COVID case prompts move of Vermont Little League tournament

BENNINGTON, Vt. (AP) — The Vermont Little League championship series is being moved after a player on one team tested positive for COVID-19.

The positive case on the Bennington team for players ages 10 to 12 forced the team to withdraw from the tournament, which had been scheduled for this coming weekend in Bennington.

Instead, the remaining games will be played in Burlington.

Bennington had been scheduled to play Addison County on Friday in Bennington.

Instead, Addison County will play Essex Town on Saturday. If needed, another game would be played on Sunday. The Vermont champion will go on to the New England tournament next month in Connecticut.

Bennington Little League President Geoff Metcalfe says the player who tested positive is doing well, but the entire team has been exposed so it had to withdraw from the tournament.

“It’s contained, the parents were super bright about how they approached everything,” Metcalfe said. “The most important thing is everyone’s healthy. None of this matters in the big scheme of things when it comes to the kids’ health and people’s health.

The player who tested positive was not considered a close contact to players from other teams.

THE NUMBERS

Vermont reported 24 new cases of COVID-19 on Thursday for a statewide total since the pandemic began of more than 24,800 cases.

Three people were hospitalized, according to the Vermont Department of Health.

The total number of deaths stands at 259.

The seven-day rolling average of daily new cases in Vermont has risen over the past two weeks from 10.86 new cases per day on July 13 to 27.86 new cases per day on July 27.

The Associated Press is using data collected by Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering to measure outbreak caseloads and deaths across the United States.