 Well, good afternoon everyone, and I hope everyone enjoyed their 4th of July weekend. I was in Colchester on Sunday with Senator Mazza for their 4th of July parade. I had him in the sidecar of one of my motorcycles, and it was great to see so many people out having fun and together once again. It made me reflect on all we had been through over the last 16 months and what Vermonters have done to do this where we are today. Like everyone, I've looked forward to normal and a much more normal future. If you weren't able to get to a parade this weekend, you still have another opportunity because this Saturday is Waterbury's not quite Independence Day parade, which is always a good time. They usually have it before the 4th, but this year they decided to have it after the 4th, so you still have an opportunity there. Next, we finished our Governor's Call with the White House, and here's what we heard. Dr. Fauci kicked it off discussing the Delta variant, which now makes up about half of the cases in the U.S. It doubles every single week. He reiterated that the vaccines are showing to be effective against this variant based on what we're seeing here and in places like the U.K. and Israel. They also talked about their strategy to reach remaining Americans who aren't yet vaccinated, which sounded exactly like the strategy we used over the last few months, which is good news if they follow that playbook. Next, as you'll see in Commissioner Pichak's report, even after being fully open for three weeks now, we're still seeing very low transmission in Vermont. This is even as other places around the world and other states are seeing rising cases because of the Delta variant. But again, that's because the vaccines work, and the spread we're seeing is largely among those who are unvaccinated, which is why it's so important for us to continue vaccinating as many people as we possibly can. Being the most vaccinated state in the country has built up a line of defense for Vermont, but as we've said, we're not resting on our laurels. There's still time to protect yourself. If you haven't done so yet, there's still a shot waiting for you. It's never too late. And Secretary Smith will go over all the places you can walk right into this week. So at this point, I'll turn it over to Commissioner Pichak. Thank you very much, Governor, and good afternoon, everyone. We're now three weeks out from reaching our 80% goal, and we see that Vermonters are continuing to step up and get vaccinated. Since last Tuesday, we added 2,500 Vermonters to the vaccination rules, bringing the eligible number of Vermonters who are not yet vaccinated down to about 97,000. Also note that this 2,500 number is with only six days worth of data because the CDC did not report yesterday in honor of the July 4th holiday. Taking a look at our vaccine scorecard, you see that we continue to lead the country in all of the vaccine categories that we have been tracking recently with the percent of eligible Vermonters who have started vaccination now up to 82.4%. As the Governor mentioned, our case counts remain very low here in Vermont, with 26 straight days of new daily cases being in the single digits, and our seven-day average decreasing 22% down to four cases per day on average. Looking back at the month of June, we see that Vermont reported 190 cases for the month, one of the lowest monthly totals to date, and the decrease that we saw from May to June ended up being the largest month over month decrease since the pandemic began. And we also know this large decrease is driven by the high uptake in the vaccine. And we're also seeing the effectiveness of the vaccine by how few outbreak-related cases we're currently seeing across the state. For example, last June, Vermont saw a relatively similar low case count for the month, reporting 228 cases. However, 121 of those cases were connected to an outbreak. This June, only four of our 190 reported cases were connected to an outbreak. So we can see that cases really have nowhere to go in Vermont when they do turn up due to our high vaccination rate and the high vaccination rate of when people are interacting with each other. You know, they're more likely or not interacting with people who are fully vaccinated. Looking at the median age of cases, we see that this has dropped sharply over the last week. We did not report a single case over the age of 70 this week, moving our average or median age back down into that 30-year-old range. Taking a look at the most recent case forecast, we see that Vermont continues to closely follow the expected trend. And we continue to anticipate very low case counts into the month of August. Vermont's hospitalization rates remain low, and we've seen that the numbers that were gradually rising are starting to retreat. And Vermont continues to have the fewest number of hospitalizations in the country on a per capita basis. And again, just like the case counts, we anticipate these numbers to remain low and again to even improve in the weeks ahead. Unfortunately, we did report three deaths in the month of June. But the fatality rate does remain very low, and we're forecasting for the month of July that we'll have three or fewer deaths, so basically no worse than we saw in June based on the case forecast and the hospitalization rates. Taking a broader look at the state of the virus in the U.S., we continue to see regional differences across the country, driven by differing vaccination rates. The Northeast continues to be the most vaccinated region in the country, and as a result, we are seeing the fewest number of cases here. The other regions not only have higher case loads, but they're also seeing a slight uptick in their cases as well. Looking at the U.S. map, we can see where cases are increasing. They continue to increase in parts of the Midwest led by Missouri, parts of the South, led by Florida and Arkansas, and the West led by Utah and Nevada and some other states. And we know that these cases are really fueled, as the governor said, by low vaccination rates and an increase in the more transmissible Delta variant. We can also see that states that are less vaccinated are seeing more hospitalizations and more fatalities as well. Currently, the fatality rate is three times greater in states where less than 50% of their population has started vaccination compared to those states where 60% or more have started their vaccination. So, again, a good reason for those in Vermont who are in that 97,000 group to continue to go out and get vaccinated to protect yourself. Taking a look at the Northeast, many of the states in our region did not report over the 4th of July weekend. So the weekly totals that we show here are an estimate, but it does seem like cases will remain very low this week, with about 4,400 reported. But this will be about a 7.5% increase from last week due largely to some higher case counts in New York state. So this will be something that we'll certainly keep an eye on in the weeks ahead. And finally, looking to our north, we see that trends in Canada continue to be very favorable. 68.7% of all Canadians have started vaccination with 36.5% now fully vaccinated. And their cases, hospitalizations, and fatality rates are continuing to trend down as well. So at this time, I'll turn it over to Secretary Smith. Thank you, Commissioner Pichek. Good afternoon, everyone. Today, I'll start off with an update of our progress with the vaccination program, as well as announce the locations of this week's pop-up vaccine clinics. Obviously, we have had great success with our vaccine strategy. I want to thank Vermonters for all they have done to make our vaccine program so successful. We are number one in the country, as Commissioner Pichek has pointed out, in just about every vaccine category tracked by the CDC. And we are one of the best in the world. As of this morning, 82.4% of eligible Vermonters, 12 years old, and above have received at least one dose of the vaccine. We continue to see Vermonters stepping up to get vaccinated. Moving on to the many convenient opportunities to get vaccinated, you can walk in at pharmacies, call your local pharmacist, or just visit ACVS, Hannaford Food and Drug, Walmart, Walgreens, PriceChopper Slash, Market32, Rite Aid, Shaw's Supermarket, or Costco to get vaccinated. The following clinics are on the same schedule as the previous weeks, the University of Vermont Medical Center locations, at the pharmacies on the UVM main campus, the Fannie Allen campus and South Prospect Street, as well as weekdays at the community health centers of Burlington and Northwestern Medical Center Urgent Care Clinic, and daily at Southwestern Vermont Medical Center Express Care. Here's where you can find the pop-up clinics this week today, Tuesday night live in Johnson, at the FQHC in Springfield, the Sheldon Food Shelf, the Chester American Legion, tomorrow, July 7th, Westgate Housing, Vermont Department of Labor in Burlington, again the FQHC in Springfield, North Country Hospital in Newport, and on Thursday, Northeastern Vermont Regional Hospital in St. Johnsbury, Courier Park in Berry, St. Albans District Health Office, Bolton Valley Resort on their Music on the Lawn series, and the Wilmington Flea Market on Friday, Rochester Public Library, Red Hen Baking, Music on the Green series in Middlesex, and Cabot Creamery in Cabot. On Saturday, the Montgomery Historical Society, that's where the Montgomery Farmers Market is, the Town of Eaton at 71 Old School House Road, the Town of Belvedere at Belvedere Central School, Waterbury Ambulance, Roosevelt Park in Burlington, and the Not Quite Independence Day Parade in Waterbury. Although more than 82% of the eligible population has had at least one dose of vaccine, and again, it is the best rate in the nation and frankly, among the best in the world, we are committed to continuing an ongoing and sustainable vaccine program. As always, we are striving to reach more people and encourage everyone to step up and get a vaccine. In terms of our strategy, I previewed some of the information last week. Our vaccine efforts are multi-pronged. First, vaccines will continue to be available at highly visible events and locations where people congregate. For example, we will offer vaccines at many fairgrounds during fair season. As we look at these locations, we will target areas with less uptake of the vaccine. With expansion to additional age groups, this will also include schools later in the year. Second, our planned COVID resource centers that offer both testing and vaccine services are coming online and will be available across the state. Finally, at the point of care, pharmacies across the state are all participating in vaccinations and more primary care offices are offering vaccinations. Many practices began administering over the last couple of weeks, including more than half of the hospital-associated practices. By the end of last week, more than 67 of the 174 primary care practices were administering vaccine. We anticipate this number will continue to rise. Over 75% of hospital-associated practices and over 65% of independent primary care practices are now enrolled, indicating their planned participation. In early July, we will begin to enroll other types of practices, such as urgent care. The bottom line is this. We have a robust program, and I urge all eligible Vermonters to step up and get vaccinated. It's never been easier or more important. Thank you. I'll now turn it over to Dr. Levine for a health update. Thank you. Likewise, I hope you all enjoyed your holiday weekend. I'd like to start by addressing briefly people who have gotten the Johnson & Johnson vaccine since questions have been raised about its effectiveness lately. All the vaccines we're using in the United States are highly effective. That includes J&J. So if you are fully vaccinated, you are protected, including from the variants currently circulating in the country, such as Delta, which is, of course, becoming the more predominant variant over time. And since we have such high vaccination rates in Vermont, our level of protection is even higher. So if you got the Johnson & Johnson vaccine and you're in Vermont, you are well protected. There have been questions raised about whether receiving a booster shot could provide more protection, but there's no data currently on how the Johnson & Johnson vaccine specifically would work with the other vaccines. We will eagerly await this data, monitor the CDC's recommendations, and share any new guidance as soon as it is available. Thank you for these questions and for continuing to think about how to make sure you're protected from COVID. On another topic, I also wanted to mention our progress in getting COVID-19 vaccine to more primary care settings. And repeat what you just heard from Secretary Smith. We've now enrolled over 75% of hospital-associated practices and two-thirds of independent primary care practices. Why is this important? This is important because studies have shown that a doctor's strong recommendation is closely correlated with vaccination. And some people who have not yet been vaccinated say they would be more likely to do so if the vaccine were offered to them during a routine medical visit. I wanna thank our healthcare providers for taking on this important role. Your trusted relationships with your patients will continue to help us protect as many Vermonters as we can through vaccination. And for Vermonters who still have questions or concerns about the vaccine, please reach out to your doctor and know that when you're ready to be vaccinated, they may have it ready for you right then and there. I'd also like to share another reminder, even though our case rates, as you've seen, remain extremely low, if you are unvaccinated and have any symptoms of COVID or any respiratory illness, we are still testing. There are a variety of testing options available to you. Your healthcare provider, pharmacies, health department testing sites, you can make an appointment or just walk in. You heard about our transition to the COVID resource centers as well. Testing remains free to all and many sites now let you take your own sample using a short swab in your nose. You can go to healthvermont.gov slash testing to find a site near you. Vermonters and the nation have recently witnessed what is probably the most successful population-wide vaccination campaign in the nation's history. Our success with vaccination here in Vermont has made our state the safest place to be in the country and arguably in the world. We in public health and those in the governor's and secretary's office are getting phone calls and correspondence locally, nationally and internationally, asking us for the secret of our success and for advice with many considering how to modify their own programs. Yet even with our success, we are concerned about that last less than 18% of eligible Vermonters who have yet to be vaccinated. First of all, this is no longer about herd immunity and we know that from the science and the current case counts and statistics, but it is about sincerely wanting the best health for those unvaccinated persons. Even though nationally, under 50% of the eligible population remains unvaccinated, 99% of the deaths from COVID now are among people who were not vaccinated. So the choice is not really between getting vaccinated or not. It's between getting vaccinated and taking the chance of getting COVID with the possibility of death, hospitalizations or long haul COVID symptoms, especially with the highly transmissible Delta variant, which in the UK has been associated with worse outcomes. And the majority of future cases of COVID in Vermont will be in groups of unvaccinated people. So who are these Vermonters? We suspect from survey data that well under 5% of adults are truly vaccine resistors or vaccine skeptics. We believe the remainder are still in the wait and see or concerned about missing work or just failing to prioritize getting the vaccine categories. So our current strategies, as you've heard several times continue and slowly but surely we're seeing more people vaccinated every day. All of us have a part to play in reaching those who have yet to be vaccinated. We understand from stories and experience the influence that friends and family can have. So I will leave you this afternoon with the same request they gave those at a recent AARP meeting that the governor and I were at. If you are a parent or a grandparent of someone who is not vaccinated who statistically fall usually in the 18 to 40 age range have a conversation with them. But don't take your role as having to convince them. Your role is to find out for what is the reason that they remain unvaccinated and listen in an empathetic and non-judgmental way. See if they're relying on reliable sources of information. You can ask open-ended questions, ask whether you can share what you consider to be more reliable sources of information with them or see if they've talked to a healthcare provider about any concerns they've had. Finally, you can help find them a clinic, pharmacy or an event near them or offer transportation or childcare. These conversations I realize aren't always easy but your influence likely means more than you know. We are still committed to getting as many of our monitors vaccinated as possible so we can save more lives and hardship and so we can maintain a strong wall of protection moving forward into the fall and winter. Thank you, Dr. Levine. With that, we'll open it up to questions. Folks in the room. Thank you to clarify Dr. Levine, we had a question after your comments from Friday or last week, brother. Can you walk in and if you have a J&J shot and you might be traveling, say to one of those states that has a higher increase in cases now, can you walk in and get a Pfizer shot or are you gonna be turned away because you do provide your information and so forth? Is it an option to get a second shot, a different brand shot? So there's nothing that prohibits a physician in their office or a pharmacist from doing that but because there's no clear guidance saying to do that and there's no firm evidence yet, the choice is really in the discussion that one has and having some informed consent about that. What about pharmacy? Can you walk in a pharmacy and get it? I don't know, to be honest. It would really vary depending on the pharmacist and their understanding of the situation. Governor, can you explain your veto on S79, the record registry bill? Well, first of all, I would ask anyone who has questions about that to read the veto letter. I think we laid it out fairly well, what my concerns are and just wanna back up just a little bit. I'd voice concerns throughout the process. In fact, that was asked about it during these press conferences over the last month or two. So during the regular session, I had told the legislative leadership as well as Vermonters that I had issues with this bill for a lot of different reasons. I was a little surprised if they took it up during the veto session. Had I not vetoed a bill, this would have languished until January. So it wasn't the highest priority for the Senate at least or the House to wait an extra day or two to put it through the process. So it could have gotten over to the Senate at the end of the regular legislative session. But here's what my concerns are. I don't think it was well thought out in some respects because it will encompass all rental units, whether it's a room, whether it's an accessory dwelling. I think back to when this was 30, probably 30 years, 40 years ago, when we bought our first house, had two young kids, didn't have the means to carry the cost of a house on our own. So I turned the upstairs into an apartment just to pay the mortgage, pay the property taxes, pay the utility bills. And it was the only way I was going to make it. This doesn't carve out any exemption for just the mom and pops, the regular every day for monitors, they're just trying to make ends meet. Just having an apartment in their home opens them up to registering this apartment and opening up your home to scrutiny by the state. This also pertains by the way to camps on the lake. And if you rent that out, let's say you've worked hard your entire life or part of it and just wanted to have a camp on the lake and needed to rent it out to carry those costs over a month or two, maybe you get to enjoy that for a month or two as well. Then you're opening yourselves up to the same registry and the scrutiny of the state to come in and see if there's anything, if there's a complaint, seeing if there's anything that is abnormal. So I would venture to say any of the camps that are out there throughout Vermont, I'd say very few of them would pass the letter of the law in some respect. So I believe there should be a carve out for that as well. As well, think about the snowbirds. Again, people who have lived here all their lives deciding to winter in Florida or some other warmer place and need to just again, carry the costs of their home and pay their property taxes in the meantime. So they might rent out their home for two or three months just to get by. And that would necessitate you to register that your house with the state. And again, if there was a complaint, it would open that up. So I think there can be, there's a path forward with this. I laid that out in the veto letter. I'm not saying that in every situation that you shouldn't be registered, but for the casual, casual landlord, so to speak, that has maybe a room or two or maybe just one apartment, I think there should be an exemption for them. And I think camps should be as well. If you don't rent for over two or three months, you're not a professional from my standpoint. I think also it's unrealistic to think with a $35 fee that they're going to charge for every dwelling that that will carry the costs needed to investigate the entire state. They're only figuring five people. And I don't believe five people are going to take over the duties of all the health officers throughout the state. I think it's being unrealistic. We know what happens when you set a fee. I mean, everyone's just anticipating what it would be, but it would just increase the fee. They aren't going to get rid of the program. They're just going to say, well, we need 10 or maybe we need 15. The number of people was based on another projection and it didn't have all the dwellings, but they took the five and that's why they built their bill on that. So again, I think it's unrealistic and just lead to higher costs as well. I also understand, I just wanted to say, I understand the chamber wanting this bill to pass. They're supporting their members. The hotels and motels, the tourist industry in general took hospitality sector, took a tough hit over the last 16 months. They're hurting. They don't like the competition with Airbnb's. I get it, especially for those who are professionals. But again, I think for those who are casually renting their home out, maybe during a surge season like fall foliage or maybe during the winter, during the skiing months, if they rent out their home for a month during that time, that could pay their property taxes for the year. So again, I'd like to see a carve out for those who are just casually doing it and another registering those who do it for a profession as a business. So I just, again, I wanna go back to this path forward. I think it needs to be thought through more. I think for monitors need to weigh in. I don't think the remote session allowed that to happen. And I think it was, again, just rushed through at the last minute during a veto session when they wouldn't have necessarily taken it up. Had they come to me and told me they were taking it up, I would have voiced all these concerns to them at that point. But no one came to me during that three day session. So again, we're at where we are, but I think we can pick up the pieces. Because half the bill was the VHIP, was that's our initiative. That's something we want to improve some of the housing stock. So it was something that I didn't want to veto, but I think it's just going to do more harm than good. Are you worried at the beginning of the next session that they're just gonna override the veto? Well, they certainly have the numbers. It's a super majority. You take that risk, but I don't think we're any, the money that was associated with the VHIP program is in the budget. That passed, that signed, that's done. We're gonna move forward with that. So I don't think we lost any ground. So if they take it up in January or whenever and decide to, they can override, then we'll just have to live with it at that point. But hopefully people will start voicing their concern if they have any. But again, for those of you who just rent out your home or for a couple months or have one apartment in your home, just to again pay for your property taxes, I would call your legislator, let him know. Governor Scott, when you look at some of these states that are dealing with the rise in cases from the Delta variant and low vaccination rates, what's the role of a state like Vermont and maybe providing advice or helping them along? I know there's just a lot of concern with what's going on here, but have these governors been reaching out to you a lot, wondering what Vermont's secret is or stuff like that? You know, it's tough to put your entire finger on what the answer is because some of them, it's all based in politics from the very beginning. So it's difficult to gain the trust of those in your constituents. I know many are frustrated. They want to get as many people vaccinated as possible. They believe the governors and some of the states that are impacted most severely understand they need to get more people vaccinated, but they're running out of options. They've offered incentives, they've offered all kinds of things to get more vaccines in the arms of their constituents. But we do offer advice, but I'm not sure that everything we do here in Vermont would necessarily work in another state, but we'll continue to do all we can to help them. But I think, again, having all the pieces of the puzzle have to fit together and for us, having these bi-weekly press conferences has helped, having you carry the information and having Dr. Levine and Secretary Smith back things up and using the vaccine, meeting people where they are. I was, again, thrilled to hear the White House using our playbook in some respects. They didn't name it as that, but it was just exactly what we're doing. And I think that's part of the answer as well. You gotta meet them where they are and you have to gain their faith and trust and you have to tell it to them straight. And hopefully, they'll follow through. Since we've been talking here this morning, Reprude Phil Scott has been busy on social media. But who? Reprude Phil Scott. Oh, you've heard of him? For anything in particular? I don't know, what do you tell him? Yeah, I don't tell them anything. I don't know who it is, but again, I'm going to continue to do what we've been doing all along and try and do the best I can for Vermonters and keep doing my job. Don't wanna discourage them? Well, I'm not encouraging them at all, but they can obviously do what they want. Commissioner Pichak said three people have died in June. Dr. Levine, is that, I know you dressed this last week, but do you know any more about the level of vaccination? Is that any cause for concern there? It would be really challenging to take any statistical slant on a number three, but the bottom line is at least a couple of them I believe were unvaccinated. But again, every death that we have, it's complex. What level of preceding illness is there? What were their living situations at the time? Were they in a long-term care facility? Were they independently living, et cetera? So it'd be really hard to say anything except for the fact that in this case, three is still too many, but three is such a small number compared to what we had been through over the course of the full pandemic. So we're just heartened by that information. And again, the main message to Vermonters is the best way to stay out of a statistic like that is to be vaccinated. That the data not only here, but nationally is showing that. I know Commissioner Pichak has had some slides in the past about mobility, but I mean, speaking of rentals and tourism, what's your assessment of where we are in the tourism season here so far compared to last year? How's that going to? I don't have any of the actual data, but I do have a weekly update on what the mobility is, people coming in to the state and leaving. We're still a little bit, we're ahead of last year, obviously, but we're still a little bit behind 2019 data. So I would assume that things again are improving, but I don't believe we're at the point we were two years ago. Is that correct? Other questions in the room? This weekend's weather didn't help anything, by the way. All right, we'll go to the phones and teams starting with Wilson Ring, the Associated Press. Hi, good morning, everybody. As always, thank you. My question is kind of a follow-up to something you were already talking about, Governor, and to Dr. Levine, but when people call you or call Vermont and say, what is your secret, what do you tell them? Again, everything that I told you as well, and it has to start early, you have to communicate, you have to build that trust. It doesn't happen overnight, and thankfully, you know, it's the attitude of Vermonters. And that's tough to replicate in some respects because they had been willing from the start to do the right thing, and not every state has that. And again, it started, I think, with the previous administration, with the hesitancy of communicating that this was a real issue, and that started whether it was anti-masking, whether it was just that this COVID was going to be over in a matter of a couple of months. I mean, it just started then, and went downhill from there. So we didn't have that here in the state, and I owe that to the people of Vermont. It isn't anything that we did, but we maintained our consistency, again, trying to be, we were honest, and when we saw things were going in the wrong direction, we made changes, but we tried to meet them where they were as well, all along the way. Okay, also, how safe can Vermont, obviously, Vermont is an oasis of COVID safety, if you will, right now. How long can that last, or how safe can we remain while this is a challenge elsewhere, while the Delta variant rages in Missouri? With the variant, I'm gonna let Dr. Levine answer this question in further detail, but from the layperson, from my standpoint, when you have 82.4% of the eligible population being vaccinated, they're protected. It's like you've set up this barrier around Vermont. If you're vaccinated and you're in Vermont, there's not much transmission in the community. So we've protected ourselves a great deal. So I don't believe that's going to change unless there's another variant of some sort that is stronger than this, and the vaccine's not effective against that, but we haven't seen that at this point. But that's why it's so important for others throughout the country to get vaccinated so that we don't give this virus the opportunity to change itself and manifest itself into something bigger and larger. So, but we, so far, are so good here in Vermont. Dr. Levine. Yeah, and just to build on that, we can look at some of our past experience. Commissioner Pichek showed a slide about not a too dissimilar number of cases a year ago, June, compared to now, even though more were associated with outbreaks then, but the bottom line was we had a lot of mitigation measures in place to make Vermont an OASIS then, even, but they involve things like testing, and they involve contact tracing, and they involved quarantine policies and travel maps and things of that sort. Then we look at what happened December, January, February, this year where Vermont was less of an OASIS because the entire country and the New England region and Canada was turning red on the map. And we had a relatively unprotected population because we had so little natural immunity because most people hadn't gotten COVID. So we couldn't be on an island anymore at that point in time. That wave of red came upon Vermont as well. Now we're in a situation where we're the best state, but we're also in the best region, and the region is really doing very well with vaccination so that people are quite protected and we do look different than some other parts of the country. But as the governor said, the vaccination rate being this high and the Delta variant being responsive to this vaccine, it's not escaping or evading the vaccine is a great formula for continued OASIS, as you put it, being very well protected. So it would only be if in either other parts of the country or other parts of the world where vaccination rates can be very, very low, if more mutations occur because the virus is being transmitted from person to person so frequently that it has abundant opportunities to mutate. And one of those mutations turns out to be something as transmissible as what we have now, but the vaccines don't perform so well against it. That would be the risk. So that's why we really do feel that anything that can be done, at least within our borders of the country, to keep the vaccination rates much more equal across the country and not have us stand out so much and other parts stand out in the opposite direction would be really advantageous to us all. Okay. Thank you very much. Senator Quiston, about the business magazine. Hi, Governor, getting back to S-79, given your comments from one week ago, I was expecting you to veto that bill for the exact reasons you described earlier, but I was surprised by the level of blowback that you received and the fact that other people were surprised by that veto. Did any of those two things strike you in their response last week? Blowback from who, Tim? The chamber and the legislative leaders. Well, not only the chamber, but the League of Cities and Towns and obviously the very selected officials, which I guess would be expected, but just the fact that they acted like they were caught off guard by this veto. Yeah, well, they probably don't listen to our press conferences. If they listen to them, they shouldn't be surprised. We had, I had communicated that directly to the legislative leaders during their session that I had problems with the bill while it was being debated in the House, both to the speaker and the pro tem. So I don't know why they were surprised, but maybe it has something to do with politics, I don't know. And the sort of the breadth of the blowback was something you were expecting, giving us all of that? I've come to expect that over the last four or five years, yes. Okay, thank you very much. Yep. Ed Barber, Newport Daily Express. We lost, we had it for a second, but be there, Ed. We'll move to Kit Norton, Vermont Digger, and Ed, you can email me if you're reconnecting and come back to you. Kit? Can you hear me now? Oh, yes, we can. So if Kit, hold on one second, we'll go to Ed. Come on. I thought we were talking about it. And it sounds like it's a service thing, so we're gonna move to Kit. Hopefully not a cell service or a broadband issue, or a question. And this is how you would it. Go ahead, Kit. He's on us. Tom Davis, Compass Vermont. Can you hear me? We can. Just confirm me that you can hear me. I don't have any questions for you. Thank you very much about that. Well, I appreciate both of those. Guy Page, Vermont Daily Chronicle. In your opinion with the registry, you think the legislature is seeking another way to enforce new, much tougher, possibly unpopular residential carbon emissions requirements, as Vermont tries to meet the standards of the Global Warming Solutions Act. And I also would welcome Governor Hanford's perspective on how the housing registry would impact our housing crisis for good or ill. Well, a couple things. I'm not sure. I hadn't heard that theory guy, but I suppose it could be. I think they believe that more regulation and having a registry would help promote the industry. I'm concerned that it might take stock out because there are many people who just simply don't trust the government to do the right thing and don't want to be involved in that. So especially, again, for those mom and pops. So that will remain to be seen in terms of, I don't know if Commissioner Hanford is on today. He is. OK. Did you hear the question, Commissioner? Thank you, Governor. I did. And I'll echo what you said that in most important part of this is that we're still going to be improving the vacant and code deficient housing stock. That's what we need. Vermonters need more housing options. And we're going to move forward with that. So that's the good news in this whole story. I think that when there's a lot of industry to support and certainly some of the larger housing owners that own rental property, we're looking for this bill. That's clear. But as the governor said, a lot of everyday Vermonters could be challenged by what was going to take effect. And so they don't necessarily have that same industry support or lobbyist sort of speaking for them. And I think it's clear that over the years, when there's been regulations added to housing in particular, even with all groups agreeing that they maybe reduce housing availability in stock, such as double permitting, some of our regulations around that you still need to build housing and smart growth locations, that it's clear you've got to look pretty hard before we add new regulations on to our already challenged housing stock. The good news is we also have a lot of investment in housing going on right now, largest ever. And there are housing projects breaking ground weekly. And hopefully we'll get some good news out about that, that we have some success emerging this summer to sort of increase our housing stock and address the issues at hand. Thank you. Mike Donahue, the Islander. Thank you, Jason. Governor, there was some discussion about meeting the people where they are to get shots. I just got a question from a reader questioning why Grand Isle is still snubbed in these pop-up sessions that there does seem to be a lot of people now in the islands for the summer. And this would be an ideal time to offer shots in the islands. Is there any plan in the future to bring shots back to the islands? Yeah, we welcome any ideas anyone has out there. I mean, if you, Mike, or any of your readership has ideas on what would work, I believe we were in the state park up there, but I'm not positive of that. I know we were at the day at Sandbar, but I don't know if we've been to the state park up there, any of the other state parks. But again, we would welcome any advice, any thoughts, and we'll try it out. Because as we've said, whether it's two or 200 vaccinations, that's two or 200 more than we had before. So we'll try anything if you have an idea of something or an event up there that might work. I'm thinking about that Thursday night series, but I'm not, that's at the winery, right? But I don't know if that would work or not. I don't even know if they're doing it at this point. Yeah, OK. And my other question, just wondering, sort of offbeat, but wondering your reaction to the ruling by the NCAA and the colleges about student athletes and their ability to make money off of their names. And it looks like the states are supposed to somehow get involved so that the rules are consistent across the board, presumably at UVM, St. Michael's, Norwich, and Middlebury. Is your office or somebody taking the lead on that in any way or going to get involved with it? I haven't followed that. I know that there was a ruling, and I know just enough to be dangerous. But I'm sure our secretary, our press secretary, Jason Malucci would have some thoughts on this. And if you want to contact him, he can tell you what he knows. You can put him in charge, OK? He's in charge as of now. He'll never forgive me for that. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate your help. I just got word that Kit Norton's back on, so we'll try to go back to Kit. Can you hear me? We can. Excellent. Governor, you've been very consistent in terms of climate action in the state, pushing for EV incentives and the market in terms of electric vehicles come on line here. I was just curious in terms of your thoughts on what the Ford F-150 Lightning could mean generally for the electric car market and then specifically for Vermont? Yeah, I think it's a game changer for Vermont. Anytime when you look throughout Vermont, it seems as though the majority of Vermonters have pickups. And having the F-150, which is arguably one of the most popular models in the country, this really is a game changer. And if they can bring the price down, we can offer incentives, I believe, and have the charging facilities necessary. Then I think, again, this trajectory is going to increase dramatically over the next two to three years. I've even heard that there was a member of our cabinet that might have ordered one. That was going to be my fault, Governor. Have you put down your $100 deposit? You know, I am awaiting. Obviously, I'm not driving these days, but I would say my next vehicle, I sold my pickup because it was just not being used. I had a Colorado. So I will be, I'm watching the F-150. There's also a Ruvian that's interesting as well. And so we'll see. I'm sure an electric vehicle is on the horizon for me. Thanks so much. Ann Wallace Allen, seven days. Hi, thanks for taking my call. So, Governor, when you have been on the White House call or were on there today, did you hear anything about the Canadian border? I know that they very recently just listed some of the restrictions. And it really seems as though there could be non-essential travel between the two countries, maybe by July 21st. I'm wondering if they're also using restrictions on Canadians, you know, they're letting Canadian citizens and permanent residents travel a little more freely. Is there any, do you have, or does the U.S. have any leeway to make it easier to do anything about making this happen? Yeah, you know, there was nothing on the call today. But along with Stuart's question earlier, it might be a good topic for me to reach out to them so that they can address. And so we'll, I'll try and do that for next week and see if they have, anytime we've asked before, I brought it up at least once and they've talked about it a couple of times since. They're just treading water at this point and they seem to believe that it's the Canadian side that is more resistant. So I think it's good, it would be a good topic for me to bring up in the next meeting. All right, thank you so much. Lisa Loomis, the Valley Air Corridor. Can you hear me? We can. My question is probably for Dr. Levine. And I think I heard part of the answer earlier about the illnesses or the comorbidities or the circumstances around the most recent deaths, the two that happened recently. Can you tell us anything more about those two deaths? Any demographic information about those? Yeah, I'm sorry. When the numbers are that small, any information we release really could betray confidentiality. So we can't really say much more than that. Can you tell us if they were vaccinated or unvaccinated? I believe there's a mix. And can you go to age ranges or is that not allowed? No, both are clearly over age 60. Thank you very much, that's it for me. Ed's question he emailed it to me that I told him I'd read out loud and it's for Dr. Levine. A couple of weeks ago we discussed the low vaccination rate in Essex County. You're going to research whether Vermont residents are crossing to New Hampshire to get vaccinated, which would help explain the lower rate. Is there any follow up? So the number is increasing, first of all, and I believe it's in the 57% range. So getting up there. The other thing is we already know that Vermonters are crossing to New Hampshire. In fact, in some cases we've encouraged it. We've provided vaccine to one of the hospitals in New Hampshire that people living along the border are often used for their medical care. So we partnered with them in that effort. And we do know that there are occasional Vermonters who will get all of their medical care on the other side of the border. So that part we already knew. The question really has been how many Vermonters have gotten vaccine that haven't been reported to us through any kind of channel? And my comment at the previous press conference was that New Hampshire has just stood up a registry. And I don't know really the status of getting data from it just yet, but my impression is we still don't have full insight into what number of Vermonters might be in that registry. So we do know what CDC tells us, which comes from a variety of sources, but we don't have the full information on New Hampshire. So I can't really give the full answer yet. I'm hoping there still are numbers of Vermonters that actually would be higher than the 57% that we just don't know about based on the newness of the registry. So when I can get accurate data from that, I'll certainly report it. Andrew McGregor, Caledonian Record. Yes, thank you, good afternoon, can you hear me? Yeah, a little bit soft, but go ahead. Okay, yeah, a continuation of the last question that beat me to the punch with this email, I guess, just brought to my attention that the vaccine dashboard, the notes at the bottom indicate there's as many as 5,700 Vermonters that were vaccinated in New Hampshire that aren't incorporated into the dashboard. Just curious if that specific level of detail is understood, why it wouldn't be incorporated into the dashboard, and the number that's quoted there is reflected as of about a month ago, just wondering when and how often that will be further up. Yeah, that number doesn't unfortunately break things down demographically, so we know where each person in that 5,700 comes from. So it's harder to answer Ed's question about one particular county. I don't think, I'm sure that number will be updated, I'm not sure it's going to grow very tremendously in the near future. Yeah, the dashboard suggests that it could be under-reporting Essex County by as much as 4% of residents. Perfect, right. It's one of the details in that, no. Right, so that would be, in that sense, that would be welcome news. Because the county would be more accurately represented. And then another question I have for you, the smattering of cases that we've had the last few weeks here, I'm assuming the majority is unvaccinated, but are there any other conclusions and commonalities among those cases that can be drawn about where the virus might be lurking among the population? As young, old people who travel? Yeah, no, all very good questions. So out of those, again, these are small numbers, so hard to draw firm conclusions, but they vary where they are across the state. There were a number of days, there seemed to be more in Chittenden County, but when you look at them in aggregate, that dilutes out. I've seen an age as young as one. Most of the opposite end of the age spectrum is below 70 for sure, occasionally in the 60s. And no outbreaks have been associated with any of those cases. And even rare, what we call situations where they might be in a healthcare setting, a long-term care setting, a business, are much rarer for those to be common as well, as opposed to months ago when we had abundant cases in various settings that I've mentioned. So they're more isolated, not cases that have any major thing in common. As has been true throughout the pandemic, there are some cases in out-of-state people, either who list their residences out-of-state and perhaps are coming back to Vermont for a number of months or perhaps they're tourists, that's unclear. But the bottom line is it doesn't look like that's overrepresented either compared to our past experience. But I, again, caution you to draw too many conclusions from such a small number of cases is challenging. And last question, if I may, when the surveillance testing program for teaching staff was being wound down a month or more ago, there had been a mention about looking at ways to incorporate surveillance testing into summer camps and with the youth population over the summer and then heading into the school year. Is anything like that happening or was that never brought online? Yeah, we actually had a small report out on that prior to the holiday weekend and there were under a half a dozen camps that were actually doing that kind of testing at that point in time as the season was just getting underway. So I presume that's still true, but I don't know if that's been increased yet. We'll find out now that the holiday weekend has passed. So not a large number of camps, but some. Okay, thank you all for your time. Greg Lamaril, the County Courier. Good afternoon, Governor. First question here. You know, we hear a lot about vaccinations and getting the vaccines to where people are. I had somebody contact me this morning wondering how would they go about getting a rapid test? They've been vaccinated, got a sniffly nose, really just more of a precautionary, they don't want to go through the whole rigmarole of a multi-day test. Are the quick tests available to the general public and where might someone go to get that? I believe so. I believe they're at the pharmacies, but I'll let Dr. LaVine answer that. Let me just go back to the first part of the question first because I think the premise of a multi-day process is vanishing with the number of tests being much lower. So I would be shocked if somebody had to wait multiple days to get a result back from a traditional PCR test. Second thing is, I think what you're referring to is antigen testing because that's the one that can be done more rapidly. It is done in some urgent care settings. I believe there are some pharmacies doing it that I don't know exactly which ones. Think about the test though as this is going back many months in the pandemic and I don't want to go through my entire lesson on testing, but at a time when the prevalence of the virus is very low, it's probably not the time to be doing tests like antigen tests and you'd want to have the PCR tests be the preferred test to do. At a time when there's lots of virus being transmitted around and you have someone who has classic COVID symptoms and antigen test is gonna be great. And if it comes out positive, it's truly positive. The problem with the antigen tests is they have a little less sensitivity than some of the PCR tests. So again, if the prevalence is low, a negative antigen test might not be 100% reassuring to the person. They might still want to know for sure and get a PCR test to confirm that it's truly negative. So complicated answer, but that's the way it goes. And the secretary tells me there's 17 locations where you can get antigen tests. No, I'm sorry, it doesn't pee. Oh, sorry. X that. 17 locations where you can get the PCR tests, which are part of those centers we have all regionally throughout the state, which you can access on the Health Department's website. Thank you. And secondly, and I think lastly here, Governor, we've talked about shortage of employees for many businesses. We're hearing instances of shortages in emergency medical responders. And in some situations, maybe getting to the point where medical providers are not able to cover 24-hour services as previously contracted. This may be a question for Dr. Lean, I'm not sure, but number one, does the Health Department have a method for helping to relocate EMTs or medical providers so that services having a hard time can continue to provide 24-hour coverage for citizens and maybe just more of an overall thought from the governor about the shortage of that type of thing? Let me try and answer part of this first. And I just want to reiterate what I've said over the last two or three weeks. I just wanna remind everyone that we've had this shortage in the workforce. This has been building over a number of years. It's something that I talked about a lot in my first campaign and ever since that 6-3-1 is still relevant today. And so the pandemic has made the problem even more significant. And I think, Greg, I think you were a firefighter or still are, and I would imagine because we saw that in the past years where many of the municipalities, many of the towns and fire departments were having trouble getting volunteers. And when I go to some of their events, you could see the demographic vividly. There was mostly older firefighters there. So this is nothing new, but it is significant. And that's why we've made some changes over the last four or five years trying to change some of the licensure so that we can accept licenses from other states as well. And I'm not sure if it's in the EMTs or not, but if it's not, we should so that we can try and attract people and make it as easy as possible for them to get acclimated into our workforce here in Vermont. So again, this is, it doesn't matter which sector it is in every single one, everyone is struggling to try and find people right now. So we need to try and find ways to attract more to fulfill some of our workforce. And that's going to take all of our efforts in order to do so. Dr. Levine, anything on the EMTs? Let me say from the outset, there's been no finer time for an EMT in Vermont or to be an EMT in Vermont. And they have been such an incredible, played such an incredible role in everything we talk about here all the time, whether it's testing, whether it's vaccinating, whether it's barnstorming throughout our counties, critical, critical roles. And the parade I was at over the weekend, there was a vaccination effort in that community, EMTs were leading the way. So bottom line is the health department is very keenly aware of the EMT workforce and its issues very tied in with distribution of EMTs, training of EMTs, licensing of EMTs. And we've been aware pretty much whenever there's any problem in a region of the state where access to some form of care, whether it's an ambulance, whether it's an EMT, is present. And we work with the other communities in the region to try to make them whole again, if you will, at least on a temporary basis, knowing that we can eventually fill those gaps. I have a person who's really running that operation who I can get some of the specific data from if you'd like that, just so you'll have an idea of if there are really sections of the state that are more in trouble than not. My sense is that we're doing pretty well, actually. And I don't think there's anything that's at an alarm level, but I can get you some data on that if you'd like. Yeah, I'd appreciate that. Do you know if services have to notify the state, if they go out of service like typically a 24-hour ambulance would have to go out of service because they don't have personnel? Right, we have to notify the state. I don't know if they have to, but I know that we do get notified. I don't know the regulatory board. I'd certainly follow up with you on this out there. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your time, Governor. That's it. Thanks very much for tuning in and carrying this and asking all your questions. And we'll see you again on Tuesday.