I’ll give you one guess on which day the Vermont Department of Health chose to reveal that it had undercounted Covid-19 deaths in 2022 by a mere 86.

If you said “Friday,” well, you know your newsdumps.

The Health Department announced that its pandemic death toll was now 877, up from the previous 791. And the increase meant that 2022 was the deadliest year of the pandemic in Vermont.

Isn’t it nice to know that we’re over this whole Covid thing? And with a scary new variant on the march, too.

But you know what’s bothering me? One of the stated reasons for the undercount. Health Commissioner Dr. Mark “Nothing to See Here” Levine said his department had fewer staffers compiling Covid data than earlier in the pandemic.

So, not enough staff to keep good data? Great.

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