The Vermont Department of Health reported an average of 418 Covid-19 cases per day in the past week, bringing Vermont closer to the daily caseloads it reported before Omicron became the dominant strain in the state.

It’s hard to say exactly when Omicron became the primary source of new infections, since the state didn’t check the strain of every positive test for the coronavirus. But around mid-December, when federal data estimated that the Delta strain was still dominant in New England, Vermont was reporting about 400 cases per day.

That average was still significantly higher than cases during the summer, before Delta became dominant. In mid-July, Vermont reported fewer than 100 cases per day.

Recent trends in Vermont’s Covid-19 case counts have officials and experts feeling optimistic about the course of the pandemic — but all warn it would be premature to brush off the Omicron threat just yet.

As of Friday, Jan. 28, the state’s seven-day average for daily new cases had fallen by more than half since its peak Jan. 9, a sign the worst of the past month’s surge may have passed.

But officials continue to warn that case counts have been skewed: The more people that use at-home rapid tests rather than state-administered PCR tests, the less accurate Vermont’s case and test positivity metrics will be.

And many of the most drastic effects of the Omicron variant are still being felt. Hospitals remain under serious strain with elevated numbers of Covid-19 patients continuing to stress a diminished workforce. Schools and families are still contending with the disruptions of widespread staff and student absences due to Covid-19 infections. And fatalities in Vermont continue to climb, with 54 Covid deaths — the third-highest monthly total of the pandemic — reported so far in January, as of Friday.

Pfizer-BioNTech is postponing its rolling application to the Food and Drug Administration to expand the use of its two-dose Covid-19 vaccine for children ages 6 months to 4 years.

The move means that vaccines for this age group will not be available in the coming weeks, a setback for parents eager to vaccinate their young children.

Pfizer said on Friday that it will wait for its data on a three-dose series of the vaccine, because it believes three doses "may provide a higher level of protection in this age group." Data on the third dose is expected in early April, the company said.

Pfizer said in December that two doses didn’t generate a strong enough immune response in its trial of children ages 2 to 4. For young children, Pfizer’s vaccine has a dosage of 3 micrograms. For children ages 5 to 11, the dosage is higher, at 10 micrograms.

A bill that keeps in place looser regulations on Vermont’s health care system is nearing a final vote in the Senate.

If approved, the bill would keep in place Act 6, a set of relaxed health care regulations lawmakers first adopted in the early days of the pandemic. The House already OK’d this most recent extension. The Senate is expected to expedite the vote so that the provisions would not lapse when the law is scheduled to expire in March.

Senators slightly amended the bill to ask the Green Mountain Care Board to consider the “extraordinary labor costs” facing hospitals in this year’s budget review process.