The Deeper Dig

Covid-19 cases are surging in regions across the United States, while Vermont continues to see relatively low rates of infection. But there are still plenty of unknowns about the long-term trajectory of the coronavirus. Could Vermont see a "second wave"? How are recent reopening measures affecting the spread? And what exactly are the state's health care systems, businesses and government officials preparing for?

Guest: Dr. Richard Hopkins (epidemiologist/former public health official)

More than half of Vermont’s high schools use armed school resource officers, or SROs, to ensure school safety. Skeptics are casting doubt on whether those officers are effective — and drawing attention to persistent disparities in how they treat students.

Twenty people who attended the March 10 UVM basketball game reported that they later tested positive for Covid-19, according to a VTDigger survey. An additional 34 people who responded said they experienced flu-like symptoms, but couldn’t get a test. Three attendees later died from Covid-19. Here's what we've learned after weeks of tracking the spread.

Guests: Rae Rappold, Katie Jickling (VTDigger)

The national protest movement following the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis has coalesced around a policy goal: defunding police departments nationwide. Now, constituents of Vermont’s largest municipal police force are bringing that fight to Burlington.

A national protest movement touched off by a string of high-profile killings of black Americans has reached Vermont. Advocates say it’s a long overdue conversation about structural racism — but that the response is also about grief.

Guests: Bishop Shannon MacVean-Brown (The Episcopal Church in Vermont), Grace Elletson (VTDigger)

Fletcher, Vermont, is one of the 116 towns in the state that haven’t registered any Covid-19 cases so far. But public health researchers have singled it out for another reason: it was one of just a handful of communities in the country that avoided the deadly flu pandemic of 1918. And they want to know whether it holds lessons for today.

Guests: Alex Navarro (University of Michigan Center for the History of Medicine)

Long lines at food distribution events have become a powerful symbol of the need faced by tens of thousands of Vermontersduring the Covid-19 pandemic. But those on the frontlines of hunger relief say that feeding the massive number of people in need is going to require more than just meal giveaways.

As more sectors of the economy reopen for business, the downturn caused by Covid-19 is already having an outsized impact on low-wage workers. And while state and federal lawmakers have advanced some short-term relief measures, analysts wonder whether the pandemic could trigger a long overdue conversation about inequality.

Guests: Bram Kleppner (Danforth), Stephanie Yu (Public Assets Institute), Anne Wallace Allen (VTDigger)

With Vermonters living under new guidelines about physical distancing and wearing masks, state agencies — and news outlets like VTDigger — have seen an uptick in reports about people who aren’t following the rules. And while we can’t do much to resolve those complaints, researchers say there’s a reason people feel an impulse to tell on each other in trying times.

Guests: Liz Pinel (University of Vermont), Colin Meyn (VTDigger), Jens VonBulow, Faye Hilliker

Michael Akey discovered he tested positive for Covid-19 one day after he was released from the Northwest State Correctional Facility in St. Albans. He says the outbreak there — the first in the state to trigger facility-wide testing — could have been prevented.

Guests: Michael Akey, Alan Keays (VTDigger)