Can Covid be tracked without widespread testing?

Last week, Vermont shut down its Covid-19 testing sites. These sites operated for more than two years and accounted for most of the 3.6 million results recorded by the state Department of Health over the course of the pandemic. 

State officials have pointed to the increased use of antigen tests as one reason for this shift. As take-home testing has become more common, public health agencies have adjusted their tools for measuring the virus’s risk. But each of these metrics — whether scattered PCR tests, hospitalizations or wastewater sampling — offers an incomplete picture. 

With this change, Covid infrastructure that has been offered at no up-front cost to individuals is increasingly absorbed into the normal healthcare system. And Congress appears unlikely to re-up federal Covid funding, meaning individuals will likely have to pay for future tests, vaccines and treatment either through insurance or out-of-pocket. 

On this week’s podcast, VTDigger data reporter Erin Petenko and Dr. Trey Dobson, chief medical officer at Southwestern Vermont Medical Center, assess what the end of widespread PCR testing means at this stage of the pandemic, and what data sources they’re looking to now.