By DAVID BROOKS
Monitor staff
COVID-19 numbers continue to look good in New Hampshire, with deaths reaching new lows, even as a possible outbreak in southern Vermont, a state that had been doing even better than the Granite State, reminds us there are no guarantees a resurgence of the disease won’t occur.
The New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services reported 27 confirmed new cases Thursday, roughly the same number that has been seen for the past week, as well as no new hospitalizations and a single death of an elderly person in Hilllsborough County. There have been only 8 deaths reported in the previous week related to COVID-19, tying the lowest number since reporting began in late March.
In the southern Vermont town of Manchester, however, an outbreak of 59 cases has been reported, by far the most that state has seen in many weeks. There is some controversy, however, because the report depends on fast-result antigen testing rather than PCR testing in a lab. Antigen tests can have a high rate of false results and so far have not been adopted for widespread screening.