

At The Coffee Bar

Alyssa Strattman, 20, and Cathryn Long, 34, work at The Coffee Bar in Bennington. Both of them were raised in the area, and their families still work and live here, too.

Do they think COVID-19 cases will continue to decline in Southern Vermont?

“I think it’s kind of gone its rounds the last two years,” Long said. “I don’t see it continuing. I mean, I hope not.”

Strattman thinks the coronavirus will continue like the seasonal flu.

“It’s going to be like an annual vaccination that you’re going to have to keep getting,” Strattman said.

Like many others, these Bennington natives hope for a return to normal.

“I hope we’re on the downhill side of [the pandemic]. … Return to normalcy would be a beautiful thing,” Long added.

“We wanna see everybody’s smiles,” Strattman said.

At Mount Snow

Kim Trinklein of Wilmington retired from teaching about six months before the pandemic started.

“I was planning on moving to Vermont,” he said Monday as he prepared to ski at Mount Snow in West Dover. “But my wife was still working, and she unfortunately worked at a hospital emergency room, which was a tough time during the pandemic.”

Trinklein’s wife retired in May 2020, and the couple moved here from Connecticut in September. They wouldn’t have moved at that time, had the pandemic not occurred.

Being in Vermont kept them away from their families. But for Christmas 2020, they met at an elementary school playground in Connecticut.

“I have six grandchildren, and it worked out great,” Trinklein said. “It was actually a decent sunny day. And so we hung out for a couple hours and gave the grandchildren Christmas presents that they opened there. Then we played on the playground for a couple of hours.”

Over this past weekend, about 15 family members got together at Trinklein’s house.

“No fears, not anymore,” he said. “Everybody in the family is vaccinated.”

‘Two camps of seniors’

Bennington Senior Center Director Carrie Fabricius told Vermont News & Media that there are “two camps” among local seniors when it comes to getting back into the pre-pandemic activities they once enjoyed.

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“Some think, ‘Good, we can start doing things again,’” she said. “But others say they are just not ready.”

The reason, she said, is that seniors all know they’re in a “high-risk population,” according to the CDC or similar health guidelines.

But she added, “the more time passes, more people are coming back” for activities or for trips sponsored by the Bennington center.

Some of the main activities offered are daily meals at the center, Bone Builder exercise classes and trips for shopping or lunch at local restaurants.

The number of participants is rising but remains lower than pre-pandemic levels. For instance, Bone Builder classes, to help counter osteoporosis, often were attended by more than 20 seniors before COVID-19, she said, but that number hasn’t been topped since the pandemic began.

Trips to Albany, N.Y., for shopping now attract a third to half the number pre-pandemic, she said, and lunch trips are now only to nearby restaurants.

“Some are just not comfortable traveling yet, or being around large groups of people,” Fabricius said.

On a positive note, she said, a masking requirement was changed last week to a recommendation, and Fabricius said almost all the seniors she knows have been vaccinated.

At the theater

Andy Butterfield, director of marketing and communications for Weston Theater Company, said he and his colleagues are “super optimistic” about the organization’s first full, five-show season with the theater open at full capacity since before the pandemic. Though tickets are not yet on sale, going by the enthusiastic response to last year’s limited season, Butterfield expects strong attendance, with more ticket buyers from out of Vermont.

“What we saw was, there was a real, strong desire for community connection. There was a desire for live events, for people to get together,” he said, noting that much of last year’s season sold out. “People really, you know, they want this in their lives.”

On Monday — just about two years to the day when most theaters closed because of the COVID-19 lockdown — the drama company announced its 86th season and rebranding. Previously known as Weston Playhouse Theatre Company, the organization is now called Weston Theater Company. More information on the upcoming season can be found online at westontheater.org.

Currently, the Weston Theater Company requires audience members to provide proof of vaccination against COVID-19 or a recent negative test, and requires masks to be worn inside.

“These guidelines are subject to change,” Butterfield said. “As you know, everything across the state and really, across the country, is shifting.”

In a Bellows Falls bookshop

Alan Fowler, 76, one of the owners of the Village Square Booksellers, was wearing a mask Monday inside the busy store, and there was still a sign on the front door, asking people to wear masks.

“We’re stuck with it,” said Fowler, adding that everything he has been reading about COVID-19 says the pandemic is now an “endemic, like the flu. We need to get on it.”

He said most of the downtown Bellows Falls merchants are resigned to people ceasing to wear masks, and he said the restaurants and coffee shops in Bellows Falls already have been coping with the mask-less reality.

“You can’t eat with a mask on,” he said.

Barbara and Eric Bye of Springfield, both wearing N-95 masks, were buying a book for their granddaughter. Wearing masks in the future will be an individual comfort-level thing, Barbara Bye said.

Fowler feels the high level of immunization is a big plus for the community.

“People are well-vaccinated,” said Fowler, who has owned the bookstore along with his wife Pat since November 2000.

How much longer will he continue to wear his mask? He shrugged his shoulders.

In a Brattleboro aesthetics spa

Katie LaCoy is a registered nurse, and the owner and founder of Cultivating Aesthetics in Brattleboro, which offers Botox and dermal filler treatments.

With people working from home and two years of mask wearing behind us, she said folks are looking more closely at their faces.

“Cosmetic treatments and skin care are very popular right now,” said LaCoy. “People forgot what they looked like. And masks were an easy way to cover up any problem areas.”

LaCoy noted that people have been under stress the past two years and stress affects both the body and the skin.

“With the masks coming down, people are noticing their lower faces, their lips, their cheeks, their neck, their jaw line, their chin,” she said. “People are seeing each other again, and they just want to feel their best.”

She said clients enjoy coming to her Landmark Hill Drive spa, which can restore more than skin. “A sense of having normalcy again. It’s a very calming atmosphere,” LaCoy said.

Original source can be found here.