 Good afternoon, everyone. Got a lot to cover today. So first of all, I just got off the call with other governors and White House officials. And here's what we heard. Dr. Walensky, the CDC director, started off discussing new science about Delta and what's been reported out of Cape Cod. Governor Baker from Massachusetts jumped in to point out that what happened actually shows the vaccines work. With roughly 1000 cases associated with the outbreak, there have been just seven hospitalizations and zero deaths. Without vaccinations, it would have been much worse. Dr. Fauci reiterated that the vaccines are actually doing what they're supposed to do, preventing severe illness, hospitalization, and death. So back here in Vermont, next, you will see the data from Commissioner Pichek. And what we're seeing across the country, that Vermont is proof that vaccines work. We're currently seeing just three people hospitalized, hospitalized, hospitalized, I'm sorry, from COVID-19. I want to take a minute to bring folks back to why we put the mitigation measures in place last year and why we don't feel there's a need for any broad measures today. In March of 2020, we talked a lot about flattening the curve in order to protect our healthcare system. And we did it better than any other state. Now we have effective vaccines that are saving lives and Vermonters stepped up and did the right thing by getting vaccinated. As you know, when we hit 80% of the eligible population, we lifted all remaining restrictions and ended the state of emergency. Vaccines are key to how we manage this virus because it changes the risk assessment and allows us to move forward with our lives without all the necessary mandates of 2020. Nationally, more than 99.99% of fully vaccinated Americans have not had a case that's required hospitalization or loss of life. 99.99%. With Vermont's high vaccination rate, we've shielded ourselves from the situation in other states, those with low vaccination rates are in. And as we've said, we'll continue our efforts to keep getting shots in arms. When we hit 80% in June, we told you we weren't letting up. And that remains true today, even as we surpass 84%. Because the best way to protect yourself and others is to get the vaccine. Secretary Smith will once again go over the many opportunities to do that in a few minutes. Next, this week, the Agency of Education will issue an advisory memo to schools outlining protective measures as we begin the school year with in-person instruction five days per week. Vermont was a leader last year, thanks to the hard work of the agency, administrators, teachers, parents, and students. But even as well as we did, it's obvious how critical in-person instruction is. And that's why we need to make a full return to it this fall. Secretary French will go into further details, but here are a few of the highlights. First, we're recommending all students under the age of 12 who are not eligible to be vaccinated to wear a mask in schools. This is consistent with the health department's current advice encouraging unvaccinated people to wear masks indoors. For students age 12 and older eligible for the vaccine, we're going to take a similar approach as we did when we ended the state of emergency. For those over 12, once 80% of eligible students have gotten at least one dose, we're advising schools to drop masking requirements for those over 12. In order to help achieve these goals, we'll have more vaccine clinics and schools leading up to and after classes start. We hope this inspires parents to do the right thing and sign their kids up to be fully vaccinated. Again, Secretary French will go into further detail shortly. But at this point, I'll turn it over to Commissioner Pichek for this week's data and modeling report. Thank you very much, Governor, and good afternoon, everyone. This week, the national rise in cases continued with the seven-day moving average increasing from 52,000 to 80,000 today. And we can see that spread occurring across much of the country when we compare the active case map from last week to that same map from this week. We can see that cases are increasing most dramatically in the southern states, where lower vaccination rates are occurring, and that many of those states are also seeing an increase in hospitalizations and deaths as well. But although cases and hospitalizations are rising across the country, those impacts differ dramatically based on a state's vaccination rate. Here again, we compare the highest vaccinated states in the country to those that are the lowest. And although cases are rising, even in the highest vaccinated states, you can see that that increase is much lower than their unvaccinated or less vaccinated counterparts. And this is certainly true for hospitalizations and deaths as well. Again, more real-life data about the vaccine's ability to protect ourselves from infection and severe illness. Reviewing the national ensemble forecast, it is anticipated that cases will continue to rise nationally for another four to five weeks before improving. This will surely impact even well vaccinated regions like Vermont. So as the Governor said, if you haven't done so, it's important to go out and get vaccinated today. And as we've seen the last few weeks, there has already been an impact from these national trends on us here in Vermont in terms of case counts, where we recorded 282 cases this week, an increase from 171 last week. But still, the majority of cases this week were among the unvaccinated. And again, the case rates for these two different populations are much different as visualized on the graph. And we only expect this distinction to grow more stark as cases rise in the unvaccinated population over the next number of weeks. So again, another important reason for those in Vermont who are not yet vaccinated to go out today and make their appointment. And even with increasing case counts, it's important to note that we expect hospitalizations and deaths to remain low here in Vermont. One reason for this is the fact that the median age among the unvaccinated that did get the virus this week was 30 years old, which makes sense since the younger population is much less vaccinated. But they're also much less likely to experience severe illness. And for those who have gone out and protected themselves with the vaccine, national data suggests that you are 25 times less likely to require hospitalization than your unvaccinated counterpart. And the data is proving that out here in Vermont. When we review three different periods of time in Vermont, when cases previously increased, one back in the initial rise last March and April, again over the winter from November to December, and then this current rise in cases that we're seeing in July into August. You can see in the first two examples cases rose and as did hospitalizations and in some cases pretty significantly. Also during this period of time, a much greater increase in the number of fatalities we experienced in Vermont as well. But as you notice from the current rise, although cases are increasing, hospitalizations remain low. And we expect them to remain low over the next few weeks and expect fatalities to remain low as well. Again, the reason for this is that those who are fully vaccinated are much less likely to require hospitalization. And those who are not vaccinated that are getting ill in Vermont, at least at the moment, are among a younger, less vulnerable population. Looking at the Vermont forecast, we can see like the national forecast, cases are expected to rise in Vermont over the next four to five weeks. But again, as the governor mentioned, there is no other state in the country better positioned to withstand the increase in cases with low hospitalizations and low fatalities than Vermont. Regarding the Vermont fatality forecast for August, we expect that anywhere between zero and six fatalities would occur in August. So that is keeping in line with the low number of fatalities that we've seen over the last few months. And turning to vaccinations, Vermonters are certainly doing their part to and help ensure that hospitalizations and deaths stay low in the face of the Delta variant by continuing to get vaccinated. This week, an additional 2,467 Vermonters went to get vaccinated, moving our eligible percentage of those who have started vaccination to 84.1 percent and moving the eligible population that has not yet started vaccination to below 90,000 individuals. Like much of the rest of the country, Vermont saw its initial vaccination rates climb this week. The number of people starting vaccination this week was 14.6 percent increased compared to last week. And it was our highest weekly total that we've seen in a month. And finally, looking at Vermont's vaccination numbers across the board, we see that the results here in Vermont continue to make us a national leader, and we continue to lead across the board in terms of our vaccination percentages. So at this time, I would like to turn it over to Secretary French. Good afternoon. Dr. Levine and I will be publishing our first joint COVID-19 advisory for the new school year this week. A parallel advisory will be going out for child care programs as well. Last year, we published formal guidance under our authority, which came from the Governor's emergency order. Thanks to the hard work of all Vermonters in making Vermont the most highly vaccinated state in the country, the state of emergency ended in June, and we were able to make a fairly smooth transition in the spring from operating under formal guidance to operating under advisory recommendations for the remaining part of the school year in our summer programs. As we signaled earlier in the spring, we anticipated the fall would be a return to full in-person instruction with nominal, if any, mitigation strategies required in our schools to ensure their safety. I'm pleased to say today we will be able to start the school year as predicted with full in-person instruction and nominal mitigation recommendations. We set August 1st for a tentative date for the publication of these mitigation strategies, because even though we knew they would be far simpler than last year's considerable guidance requirements, our schools and communities would need some time to plan for their implementation. Since we set that timeline, there have been several important guidance recommendations published at the national level, including few statements from the CDC and a recommendation from the American Academy of Pediatrics. This is a different context altogether from last year when there was little guidance at the national level, and we had a charter-owned course using the best public health information available, the considerable expertise of Vermont's public health system and department, and a practical understanding of how Vermont's education system is organized. In spite of the new national guidance this summer, we're still in the situation of having to evaluate Vermont's public health conditions and provide recommendations that can be successfully operationalized within the specific context of our education system. As we did last year, we will need to leverage local and state partnerships to keep our communities in our schools safe from COVID-19. The game changer this year of course are vaccinations. Last year, Vermont arguably had the most successful response to suppressing the virus in the absence of vaccines, which, unlike many states, allowed us to open our schools in September. As Dr. Fauci observed last year, where you started on the suppression continuum made a lot of difference in your ability to manage the virus throughout the year. Vermont started in the best position last year, and again, we find ourselves in the best position this year by having achieved the highest vaccination rate in the country. Vermont is certainly not an island, but Vermonters know vaccines work, and that understanding needs to be factored into our decision making for schools. The recent national guidance is very useful. In many ways, it identifies the lessons we learned and applied last year in Vermont. But national guidance, when applied at the state level, needs to acknowledge the differences in vaccination levels, which unfortunately do vary from state to state. New England states were national leaders in virus suppression efforts last year, and we are national leaders in vaccination rates this year. This is why Massachusetts announced school guidance last week that varied from general national recommendations to fit the specific context of their state in its relatively high vaccination levels. Vermont will take a similar approach. It is unlikely Vermont's conditions for the virus will necessitate a state of emergency this year. So we will begin the school year where we ended by publishing advisory recommendations to local school districts with the encouragement that they defer to state level recommendations and state level public health expertise in their decision making. Our recommendations for the fall, which we will publish later this week and possibly as early as tomorrow, include the following recommendations. Probably the most important one is stay home when you're sick. Secondly, for the first few weeks of schools, we will recommend that school districts require all students and staff to wear masks regardless of their vaccination status. We will not be recommending any distancing requirements, so we feel masking will be a good strategy to implement at the beginning of the year as students and staff settle into the patterns of full in-person instruction. After the first few weeks of school, we will recommend schools require masks only until 80% of students in a school have received at least their first dose. We will provide some recommendations for schools on how to determine their vaccination rates. Once at least 80% of schools students in a school have received their first dose, we will recommend schools require masks only for unvaccinated students and staff. We will recommend that masks may be removed for instructional or operational considerations, but masks are required for all passengers on school buses as per CDC regulation. Other mitigation strategies will include voluntary testing and a program of contact tracing. In all, our recommendations for the fall will be far shorter than last year, about two pages instead of last year's 40 pages. Dr. Levine and I will issue advisory memos throughout the year as needed and again, we encourage local decision makers to follow these recommendations. That concludes my update. I'll now turn it over to Secretary Smith. Thank you, Secretary French, and good afternoon, everyone. I'm going to start with an update on our vaccination program as well as announce the list of this week's pop-up clinics for COVID vaccines. Then I'll provide an update on our plan for school-based vaccine clinics. Following that, I'll let you know how you may be able to save money on your health insurance premiums now turning to COVID. As I mentioned earlier, we continue to lead the country in almost every vaccine category. As of today, 84.1 percent of eligible Vermonters have received at least one dose of the vaccine and 75 percent of all eligible Vermonters are fully vaccinated. To all those Vermonters who have gotten vaccinated, thank you for protecting yourselves, your loved ones, your workplace, and your community. To those who are eligible but haven't been vaccinated, please get your shot. Today we are facing a pandemic of the unvaccinated and research shows that fully vaccinated people are protected against the worst outcomes of COVID, including the Delta variant. As you can see on this slide, which was presented yesterday by the National Institute of Health, there is a huge difference between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated when you are talking about incidences of disease, hospitalization, and death. As for getting vaccinated against COVID-19, there are many opportunities across the state. You can still walk in at most local pharmacies. You can visit various pharmacy locations at the UVM Medical Center, the Community Health Centers of Burlington, the Northwestern Medical Center, and the Southwestern Vermont Medical Center. And as I said, most local pharmacies. Here's where you'll find 27 other pop-up clinics this week. Today we'll be at the St. Albans Police Department during their national night out. That's in St. Albans, Fairly Community Arts in Fairly, the Eden General Store in Eden, the Berlin Fire Station in Berlin, the Bradford Psychiatric Associates in Rutland, the Paramount Theater in Rutland, and tomorrow we'll be in Westminster Central School in Westminster, the Oxbow Riverside Park in Morrisville, the Moortown Town Office in Moortown, Waterbury Ambulance and Waterbury Center, 1311 Berry Montip Montpelier Road, that's a facility right behind the Burger King in Berlin, the Woodstock Inn on 14 the Green in Woodstock, Wells River Chevalet in Wells River, and on Thursday, Northeastern Vermont Regional Hospital in St. Johnsbury, the Montpelier Parks in Montpelier, the Waterbury Farmers Market in Waterbury on Friday, we'll be at the Bennington Museum Courtyard Music Series in Bennington, the Highland Center for the Arts in Greensboro, the Brattleboro Gallery Walk in Brattleboro, the Washington Town Office in Washington, again at 1311 Berry Montpelier Road in Berlin, the Newport Waterfront Plaza, and on Saturday, Leland and Gray Union High School in Townsend, the Dog Mountain Summer Party in St. Johnsbury, the Grand Isle Sheriff's Department in Grand Isle, the Stowe Community Church in Stowe, and on Sunday, Thunder Road Speedway, this has been rescheduled from last Sunday, there was a lot of rain last Sunday, so we've rescheduled that for this Sunday, so please take advantage of the many opportunities to become vaccinated and get tested for COVID-19. You will find information on all of these locations at the Health Department's website, which is www.healthvermont.gov. In terms of school-based clinics, as you know, the new year, new school year is just around the corner beginning next week and continuing through mid-October, we will be rescheduling a substantial number of school-based vaccine clinics for those ages 12 to 18 years old. Although the focus will be on the 12 to 18-year-olds, these clinics will be open to all who wish to get vaccinated. We'll have more information to share with you at next week's press conference. Now let's move on to health insurance. The Governor has prioritized making Vermont a more affordable place to live and work. A big component of that effort is addressing the cost of health care. The American Rescue Plan makes $25 million in new federal funds available to those who buy health insurance through the Vermont Health Insurance Marketplace or Vermont Health Connect. With this new funding, many Vermonters are eligible to buy insurance through Vermont Health Connect at lower cost than ever before. We encourage folks to visit VermontHealthConnect.gov. That's all one word, VermontHealthConnect.gov, to see what plans are available to them. As an example, previously the lowest cost plan on Vermont Health Connect for a Vermonter earning $52,000 was $491 per month. Today they can get the same plan for $190 per month, so less than half of the cost than before. As another example, individuals with incomes up to $38,000 per year and couples with incomes up to nearly $60,000 may qualify for plans with no monthly premium. You can change your plan from now until August 15th as long as you stay with the same insurance company. They will count any deductibles you have already paid this year. Again, to find information on this, the website to visit is VermontHealthConnect.gov. The Department of Vermont Health Access is also holding a series of virtual town hall meetings this summer to ensure that Vermonters know how to access these more affordable health insurance plans. The third of those town meetings will take place next Wednesday, August 11th at 12 p.m. You can tune in through the department's website at diva.dvha.vermont.gov. I'll now turn it over to Dr. Levine for a health update. Good morning. While the reality is that this pandemic continues to throw new challenges at us, I always come back to where we are now as a state. We have vaccines that are extremely effective at preventing the most serious effects of COVID-19, hospitalizations, and death. We have over 84 percent of our eligible population with at least one dose of vaccine, which is more than 460,000 Vermonters. And we have seen the combined effect of these two factors in our low hospitalization and death rates. To put it simply, the vaccines are working, doing exactly what they're meant to do. Now, we've also gotten some new data in the past week about the highly transmissible Delta variant, which is making up an increasing proportion of our cases. Indeed, out of about 52 samples that were sequenced in recent weeks, 46 were the Delta variant. Vaccinated people can become infected with the Delta variant and may be contagious. This has to do with how well the Delta variant replicates in the nose and throat. You may recall that early on in our experience with vaccines, after innumerable questions from the media, actually, I discussed the difference between the great protection we get from the antibodies our bodies produce in our bloodstream from being vaccinated, but that there was uncertainty regarding the ability of the vaccine to prevent us from transmitting the virus to others as it set up shop in our nasal passages. Well, with the early versions of the virus, transmission was not a problem. But with Delta, the game has changed. It spreads about twice as easily from one person to another than previous strains of the virus. But here are the important take home messages. First, vaccinated people represent a very small amount of total transmission. Second, and again, data shows that if you are vaccinated, you are well protected from the worst outcomes, including from this variant. It still is the coronavirus. Yes, breakthrough cases do occasionally occur in cases are generally mild. But vaccination provides you, and if we could show that slide again, with an eight fold lower risk of getting ill from COVID and a 25 fold lower risk of hospitalization or death. Thank you. And thirdly, the real danger of Delta is among those who are not vaccinated. So if I can speak with you directly, both as health commissioner and as a physician, if you are not vaccinated, but could be, you are leaving yourself without protection to an often serious illness that has actually killed 260 of our friends and loved ones. And the risk does not stop there. People who are not vaccinated are the biggest drivers of vaccine or virus spread, which allows for more mutations like the Delta variant and drives increases in cases, hospitalizations and deaths. That's why it's so important to get as many people vaccinated as we can as soon as we can before this variant can do more damage. Now, many have by now seen that two Vermont counties, Essex and Chittenden, appeared in the past few days on the CDC's map as areas with substantial transmission levels. This is a concern, but it's not surprising based what we know about the Delta variant. And I would expect Essex County to be revised downward soon, as there has not been a case reported there in the past four days. Based on everything I discussed earlier with all the data taken together on our high rate of vaccinations, minimal numbers of hospitalizations and rare deaths, our overall state guidance around masking for vaccinated Vermonters currently remains the same, because the greatest risk now continues to be to the unvaccinated. Obviously, unvaccinated individuals need to protect themselves and others by masking indoors, and I encourage them to immediately seek one of the vaccination opportunities Secretary Smith mentioned, unless they are among the very few Vermonters who've been advised by health care providers to not get vaccinated. You can also go to healthvermont.gov slash my vaccine to get your shot near you and at a convenient time. Now wearing a mask is an effective way to prevent germs from spreading. We've all learned that over the past year and a half. So especially in areas with higher rates, you may want to wear one indoors depending on your own personal situation. If you have a weakened immune system, or are around someone who does, if you have children who can't be vaccinated, if you're traveling to a place with higher transmission and lower vaccination rates, or if you just feel more comfortable doing so, that mask is always an option and no one should look at you in a judgmental way. Also important, consider getting tested if you have any possible symptoms. Of course, you can visit healthvermont.gov slash testing to find a site near you. We have proved as a state that together we can do what it takes and can handle this latest new pandemic challenge. Through vaccination and continued prevention practices, washing your hands regularly, staying home if you feel sick, we can minimize the disruption to the more normal life we've been able to enjoy. Thank you, Dr. Levine. We'll now open it up to questions. Hi, I was hoping to ask about obviously the school news. Could you elaborate this fairly question for Secretary French on the requirements for school employees? It sounds like they will be required to start the school year with a mask mandate. Will that be, is that then dropped to just the unvaccinated? What exactly does that look like? Thanks, Lola. As I mentioned, we will have this out in writing hopefully this week, so hopefully you'll clarify that. But we are recommending that schools require the start of school with everyone in the school wearing a mask, all students, all staff. And then we've tied a change in our recommendation to the student vaccination rate, not the staff vaccination rate. We did that intentionally knowing that staff based on the data from last spring across the state are already over 80% vaccination rate and probably much higher than that now. So once the student rate in a specific school reaches 80%, then our recommendation is that only the unvaccinated students and staff should wear a mask. Okay, so will there be any, like, will staff be required to file any sort of vaccination paperwork with the school or no? No, we're really going to focus on the student vaccination rate is sort of the representative indicator. And again, largely because as you know, students under 12 have not been made eligible yet for vaccination, but as Secretary Smith outlined, we're also going to be ramping up a lot of activity through August to make the vaccine more available for those students who are eligible. Is there any concern about, I mean, about schools where, you know, I would imagine that there's some schools where staff have like a 95% vaccine coverage rate and then other schools where that wouldn't be the case? Are you at all worried about that? No, not really. I think it is, you know, where our thinking went specifically to look at each of our schools as an ecosystem. And I think that was sort of the struggle, looking at sort of general national recommendations without firstly acknowledging the high vaccination rate of our state, but then looking at each school and so many of our schools are very small, I think a third of our schools have under 100 students. So I don't think it's that precise, like, you know, 82% versus 80%. But we know 80% is a high goal. We also know we can achieve it. We're very close to that now looking at some of the age bands for schools were in the mid 70s, I think as a vaccination rate. So we just feel very confident that that's an achievable goal and one that will move the school community in a good direction in terms of the safety for the fall when we're going to be spending a lot of time inside. Right, right. So as soon as you hit 80% mass mandates for both students and staff, go away? In a particular school? Yeah, our requirement, our recommendation will be that schools no longer need to require mass to that point. Is that 80% of the whole school or of the eligible student population? I'm just thinking in some schools like the middle school. Again, the written guidance will come out and hopefully provide the specific clarity on that, but it's 80% of the eligible student vaccination rate. 80% of the eligible students. That's a good question. We might have to take that up as a separate advisory. We've had throughout the pandemic had to address the interstate school issues. You know, again, there's going to be a lot of questions in the coming weeks and we'll address those as they come up. We've tended to deal with the interstate districts on a very specific case by case basis. If there are patterns there, we bring them together as a group, but we'll address that question if it emerges. At schools in which students younger than 12 years old are commingling with students 12 years and older, the effect of that 8% vaccination rate as far as a mitigation strategy is going to be much diminished from a school in which all the eligible students are all the students are vaccine eligible. So how do you square using that metric when it's going to apply very differently in different contexts? Yeah, I think if you look at the organization of our schools, that that would not be a very usual organization. Most of if you think of most of Vermont schools, firstly, the archetypal typical school at the elementary levels, the K through 6 school and 12 year olds are generally in sixth grade at that point, right? So that's that's your usual elementary school. We do have K8 schools, you know, where, yes, there are two grades that would be above that eligibility group, but the vast majority of the students are still going to be 12 and under in that school. We still have K12 schools. Yeah, very few. I was a principal of one. We're down to about 10 of them. But that's again, they're also divided out on building. So there are some physical things you can do like when I was principal of the K12, I had two buildings and some things can be done. But we'll we'll provide guidance to schools in those kind of very unique situations that districts allow students to self certify whether they've been vaccinated or not, or are you going to advise them to look for proof of vaccination? Yeah, we're going to work through that. That's not specified in our guidance that's coming out this week. We do say that we're going to work directly with them to recommend some some methodologies. The CDC has some general ideas on that as well, but we'll make it as manageable as possible for the schools. To the parents out there that have been reading what the American Academy of Pediatrics has put out that has been looking what the CDC puts out and sees your agency going in a different direction and have some real concerns about sending their kids to school in that context. What do you say to reassure them? Yeah, I think again, the general national guidance is very useful and I'd put the American Academy of Pediatrics guidance in that sort of container. But then again, I think we do have a responsibility to look specifically at our context and I don't I don't know if a general policy can be broadly applied in this instance, unfortunately, because the vaccination rates among the states vary so greatly. And that's why I made a mention in Massachusetts, you know, New England states have very high vaccination rates to other parts of the country. So I think we need to start with the examination of our vaccination rate in our decision making. Another aspect of their guidance, you know, one of the points they make in their guidance is the fact that schools can't really know their vaccination rates in their students. Therefore, a universal masking recommendation is a good idea. Again, I think we can know our vaccination rates in our schools. You know, that might not be the case in states that have very, very large schools, but Vermont schools are small. They're also very much community schools. And I think we have a really strong understanding of what goes on in our buildings on a community basis. So we consider those factors in our decision making, for sure. What is the contact tracing infrastructure going to look like for schools? Yeah, it's been robust throughout the pandemic and it will remain so. Maybe Dr. Levine has some comments on that. But I mean, Vermont is one of the states that maintain very robust contact tracing throughout the pandemic for schools. So we are gearing up to continue to do that in the fall. Even the fact that Delta has shown an ability to sweep through populations in a way that previous iterations of the virus have not. How will that reality figure into conversations with districts about when the right time is to move to remote learning if you do, in fact, find cases in a school? Well, not to speak specifically to Delta, but the process that we're publishing now is this idea of doing advisory memo. So unlike last year where we issued formal guidance documents that were highly technical and hundreds and hundreds of pages that emanated from the specific authority, the governor's emergency order, we're not in that situation right now. This year is a totally different situation. So we will put out advisory memos, particularly if operating conditions change, if we have new information about the science, if new considerations need to be identified. But we think right now, just for opening schools, that's our goal, to give people information right now so they can start to make some decisions, react, ask questions to us, and we'll clarify and so forth. But we think it's important to give our schools enough runway to react. I will say the national guidance that's been coming out, one of the reasons it's been coming out now is that many schools around the country are opening right now. So those schools are just digesting that national guidance literally within a two-week period and then trying to operationalize that. We have a long track record last year of operationalizing very technical guidance at the school level and working very closely, state to locals. So even as simplified as our guidance is, we're giving our schools a whole month to sort of react to that and ask additional questions. So again, I think we'll be in a very good place in terms of operationalizing the guidance for all our schools. If a half dozen kids in a K-through-aid school with 200 students there come down with COVID-19, should that school continue with in-person learning? In terms of the hypothetical, it's hard for me to acknowledge what we would do in that regard, but I think, again, right now we know the vaccines work. We will see some cases, and I think that's identified, again, in our most important recommendation, our guidance is if you're sick, stay home. But we'll take that issue on. We think, again, it's why it's important to start the school year in a masking disposition in particular because we're not requiring any distancing recommendation. So we'll start there, we'll monitor the data very closely. We have very robust data at contact tracing and surveillance testing going on. So we'll know the trends and be able to prepare to react if necessary. Will the voluntary testing program be for students and staff? Yes. What will sports guidance look like? Yeah, so far we haven't addressed that issue. As you know, our fall sports are largely outdoors. We have, I believe, volleyball in the fall that is inside, but we'll address that here in the coming weeks, and we'll certainly prepare in anticipation of questions related to winter sports. Too early to tell, basically. And should districts have remote learning contingencies waiting in the winks? Yeah, not at this point. I think, you know, last year we saw remote learning on a scale that we've never done before. You know, we had whole school remote learning and whole grade remote learning. Again, we didn't really have good information about the operating environment. We're operating in very dynamic conditions. And we learned from that experience that remote learning can be a good stopgap measure, but it's not nearly as effective as in person. We do have the capacity for remote learning on an individual basis. That's always been a part of our flexible pathways program, and certainly something I'm interested in working with the General Assembly in the spring to talk more about. But for the fall, this fall, coming out of our experience last year, we wanted to put a priority on restoring full in person. We think we can safely do that with the mitigation strategies that we'll be recommending. So at this point, it's not as necessary for districts to prepare that. I will say we do have state infrastructure for remote learning available. And that's through our Vermont Virtual Learning Cooperative. Dr. Levine, you were saying just a few minutes ago that the people we need to be concerned about with Delta are the unvaccinated. And now we're going to have hundreds of unvaccinated young people all over the state, crowding back into little classrooms together. Masks. Is that prospect at all and settling to you? Let me address three things that have just come up in this conversation. First of all, there are going to be cases in schools, just like there are cases in all sectors of society. Just like there were cases in schools over the last several terms of schools, yet schools continue to operate. We had a lot of our students in in-person learning. And I expect the same, actually, will occur now. Again, the Delta variant is a little different, but it is still the coronavirus that we all know. The fact of the matter is we have two incredibly powerful mitigation strategies to use. Vaccination when it can be used. And we hope it can be used in all students soon, but we're still awaiting the under-12 EUA to occur. And masking in an indoor setting, which is incredibly powerful and has worked very well for us. So I think we need to just put that on the table, that those are going to be still very, very important allies in our ability to keep students in in-person learning. Second thing is, as Secretary French was alluding to, contact tracing is going to continue as it always has. It was particularly robust in the school setting. We had very good relationships across the state with the schools. And even when there were, at times, several cases in a school, the majority of schools were able to remain open. And the only times that they weren't able to remain open were because of staff who may have had to be isolated or quarantined and they just didn't have enough staff to operate the school. That'll be a lot different in a vaccinated environment as well. It was going to be one more point I wanted to make. With regard to the national recommendations, CDC, American Accounting Pediatrics, obviously we use those for guidance. And we're using a lot of what's in those in the plan that you just heard about. But the Northeast is different than the rest of the country in many ways. And these guidelines are written for a country of 50 states. And there's such heterogeneity in the country. The average, the common denominator of vaccination rates is much different compared to where we are in Vermont right now. And we're contextualizing these recommendations in a way that fits really what the data in Vermont shows us right now. And using the same exact science. E.J. said that cases are expected to rise nationally for the next four or five weeks and then decline. Is that what we're going to see here? What's that based on? How do you know that? Yeah. So, you know, this is how we, again, learn kind of from what's going on nationally and internationally about the virus. No one in the modeling world could predict something like that without something to base it on. And right now, what they're basing it on are countries like Israel, countries like the UK, where the Delta variant seems to have kind of, if I could use the word, raced through the population affected those it's going to impact and then starts to come down. Even in a setting where the vaccination may not have reached the level they wanted to yet. But in many cases where vaccination is increasing concurrently. So the modeling is based on those kinds of experiences. And we anticipate the same kind of phenomenon will occur here as well. Do you have any sense about whether the breakthrough cases are showing up in people who have one received one brand of vaccine versus another? You know, we do have some data on that now. And I can't give you some specific numbers. It's really in proportion to the number of people who've received each vaccine. So it's not like one is standing out dramatically. There was a slight increase in some of our data showing that J&J was a little more than Moderna and Pfizer. And that is one of the vaccines in Vermont that has a lower denominator in terms of the number of people that have received it compared to the other two. So I don't want to give you conclusive data yet regarding that. But that's an early indication. I wanted to get back to the question about the rising case counts. I guess at one point, do rising case counts into the winter get concerning enough that we may have to put additional restrictions to protect people like the immunocompromised or kids? You know, as you mentioned, the virus is in the community. I mean, at what point will or will we have to do that at all? Because I mean, people will have to go to the grocery store. You know, people will have to be in public. So again, if we follow what Stuart's curve was just indicating, that would indicate that it'll be sometime in September, mid-September, maybe a little later. And again, we can't be precise about this. But that things would begin to have a downward trend so that as we come into the winter, maybe at least with the Delta variant, that won't be as big an issue. I also anticipate, based on the pace we're going at, that the 84.1% will be at an even higher number by that time. Can't tell you what the number will be, but just regionally and nationally vaccination rates are picking up because many people who have been in the wait-and-see category have finally said, okay, everyone else seems to be doing well, and the people that actually aren't doing so well are the unvaccinated, so maybe I ought to join the ranks of the vaccinated. So I think that factor will work in the favor of everybody in our population as well at that time. I was sort of on this earlier. Do you think, Dr. Levine, that people in Chittenden County should be following the CDC guidance as it relates to masking the doors? With the exception of the groups that I mentioned who have an element of immunocompromise or who are accountable for someone who is immunocompromised or who are worried because their children aren't eligible to be vaccinated, we're not recommending that the entire population of the county mask indoors at this time. And we're basing that on, really, the fact that, yes, there will be cases with Delta, we know that. We have the ability to look at our data very closely on a moment-to-moment basis, as we always do, and we're seeing, as you saw on the slide, the outcome measures are markedly reduced in those who are vaccinated. We have a very robust rate of vaccination and we're not seeing those poor outcomes at this point in time. Can I just like to underscore and reiterate what Dr. Levine was talking about earlier? You know, when the CDC provides guidelines, they do so for the entire country, from one extreme to the other. When you look at Alabama, for instance, their vaccination rate is about 30-something percent. Here in Vermont, we're 84. I mean, that's such stark difference between one state to another. So what works for them and across the country is different than what we're doing. We haven't always followed the CDC guidelines. In fact, we've been out ahead of them in a number of different instances and we've gone down our own path, which has been quite successful for Vermont. It might not work for other states, but it's worked for us here. So let's go back. I want to touch on Chittenden County because you brought that up. We've heard a lot about Chittenden County and the increase in a number of cases. Nothing frustrated me more over the last year than watching CNN and seeing over the last 12 months and seeing Vermont as a bright red state, and that's not politics. This was because our case count was a percentage higher than the day before. Like one time, I remember, for instance, we were the brightest state in the country. Our cases, we had like 12 cases that day. We went from six the day before to 12 the next day. We had a hundred percent increase, so we were the brightest state in the country there. So that didn't really tell the story. Same thing holds true here. When you look at Chittenden County, we followed the science and the data from day one. This is what has driven us to the decisions we've made collectively. So when you look at Chittenden County today, over the last seven days, the seven-day average is about 13 cases a day, 13. Now 13 cases in Chittenden County with a population of about 145,000, that's not many cases. When you look at Burlington, for instance, I've heard a lot about Burlington as well, the average case count per day is 2.9 for Burlington, 45,000 people in the city. So we need to take a step back and just again reflect on how well we've done as a state and how our small population and our small number of cases at some point will work against us. So I just wanted to level set you know the expectations and again highlight how well we've done. Well again, so every state is different. That wouldn't work here nor would we want to work in that fashion. We've, from the very beginning, we've tried to strike a balance here in the state in personal freedom as well as trying to protect the most vulnerable. And we've been able to thread that needle fairly well. When we came up with the school policy, the guidance that we've been working on for the last week to two weeks, I think we, I feel good about where we are. We proved that we could hit 80% as a general population for those eligible and we would lift the state of emergency as a result. That worked well for Vermont. And I feel that this approach in trying to balance the extremes, we're going right down the middle and and it's worked for us. Story today involving the governor next door. A big investigation released by the attorney general. I want to ask you to comment on the details of that, but do you think that any governor who is found to have sexually harassed card and former employees should remain in office? Well again, that would be a decision for them to make in New York. Certainly we hold ourselves to a fairly high standard here in Vermont. And I wouldn't expect that to happen here. But but again, that's for them to decide. Move to the phones now starting with Wilson ring the associate press. Excuse me. Hi everybody. The Secretary French, you described this new school guidance as volunteer. What was the wording you used here? Are they voluntary? These these new school advisory memos. So those are advisory. So those aren't required. So could schools choose not to follow them and then could parents of children in those schools choose not to have their kids follow those rules? Yeah, thanks Wilson. The you know, firstly, I just start again, the draw the distinction between last year and this year. Last year we were operating under a state of emergency with specific authority delegated to myself and Dr. Levine. That's not the case in state of emergency in Vermont ended in the spring. We've made the transition into summer with we call advisory memos and recommendations. So we're making recommendations to schools. In the summer we recommended if you're inside and you're unvaccinated, you should wear a mask. Going into the fall we are now recommending a more say higher standard. We are recommending that school districts require masks. School districts have the authority to control their operating environment. They will have the opportunity to not follow that guidance or into enact more stringent requirements. Parents aren't necessarily going to have that same sort of decision making because the school school boards and school districts control the operating conditions of their buildings. So do you have any sense if there will be any schools who might think even your new requirements or suggestions are too much? Yeah, I don't know. It's you know, it hasn't come out yet, but we'll certainly work with the different groups, the management groups. I have a statewide briefing with superintendents on Thursday. We'll begin to you know, have that conversation about operationalizing the guidance. But I expect there'll be boards in different situations and districts in different situations. The conditions across the state you know vary to a certain extent, but those local political conversations, although they're complex, they've also been a great strength for us getting through the pandemic because we have very close relationships with state officials and local officials. And yes, those can lead to lengthy conversations and a lot of engagement. But I think that also allows for really strong buy-in at the community level. And I'm confident as we demonstrated last year that those relationships can be leveraged to our success, that we'll do so again this year in a much safer and simpler environment. Okay, thank you very much. You're welcome. Greg Lamero, the County Courier. Good afternoon, Governor. Just picking up there for a second, where you left off. I've heard concerns from parents that have not mandate the school, especially with a recommendation that if they're over 80% that they can remove their masks, would lead to bullying and would be akin to condoning peer pressure? Governor, I wonder how you would address that concern? You know, that's why we took the approach we did. I know Massachusetts went in a different direction. They have put forth a policy where if you're vaccinated, you don't have to wear a mask. And if you're unvaccinated, you have to wear a mask. And I do think that that leads to, I think, confrontation. And so that's why we took the approach here. It's more of a team effort amongst the school and trying to encourage and inspire others to do the right thing and get vaccinated. So I think the strike and the balance, I think is what we we tried to do. And I think that I think this does it. This may be for Dr. Levine. We've been hearing for months that, you know, if you've been in contact with someone with COVID and you're fully vaccinated, you really don't have anything to worry about and don't need to quarantine. With the rise of the Delta variant, are we seeing the first steps to maybe seeing that guidance change? CDC has just come out with some new guidance regarding exposures. And we're in the process of analyzing that guidance and deciding how appropriate it is for what we do in Vermont. It would mostly have to do with whether we recommend testing for individuals, even if they're vaccinated, that have had a significant exposure to a case. It wouldn't necessarily immediately dictate any change in their behavior if they're asymptomatic and otherwise well. Thanks. And one last question here. Dr. Levine, maybe for you or maybe for Secretary Smith, I'm not sure. It seems the Health Department's been working pretty hard to get vaccines to areas where, you know, you see a lot of people and potentially, you know, obviously you talked about it, getting vaccines to where people are. I noticed that a big event was missed here in Franklin County this coming weekend, Franklin County Field Base. And I'm wondering if that was intentional, if maybe it was an oversight, maybe the Health Department's learned that events like that just aren't very fruitful. But I would also note that there is a vaccine clinic this weekend at Thunder Road, a location that has already had a vaccine clinic. So it just seems confusing that each position of a clinic where there's already been one and potentially has gotten the positive reaction that you might already get and ignore a large event that's like a once-in-a-year thing. Secretary Smith will take that. But rest assured, there's no intentionality of avoiding certain events or others. And large-scale events like state fairs, et cetera, are really important to us in the overall strategy. Secretary Smith? Thanks, Greg, for the question. I'm unfamiliar with the field days, but, you know, as I mentioned tonight, we'll be in St. Albans in Franklin County at the National Night Out event. So we look for these events. The reason you were Thunder Road is there's a lot of people that go to Thunder Road. So we're there. As Dr. Levine mentioned, we're gearing up to do fairs. We'll do field days. We'll do any place where we can go. If there's an event that we miss, we appreciate you pointing it out. And we'll make sure that it's on our calendar or make sure that we hit it. It's our intention to bring the vaccine to any place, everywhere. If you look at the distribution here that I mentioned, the 27 locations. And they've been about each week, about 27 to 30 locations. It's been geographically distributed. And it's been different events, large events, small events. We don't care. We'll bring it to any place, anywhere that we can. Thank you. And I didn't mean to diminish where you were going. It just seemed odd that, you know, the event in Franklin County this week would be, you know, a National Night Out where you typically would see a few dozen people. And then left off the list was in a memory. Typically see thousands. So thank you. I think that might be an oversight. We've been to other other events like that, Greg. And we'll take a look at that because we do have EMT there at the field days. And so it wouldn't take a whole lot of setup to make sure that they have the vaccines necessary. So we could set up a clinic fairly easy there. All right. Thank you. That's it for me. Lisa Lumis, the Valley Reporter. Good afternoon. It sounds like districts can create stricter standards for schools within their districts. Is that the case? Hi, Lisa. This is Dan French. Yes, essentially they could, though I will say our guidance is going to come out pretty strong with a recommendation on masking. And we all are also encouraging them to defer to the public health expertise of the Health Department in their decision making. So we know again that this will be a different decision making environment than the state of emergency. But one that's going to be simpler and we'll have to work more closely together to ensure the safety of our students. But we think it's totally doable based on our high vaccination rate. Thank you, Secretary French. And maybe this question is for you or it might be for Dr. Levine. Is Ramon going to require students to get COVID vaccine? That's not being discussed at the time. I don't know if Dr. Levine, I think he has nothing to add to that. Thank you very much. My next question is for Dr. Levine. Given the transmissibility of the Delta variant, does it make sense for people who have been vaccinated pro-phylactic tests every week before they were fully vaccinated to resume that process? Your question is that for unvaccinated people who have been no, no, for vaccinated people prior to being fully vaccinated. There are a lot of people who are getting pro-phylactic tests weekly to make sure they weren't violent carriers. Yeah, we are not currently recommending that vaccinated people who are asymptomatic and otherwise well and have no obligatory needs, such as traveling to a destination that requires proof of a test, we're not requiring or recommending that they get vaccinated. I'm sorry that they get tested. Again, the number of breakthrough cases, though it may seem like it's significant, is really a very small percentage of the total number of people who have been vaccinated. Great. And then in response to the question about breakthrough cases in Vermont and which shots people got, did you say that the data shows that those with Johnson and Johnson were having fewer breakthrough cases than Moderna and Pfizer? Your answer was just not completely audible. No, it seemed to be a slight increase in the cases. But again, I would not want to give you that as a statistically significant difference at this point in time knowing the difference in the number of total doses people who have in Vermont have gotten of the various types of vaccines. So we're doing a more analysis on that at this time. Thank you. That's it for me. Just to be clear, is this only an advisory because you cannot mandate them because there's no state of emergency? That's correct. So there's no way that you could impose these recommendations for schools without having the state of emergency in place? That would be the best way. I'm sure there's another way of doing it. But but if we were to impose any more mandates, this should be a state of emergency. Okay, thanks for clarifying. That's it for me. Thank you. Andrew McGregor, Caledonian Record. Yes, thank you. Can you hear me? We can. For Secretary Frankston, if school boards and staff can set a local mask requirement, can they then deny entrance to a student that violates the rules that the board announced? Yeah, that's a very good question. You know, I will say, you know, just to clarify your question, school boards have authority over the operations of their schools on all issues in accordance with the law. And this specific question is one we're going to have to explore further. You know, I think we the state has a greater interest in when students are excluded from entitlement to a public education than they did, for example, during summer programs, which are more voluntary. So we'll we'll that's one of the questions we'll have to explore more closely as we get into the fall. Okay. And for Dr. Levine, a lot of discussion about 12 and under not being able to be vaccinated. Can you remind us what the typical experience of a child under 12 is who gets COVID? And have there been any instances of someone that young having long COVID symptoms? Yeah, thank you. So the typical experience of somebody young getting COVID in Vermont has been to have a mild illness with no complications. We've not recorded any deaths in anybody that young in Vermont. I believe at the most we may have had one or two hospitalizations, but I'd have to get back to you with actual number there, but it would be extremely small. And at least a month ago, I was speaking with one of the pediatric infectious disease doctors who was questioning whether there had been the first record of a long COVID syndrome in somebody and in Vermont, who was that young, or a multi inflammatory syndrome, which is another complication in the young group, that did not prove to be so. So I'd have to say that to the best of my knowledge, we've not had anybody with multi system inflammatory syndrome. And if we've had long COVID in someone that young, it's going to be a very rare event. Okay. And just continuing with you, Dr. Levine, the discussion of contact tracing when cases inevitably will appear in schools. Will that look similar to what was being done last year in which case people identified as close contacts will have the, will it be a recommendation or a requirement to stay home? You know, what are the results of being identified as a close contact going forward? And has the definition of a close contact changed given vaccination and variants and things like that? Yeah. So that's in the category of what Secretary French referred to earlier as some of the information that will be coming out with subsequently to this first guidance. So I don't want to give you our definitive answer on the exact definition that we're going to use, but I can tell you that it will be as stringent to definition as we've used previously. And we'll have more information to give you at a future conference. Okay. That's it for me. Thank you. And Barbara, Newport Daily Express. Unfortunately, Ed, where you're, you're not coming through very clear. We can now. They are out there. We got that there's a rumor. That's about it. Does anybody contact a receiver if he was going to put in a a value on the property to have it considered Okay. I think I'm getting most of that. This is about the hole in Newport. I'm imagining in something about the receiver putting a price tag on that. Yes. Okay. I mean, we have been in contact with the receiver and and hoping that we can come to some resolution on that. At this, at the present time, they are, they have been holding firm with, I believe, an overinflated price. But we'll see what happens. We are angle Smith. Hi, Governor. So I have a question. I don't know if you've heard that Burlington is considering doing a vaccine mandate for the employees. And I'm wondering if that's something that the state is considering for its employees and also what percent of folks in the government in the state government are vaccinated for COVID? Yeah, it's not something that we are considering at this point. I don't know what the reaction would be of the union, the VSEA. Some we probably will talk with them about that. But at this point, we aren't, we aren't imposing that. But I didn't, I hadn't heard that that Burlington was considering that. But I think every, every enterprise, every business has the ability to do so. But but in our case, this would have to be negotiated, I believe with the union, but I'd have to check with our general counsel on that. Thank you. And a question for Dr. Levine. Do you have a sense in terms of the distribution of Delta cases? Is this sort of one, one, one outbreak that sort of resulted in all these smaller outbreaks or just like different outbreaks, kind of like just completely independent outbreaks that are driving the spread? Actually, we're following very few outbreaks at this point in time. Most of what we're seeing with Delta has to do with individual cases. We find that travel is a risk factor, not just a visitor, but of a monitor coming back from a, another location. We find that households remain a leading risk factor, as you might expect. But otherwise, there's really no, you know, sentinel event or anything of that sort that would indicate that there's an outbreak that's been spreading throughout the state. It's much different than that. It's sporadic, what you're saying, right, Dr. Levine? Sporadic? Like the, yeah, like the, it's not like one big event, just like several different kind of small event, right? Yeah, or just multiple single events. Loan individuals who get identified because they have symptoms when they report to their work site or when they report to a different location, but really no history of any major, you know, group gatherings or things of that sort. As was, as was seen in the news, the Provincetown outbreak did lead to a handful, I believe maybe seven Vermont cases, all of whom were together as part of that Provincetown July 4th, I believe, celebration. But that's, again, limited to that group. Otherwise, we don't have many large events that have really led to cases spreading throughout Vermont. Thank you. I'm Davis, Compass, Vermont. Thanks, Jason. Governor, will you be expediting the expansion of broadband into Newport so we can hear Ed Barber better next time? You know, it's interesting. I think that Newport in the village has one of the highest capacity broadband in the state. So I don't know what's the, maybe he's on the outskirts. But yes, we need, we do need more broadband. Yeah. The discussion, there are parents out there who are certainly not happy that 100% of teachers and staff in schools haven't gotten vaccinated and aren't required to. Do you know, is there any ability to at least see if those people who have not gotten a vaccination working with schools will be tested daily, weekly, or some interval? I'm not aware of that, but I'll let Secretary French answer. Thanks. We are, as I mentioned, we are going to be deploying surveillance testing again, as we did last year very successfully. It'll be voluntary, however. But I think, you know, to that point, you know, students, students have much more contact with their peers than they do, I would say in a physical way with their teachers in a typical classroom. So again, that's one of the reasons we focused on the student vaccination rate and again why launching the initial school year in a disposition where everyone's wearing masks is going to be important. Okay. Thank you. I think this one's for the governor. Last question. And that is, the military has basically said they're not going to require 100% vaccination, or consider doing it at least, until all of the vaccines move from emergency authorization to permanent. Do you foresee changing any of your requirements and mandating more once that happens? Once it's permanent, is that the question? Yes. Yes. Once it's permanent. Yeah. We'll, we'll contemplate that. But that's, you know, again, that's not an issue here in Vermont as, as much it is, as it is in other states with 84% vaccination rate and climbing. I do believe that the school guidance that we're putting into place will lead to more vaccinations amongst those 12 and 12 to 18. Right now, I think 12 to 18, if you, I think we're around just under 70% average. And so if we can get that up to, to 80% and above, I think we'll be in, in pretty good shape there. So we're going to continue to, to push for everyone to get vaccinated. And I'm not sure that we would even by mandating, I'm not sure that we'll, we'd get there any faster than we will with the approach we're taking right now. It's been successful here in Vermont. It doesn't work everywhere, but here in Vermont it's worked fairly well. Have you received any updates in any of the governor's calls about where they are in the process of moving from emergency to permanent? That did come up this morning. I think it was Governor Baker that brought that up and was asking for clarity on just that very issue. So, and, and as I, I didn't realize the, that there was anything official of the DOD, the Department of Defense last I'd heard that they were contemplating what they were going to do. So, but it did come up. We haven't, they didn't really come back with anything substantial from our perspective. We were still waiting for them to come to some conclusion or at least tell us what, what their plan is moving forward or when we might expect any answer on that. But it seems as though that keeps getting, that can keeps getting kicked down the road. We expected any answer on that sooner than now. Got it. That's all I have. Thanks very much. Tom Brown, the Montpelier Bridge. Thanks, Jason. And thanks, Governor, for continuing these media availabilities. Probably for Commissioner P. Check, do we know how many 12 to 18-year-olds, you know, have gotten the vaccine if we're, you know, if we're going to be determining school percentages based on that. And also probably for Dr. Levine, I've heard that, that work on getting emergency authorization for an under-12 vaccine is, is kind of slowed down a bit. It was expected in the fall and perhaps now it's into the winter. If he has any knowledge of that, that'd be helpful. Thanks. I think the 12 to 15-year-olds is somewhere in the 66 percent percentile. And then the 16 to 18 is around 72-point-something percent. If I remember correctly, that's what I came up with. 72.6. 72.6. So that's where we came to the conclusion. It's around, you know, the average is around 68 percent. So 80 percent is definitely doable. We're 12 points away from, from that overall. And I'm sure that there are some schools that are further ahead than others. So I think we'll see as we move forward. I don't know if you have exact numbers. Mr. Pichett. I think the only thing to add to that, Governor, is that there is some CDC data that pushes the number up even higher that might not be reflected in our demographic data. So per the CDC data, the, the 12 to 17-year-old group is about 71 percent overall. So, so it is doing very well. The only answer from my half of the question is that, yes, people were thinking and hoping before the school year or at least in early September that the EUA for the under 12-year-old would come through. I don't have any firm knowledge of what date that might occur, but it's being talked about more in terms of later fall, some even using the word early winter, but I would suspect sometime in the fall. And I, and I think again, we want to make sure that the data is collected completely, analyzed exhaustively, and that parents can be reassured that if this gets an EUA, it is both highly effective and very safe for their under 12-year-old children. Yeah, I guess that would indicate that most primary marriage schools could very well face an entire year of a mask, you know, soon unvaccinated and vaccinated mask wearing. That sound possible? Well, yeah, it all depends on timing, but, you know, if you keep in mind, you know, the six to seven weeks that it will take to get somebody up to the level of two shots of a mRNA vaccine, that could occur well before the spring term, you know, comes into play. So it would not certainly mean that the entire school year would go by just the fall term. Thank you. Lisa, the water bearing roundabout. Hi there, good afternoon, Governor. Good afternoon. I think this is a question mostly for Dr. Levine at this point. We, and I don't expect you to know the specifics of this, but we just last night heard of three cases of positive COVID tests with children in our town recreation or summer rec program. There are three cases in a group of kids that are first to third graders. So these are definitely under the age that's available to have the vaccine. The group that they're in is about 60 kids, and they've stayed home today for contact tracing with the health department folks and hopefully whatever other testing is needed. I guess what I'm wondering is how do you decide whether to you give the statistics about how you find whether the Delta variant is at play with the cases that you have discovered? How do you decide which ones to check to see if the Delta variant is at play? And would this be an opportunity to try to get that information that comment from Dr. Walensky at the CDC last week about the Delta variant being as contagious as chickenpox is kind of sticking in my memory now? I think from what I've been hearing with some of the calls Dr. Walensky has said, I believe that like 85% of the cases now are the Delta variant. So I think she is just assuming they all are. But Dr. Levine? Yeah. So I gave some numbers out early in the press conference and I have them precise now for the month of July out of 56 specimens that we did whole genome sequencing on 48 were Delta. And that comes out in the same 85% to 90% kind of range that Dr. Walensky was talking about as well. The CDC sends us on a weekly basis an assessment based on 15 states for months, not one of them, but they are states that are quite dispersed throughout the country with regard to what's going on in whole genome sequencing. And in this past two week period, the largest percentage of those states had greater than 50% Delta in their analyses. The previous variant, the B117 that we had sort of had as our standard for a long period of time was going way down in percent wise, certainly below 20%. And then some of the more remote ones that we've talked about, Brazil, South Africa, etc., are vanishingly small in the whole genome sequencing that's been going on around the country. With regard to what you mentioned at the outset of your question, clearly, you know, cases have appeared in summer camps, child cares. As we expect, you know, they appear across society. It sounds like the right things are being done in terms of putting a pause on things, doing appropriate contact tracing. Keep in mind that the power of contact tracing is not just to put people into quarantine so they can't potentially infect someone, but it can be to keep people doing what they're doing. So if they're a kid in a camp or in a child care or what have you, to keep all of that going because it reveals that the number of contacts was actually not very significant and not very pervasive through the entire setting. So it can be a very good news situation as well, not just a implication that, oh, everybody's going to have to go home for a period of time and not return till this blows over. So keep that in mind. Thank you. One last question for the governor. Maybe our main street is being paved right now. The reconstruction project is just about over. And one of the things that I hear from folks in town is wondering when we're going to see more state employees returning to the complex here in downtown Waterbury. I'm wondering what the latest might be in that regard. As soon as the paving's over, I think sometime in September you should see more state employees. Very good. Thank you very much. Guy Page from Odd Daily Chronicle. We've had a field trip upstairs at the museum, I'm told. It sounds more like the roller derby, but these press conferences are not only good for your readers and your listeners and your viewers, but good for us as well. We learned something and I wanted to ask Secretary Smith to come up with some breaking news here as a result of one of the questions. We are working and we think we've resolved the fact that we will have a vaccination site at the Franklin County Field Day. So we will stay tuned. We'll put out something on the time and the dates that they will be there. If you have other suggestions. If you have any other suggestions, anyone who's calling in, please let us know because obviously when I get to as many people as possible and if there's a significant event that we're missing, we'd like to know about it. So again, thank you all. Sure. Just a quick update on the northern border. Have we heard anything? You know, I have not. We did send out the letter from a number of governors and we're waiting for a response from the White House at this point, but I have not heard any updates. Thank you very much.