 Good morning everyone. We have several topics to cover today and I appreciate everyone tuning in. First, I know many are looking forward to a return of competition for certain school and youth sports. Admittedly, our approach in this area has been amongst the most cautious in the nation because we believe in taking small steps forward and monitoring the data before moving further. Two weeks ago, we moved into phase two of our guidance. Since then, we've been watching the data and now feel comfortable taking the next step and allow competition with some additional safety measures. Secretary Moore will be providing more details in a few minutes. Next, as you may recall, when our numbers first began to increase in November after a summer and early fall of very low transmission, contact tracers found that Halloween parties and other larger multi-household gatherings had a major impact on the spread of the virus. This led us to having to place further restrictions in place for Thanksgiving and December holidays. I know the Super Bowl is the most watched event of the year and look forward to watching it myself on Sunday, but I want to be clear. This won't be a typical or nor should it be a typical Super Bowl party year. The risk is too high and multi household gatherings are still not allowed. We're only months away from when our most at risk friends, family and neighbors are able to get the vaccine. Now is not the time to let our guard dive down, especially when the light at the tunnel is in sight. And to all the parents who've been reaching out about school sports, don't ruin this for your kids. If there are too many gatherings that lead to greater spread, we'd be forced to take action which none of us want to do. So if you want to keep moving forward and slowly opening the spigot again, please follow the guidance because last thing we want to do is move backwards. But as I've shown, I'm willing to do whatever is necessary to keep people safe. Next we reach an important milestone yesterday. Over 10% of eligible Vermonters have now received at least their first dose of the vaccine. And this is good news. It means every single day we're getting closer to protecting those at most risks of death and getting back to normal. With the recent news that our supply will increase or over at least the next three weeks in Johnson and Johnson seeking approval, we're confident our pace will continue to accelerate and we'll get to 20% of the population much faster than we got to 10%. We're moving through our first age ban 75 and over at a good rate and we anticipate being able to open registration to the next group before the end of the month. Secretary Smith will be giving updates on vaccines, including our homebound vaccination rollout as well. And lastly, we'll get an education update from Secretary French who will give us an important reminder of why we need to stay vigilant this weekend because our kids need to be in school and the choices we make as adults directly impact them. And I hope everyone takes this responsibility to heart. Secretary French will talk about what the Agency of Education and Department of Health are learning about the impact remote learning has had and also identify ways to address it. We know how difficult this has been for all Vermonters, but it's especially impacted our kids and we must do everything we can to address this and ensure they receive the support they need. So they're on the right path to succeed in the future. With that, I'll now turn it over to Secretary French. Thank you, Governor. Good morning. I'll begin my report with an update on the weekly PCR surveillance testing in schools. We don't have any results this week to share because of the snowstorm that was on Tuesday. We have been running this testing on Tuesdays and Wednesdays with a storm. We decided to move Tuesdays testing to Thursday. It typically takes a few days to get the results back. So Wednesday's results should be back soon. But Thursdays won't be back in until the weekend. So I'll provide an update on this week's results next week's press conference. As we plan for recovery phase in education, we will need to understand the impact of the emergency on our students so we can focus and prioritize our response. I asked the Principal's Association to send out a quick survey to their members this week with a simple question. How are your students doing academically? 58 principals responded to the survey. I thought I would share some of the responses to give folks an idea of what principals are seeing in their schools. One principal wrote, as always, there's a range of student outcomes. We have more students who are struggling, not passing courses earning credit than in a normal year. We have more students who are substantially disengaged from school at risk of dropping out. We have more of our high achieving students with tremendously high stress levels than usual. One principal observed that they're still working to close the gaps from the period of sustained remote learning that occurred in the spring. That principal wrote, even with five days of in person learning per week since September, we continue to work to close gaps from remote learning in the spring. Absenteeism this year is a huge concern. It's hard to even consider a truancy when there are so many factors that keep kids from coming to school. Absenteeism or a lack of engagement was a central concern in many of the comments. One principal said, we have a handful of students who are elected remote learning from home five days a week, who rarely attend their virtual classes or advisories and refuse to respond to our numerous attempts to contact them. Even staff members going to the house or the use of the truancy officer doesn't affect change. On the other hand, several principals reported that some groups of students are maintaining their academic achievement levels in spite of these challenges and cited specific data. One principal reported, we've been in person all year. We did close our middle school for three days before Thanksgiving because of code case. These students followed their short term closure plans for those three days. We assess students in grades second through eight. And when we retested in January, 80% of our students were proficient in math. We saw great growth in some of our students living in poverty and those on IEPs. Reading was less successful with only 66% proficient. But we need to retest a few students who rushed to the test and didn't do their best work. I'm hoping for better results when we finish retesting. Another principal said, we were initially very concerned about a large drop in our math and reading data. What we found was that although there was a decrease, it was only by a few percentage points. Several grades actually maintained where they were from last year as well. Students are making gains this year, but it's harder to reach those that need the most support. Common theme expressed in almost all the comments was the need to attend to the social and emotional needs of students regardless of how students are doing academically. One principal summarized it this way. The general disposition of the students seems to have become much more passive. Class conversations are subdued. Binkery based learning is incredibly difficult. There are hardly any field experiences, etc. The physical distancing has become emotional distancing, and it will take a coordinated effort to make sure that we have systems in place to help students reconnect with their peers, their teachers and to reestablish establish relationships in the school building and reengage in their pre pandemic school lives. I want to thank the Principal Association for sending out the survey for the principals who took time out of their seemingly busy schedules to share their comments. I think their comments are useful in understanding some of the complexity of the situation. In spite of these complexities and challenges, I remain very proud of the work our school staff have done responding to the needs of our students during this very challenging time. There have been several national news reports this week about large urban districts in our country that are still struggling with reopening their schools. In several of these districts schools have remained closed since last March. We are very fortunate that we live in a state that prioritized keeping our schools open. That being said, we have a lot of work to do in the coming months to address the needs of our students. The impact of this emergency has not been the same for all students and we need to understand the impact so we can prioritize our response. I suspect that we will find some students are doing fine academically whereas others are struggling. Students that were at risk before the emergency are probably more at risk now. And there are groups of students about which we do not know enough because they have not been fully engaged in the learning process. They have dropped below our radar and we need to act with some urgency to re-engage with them. As noted by the principals, we can expect that many of our students have been adversely impacted from a social and emotional perspective. Children tend to be more resilient than adults but the isolation of the pandemic has not been healthy for them since much of their development has predicated on social interactions with their peers. The comments from the principals also suggest there is starting to be a cumulative effect of emergency conditions on our students that goes beyond simple characterization such as learning loss. As one principal observed, the longer this goes on, the more students have drifted away. This has profound implications for their academic growth. The situation in front of us is fairly complex but the starting point in the solution is fairly simple. The restoration of in-person instruction, in-person routines and in-person relationships as soon as possible. Through the restoration of more in-person contact and normal school routines, we can improve our ability to meet the needs of students. That concludes my updates. I'll now turn it over to Secretary Moore. Thank you, Secretary French. Good morning. I'm pleased to be able to provide more details regarding next steps in our return to play for both school-based and recreational sports. Specifically, effective next Friday, February 12th, both inter-scholastic and youth leagues will be able to resume game play. This includes basketball and hockey, as well as indoor soccer and futsal, broom ball and volleyball. This is in addition to the guidance issued previously, which provided a framework for snow sports competition as well as virtual meets for indoor sports involving low or no contact, such as individual swimming, bowling, figure skating, dance and gymnastics. As has been the case throughout the pandemic, things will look different this winter. Teams engaged in indoor sports that involve close proximity or moderate contact will be limited to no more than two games in any seven-day period and allow a minimum of at least three days between competitions. Spectators will not be allowed. Only key personnel, players, coaches, officials, time and scorekeepers and credentialed media can be in attendance at indoor sports events. We recognize that this will come as a disappointment to parents and fans of local teams, but minimizing the number of people present is essential to appropriately managing the risk associated with indoor sports events. Teams are encouraged to look for other creative solutions that allow for remote viewing, including designating a single volunteer to live stream games. And the masking mandate for all players and staff that has been in place since this fall is being extended to referees and officials for indoor sports events. Updated guidance with additional detail for both school-based and recreational sports will be available on the state's website by the end of the day on Monday. It's important to acknowledge the clear commitment by players, coaches, parents, alike that has brought us to this point. From December 26th, when no contact winter sports practices got underway until mid-January, we did not see any evidence of virus exposure during practice. Put another way, by maintaining physical distance during practice, even if a team member came down with COVID, their teammates were not considered close contacts and therefore at little risk of becoming sick themselves. This success allowed for the transition to expanded practices, including team-based scrimmages on January 18th. And over the past two and a half weeks, while there have been close contacts identified within teams, we have not seen evidence of teammates transmitting the virus to one another. This again reflects strong adherence to the safety precautions established in the guidance, chief among them wearing masks, avoiding unnecessary physical contact and adopting an arrive, play, leave mentality. As we know that for as many people who will be excited about today's announcement, there are others that will be uncomfortable. Please know we will continue to actively follow the case data and should data emerge that indicates evidence of COVID-19 transmission or significant disruption to academic instruction because of sports related activities, additional restrictions may become necessary, including targeted or even wholesale suspension of games and competitions. The results that we've achieved are far from guaranteed and reflect the hard work of many. In order for Vermont's return to play to continue to be successful, it is important that the collective commitment of players, coaches and parents to essential health and safety measures, masking, physical distancing and foregoing team based social activities remain steadfast. I'll now turn it over to Secretary Smith for a vaccine update. Thank you, Secretary Moore. As of today, 58,219 eligible Vermonters have been vaccinated against COVID-19. That's 33,700 Vermonters received their first dose and 24,500 have received their second dose. So far, 21% of Vermonters in the 75 years old and above age group have received their first dose of COVID-19 vaccine and 33,100 have registered so far. As I've mentioned earlier in the week, we've added clinics in Allberg to serve that area and the upper part of Grand Isle County and a clinic in Beecher Falls to serve Essex County. Next week, we plan to open a clinic at Grace Cottage Hospital in Wyndham County and Northwestern Hospital in Franklin County. And the week after Mount Escutney Hospital, we plan to open up as well. We are also working with other hospitals to establish vaccination clinics. Last night, we held a clinic for those with limited English proficiency in Burlington, where we vaccinated 50 people. And tonight in Winooski for another 50 people, we will continue to allocate more for that community in the age group 75 and up. We recently received final CDC guidance on transporting vaccines for those that are homebound. We're happy to report that the homebound program will receive its first allotment of vaccine today. Today's allotment will include agencies covering Caledonia, Franklin, Orange, Windsor and Wyndham counties with expanded distribution anticipated next week. Vaccinations will begin immediately and will be administered through a partnership between local home health and EMS agencies. These first partnerships include Rescue Inc. EMS, visiting nurse and hospice for Vermont and New Hampshire, Caledonia Home Health and Care, and hospice and Franklin County Home Health and Caledonia Essex EMS. The first group of designated recipients includes Vermonters in the 75 and older age group who are both homebound and in the service of local home health agencies, including both V&A agencies and others. Vaccinating agencies will contact them to arrange the vaccination visit. Please do not contact the home health agencies. They will contact you. We recognize there are home bound community members who do not receive home health services that will need to be vaccinated. Once the initial group of roughly 2000 statewide individuals have home health services, individuals with home health services are engaged, we will expand this service to include additional individuals in need. Numerous partners, including primary care, agencies on aging and municipalities are currently discussing how best to identify the additional individuals and to create the second phase of outreach. I want to express my and our appreciation to the states EMS and home health providers for their help in vaccinating homebound Vermonters. Now let's turn to eligible individuals in group 1A, which includes health care workers, anyone that qualifies to be in this group will continue to be eligible for vaccination, hospitals will continue to receive allocations of vaccine for the purpose of vaccinating individuals whose appointments were delayed or they chose not to receive the vaccination at the time it was offered or our new employees. We are not adding additional designations to group 1A. Only those professions already identified are eligible as we are currently experiencing. There will be some overlap while we transition from one group to another. Again, anyone who is an eligible who is eligible to be vaccinated in group 1A will still be eligible. We have asked hospitals how many people they think they have in the 1A population. It has and will continue to fluctuate as people change their mind about receiving the vaccine are newly hired or contact the hospital to identify themselves as health care providers. But it is now approximately from what we have gathered from the hospitals about 2,500. We have also asked how many vaccines hospitals anticipate they can administer in the next week based upon their request, we are allocating 880 first doses for next week. Additional doses will continue to be made on an ongoing basis. We are in regular communications with the hospitals and provided additional clarification and guidance for them to administer the vaccine to eligible individuals and we expect the 1A group will continue to be vaccinated. Although the appointments may not be at the preferred date and time as the individual would like. Eligible individuals should contact the hospital in their area to register. Please do not register on healthvermont.gov slash my vaccine website as that is currently only available to Vermonters 75 and older. We are making progress along all fronts, but this is not a sprint. It will take time. We must all be patient, vigilant and continue to wear our masks, wash our hands, maintain our 6 foot distance, curb large gatherings and do our part to protect families and fellow Vermonters from COVID-19. Lastly, I want to say this because we keep getting a lot of questions on this. Please remember there is no waiting list for extra doses at the end of the day. You cannot sign up for extra doses at the end of the day. We're still getting multiple inquiries for placing one's name on a waiting list. Again, there is no waiting list that you can sign up for. We are striving to prevent wasted doses in the vaccination program. So here is how we are doing it again. And I had mentioned this previously. We have the list of eligible Vermonters 75 years old and older that have registered for vaccines in each area that we can use. In addition, we know the Vermonters in 1A that have yet to receive their vaccine that are eligible and we have lists of homebound 75 plus that are eligible. These are the priority groups that we will call if there are extra doses at the end of the day. However, the prime objective is to prevent wasted doses and if as a last resort, a vaccine has to be administered to a person not eligible, in order to prevent waste, local health clinics are given permission to do so. I don't want to create an atmosphere where people feel they will be punished and therefore might opt to waste a dose out of fear of doing the wrong thing rather than administering a dose to prevent waste. A dose of vaccine administered is better than a dose of vaccine lost. So if you're just to end with this and the governor had mentioned this, we will be moving in the next few weeks to the next phase. So if you are 75 years old and older, please register by going online at the health department's website at healthvermont.gov slash my vaccine or call our registration center at 855 722-7878. I'll now turn it over to Dr. Levine for health department update. Thank you. As you may have noticed, our seven day case numbers continue to trend slightly downward at a lower level. Today we're reporting 107 cases. Our seven day average is in the low 130 vicinity. We're reporting no additional deaths and our percent positivity rate remains below 2%. Just below 1.9%. We are continuing to monitor increased spread of the virus in Bennington County and finalizing plans to increase testing opportunities in that area. Testing sites will include the northern half of the county and we are engaging the ski industry in this effort as well. Testing is of course the first step in our continued effort to contain the spread of the virus and we want all residents of the county to have ready access to this opportunity to help themselves and potentially their families and their communities. And of course we urge everyone to be extra vigilant and to maximize distancing, masking and avoiding crowded indoor settings. As I've said before, what's going on in Bennington County could occur anywhere in the state. The situation there began with multi household gatherings in early December and does reflect to a minor degree the increased virus activity in neighboring New York state and possibly visitors to ski resorts. But I must stress that the majority is just playing community transmission at worksites and throughout communities. And as you just saw there's an encouraging downturn in cases of late and hospitalizations at Southwestern Vermont Medical Center have stabilized. Regional hospitals and facilities to receive recovering COVID patients have been very responsive to that hospital's need. But we know that hospitalizations lag behind the peak of cases. So we'll be watching these very closely and supporting the region as much as is needed. Today's hospitalization number is 55. We've come down from where it was briefly in the 60 range. ICU at 17. We also are continuing our efforts to detect any potential variants of the virus through genetic sequencing of certain specimens taken from various parts of the state. We're expecting our first results in the early part of next week. The B117 variant first identified in the United Kingdom has now been detected in 33 states. And as I've said before, we expect we'll see it in Vermont as well. It is normal for viruses to mutate, but some of the variants recently found may require us to strengthen our prevention measures. We continue to strategically look for variants to help Vermonters take any steps necessary to protect themselves and one another. As I mentioned, we're reporting no additional deaths today. The count remains at 181 and the trend continues to improve. A significant reason for this is the recently lower number of cases and hospitalizations and hence deaths in long term care facilities. In this context, I do want to call attention to our report. Our team just put out on COVID-19 in our long term care facilities. Some key findings of the report. 71% of long term care facilities have not had an outbreak or seen any cases of COVID-19. There was a steep drop in the COVID-19 incidence rate among staff and residents of these facilities from December to January. Keep in mind, this is in the setting of an even more aggressive testing strategy using Binax Now antigen tests often daily. As well as a hugely successful vaccination program in those facilities. Long term care residents have counted for two thirds of all COVID related deaths in Vermont. Please view this number in the context of Vermont having the lowest death rate in the nation and in the rationale we have repeatedly stated for our overall vaccination strategy. One thing you may be surprised to note is that 65% of long term care facilities that identified a single case in their facility did not see additional spread. This is testimony to the wonderful work of our health care associated outbreak prevention and response teams that do work 24 seven and the infection control policies we have developed and provided and these facilities have complied with. You now have heard from several speakers about our plans for youth sports competition so I will only emphasize that again our current Vermont epidemiologic data does reinforce these decisions. We are not finding indoor sports or fueling outbreaks since we moved to the most recent phase nor just as importantly are they disrupting in person learning. By continuing to take careful steps forward we believe we can expand our allowances around sports so that our youth can compete safely. But as secretary more detailed the privilege of competition comes with a number of very important pieces of guidance and expectations regarding the conduct of games and the behavior of athletes and their families at those critical times before and after games and outside of school. But honestly what worries me far more than youth sports is a certain American tradition coming on Sunday the Super Bowl. Now this might seem like a more minor event than some of our recent holidays but it has potential to truly damage the recent progress we've made here in Vermont if we don't celebrate safely. So if you're watching the Super Bowl please stick to your own household. Gathering with anyone you don't live with increases the chances of spreading COVID-19 especially because you'll be indoors close together and I imagine eating or drinking without masks. Now the CDC has shared some tips like hosting a virtual watch party or simply starting a group text for game commentary. You can make your own special Game Day apps and snacks with people you live with or order take out food and support your local restaurants. Luckily as we all know Super Bowl is a TV event so we can still root for our favorite team debate which commercials are the best and enjoy the halftime show all from the comfort of our own home safely. So you might say how naive he is. What harm could come from this now. Is he really kidding. Those CDC recommendations sound like a joke. Well I just want to remind you that it was Halloween gatherings and parties that really drove the beginning of our uptick in cases a mere three months ago and it hasn't slowed down significantly yet. So consider following my and Dr. Fauci's Super Bowl Sunday advice and just say lay low at least this time around. Finally I'd like to end my comments on an optimistic note regarding vaccine. The vaccine developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca has the potential to slow the transmission of virus. Now recall that we have talked in the past about how effective the new vaccines are in preventing severe disease hospitalizations and death. We've always kind of hedged on the ability of the vaccine to prevent transmission of virus from one's nasal secretions. While the new data is very preliminary and not yet peer reviewed the investigators did the following. They watched vaccinated people for symptoms and for antibody production per usual but they also swabbed their noses for virus and they found a 67 percent reduction in positive nasal swabs among those vaccinated compared to those not. This means the vaccine kept people safe and help prevent them from passing the virus to others. We look forward to such study on an ongoing basis and hopefully for replication of these findings. Thank you. Thank you Dr. Levine will now open it up to questions. Thank you governor. So following up on the 1099 G. I'm wondering what what more you can share with us about you know the next steps in the process what needs to do your message and to for monitors that are searching for answers and also maybe if you have an estimate of how much it's going to cost to provide some of these identity protection services for monitors. Well again I don't have all the details at this point in time as you know within 48 hours we implemented a plan. We put you know I think about it in three buckets three groupings. First we want to make sure that we rectify the situation so that we can get the 1099s in the hands of those who need them right. So we put a team together in order to accomplish that. Let's get let's make sure that we we perform the task at hand. The second bucket was making sure that we had protection for those who may be impacted. So we put another team together to do that as well. The third piece was who you know an after action kind of plan to see what happened. So we've been working on that simultaneous week to to the auditor. I gave the auditor a call myself to ask for his assistance which he graciously accepted. So he's working on that. We have we believe we found that it was a human error in in some of the process. But that doesn't excuse the fact that we didn't have the controls in place to to to find that when it was when it was first initiated. So we certainly apologize to all those impacted. This was something that shouldn't have happened. We are going to make this right. We're going to to work again to make sure that we get get all the piece of information out to the people who need it and we get the 1099s back as well as making sure that that we put quality control provisions in place in the future. So this goes across the board. It's it's again a tough learning experience for all involved. But we're we're working on this. And and I think again we we tried to do this as quick as possible. But I think the teams in place are doing their work. In quick follow up yesterday the full Senate as you've probably seen voted to push back on your act to the executive order. I believe that House maybe wild wild as we're speaking is voting to do the same on their agency of public service or public safety executive order. What do you make of the legislature pushing back on some of your orders. Well again it depends on what we are aware to go from here. We believe that they're good ideas restructuring government is part of what I've said we would do trying to find a more efficient process that gives Vermonters the benefit of of that efficiency and cost controls and so forth. We just think there's a better way of doing accomplishing this. So where they go from here depending on what the other body does because we believe constitutionally each both bodies have to have to say no because you know it's clear that we have the ability to do this and say yes until they say no from both bodies because they're one one body one legislative branch so to speak if you if you can think about it in that way. So we'll see what what happens from there but if they turn them down I have heard from the media from reading that they end from Center Bray in particular he wrote to us and said that he was more than willing to take this up and work to to see what where we could go with this. But again keep in mind especially with the Act 250 this is just one piece. We have a lot of a lot of need there. We need to modernize Act 250 after 50 years. There are a number of provisions we had asked for last year didn't make it across the finish line. This is just one piece in this executive order to restructure government to to provide for a more streamlined process on the front end. But there are many other pieces that need to be taken up. We hear this all the time and I believe legislators do as well. So I'm going to take them at the word that they are more than willing to take this up and we'll see where we go from here. Also. Good morning. I have a pretty good question I thought from a viewer who asked when the state might update quarantine rules and visitors guidance at hospitals for those people who are fully vaccinated to doses. Secondly if a fully vaccinated individual travels out of state with quarantine requirements be reduced when they return. So could a fully vaccinated individual visit a family member in the hospital yet and what about the out of state return. Yeah I think those are great questions again. We're contemplating all the above I think across the nation people are trying to wrap their arms around this and what does it really mean. So I'm going to ask Dr. Levine to comment. But I do want to not just hospital hospitals and visitation but long term care facilities is where you know we've talked a lot about and we want to get them back to some sort of normalcy as quick as possible because they have had their vaccines and and they've been impacted from the very beginning. So we want to make sure that we focus on that area first. But Dr. Levine he might be able to comment further. These are wonderful questions and I wish we were a couple weeks ahead to be able to give you the more definitive answers. Because obviously the first part deal with things that have been restricted mainly visitation whether it be hospitals or long term care facilities. But the second part deals with new freedoms. So if you're in a long term care facility not only have a visitor but have dinner with somebody else at the table and perhaps engage in other kinds of group activities that they're always craving to do in those facilities. And then you mentioned travel as well and need for quarantine or lack of need to quarantine. So we're all grappling with this at this time as is the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta as well. Currently there's only one state that I'm aware of that has loosened up restrictions in terms of saying that you can travel and not have to quarantine when you come back. But that leaves almost the whole country that still hasn't yet made that decision as a state health official. This is a major topic on our agendas all the time. We're all kind of waiting a little longer for some data to be able to support a decision in a much more evidence based data driven way. And we're waiting to see if the CDC is going to be moving in that direction as well. Since we're pretty early in the vaccine scheme we feel comfortable waiting a little bit longer to make these decisions. I would also add that unlike where we've been through the pandemic all of last year it would really be preferable to have states be in alignment with one another as opposed to one state does it one way another state does it another way. That would create a lot of havoc when it comes to just travel alone and what you need to do when you enter a state when you need to do when you come back to your own state etc. So we're all kind of hoping that part of the new theme and the new administration seems to be developing more national strategies and that this will be one of them. So the ultimate answer to it is stay tuned but that we're working in the directions that the questions are implying and meeting on them all the time. Sorry yes thank you but governor we know what you're going to be doing on Sunday night but who do you like. Well mixed emotions obviously Tom Brady in the New England Patriots is my favorite team. You're not over that yet. I'm not quite over that but in this situation I'll be rooting for the Buccaneers. Thank you. Probably for Dr. Latine I went to visit my doctor yesterday and instead of talking entirely about my health he had a question about the vision of vaccines and his concern was that by putting people with pre-existing conditions far down the list that there's the potential to risk death in a group of people who have illnesses such as COPD and he also suggested that many of the people with this kind of chronic conditions are among the group of people that you had said the state is interested in making sure they reach out to because in many occasions in the past such groups not had adequate health care and the question I guess is are the people with pre-existing conditions in line has that changed are you thinking about it in different terms than you have before. I think the simple answer is no but I'll let Dr. Levine and hopefully Joe you got some sort of discount or rebate forward this question. What I was going to say it sounds like you have a wonderful relationship with your primary care physician and you can just talk about anything and that's that's always a good thing. So the answer was no. I guess I have to respond on that a little longer though just to do justice to it. Keep in mind the North Star we're all following which is preserving life preventing death and a couple of press conferences ago we showed a kind of heat map and showed where the red line was between where people were dying of COVID and where they weren't and out of 180 deaths now in the state there's in the vicinity of 10 that occurred below the age of 65. Some of those may indeed have had chronic disease and certainly the other 170 above the red line we know must have had a lot of chronic diseases and we're preparing even more analysis to look at that but we really want to respect the age banding that we've put into play here because it really does respect what the data in Vermont shows and if we want to really make sure we preserve life and don't have further deaths the more quickly we can vaccinate 65 and above the closer to achieving that goal will be. Keep in mind based on the numbers we've given you that's perhaps a fifth to a sixth of the population of the state so it's not like having a chronic condition and I prefer to call it having a high risk condition because not all conditions are chronic but having a high risk condition that doesn't put you at the bottom of the list it doesn't mean you are low priority it's just we're trying to get as quickly as possible through the people at the very highest risk so this next category will come along you know in the fairly close future we're not talking about August or September we're talking in the spring and we're going to be able to get to them pretty quickly and they will still have been a priority it is just a real challenge when every individual or advocacy group has a reason to be prioritized and in you know full transparency here we would love to move people to the front of the list I get requests all the time about people who are in the high risk condition less than why isn't my condition in the list versus another condition so in the ideal world we'd have abundant allocation of vaccine and be able to accomplish that goal can you bring something back to your doctor now well not by the way I hope I have another question this one's actually from a nurse so but but not from the same practice this person is curious about what the recovered number means in the state figures and she's particularly interested in whether there's a support system for people who've recovered but continue to have symptoms and ultimately I think the question is whether these people ought to be vaccinated yeah so there you know everything happens by coincidence and literally beginning of this week I re-engaged my epi data team and saying why are we even showing the number recovered what meaning does it have to people because I think people have sort of lost track of what why that was even there in the first place and do they even notice the number anymore technically the number means that you've either reported back to us after your illness resolved and we know you are doing fine or that 30 days has gone by and we haven't heard from you but you haven't been in the hospital or had anything worse happened so you were considered technically recovered from that acute illness but we know as your question is implying that there's a small subset of patients who three to four or longer months later don't feel completely well when they should have resolved all of the initial symptoms they have lingering symptoms they're often called long haul patients and we're still as a country and as a state trying to grapple with how big that group is and how to address their concerns and hopefully improve their quality of life because many of them report significant fatigue, significant shortness of breath and other symptoms that should have gone away when they technically recovered from their infection. So I've given some thought to not even reporting the word recovered anymore because it just has too broad a meaning and not as specific a meaning as would be helpful it would imply that every single person who's in the recovered category has connected with us or we've connected with them and we know exactly what their status is which is clearly not true when you're dealing with the thousands and thousands of people we're talking about. We are studying them at this point working to understand that better in terms of how frequent it happens in Vermont and we'll be interviewing a number of people to figure that out but I don't have any data from that now that's going to take many, many months. There are some clinics that have popped up that are ideal I shouldn't say popped up as if that was a nefarious thing that have been implemented to actually have people with chronic symptoms visit them and provide the appropriate supports. We're doing some education with the physician community in general because this is a very challenging group of patients because no one's ever encountered them before and there aren't a lot of answers to a lot of the questions that they ask or that they provide in the context of their care. So, you know, the major note of take away here is that this is an evolving situation that science and the nation don't really understand well yet, even though we're now almost a year into this pandemic, it's really clear that the long-haul syndrome is poorly understood and how to deal with it and educate people about it is not well factored in yet. Thank you very much. Thank you. This is also a question for Dr. Wabine. You mentioned that Ramana started to detect for variants in the virus and frequently you might need to strengthen the preventative measures. That looks like I'm not sure anybody in the room heard every word you said. Could you repeat it? Because you were Oh, I'm sorry. you were fading in and out. Oh, I'm sorry. Can you hear me better now? Yes. OK. You mentioned that Vermont is detecting starting to detect for variants in the virus and if we start to see them frequently, the state may need to strengthen its preventative measures. And I was wondering what what would that look like? What kind of things would have to take place? Sure. So you're right. We are testing for the for the variant through genomic sequencing. And I would submit I would only take one to have an announcement about the fact that it's in Vermont and we need to really double down on our efforts. I wouldn't want to see a trend because one means it's here. And even if we don't detect it in every specimen, it will soon become more prevalent. So obviously, six foot distancing is sort of here to stay. That's not going to change. Avoiding crowded situations is for the for the present time here to stay. It's not going to change. The thing that a lot of people are talking about with a little science behind it but not extensive is masking itself. Not that we would give up masking. So the number one message is if you haven't been masking, please wear a mask. And it doesn't matter how sophisticated the mask might be. Just wear a mask. But then for those who have been consistent with their masking, there are a lot of questions coming about if they're using a cloth mask, should they double mask? And the answer to that is it probably is more beneficial to double mask than to single mask. But again, just masking alone provides a significant amount of benefit. The additional benefit coming from the double mask is oftentimes one mask is slipping and not completely being stable on your face, so to speak. This would help that. And that there's oftentimes leakage on the sides and that leakage might be less so that you'd have a more firm fit. And that would be fine. There's also questions about should I give up the cloth mask and buy a medical mask like a procedure mask or a surgical mask? And there is good data that shows that you will get some incremental benefit from the more medical mask which is much more available now in any medical supply store or pharmacy than it is than it was back early in the pandemic. But again, it's not essential you switch from a cloth mask to a surgical mask, but you could. And then the last question that gets asked is should I buy a N95? We still really do believe we should preserve the N95s for those in the healthcare world who really need them the most for some of those procedures and exposures that would be the highest risk. And it's probably not essential for most people to walk around with an N95 mask. Not to say that they can't do that but in the healthcare setting those are fitted especially and it's a little more of an ordeal than you would think if you were just buying it on your own. There's also these KN95s which are the ones you would find on the marketplace now because they're produced outside the United States and the United States didn't really gear up its own N95 production to take care of a whole population. I would just caution people that the KN95s predominantly are authentic but there is a counterfeit market and I believe on the CDC website or the FDA website there is some information in a long appendix about the various ones that are out there so that if you had the opportunity to purchase one you want to check it against the list to make sure it's on the approved list. So it's mainly in the masking category that things would get tighter. There's not much else people can do if a variant begins to take hold here just to be much more respectful of all of the guidance that we give all of the time. Okay, thank you very much. Eric, the time's our guess. Yes, I got a call from our reader today. She has two family members, both paraeducators. One works in a public school, the other one works at a private school. She said the one at the private school has received both shots of the vaccination and the other one at the public school has and she wanted to know why the difference. Dr. Smith. Erica, I will have to look further into this situation but the way that you described it, none of those individuals should have been vaccinated. Maybe it was a changing in how they labeled them compared to public and private staff? No, I'd be interested in it if you're available sometime where we can call you but the way that you described it, none of those qualify for 1A. Okay, thank you. Eric, I'll make one exception. Are they over 75? I don't believe so, no. Okay, thank you. Good morning. Good afternoon. I just need a little clarification on Steve's question about traveling and quarantining. Can people in Vermont who are fully vaccinated have visitors from out of state who are also fully vaccinated without their visitors quarantining? We have not, yeah. Lisa, we have not weighed in on that yet. This is a national conversation that is probably going to ripple down. It's not that we haven't contemplated it yet, it's just that we haven't decided what to do. We're looking for the CDC to also weigh in on this. A national strategy would make much more sense than doing it individually. As you said, if we decide to do it one way and your friend in Massachusetts decided to do it another, it just wouldn't work very well. So we need to come together. And I know that Dr. Levine and his group, as well as the governors are talking about these issues, but nothing has been decided at this point. Okay, thank you. And several weeks ago, we were told that the COVID in the community's map and dashboard would be updated more frequently. Currently it updates on Friday with data from the prior Wednesday. What's the status of that? Understanding that people need to consider that COVID is everywhere and act accordingly. It's still, it's a nice touchstone for people to be able to check out what's happening in their town. Secretary Smith. Lisa, that's on me. I've been so preoccupied with vaccination that I haven't followed up on that. I'll follow up on it and I'll get back to you. Great, thank you very much. Thanks for the time. Hi, can you hear me okay? We can. I thank you. And I believe my questions are best suited for either Governor Scott or Secretary Moore regarding today's announcement about youth sports competition. My first question would be why wait another week to start? Why not sooner? My understanding from many schools is that they could begin play as soon as today or tomorrow is given the chance. Yeah, I'm gonna let Secretary Moore answer further if I don't get this right, but we had an agreement with the VPA to give them a certain amount of time. I think it was five days actually. We just thought it made sense to go a week and make it effective next week, but that was our agreement with them. They needed time to get ice and schedules and refs set up and so forth. So it's not as easy as just flicking the switch. Maybe you have another question. I'll let Secretary Moore answer that. Sure, I guess, oh, sorry, Secretary Moore. Oh, I was just gonna ask you if you were all set. So if you have another question, go ahead Austin. Oh, yes, I do. Sorry. I was also curious if any, like if you could say how many high school and youth sports teams had to either quarantine or were subject to contact tracing since practices began back in December. That may be Dr. Levine question. You know, my impression is, at least I can give you through January. I'm not sure I can break date this back to December, but through January, we had isolated cases and perhaps isolated contacts, but no teams that were in their entirety quarantined at the K through 12 level difference at the college level. How many teams were affected by those isolated cases? Oh, okay. I don't have the number at the top of my fingers there, but not a huge number. I can say that probably within single digits of numbers, six to 10 across the entire state. And then, okay. And then a last quick clarifier. I just wanna make sure adult recreational sports are still off limits after today's announcement. That's correct. This has only implications at the youth level. Awesome, thank you. Thanks for back up. Secretary Smith, thanks for your work on getting the shots out and getting everybody through, perhaps the smallest bottleneck. I'm just, and I fully understand there's no sign up to be on standby for extra shots at the vaccination site. But the question that was raised to me is, how can Vermonters 75 and up and the 1A group and the homebound that you mentioned, be sure that they are in fact on some lists for the local regionalists if there are a few extra shots at some site in say, St. Albans or Burlington or Alberg or wherever? How can somebody guarantee that they are in fact on that list? For the 75 and up they've registered, we'll use the same list that they registered on. So we would know who is on the 75 plus list because they've already registered. With the 1A, we already know that because we have a list of people that are waiting to get vaccinations in the 1A category or are eligible and are waiting for a call. We would pull that off the list from that area. And then the homebound, we do have lists of the homebound people and we would coordinate it with EMS and the home health agency to say, let's try to get that vaccine to that person that day instead of a day that they may have scheduled. We have all those lists, Mike, that we use on a daily basis. We use them in order to deliver vaccine to the homebound. We use them to make sure that there are 1A people that need to be vaccinated and we use them for the 75 and up. And how can the homebound be sure that they are in fact on one of your lists and that presumably the list that gets transferred to the local site that something doesn't get lost in the shuffle or anything like that? Yeah, I mean, the primary way we're gonna deliver it to the homebound is through the EMS and the local agencies, whether it's local home health agencies that we have out there, that will be the primary. The secondary would be if there's an extra dose and we would call home health. They will know they're on a list of home health because home health delivers their services to them. The challenge we're gonna have is those people that don't have home health right now and we're trying to develop a list right now of those people that are homebound that don't have those home health agencies working with them right now. But the home health agencies right now don't know who they are and because they deliver services all the time to them. Great, my other question, Secretary French, last month the Highlander reported a federal appeals court said the state of Vermont had clearly discriminated against the South Euro family and others similarly situated by blocking high school juniors and seniors from enrolling in classes at UVM and the state colleges. And the sole reason for the denial was in one day said the student went to Rice and they also apparently denied other religious schools. Just wondering what the state is doing in light of the court's ruling. They gave a preliminary injunction and the judges made it clear that the state appeared to have little hope at trial and ordered the state to allow students similarly situated to be able to get those classes that their parents are paying taxes on. So like your question was, what a further action is the state taking regarding the injunction? To end the discrimination that the judges seem to find in their ruling. Yeah, well the ruling on the injunction isn't the final ruling on it. So it's obviously a topic of some national interest and for our perspective, it is, I'll say from Vermont's perspective, a subject of active litigation. So we'll have to wait to see how the court openly results the issues. But the judges were pretty clear that the state of Vermont had little hope of prevailing in the case. Yeah, I would just say it's still, it hasn't reached its final conclusion in terms of the court process yet. So are students being allowed in and do those classes at UVM and the state colleges? Yeah, the effect of the injunction is that if those districts were presented with a request for dual enrollment, they would process that accordance with the injunction. Thank you very much, have a great weekend. Hello, I believe my questions are going to be for Dr. Levine and for Secretary Smith. I was wondering if you could offer some more details on the, in terms of the update on the situation in Bennington County, specifically to where more testing sites are being added. And I'll also go into some more detail about I believe there was some improvement that was alluded to. Let Dr. Levine answer that first. Yeah, thank you. So in my prepared remarks, I purposely didn't give you the exact site because I don't wanna give a site if we haven't signed sealed and delivered it. That's really within hours or a couple of days of being settled. So we will have announcements to make with regard to that. And then the second part of your question. As to whether you're seeing any positive trends, I've realized that we've been sort of working on this specifically as a focus. You talked about that on Tuesday. You made some, I know this was being some positive trends and wondering what it is you're seeing. Yeah, so the trend we were looking at is really new active cases. And over the last week, there's been a slight, not dramatic, but a slight down tick in that, which is important because Bennington County really on its own looked so much different than the rest of the state of Vermont in terms of the curve of active cases. I will have to provide some caution though, because in the 107 cases we're reporting today, a little under a quarter of them were from Bennington County. So as a percentage of the state's cases, it's still obviously a significant proportion. So, but again, we were seeing a slight down tick, which to me means we should continue to watch that for sure. Not, there's no new outbreak to report there that would dramatically increase the cases. So it again is people acquiring the virus through their daily lives and community transmission. Nothing more to really say on that front at this point in time. All right, you had mentioned something about the ski areas and about ability to work with them. Would that be employee testing or is that gonna be testing of multi-day visitors or single-day visitors to the area? Yeah, so the goal would be that there would be sort of all of the above, so opportunities for employees for sure, opportunities within the community that the area is in as a site and opportunities for those coming for a day to visit the resort to be able to get a PCR test and as they come in, so to speak, and then when that result is available in 24, 48 hours, they get that result. So it would be fairly broad in the audience it covered. Okay, one more southern Vermont question perhaps for Dr. Smith. You talked about being able to get some vaccination of some homebound folks. You left it off of some counties, Bennington County was not included in that and either was Rutland. I'm wondering if that's coming, if you can talk about if that will be coming up soon or what sort of ways you can go in a little more detail about what the process is of getting that population into the vaccine queue. Yeah, I would just say stand by for next week. I anticipate we'll have more to report on those counties and other counties next week. We just wanted to get started as quickly as possible, start today. We had these contracts and the both Home Health and the EMS were ready to go in these areas. So we've allocated the dosages to these individuals, these entities and are moving forward as we as and we'll have more to announce next week. Okay, thank you very much, everybody. Thank you. And I just wanted to add one quick comment to the answer I gave previously because people may be wondering, well, we have all these cases, et cetera. Why do you want to set up more testing? And what you don't know, you don't know. And because of the opportunity for this virus to spread so frequently from people who don't even know they have it and have no major symptoms to others, one of the ways that we work on containment is actually identifying cases and people who wouldn't have thought they have it so that they can quickly protect others around them. So I would urge people in Bendington County as these sites are announced, if you have second thoughts about, well, I don't need to test whatever, you may actually want to get a test because it's part of the strategy of helping the county really reduce the impact of the virus real time. Thank you. Good afternoon, Devinar, 1099 question. It's just to clarify, you're saying that you've, look, it appears that you've found what the error was, the human error was, and we can all imagine how that possibly could have happened in large database or merge files. And that you're looking into the quality control and that was the big question a lot of people had is not that an error could have happened but why wasn't it caught? Is that what the focus going, a lot of the focus going forward is gonna be on? Yeah, the after action will be in what we can do to prevent this from happening in the future and putting these quality control pieces into place. Again, not to make excuses at all but we're dealing with large number of 1099s that we have never done before due to the large amount of unemployment throughout the state due to the pandemic. So we've had to utilize not just labor but the agency digital services as well as the tax department and others in trying to make sure that we get these out. So there's a lot of hands touching this and so it's not the natural type of progression that we've utilized in the past but that is no excuse. We need to make sure that we put these quality control pieces into place and we prevent this from happening in the future. We should have done it beforehand but this one got by us and we need to do better. Well, I assume there are ongoing protocols even a year ago or two years ago that would have been quality control protocols. Is it, they were just messed or I'm just trying to understand how the process. Again, I think that's part of, we've identified what we think happened and again, human error based on, but that's again, no excuse. It's not pinpointing the blame on any one person. It's just that we need these quality control pieces in place. So that's what we hope the auditor will be able to identify. What can we put into place to make sure this doesn't happen in cooperation with us to see what we can do together to make this a more safe process. And so we're looking for the expertise from the auditor and to try and go into this with open eyes and see what we can do again, not to criticize any one department or any one person, but to just make the process work better. And lastly, has Commissioner Harrington's data so role changed at all? It has not, no. He has been at the wheel here. We've sent in help assistance. We named a deputy commissioner as well to put these teams into place to assist in trying to get through this. And again, no, nothing has changed. We still have faith in his ability and we need to focus on the problem at hand and get through this and fix it now and we'll contemplate other actions later on depending on what we find. All right, great, thank you very much. Thank you, Rebecca. I assume this question is for Secretary Smith. I'm wondering how many of them honors who are not in the 1A group and who are also not 75 or over have received the COVID vaccine? Secretary Smith. In an ideal world to be none, but let's be realistic, there probably are people out here out there that have received it. I don't know what the number is, Peter, but I can tell you that I firmly believe the majority of people who have received the vaccine qualify to receive the vaccine. I can't assure you that it's 100%, but those that qualify, I think, the vast majority of those that qualify have received the vaccine. I know that doesn't answer your question precisely, but I don't have a precise answer to that. Really, but you've been able to quantify for us the number of folks in the 1A category, the number of people 75 and over, the number of people in long-term care facilities. So presumably there's some kind of accounting process whereby you're calculating which group people are in when they get the vaccine. Is the state also keeping track of how many people are not in those groups or receiving the vaccine? We presume when people come in to get their 1A vaccine through the hospital administers, the basically the 1A program, we presume that those people that are there are qualified to be in that 1A. I don't know, I'll check, Peter, if there's any sort of statistics that we have on this, but I can tell you that if we've heard differently, we've stepped in before. If there was any inkling that there was going to be vaccination of people that are not 1A, we've stepped in and mentioned that they shouldn't be doing that. But I don't know if I have a number, I will double check. All right, but when you are telling the people that you're administering these at the clinics, use Vermont Common Sense, as you said, to make sure we don't have unnecessary spoilage. And in the interest of achieving that, they give it to somebody who's not one of those 1A or 75 over categories. That goes down in the state's numbers as having gone to somebody who is in 1A or 75 over. In that instance, we will know what that situation is. I just, you asked sort of in the previous phase of 1A, if, and in continuing phase of 1A, that's hospital administered, if we have those numbers, I'm just not sure we do of, because everybody's self, I would hope, are identifying as 1A and are 1A, but I will check on that for numbers. In the clinics, we know precisely who's who, in terms of what person is and why they're given a dose. If they're homebound, if they're 75 plus, or if it's an extra dose that they can't find anybody else to give, I've given instructions not to waste those. I think, Peter, to be, if I had to predict, that's gonna be a very, very, very small percentage of the population that we're vaccinating, because the other day in the major snowstorm that we had, we only had five no-shows, and they were able to not waste dosages from what I can understand during that snowstorm. So it's a very low number. I will try to get some more information on it, but right now I don't have any statistics at hand on that. Thank you, Monk, I appreciate it. Hi, thanks. This question is for Secretary Curley. A business group sent a letter in late January to the agency asking for more predictability so events venues can plan for the warmer weather. They're asking the administration for some possible days for opening based on measures like hitting vaccination targets, transmission rates, room in ICUs, and things like that. They're also asking the administration to make rapid testing available and affordable. And they want the state to create a fast track review process for public event sites that have shown good performance in following the rules. Now, I know the administration was repeatedly asked for predictions like this all through last year, but now that Vermont has a vaccine program and we know more about COVID-19 transmission, is there any way to give businesses any more scope for planning ahead? Again, I'm going to let Secretary Curley answer this, but I just wanted to reiterate some of what we've talked about over the last couple of weeks. There's still the, we don't have a lot of faith in some respects, this has to be proven in terms of the supply. We've been told over the next three weeks we'll get a certain amount. They have expanded upon that, and which is great news for us, but they're not going any further. So it's difficult for us to make any predictions based on not knowing what the supply is going to be. We also know that they're hopefully going to approve the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which would be great news as well. That would help as well as AstraZeneca, but we don't have enough information. And I'm very hesitant myself to give anyone a number or a date that we can't adhere to. So we want to make sure that we're factual when we give dates, and hopefully, we'll be able to in the near future. But looking back for those, I answered a question like this yesterday on Lake Champlain Chamber event. If you look back at where we were last summer, and we had low number of cases, we had practically no deaths over a period of a few months, we were in a much better place then, just because of being outside and people not being inside for different events and so forth, we were able to open up the economy. Knowing that what we experienced then, I believe we'll be back to that again this year, and we'll be able to do more, especially with the vaccine that we have. So I have a great amount of hope that we'll be much closer to normal mid-summer than we have before. But at this point in time, it's just difficult to give that date that they're looking for specifically. But hopefully in the near future, we'll be able to have more faith in the process. And again, the supply coming in to the state from the federal government. Thank you, Secretary Curley. Thank you, Governor. I'm glad you took the really hard part of the question, which is definitely about the predictability of the vaccine. I'll just elaborate and acknowledge that, yes, we did receive a letter, we've actually received several letters, a great deal of feedback and suggestions on a restart plan for events this summer. And as we have done throughout this crisis, the restart team is working really closely with the industry and community leaders to understand their concerns and to try to determine the best path forward. And of course, we all have the same goal, which is to protect the health and safety of Vermonters and balance the need to open up our economy as we navigate, as you suggest, this next phase of the pandemic. That being said, there is a path forward for modified events at this time with a current event guidance in place. Again, that's on our website and we are encouraging event planners to continue to be creative just like they were through the summer and fall and creating experiences that are within the ACCD guidelines. So really, again, if people are planning events now, make sure you're checking our website to consider the possibilities. And again, as things improve, as the governor said, hard to put a specific date on it, but as we continue to open up more broadly, we're excited to bring events back in Vermont and to do it in a safe manner. Okay, thanks. Hello, governor, apartment construction was cut in half in Chittenden County last year because of the pandemic. Well, people are moving here for COVID-related reasons. Seems our affordable housing crisis is even worse than usual. Is there a holistic strategy or solution to Vermont's housing crisis on the table? Well, obviously in my budget address, I addressed a lot of the issues in terms of housing. We put more money to the VACB, about $20 million, as well as some other initiatives that we hope will help with this surplus money that we have available, the one-time money that we have on the bottom line. So again, I believe that we're on a path to help in that regard. We, all the construction companies are open at this point, although they're very, very busy. And that's because of some of the activity with home improvements and so forth throughout the state. So we have to go work hand-in-hand on this and we need more people. We need more workers as well to fill the jobs that we have. So this is complicated, but at the same time, I believe that we have a path forward and we're working again with the legislature as well as within the, with our commissioner of housing and other interested groups. And we think we have a plan that they can work and can really assist in our long-term needs for those needing housing, affordable housing at that. Okay. Also, I'm sorry if this has already been brought up, but could you please explain why Steve Merrill of NKTV has lost his press credentials and are you open to restoring them? Well, sure. Here's from my perspective. We try to provide these press briefings twice a week. As you know, we've had over a hundred of these since the very beginning, to try and give for monitors details on what's happening with COVID. For the most part, we have been able to see the major news networks, the printable papers and as well as those online, we see every day, we may not agree with everything in terms of how you present what we have tried to present, but you're printing it and you're putting it out to members of, to Vermonters. And that's been our goal. And we, after last week on Tuesday, we've never really known what Steve has been doing with the information. He's an interesting character from the Northeast Kingdom. We like to have that perspective, but when we looked back to what he was doing with the information, he wasn't providing news. He wasn't expanding upon that and giving the news out to Vermonters as we had envisioned and had hoped and we had adhered to. And so he was actually using some of the information that we were giving as fodder for an entertainment program that he had. And with the public access. So that's not what we had in mind. And we are asking all the media to, if you're going to call in, if you're gonna ask questions, we respect that, we want that. We haven't been shutting down as we, you know, sometimes these go for two and a half hours. So it's not as though we're trying to limit anybody's access, but we want respect on the other side as well. That you're going to use this information to inform Vermonters. And we just didn't see it in this case. This was for, and I'll use this term loosely. Saw some of what Steve had been doing. And it was just plain entertainment, maybe comedy, but I use that term very loosely. Now, could it be sort of like the John Stewart show though? I mean, that's comedy, but a lot of people look at that or Colbert, I suppose now, look at that as sort of a source of news. So maybe, can you look at that way too? I would not look at it that way. And if Steve, Colbert called in and wanted to ask questions, to use it for fodder on his program, I would probably turn him down as well. So it's just a simple test, you know, this is information. These are media briefings about COVID. And it's not to promote to your entertainment program that you might have. Thank you. Hi, I had a question. We're seeing reports. There was one of the New York Times about so-called vaccine hunters crossing state lines. They say that there's some groups that are even spreading the word on social media. I was just wondering if this is something Governor Scott and Dr. Levine, if you consider this to be sort of a problem of sorts and the ethical dilemma of whether or not to turn them away, you know, given Vermont is kind of a state surrounded by people with higher population centers, maybe having to wait longer over there to get the vaccine. How is this being approached? Well, again, from our perspective, we're only vaccinating Vermonters at this point. So that's all. I mean, we, I'm aware of this. I've read some of the reports, but we're requiring them to be Vermonters. So again, doesn't mean that someone isn't getting in. That's not appropriate, but that's our test. Dr. Levine? Yeah, we haven't, yeah. And again, I don't believe we have found any of those cases here in Vermont. Good morning. In the light of what the governor just said about what kind of questions you want here, I have really two questions. One is for Mike Smith about healthcare reform. It's not really directly connected to the virus. I have a secondary question for Mark Levine, which is a sort of a clarity question. So if you wanna do it, my main question is for Mike Smith and do you want that question, sir? Sure. Secretary Smith. My question, Secretary Smith is this. Healthcare reform has been going on here for 10 years, but just in the last three or four days, the last few days, there's been a, well, I consider in any way to be a striking development, which is the decision by the Attorney General to sue OneCare Vermont on behalf of the auditor to get some information on OneCare salaries. OneCare Vermont has pledged to fight this suit. And what I'm curious about is it's just my opinion. I write all the time about healthcare reform. It's just my opinion that this is a striking development. And I wonder if I could ask you if you would assess, if we could get your views about what you think of this suit, what you think of how you assess it if you do. And also if you would say how you think it will affect the whole healthcare reform process, especially given your wish to reboot OneCare. Well, thanks, Ham. There's a lot in there. Let me sort of distill that down into sort of three points. First off, this is a squabble between the auditor's office and OneCare Vermont. We're going to stay out of this. This is between those two entities. The agency or DEVA doesn't need to be involved. From DEVA's perspective, and DEVA is the Department of Vermont Health Access, which is a department within the agency, our contract with OneCare from our perspective gives us access to OneCare's financial and accounting records as they relate to OneCare's ability to perform under the contract. We also have metrics in that contract to evaluate quality and performance standards. So from that aspect and a transparency aspect of that contract, we're fairly satisfied with the transparency aspect of it. I do want to say one other thing. About a year ago, I pushed for release of the salaries of those at the higher level of OneCare. I asked them to produce a 990-like disclosure, which as you know, if you're a nonprofit, they aren't right now, but I want them to act like a nonprofit that you list the salaries of the executives of that agency. I didn't ask what the auditor is asking for, which is the salaries of people like the receptionist, maybe an executive assistant and others. I asked for the top salary of those individuals. OneCare did submit that information. I also asked OneCare if they would file with the IRS as a nonprofit, which they have, they have to be approved by the IRS, that hasn't been done yet in order to file as a nonprofit. In terms of the overall sort of administrative expense of OneCare, as many people may think it's in my purview, it isn't, it's with the Green Mountain Care Board. If they want to see those salaries, they can also ask to see those salaries. But from my point of view, for the execution of the contract that we have with the ACO, we have enough looksie into their financials to make us feel comfortable. And I'm just gonna not allow the agency. We've got a lot going on with COVID and a lot going on with a lot of other things. We're gonna leave this between the auditor and OneCare. Thank you very much. I think that, you may not have think that that was helpful, but I did. If I have one more question, a small question for Dr. Levine, but I've used up my time. So if you want to take it, otherwise I'm done. For Dr. Levine, Dr. Levine, you dealt earlier in the program with some of the questions that are coming out of the variant issue and its connection with the vaccine program. I understand about the transmissibility question. I understand that pretty clearly, but what I'm not hearing much about it and I have not been able to see much on the web is the direct question, not a transmissibility, but the question of the extent to which the two main vaccines, Moderna and Pfizer, okay, what information do you sum up with the known information about the ability of the two main vaccines in the field today, okay, to cope with variant, the variants? Yeah, so this is evolving information. So I'll take nothing that I say as certain because obviously all around the world, people are investigating this constantly, but the two available vaccines in this country, Moderna and Pfizer, seem to be effective against the B117 variant. I can't put a number to that yet in terms of the level of effectiveness, but certainly people have been reassured if nothing else by some of the early data showing some efficacy against that variant. The South Africa variant is one that is concerning, fortunately not one that we've seen in this country much, a couple of cases in the South, and I haven't heard any since, so we'll have to see how that one plays out, but that is still a concern. The problem in the variant game is that, the virus has really international penetration now and around the world, you do see different strains of the virus, and that's how some of the reinfection data came about. When we wondered if you could get coronavirus again, we found cases where they had one strain, recovered, and then four months later, came down with another illness that was like COVID, and it turned out they had another strain of the virus. They had a less severe course, so some of their residual immunity was obviously impacting favorably. So it's a really complicated game when you start talking about variants because you're talking about a virus that tends to mutate and it will show the impact of the mutation even more when it is at such a worldwide prevalence as it is now and in many settings, frankly, not well controlled at all. So again, getting the level of control down right now before any of the variants really take hold is really a core part of everybody's strategy so we can do as much suppression of transmission of virus as possible. Thank you very much for that. Just one tiny follow-up. Is your system that you've set up in the state of Vermont, are you ready to capture the current vaccines that are out there, if any of the people that have been vaccinated are getting COVID in spite of the vaccine? Not transmissibility, but whether the person that's been vaccinated gets COVID. Yeah, so basically, is there a failure rate to the vaccine that we're going to start seeing? Yes, exactly. So that is a core part of the interview of any case now that we have vaccine. I can't tell you there's more than a very small number of people who have said that they had the vaccine, but often it's during the time course that they're getting the vaccine and they wouldn't have had a chance to get fully immune. We've even seen people within a few days of getting the vaccine get a case of COVID and the most likely response there is they already were incubating it from before and it just so happens they got the vaccine a couple of days earlier. So we are looking for that and we will know about it because everybody who becomes a case that is a question that we'll be seeking out. Thank you very much. Yes, good afternoon. A couple of quick questions. I understand that people with chronic conditions might be eligible to be pushed on top of the list to receive the vaccine, but who makes that call and if somebody has a chronic condition, who should they contact? Is there a PCP or specialist? And we're also wondering what our secretary of French plans to discuss when he plans to meet with music educators on Tuesday and if he can give us kind of an insight on what that will look like and when students participating in finals might be able to go back to normal activities. Yeah, just to be clear, Chris, at this point in time unless you're 75 and older, even if you have a chronic condition that you can't put on the list now, that's another phase after we get through the age banding 65 and over and that'll be the next phase we go into. Commissioner Levine. And I certainly haven't given permission or authorized anybody who was not in the 75-older age band to get vaccinated. So if that was sort of the theme behind your question from what you'd heard, we certainly, unfortunately, have had to give a lot of bad news to people and haven't been able to help them out in the way they'd like to be helped. When you mention their physicians, so there is a list of the conditions that we've talked about here and is on the website as well and that is the list at this point in time. It doesn't mean it doesn't have the opportunity to evolve and there are several conditions we're looking into more actively and working with the CDC with as well in our own implementation advisory group. We haven't yet come out with how a person with those conditions makes that known and goes on the registration site because that's several bands away and we're actually having active discussions within our own vaccine task team about how to make that happen logistically. It's not an urgent matter on February 5th so we don't have it settled quite yet, but we will and we do want to make sure we respect the health care workforce and not ask too much of them in terms of attesting to every aspect of a person's care and trying to get them moved into a list or above a list or what have you. Does that answer those questions before I turn it over to Secretary French? Hey guys, thank you very much. I'm sorry for my misunderstanding. Thanks for your question, Steve. In terms of music, again, it's probably been one of the more challenging areas for us to develop guidance in. We have met on and off since August with music teachers and our medical folks including our infectious disease experts. Before the holidays, we had a meeting in the group and then followed up with an internal meeting and we, in that meeting, I looked specifically at guidance from Connecticut as sort of a prototype, just as a way to better understand what were some of the concerns from a public health perspective. So this meeting that we're going to have on the 9th is kind of a follow-up for that. I've asked the Music Teachers Association if they would be interested in doing sort of a surveillance inventory, if you will, of the other music guidance in New England and to a certain extent nationally. And they have done that actually. They shared it with me right around the beginning of the press conference. So we're going to take a look at how other states are approaching this issue and what the conversation looks like at the national level. We'll have a few national people in on the conversation as well. So the goal is to just really sort of understand what would model guidance look like and then we'll take that internally and see if we can map that out on an implementation timeline in front relative to the conditions of the virus in Vermont. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you, Chris. Hello. Good afternoon. Thank you very much. I'm wondering if the state is thinking about utilizing dentists, veterinarians, or other individuals with vaccine training to speed up distribution here in Vermont? Again, to speed it up, we have all the staff we need at this point with the supply we're receiving, but if we were to ramp up, I think a lot of those situations are being considered. Dr. Levine? That's exactly correct. I'll just add one sentence. We've received a number of inquiries just like the ones you mentioned, and we're very much appreciative of that and we would love to have 100,000 doses a day to deliver to the population so we could use everybody and all hands on deck. But we do have a medical reserve corps and we've instructed a lot of people to have their names in there. Some have already been taken from the medical reserve corps to participate in this effort, so stay tuned in terms of doses allocated and opportunities that we have to further enlist the aids of groups like the ones you mentioned. Okay, great. Thank you very much. Hello. You all mentioned the Super Bowl earlier in the press conference and gatherings that could arise from that. Maybe this period of time is kind of the last hurdle we need to get through before you really start considering opening up some of the gathering restrictions? Yeah, I don't know if it's the last hurdle. We still have President's Day weekend. We have the Daytona 500. There's always events almost every week that give us a little bit of concern. So I think getting through the winter is key because of, you know, we're inside more confined spaces and so forth. Once we can get out and get into the spring and we can get outside, I think that will alleviate a lot of concern. Dr. Levine, anything to add? Does that answer the question, Avery? It did. Thank you. The kind of task force or panel that was advising you on school issues recommended the reopening of school sports games and any of the infectious disease experts about any concerns about transmission during the competition? I didn't really get all that, but Secretary Moore, did you get the flavor of that? So we do have a working group comprised of representatives from the the VPA, Superintendents Association, Principles Association as well as a couple of the infectious disease, pediatric infectious disease experts from UVM, and we've continued to consult with them throughout the process. In addition to that, we combined their input and feedback with evaluation that's being done by staff within the health department in particular, looking at cases and case levels. I think it's accurate to say that everyone has concerns that there is some amount of risk associated with taking these next steps with sports. And that's why it is so important that Vermont players and coaches and parents continue to observe all of those safety protocols. It's not a sure thing that we'll be able to prevent all disease transmission while playing sports, but at this point we felt like it was a reasonable risk to take. So would it be accurate to say that the experts on the task force endorse this policy? We don't, I guess I don't feel like I'm in a position to represent their position. It's more of a discussion in working group. We don't vote or anything where I'd be able to characterize that. I do think it's fair to say that folks had concerns that were expressed and shared with the team and certainly discussed. Okay, thank you. Yes, thank you. Good afternoon. A couple of quick ones for Secretary Smith. First, the Beecher Falls clinic that you said was added. Do you have any of the details about that in terms of a dose allocation and who's running it? I don't, Andrew, but I'll get it to you in terms of what is going on. That was just added because we as you pointed out last time we thought there was some exposure in the north that we needed to make sure that we had a vaccination clinic there. I think the word exposure is not the right word. The word is we had a gap in our vaccination system that we thought would be filled by putting in a site at Beecher Falls, but I'll let you know as soon as I get the information. Okay, thank you. And while you're at the podium on the homebound initiative you described earlier, when do you expect the home health and the EMS agencies to begin their outreach to clients and when will doses start being delivered with these first few groups? Yeah, they're being delivered today and I think you'll start seeing vaccinations within the starting today, but mostly starting next week and then we'll add on these other organizations, home health organizations and EMS later on as well. Okay, so the doses have already been allocated to the local partners? Yeah, they have. And in some cases already delivered at the homebound? Yeah, let me just make sure I'm clear on that. Andrew, the doses have been delivered or are being delivered to the entities. Either they're on their way or they have been delivered to these various entities that I described. They are scheduled to start today and I don't know if those vaccinations have actually started yet but they're scheduled to start. Okay. And when they are scheduling with clients does the same age banding restrictions apply? Yes. A 72 year old person is homebound do they have to wait? Yeah, they will have to wait. We're doing it by age. Thank you. And just so everybody knows because I usually repeat it but I haven't today. We've started with the 75 plus then we'll move to the 70 plus then we'll move to 65 plus and then we'll move 64 to 16 with underlying health conditions as we move forward. That's sort of the band approach we're taking. I would assume as the governor said in the next few weeks you'll start hearing about our move to 70 plus. Good afternoon everyone. It's really encouraging to learn today that the state's able to begin loosening restrictions on youth competitive indoor sports activities which are really essential to physical and mental health of our kids but my question is about adult indoor recreational activities such as bowling league indoor tennis competitions adult hockey etc which are equally important to the mental health and physical fitness of our adults. So my question is it's a decision about opening up those opportunities based on some of the same parameters as there being applied to multi household gatherings such as the Super Bowl. Secretary Moore. Thank you for that question. So there are some opportunities for adults to participate particularly in group instruction classes things like pilates yoga etc spinning classes that fall under section 8.1 of the ACCD guidance. So I just want to make sure it's clear that there are opportunities for adults to continue to access physical fitness activities indoors during the winter because we very much agree with your assessment about the important mental health benefits of those activities. In terms of adults sports this is probably the next step we're going to be looking at but this is as the governor described in his opening part of the going slow and taking a measured cautious approach. We know that it was most important or greatest importance to return youth athletes to play and have taken steps to do that and we'll be looking next to create opportunities for adult athletes. Certainly as the opportunities to play outside grow and expand as we get closer to spring the intention would be to make those available, broadly available to as many Vermonters as possible as outdoor recreation activities like skiing are right now. Thank you very much. And then I have a second question for the governor. What do you feel are the most critical components you'd like to see come out of the next stimulus aid package from Washington? It seems like that's particularly increasingly imminent given the senate action overnight in the first steps in moving forward President Biden's 1.9 trillion dollar aid package. What are you looking for for relief in the state level? Again, relief for individuals, individual families and so forth. I think that's an initiative that we can all agree to. Unemployment, making sure there's enough care for those who are impacted. Relief grants of some sort for businesses that are suffering, especially in the hospitality sector, which we know have been greatly affected by this the last 11 months. And from there there are a number of initiatives that we'd like to see move forward but I'd say those are the top tier. Thank you very much. I have a question for the governor. I understand you may not be putting forth a plan to address the state's pension obligation but I'm wondering if your office is an active conversation with lawmakers about it and if so how those conversations are going? Well again, I have been saying for the last four years that we need to do something. We've been talking about this for quite some time. I'm encouraged that the Governor, Treasurer Pierce, has moved forward with a plan. I think it's incumbent upon all of us to work on that plan. We don't have to come up with our own. We're an active participant. We'll be at the table and a willing partner. But the legislature has to be involved too. So again there's equal opportunity for all of us to get involved because what we're seeing right now with a multi-billion dollar variable. And so I think we recognize that and again we want to do whatever we can to assist Treasurer Pierce in her plan and try to come together. Okay, thank you. WCAS? Hi, are you able to hear me this time? We can. Great. Alright, so this one is for Secretary Smith or Dr. Levine. I had a family reach out to me. Their eight-year-old daughter is a brain cancer patient. Because of her young age she was able to receive the vaccine when the individual 16 plus with compromising conditions like cancer can get their shot. For parents they're concerned that if one of them gets sick with COVID it would impact their ability to get their child through her weekly treatment. I know that they aren't the only family in Vermont with a child who is in a similar situation. So is the state considering any provisions that would allow the parents of immunocompromised pediatric patients to get vaccinated earlier? That's a not uncommonly asked question. Whether the child have cancer or any other disease or require more chronic care due to some congenital or developmental disability, etc. There are also abundant adults who are on immunosuppressive medications or believe their conditions suppress their immune system and the requests are as your final phrase implied rather abundant. So we would be actually jumping a lot of people in that category ahead of the people in the 75 and older not to mention 70 or 65. So again we're trying to really be adherent to our philosophy and our policy of preventing deaths and looking at the most vulnerable populations that could have that as an outcome and vaccinate them first. I know it sounds harsh it's challenging it's heartbreaking to be honest at times and I would love to see more vaccines so we can make these decisions on the basis of having an abundance rather than a scarcity of that resource but that is my answer. To clarify I don't think they were asking to go ahead of the seniors I think they were wondering if parents of immunocompromised patients with a vaccine might be considered because of their age only might be considered as part of a group following the vulnerable individuals or something like that. Right so the answer at this point in time is no but as you know we haven't announced any further phases beyond the groups that we've already talked about so there's a lot of possibilities in the future but let's get the broadest follow-up I have where do we stand with youth under the age of 16 being able to get vaccinated? Has the CDC given any indication of when some of those trials on kids might be wrapped up enough to give a green light for the younger than 16 groups? Yeah so some of the platforms that we don't have all the data in on yet have had more pediatric enrollment in their studies and of course those vaccines aren't yet available so we can't say much more than that but I am pretty clear and I have very little doubt that there will be a vaccine at some point that can be given to those under 16. I don't know if it will be the two that we're using now just because I'm not familiar with the ongoing studies they're doing if they're looking at the pediatric age range specifically but I'm quite confident that there will be a vaccine possibly in a platform we haven't yet seen approved here for pediatrics but I don't have a timeline for you it's certainly not immediate that's for sure. Thank you. Thank you Rebecca. Thanks for your patience Governor. I'm hoping that somebody can fill us in on what the health department is seeing as a cause for a rise in cases in Franklin County what kind of outbreaks have you seen in the county and specifically and hearing about outbreaks in Richford and an outbreak related to a paper mill what can you do to fill us in on some of that information? Yeah it is an interesting dilemma in some respects we were looking at that the other night but Dr. Levine I wish I could shed tremendous light on the question you have as you know there have been some long term care facilities in Franklin County those seem to be cooling off at this point in time and not contributing abundant cases there are also a few work sites and I'm pretty confident the majority of them have had a handful certainly under a half a dozen cases so if they technically fit the definition of outbreak they're not an outbreak on the scale of the central Vermont ice hockey outbreak sort so I don't really have a smoking gun to give you with regards to something I will go back to the team this afternoon and see if they have any other insight into that and report back but I'm not seeing large outbreaks that are going to help guide you if that means anything I appreciate that I'd appreciate that follow up info at some point and the other follow up I have I understand I wasn't able to listen to the first half I understand that you're starting sports in about a week I'm hearing from some very frustrated music teachers drama teachers people in the performing arts that students that use that as their outlet are being overlooked sports have at least been given the green light leading up to now to practice and play within their school why is it that the state has given more of a green light to sports again and still not done anything with performing arts I'm going to let secretary French handle most of that but he did have a commentary not too many minutes ago about music specifically and where we're headed on that in terms of the future guidance and discussions but I'll let him elaborate further could you repeat part of the question I missed it I'm just wondering why the state chose to continue to open up sports before at least making one initial step to open up kind of the performing arts music drama stuff like that hearing a lot from people in those communities that are frustrated seeing their student athletes at least being given different segments of opening and feeling that their own programs aren't being given anything it's a fair question we do get that question quite often basically the answer is we look at each activity the students are involved in separately and evaluate them separately for risk relative to COVID even among sports we break sports down into different sports and some sports are more comfortable than others so it's not necessarily a question of authorizing one thing and making sure the others are authorized we do look at each activity very discreetly and music as I mentioned has been more challenging I think most challenging area we've had for a number of reasons and part of it is just the fact that the aspiration in a closed space particularly as we've moved inside we acknowledge that all these activities are critical for the health of our students particularly as we contemplate moving into sort of a recovery phase we definitely want to see if we can find a path forward in music and the arts it's such a critical element of our students' well-being and the vibrancy of our school communities is there any sort of scientific data that would show that somebody playing the trumpet produces more aerosolized infection than somebody running up and down a basketball court next to somebody else who's guarding them I'm not sure about the comparison from a trumpet to basketball per se but there's a lot of analysis that's caught on looking at specific instruments in particular and different performing arts activities the challenge with some of the research is that it's in a very controlled environment in a laboratory if you will and that doesn't necessarily represent the real world experience of a music room or an ensemble space so we do look at that information but ultimately we have to make an assessment based on the real world conditions of our schools and how the how the activities would actually be implemented I appreciate it thank you and again thank you Governor for and Brittany for coming back around to me I know I wasn't available earlier so I appreciate it thank you go ahead Andrew hi I guess this is a question for Secretary Smith there's a new vaccine clinic opening up today in Manchester at Burn Burton Academy it'll be open my understanding is for the next for today and the next three Fridays through through February I guess I was just wondering if there were any plans to continue to have a vaccine clinic option available up at this end of Bennington County in addition to the main one being done at the SVMC at the former Southern Vermont College gymnasium and I guess what would be the metrics that would determine that the number of registrations or would there be another another metric you would use I'll refer to Secretary Smith I'm not sure that he knows about the one at Burn Burton at this point thanks Andrew you're surprising me and I've told my team never allow reporters to surprise me on this I I'm not sure on the Burr and Burton but we are what we're doing is putting in place a pretty pretty elaborate system in terms of vaccination sites and we're trying to do sort of mimic what we did with testing that you're no further than 30 minutes away from any sort of vaccination site in this state and what what we do is put into place you have Southern Southern Vermont Medical Center obviously and I guess Burn Burton the situation we do is look every week at where we see gaps and if we see any gaps that we need to fill we will fill them and and Bennington County is no different so we will look at Bennington County in the same way that we look at every county and we do that evaluation usually in the first part of the week okay thank you very much I do have a follow-up question well not really a follow-up but another question for Dr. Levine if I could squeeze it in this is a question that came in from one of our viewers and it's a question about the number of times a specimen goes through a cycle of analysis to determine whether or not a person tests positive or negative for coronavirus on a PCR test my understanding is that the World Health Organization originally had a standard of 45 cycles that a specimen would have to be run through to detect a virus but they've lowered that number the question was when someone tests positive for COVID-19 why can't that positive result come with a number that signifies how many cycles it took before they detected the virus and I hope I'm expressing that clearly and you are in a way that's understandable so I feel like Steve is in the room today because we're talking about cycle thresholds CT values and when you look at the emergency use authorization that the FDA is given to all of the PCR tests this is considered to be a qualitative test not a quantitative test so the result is you either show COVID-19 COVID-19 virus activity or you don't and there are so many variables that go into the cycle threshold some of them technical at the level of the lab some of them technical at the level of getting the specimen from the patient and many others that it's not considered to be reliable to use it in a quantitative fashion so the goal of all of our testing right now is find people who are symptomatic let them know if they had the disease or not and find people who are asymptomatic and let them know if they're harboring the disease or not so that good outcomes can occur on a population-wide basis so it's a little less relevant if you will to know the quantitative nature of how many cycles did it go through it's much more important to be able to act on the information that virus was detected now I know there are shortcomings to that which we won't have to go into today in terms of the arguments for and against but it's only authorized as a qualitative test not to be used in this quantitative fashion I see okay thank you very much I appreciate your answer well that's it thank you for your patience and we'll see you again on Tuesday