Celeste Fetter prepares a dose of flu vaccine during a Covid-19 and flu vaccination clinic at the Crossett Brook Middle School in Duxbury on Saturday, October 28, 2023. Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDiggerThe federal government announced Wednesday that it would cut $11 billion in Covid-19-related grants to local health agencies, including $6.9 million to two departments in the Vermont Agency of Human Services. A spokesperson for the Department of Health, Kyle Casteel, provided a statement on behalf of the agency Thursday that called the cuts a “sudden termination” that would “negatively impact public health in our state.”Most of the funds, about $5 million, were allocated for vaccination programs at the health department. The statement said the grants began during the pandemic but have continued to support the department’s work beyond the pandemic. Among the uses of the funds were to “detect and prevent the spread of infectious disease, ensure Vermonters can access vaccines, help address health disparities among the populations and communities we serve, and more,” the statement said. The Department of Mental Health projected losses in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, the statement said. The programs it expects to see cuts include community-based support, crisis response and access to care for “vulnerable Vermonters,” the statement said. One such program provided team-based early treatment for psychosis to young Vermonters. “While these grants were always intended as temporary, the demand for mental health services remains high, and this loss of funding will have consequences,” the statement said. The statement said the departments were still working to understand the full implications of the cuts. The Covid funding cuts were the latest in a series of changes to health-related spending at the federal level. On Thursday, national news outlets reported that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services planned to lay off 10,000 workers and shut down certain agencies within the department. Read the story on VTDigger here: Federal government cuts almost $7 million in Covid grants to Vermont. ...read more read less