Vermont’s cross-state travel map is updated every Tuesday, and the update on October 13 showed an increase in COVID-19 cases in Grafton County, New Hampshire. The Vermont Agency of Commerce and Community Development (ACCD) has now labeled the county “yellow” on the map, indicating that leisure travel to towns in the area will result in quarantine.
Grafton County is home to Littleton, New Hampshire, a frequented town for students of the Northern Vermont University – Lyndon campus for shopping or work. Commuters and employees of NVU are known to live in towns in Grafton County, as well. With the map update, there was immediate concern in the NVU community about how that will impact the university community.
In a joint Student Government Association meeting with NVU-Johnson Tuesday evening, NVU Dean of Students Jonathan Davis told participants that “this is a place that’s now ‘yellow’ and is off limits, and it stinks.” He clarified in an email Wednesday evening at 6:41 PM that essential travel will be allowed, including “our students and employees that reside in Grafton County, as well as those who work there traveling from Vermont.”
According to the ACCD, “Essential travel includes travel for personal safety, medical care, care of others, parental shared custody, for food, beverage or medicine,” school and work. With plenty of local stores in the area, Davis says that students should take advantage of the shorter travel opportunities, but that travel for food, beverage, or medicine to Grafton should be limited to “a particular pharmacy or special food item related to personal health in Grafton County that our students may need to access to due to their home location being in that area.”
The NVU Pledge that students and employees signed states that they will adhere to the ACCD’s guidelines. As such, leisure travel to Grafton County will result in students or employees quarantining before returning to or upon arrival in Vermont.
The Critic will follow the cross state travel map and continue to update our readers on this developing story.