COVID Update: Travel Considerations and Green Counties

As we head into our second week of school I wanted to highlight what we all need to consider as far as traveling outside Vermont and provide a personal example from my travel this past weekend. 

This past weekend I decided to take a day trip to visit family in Massachusetts. Typically all this would require is fueling up the vehicle, packing some snacks for the trip and setting the GPS. COVID - 19 has changed the way we now plan for a trip outside of Vermont. Here are the steps I took in order to decide if we could travel out of state without having to quarantine upon our return:

1. I went to the Vermont Department of Health Website on Cross State Travel before we left on Saturday morning. The site is updated weekly each Tuesday afternoon. 
2. I looked for the county we were travelling to (Hampshire) to determine if it were a Green County or not. Once we determined that it was a Green County we knew we could travel there without having to quarantine upon our return. 
3. We made our visit and returned home with no other requirements. 

A  couple of questions you may have are: 

What makes a county green? 

The State of Vermont has determined that any county with less than 400 active cases of COVID-19 per one million residents allows for quarantine-free leisure travel. The counties are called Green Counties and are safe to travel to without restrictions upon returning to Vermont. 

Back to my trip....had we traveled to Worcester County, a neighboring county of Hampshire County,  we would have traveled into a non green county. Based on the Department of Health Guidelines if we had traveled to Worcester we would have had to quarantine at home for 14 days without having a COVID Test or quarantine at home for 7 days with a negative COVID test.  

What does quarantining mean?

Quarantining means staying at a home or dwelling before doing any activities outside the home like grocery shopping or going to school. 

Procedure For Out of State Travel 

To summarize, if you are planning on traveling outside the State of Vermont you need to take these steps:

1. Check the Vermont Department of Health Website on Cross State Travel the day you plan on leaving. 
2. If you travel to counties that are Green and have less than 400 active cases per 1 million residents you will be able to travel out of state without quarantining upon return. 
3. Travel to yellow or red counties will require a 14 day quarantine without a COVID test or a 7 day quarantine with a negative COVID test. 

For further detail and explanation please visit the Department of Health web page on travel: Travel 

For further detail on Isolation, Quarantine and Self Observation please see the Department of 

Health table below:

If you have any questions please contact the school at 748-9393.

Respectfully,

Chris Miller