 to discuss the Pfizer shot for boosters. Moderna and J&J are expected to have a later date. Then the full FDA will take the advisory committee recommendation before CDC issues its formal recommendations on boosters. They are currently working to manage their inventory and anticipation of increased demand if the Pfizer booster is approved. The FDA and CDC are currently doing studies on mixing and matching vaccines from different manufacturers and hope to have recommendations on that as well very soon. Secretary Smith will talk more about our preparations here in Vermont for boosters. Next, as I announced last week, effective tomorrow, all our executive branch state employees will have to attest that they've been vaccinated or be tested weekly and wear a mask. We think this will make workplaces safer. And as we await more details about President Biden's executive orders, in the meantime, I continue to urge other employers to adopt similar policies as I have for weeks. As part of the President's plan, he's encouraging vaccines for school employees like we've done for state employees. Because we aren't under a state of emergency, the state doesn't have the authority to implement such a mandate ourselves. But I urge school districts who are the employers to use the state as a model and take a similar approach. I've also asked the Commissioner of Labor to clarify whether school employees are covered under the OSHA rule being contemplated as employers with over 100 employees. Considering these steps is important because once again, we know that vaccines work. Vermont is the most vaccinated state in the union and we continue to have the lowest hospitalization rate. Today, currently, there are now 43 Vermonters hospital lives with COVID-19. 36 of them are unvaccinated. Just seven are fully vaccinated. So please, get vaccinated. They save lives. Finally, September, we recognize Suicide Prevention Awareness Month in Vermont and across the country. Secretary Smith and Mental Health Deputy Commissioner Allison Crump will go into further detail about the work we're doing and resources available to people, but I wanted to share some information as well. Suicide, unfortunately, is the eighth leading cause of death among Vermonters. There's no denying the stresses of living through COVID-19 have increased many of the risk factors associated with suicide, including depression, social isolation, financial stress, unemployment, and challenges to mental health. Vermonters have shown our resiliency and support for our communities throughout the pandemic. Every suicide in Vermont has a terrible impact and we must each do what we can to prevent these losses. It's important we address the needs of family members, friends, and neighbors who may be at a higher risk, including those who live in rural areas as well as older Vermonters and those who identify as LGBTQ plus and BIPOC. It's also important we recognize those who work on the front lines of suicide prevention, our local educators, mental health professionals, first responders, parents, friends, and more. By joining those around the globe and recognizing World Suicide Prevention Awareness Month, it's a reminder of all the actions we can take to help those in need. There are many resources and support services available. You can go to vtspc.org and learn more about awareness and how to talk to someone you think may be at risk. Ask if they're okay and offer to help. I encourage Vermonters to come together, support each other and the people in your lives who may be struggling. You may be just the lifeline they need. Again, Secretary Smith and Deputy Commissioner Cromp will go into further detail in a few minutes, but first we'll turn it over to Commissioner Pichot. Thank you very much, Governor, and good afternoon, everybody. Similar to the last few weeks when we look through our data today, we'll see signs that point to optimistic trends, but we also see signs that point to some cautionary trends as well. So I want us to keep both of those items in mind as we work through the presentation. To start with, when we look at the national data, you can see that the seven-day case rate after Labor Day continued to trend down. For the past seven days, it's down about 10%, but also be mindful that we're still waiting to see if there are any impact from Labor Day, and there's also still some data anomalies with the national data because of reporting delays in other states. So again, the trend is looking good, but we want to be mindful of that. On the next slide, you'll see the growth rate that we've been talking about for the last probably five or six weeks. The growth rate had slowed week over week, and finally this week you can see it's gotten into the negative. So the growth rate across the country has declined below zero, meaning cases are actually falling, not just that the rate of growth is decreasing, which is certainly, again, a good sign and something that points toward some signs of optimism. Another sign of optimism is the national hospitalization rates that you see on the next slide. So unlike the data that can sometimes be jumpy on the case side, particularly after a holiday or some other event where cases aren't reported, hospitalizations continue to be reported through those weekends and through those days. And again, you can see here that the hospitalization rate has ticked down nationally in the country. Again, another good sign. Again, when we look at the national picture and we look at where the cases have been decreasing week over week, we see that those places in the southern part of the country that were hit the hardest earliest for the Delta wave are the ones that are seeing the improvement. When we look up to the northeast, you see that Vermont is down a bit from last week, same with Connecticut, but it's not a universal story across New England or the region. We certainly would like to see the region, New England states in particular, all trending down, moving in the same direction. And we're not quite there yet. So Vermont has seen improvement. Another New England state, Connecticut has, but that's only a piece of the regional puzzle. Talking about Vermont, as we mentioned, again, we've been talking a lot about that growth rate. You see here that the growth rate did continue to decline. And again, like we said here in Vermont, it went below zero, meaning our cases decreased over the last week compared to the week before. You can see that on our seven day average when we go to the next slide. We've reported about 86 fewer cases this week than we did last week. But again, when you look at that seven day average, the trend is down, but it's not a clear trend down and it hasn't been sustained yet. So that's the point of caution, certainly, that we want to take into account. Looking at where the cases are across Vermont, on the next slide, you'll see that Washington County has seen some improvement. That was a county that was particularly high last week. Chittenden County, a little bit higher than last week, but still relatively stable. The Northeast Kingdom has seen some increased case counts, particularly in Orleans and Essex County. And the southern part of the county relatively stable, although a bit higher than it has been in the past number of weeks. Looking at the age groupings, and particularly focused on younger Vermonters, since there's been a lot of discussion, certainly in the national media about case rates among younger Americans, we can see that in Vermont, those age groups that are below those that are able to be eligible for vaccination are higher on a per capita basis than the total Vermont rate. You'll see that that 15 to 18 year old age group is lower than the national average. They're eligible for vaccination. They have a really good vaccination rate relative certainly to the rest of the country and even other age groups in Vermont. But you do see some elevated case counts there in the younger Vermonters. But again, we've been fortunate. I think today there's one pediatric hospitalization, but generally these cases have not resulted in hospitalization, which is something we're certainly fortunate about. Looking at the next slide, again, a couple of more trend slides that show that the reproduction rate is still below zero. Again, when it's below zero, you anticipate cases will be dropping. We did see that this week. It continues to be below zero. We hope that that will continue. But again, just a note of caution there. And then finally looking at the case model, we see that the model that we had from two weeks ago, we overlaid the actual case growth onto that. And it's relatively similar and it's anticipating really this week, the next week and the week after that cases would start to decline a little bit more significantly. So again, a point of optimism there, but we wanna see that unfold in reality and we wanna keep a really close eye on it. Another trend that we've been seeing this week that's pretty clear is the difference between those who are not fully vaccinated and those who are fully vaccinated. So first looking at the case rates and the difference that we see there, you can see that the unvaccinated or the not fully vaccinated case rate continues to go up. It's up about 7% this week, but the vaccinated case rate, those that are fully vaccinated, that rate actually declined 2% this week. So overall, we saw a decline because we have more people fully vaccinated in Vermont, but that unvaccinated case rate is continuing to go up. So again, all the more reason for people to go and get vaccinated, get their family and friends vaccinated. And again, just as important, when you look at the hospital case slide, you see that the hospitalization rates are much higher for those who are not fully vaccinated compared to those who are fully vaccinated. And on the next slide, as the governor mentioned in his opening remarks, you'll see that that difference has been really kind of exacerbated this week with 71% of all recent hospitalizations being among the unvaccinated. And when you look at the ICU hospitalizations, the numbers are even greater with 79% of all recent hospitalizations being among the unvaccinated. So the unvaccinated case rate, the unvaccinated hospitalization rates are going up. Again, the hospitalization rates are not going up because of those who are not yet eligible. It's really that eligible population that has not yet gotten vaccinated that's driving those hospitalization rates. So again, all the more reason to go out and get vaccinated. Looking at our higher education update, you'll see that now all 16 of the higher ed universities and colleges are reporting. The vaccination rate at the moment stands at 93.6%. So really high vaccination rate. You'll see that the exemption number stands at just under 2.5%. There's a few hundred students that are still in that to be determined category, but that vaccination rate across campus very strong. And you'll see the weekly positives and case numbers there. If we go on the next slide, you'll see a comparison of the fall 2020, the spring 2021, and then the fall 2021, the first three weeks that the higher education was on campus. And you can see, obviously in the fall of 2020, when cases were very, very low, the vaccine wasn't available to us yet, but college campuses were quite quiet during the first three weeks. During the spring semester, cases were much more elevated after coming off of the holidays, that winter surge that we saw. Again, the vaccine not yet available and the cases were much more elevated. The first three weeks so far of school, the cases much lower than we experienced in the spring of 2021. Again, a big difference being that really high vaccination rate that we're seeing across campuses. So far, continues to be pretty quiet on the higher education campuses. Looking at the active outbreak slide for long-term care facilities, the same number of outbreaks as last week, which we reported being seven, the number of cases up a little bit, 134, compared to just about a hundred cases last week in long-term care facilities. And then finally, turning to vaccination, you'll see that Vermont added another 2243 individuals to the vaccination rolls this week. That moves us up to 87% of those who are eligible who have gotten vaccinated. But when you look at the next slide, we haven't looked at the slide for a while, but you really see two age groups that stand out in terms of their low vaccination rate in Vermont. That 18 to 21-year-old rate and that 22 to 29-year-old rate, which are about 54% and 66% respectively. So again, particularly those younger Vermonters really need them to step up and get vaccinated for those who are their parents, their uncles, aunts, friends, to encourage them to get vaccinated because they're really a key piece of the puzzle here that we're currently missing. And then when we look at our vaccination rates overall, you see that Vermont continues to be number one in most categories, particularly fully vaccinated, which is certainly with the Delta variant is critical. And then we continue to be number three on those starting vaccination who are eligible. But again, on most of those categories, continuing to be number one in the country. So at this time, I'd like to turn it over, I believe, to Secretary French. Thank you, Commissioner Pichett, good afternoon. Later today, Dr. Levine and I intend to issue revised recommendations for the contact tracing process in schools. I thought I would highlight some of the changes that we're including in our new recommendations. Contact tracing is an important strategy to ensure the safety of our communities and our schools. The Delta variant has put pressure on the contact tracing process because it spreads more quickly than other variants, however. In our revised recommendations, we are not making any changes to the standards for contact tracing, but rather we're trying to make the contact tracing process more responsive to the dynamics of the Delta variant. In short, we want to make it easier for both schools and contact tracers to implement the science behind contact tracing. Central to our changes is enabling schools to move more quickly to identify students who are vaccinated. A student who is vaccinated and asymptomatic is not a close contact under CDC or Vermont guidelines. Previously, schools had to wait for vaccination status to be confirmed by the health department. We are now going to enable schools to use their local vaccination information to make this determination. We published recommendations for how schools to determine the vaccination status of students. Schools should use our template form that asks parents to test to the vaccination status of their children and to show a copy of the student's vaccination card or record. We're also providing recommendations for common areas such as cafeterias, school buses, and playgrounds. Whole lunchrooms should not be automatically quarantined. A risk assessment should be performed to determine the student's physical proximity to a suspected case. Anyone within six feet of an infectious person for 15 minutes or more is considered a close contact. This kind of risk assessment can be challenging to implement in the dynamics of a busy school lunchroom. So we are recommending seating charts and when possible, having classes eat together. Many schools will continue to use other spaces for student meals such as classrooms in addition to cafeterias. For school buses, we are recommending whole buses of students should not be automatically quarantined. A risk assessment should be performed that considers the physical proximity to a case on a bus and to what extent there was consistency in mask wearing while riding. The CDC requires masks for all passengers on school buses. In terms of playgrounds and recess, we are following a similar approach and do not recommend automatically quarantined all students on playgrounds since the risk to students outside are far less than those when they are inside. A school should notify families of a potential exposure during recess or outdoor time and make testing recommendations for three to five days after the potential exposure, but not put students in quarantine unless they are identified as a close contact. A template letter for handling these types of potential exposures will be available for schools on the health department's pre-K through 12 schools website. The recommendation to test rather than quarantine is a central feature of our revised recommendations. When a student is not a close contact and their exposure status is uncertain, we are recommending testing as the first strategy rather than quarantining. All schools have the ability to sign up for surveillance testing. This testing is free of charge and available for students and staff regardless of vaccination status. I would like to see all our schools involved in surveillance testing this fall. Surveillance testing was an important strategy for us last year. It will be very important for us this year as well, particularly as we head into the winter months. In terms of keeping our schools safe from COVID-19, vaccination is our priority strategy. It'll be increasingly important to ensure all students are vaccinated and I certainly strongly encourage all parents to get their children vaccinated. Vaccination will not only keep our schools safe, but also allow us to continually operate in-person instruction since it greatly contributes to the efficiency of the contact tracing process. In terms of vaccination, I thought I would provide some specifics on the student vaccination incentive program that we're working on. The intent of this program is to leverage federal COVID-19 relief funds to incentivize student vaccination and to provide opportunities for students to direct the use of these dollars. The grants will go to schools, not directly to the students. The governor has committed up to $2 million in federal funds to encourage student vaccination. One million would come from the CRF funds and a million from the state set aside of ESSER funding. All schools will be eligible for a one-time grant award, a bonus award, and the governor's cup. Amounts will be based on total school enrollment and vaccination rates above 80%. At 80%, schools may rescind their mass mandate for eligible students. Students under 12, however, would still be required to wear masks. When a school has a vaccination rate of at least 85%, it would become eligible for a grant award based on $12 per student with a minimum award of $2,000 and a maximum award of $10,000. A school with a student vaccination rate of at least 90% would also be eligible for a bonus award that would be 50% of the first grant award. Once eligible for the grant program, a school must submit a grant proposal to spend its incentive award. Grant proposals must be developed through significant input of the student body. When the school obtains a student vaccination rate greater than 95%, the school will be entered into the governor's cup award. Three random drawings will be conducted among these eligible schools, one for small schools, one for medium schools and one for large schools. The winners of these drawings will receive an additional $10,000 award. We'll have more details on this program in the coming weeks. Lastly, we're starting to work on our approach to winter sports. I strongly encourage all our student athletes to get vaccinated prior to the winter season. Also encourage our athletes in particular to participate in the surveillance testing that will be offered in many of our schools. We intend to publish our recommendations for winter sports in early October at this point. That concludes my update. I'll now turn it over to Secretary Smith. Thank you, Secretary French. Good afternoon, everyone. I wanna provide updates on a couple of topics this week. It'll be a little bit of a change of format than we're normally used to. So let's begin with testing. Vermont has maintained its testing infrastructure that was built up over the pandemic. We established 33 state testing sites throughout the state and we kept that infrastructure in place. Pharmacies in the state provide an additional 21 sites. In fact, this is the reason that according to the CDC, Vermont is consistently in the top five in the nation for testing its residents. Over the last seven days, according to the health department, Vermont performed approximately 36,000 tests. In addition, we monitor lab turnaround times. For example, tests performed between August 29th and September 4th, the latest information we have shows an average turnaround time of 1.6 days or a median of two days. In the past day, we've heard of delays which we are looking into, perhaps caused by entry issues, data entry issues with walk-ins. Where we find that there are delays or not enough testing, we will add capacity. Adding capacity may include expanding existing sites, adding new sites, or looking at other options like self-service test kits. We also need Vermonters to help make things run more smoothly. One of the biggest differences between now and last fall is that when demand was low, we shifted from appointments only to allowing walk-ins. Now we are transitioning back to appointments because just showing up in a higher demand environment causes people to wait. I mentioned this last week. Please make an appointment for testing and try to avoid just walking in at a test site without a reservation. You can make a reservation easily by going online at healthvermont.gov slash COVID-19 slash testing or visiting your pharmacy's website. In addition, we're gearing up for testing for those state employees who are not vaccinated. We'll have more to report on that in the coming days. We also have, as Secretary French has talked about, working closely with schools to expand weekly surveillance testing to students. Many districts express an interest in participating in this new program. By the end of September, more than 101 schools will have testing programs up and running. That represents more than 37% of school districts within an additional 50 schools slated to start by mid-October or more than 52% of school districts. We are working closely with schools to determine what's needed to support them in overcoming barriers to get tested or to getting started earlier or encouraging other schools who have not yet signed up to participate. That said, we're excited to see the success that they are having in getting students back to full-time in-person learning this fall. Now, turning to our correction facilities. As for COVID testing at Northern State Correctional Facility, they have had two consecutive rounds of all negative test results for both staff and incarcerated individuals. The facility has returned to modified operations, though there will be another round of testing next week before the facility is fully cleared of all outbreak protocol. Outside visitation is open at Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility and Marble Valley Regional Correctional Facility. The other four facilities either have COVID-positive cases or in some phase of follow-up COVID mitigation. In order for these facilities to open to outside visitation, there needs to be zero COVID-positive staff and incarcerated individuals. In terms of reporting case counts, there are times when we have to revise previous days' numbers. We strive to publish the most up-to-date and accurate information on the number of positive cases as quickly as possible. We've also implemented some changes in our technology and added personnel to lessen this occurrence. We will consider additional changes if needed, but the bottom line is we need to do a better job. I also want to mention contact tracing because we've added even more resources lately in this area. In the spring, to allow some in our state workforce to return to their normal jobs, we augmented contact tracing by hiring a contractor. The contract calls for them to increase their workforce as COVID-19 positive case counts increased. Recently, they failed to do that sufficiently, leaving the state to fill the gap. So as of today, we have increased our overall numbers in this area to 104 full-time equivalent employees performing contact tracing, including reaching out to those close contacts and performing other associated duties such as reaching out to businesses and schools. We will continue to add state workers, our National Guard Service members, and additional contracted employees as needed. Also, as I said last week, we've been planning for the rollout of the booster doses once the federal government authorizes them. We anticipate that the first people eligible to get booster doses will be healthcare workers and those who work and live in long-term care facilities. The goal is to have a fast and efficient way for individuals in long-term care facilities to get vaccinated. We already have spoken with our licensed long-term care facilities in the state to ensure that planning is underway for boosters. We have spoken with all skilled nursing facilities in the state. All of these facilities in Vermont have reported that they have access to a vaccine partner. After this first group, we'll turn to providing booster doses to the general population. At that point, Vermonters should expect to start hearing about larger vaccination sites. When we get to this phase, you will need to make an appointment to get a booster. However, we are not currently taking appointments for booster shots for the general public. We will have more clarity once the federal government provides us guidance. In addition, I want to provide a brief update on opening additional capacity in mental health beds. At the Brattleboro Retreat, they plan to have 65 beds available by September 20th. They have had 47 beds available for some time now, and they are currently at 54 beds. From there, the goal is to increase overall hospital capacity to 75 beds by October 1st. That will include a target of opening six Linden Lodge beds. These are new beds that will be open. As for the Vermont Psychiatric Care Hospital in Berlin, since mid-July, we have onboarded 13 registered nurses, including five who started today. It's our hope to have nine beds open as soon as possible. Turning to vaccination rates, as you've heard as of today, 87% of eligible Vermonters have received at least one dose of the vaccine. That means 77.8% of all eligible Vermonters are fully vaccinated. You can walk in and get vaccinated at most local pharmacies. You can also visit pharmacy locations at the Community Health Centers of Burlington, Northwestern Medical Center, and the Southwestern Vermont Medical Center. In addition, we will be sending out a press release detailing the 23 school-based clinics and pop-ups available this week. Again, I do want to note that in the coming weeks, these pop-ups will be scaled back as larger clinic sites are reintroduced for vaccines and boosters. You can find information about these pop-up sites at healthvermont.gov.com slash myvaccine. Lastly, I want to just briefly add on to what the governor said about suicide prevention. Over the past several years, state agencies and departments have been working closely with community partners to expand and improve the services and supports they can help to prevent suicide. Suicide is not just a mental health issue. It is also a public health issue. Vermont took an important step in acknowledging this fact. When we chose reducing suicide deaths as a public health measure for monitoring how well we are implementing our healthcare reform goals. The cause of suicide is complex and requires a multi-prong approach to make an impact. I am encouraged by the work of the Mental Health Integration Council as they implement strategies to integrate mental health into the healthcare system. So every Vermonner is supported by the right level and type of care at the right time. I especially want to thank the leadership of Commissioner Haas and Deputy Commissioner at the Department of Mental Health for providing the support that they have done. As I and the governor have noted, the pandemic has created a host of difficult challenges for Vermonners who may be at risk as well as for our ability to provide critical services in this era. It's been a challenging time and I think Vermon has stepped up and continues to step up during this time. I'll now turn it over to the Deputy Commissioner. Thank you, Secretary. The Secretary and the governor have mentioned the incredible work done by our mental health and healthcare workforce in supporting tens of thousands across the state. I would like to take a moment and say thank you to the dedicated clinicians and support staff who've continued to deliver mental health support to individuals throughout the pandemic, all while they manage their own pandemic-related stressors, their own mental health and that of their families. I encourage them all to take a breath when they can and to make sure they're caring for themselves throughout this work. The COVID-19 pandemic has made care delivery all the more complex, but our ability as neighbors and peers to care for each other has shown through as a strong and enduring force, a testament to the unique way we as Vermonters can be there for one another through the good as well as these more challenging times. During my time in Vermont as a suicide prevention coordinator, I've spoken to so many people in the state who've been touched by suicide. And as a clinician, I've sat with individuals contemplating suicide themselves. It is so important that their stories and the stories of others with lived experience continue to shape the way we approach suicide prevention in Vermont. As Secretary Smith mentioned, suicide is not just a mental health issue. The Department of Mental Health is grateful for the partnership of the Department of Health who's helping us approach suicide prevention from a more holistic population health lens. While September is an opportunity to raise awareness around suicide prevention and promote mental health awareness, we all have a role every day to address this important issue, impacting our communities and our families. Reaching out, staying connected and checking in with one another, all of these are ways that we can help alleviate the burdens often felt by those experiencing suicidal ideation. And when you reach out to check in on others, it actually improves your own mental health as well. Here are a few other things each of us can do to prevent suicide. Take time to learn about the signs of suicide risk and what you can do. Resources like hashtag be the one two, provide simple guidelines for supporting others who are struggling. You can visit the Vermont Suicide Prevention Center's website, vtsbc.org, and there you can find custom local resources and events. Support your own mental health. Take time to check in with yourself, ask how you're feeling. Staying in touch with your emotions can help improve your mood and lower your anxiety. Practice self-care to help you cope with everyday stress and prepare yourself for stressful situations. Learning how to manage stress in healthy ways can make you and the people you care about as well as your community stronger. If you know someone who is struggling, please reach out. If you are struggling, talk about it. You can reach out to resources that are available 24 seven, such as the suicide prevention lifeline, the COVID support lifeline, or if you'd rather text, we have a 24 seven crisis text line. You can reach that by texting the letters VT to 741-741. For the suicide prevention lifeline number, that number is 1-800-273-TALK, and it is now being staffed 24 seven by local Vermont mental health workers to support our state's callers. It is also free and confidential. Throughout September, we'll be shining a light on the resources that are available for people who are struggling. As we also continue to expand our suicide prevention efforts with upstream programming and shaping a more integrated approach to both mental health and wellness. By addressing the stigma around asking for help, improving our care systems, and listening without judgment, we as Romaners can come together to build resiliency and support one another. Lastly, as the governor mentioned, we encourage all residents to take the time to inquire as to the well-being of their families, friends, and neighbors over the next few days, and to genuinely convey their appreciation for each other in any way that they deem appropriate. A simple phone call, a message, can go a long way towards helping someone realize that suicide is not the answer. Thank you. Good afternoon. I'm going to start off with a recent morbidity and mortality weekly report released by the CDC on Friday. It monitored the incidents of COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths by vaccination status this spring and summer when the Delta variant became predominant. The report found that people who were not fully vaccinated were more than 10 times more likely to be hospitalized and 11 times more likely to die of COVID-19 than those who were fully vaccinated. These are the major outcomes we always look at with vaccines. And while the reduction in risk for infection was less dramatic, it was still highly impressive, showing that people who are unvaccinated were five times more likely to have an infection than those who were fully vaccinated. This real-world data suggests high and continued vaccine effectiveness against severe COVID-19, including the Delta variant. This is why getting vaccinated is still the most important way to protect ourselves against the virus. And why our rate of 77.5% of eligible Vermonters who are fully vaccinated still matters so much, even in the face of this highly contagious variant. However, the Delta variant has greatly driven up COVID transmissions around the country, including here in Vermont. As we've noted before, the ability of this strain of the virus to jump from person to person is significantly greater than the original strain, which touched off the pandemic in such a short time. This is why we must all think once again about the choices we make as we go about our lives right now. We need to consider the risks once again of large gatherings, crowded places, where and how we travel. Fortunately, we still have tools and knowledge for slowing the spread, wearing masks indoors, getting tested, getting vaccinated, and staying home if you're sick. The more we all use these prevention tools and make smart choices to avoid risky activities right now, the more we can protect our communities, which includes workplaces, long-term care facilities, childcare facilities, and schools. We have seen and will continue to see cases in schools because many children can't be vaccinated right now. But we know going to school is still critical for children's learning and social and emotional well-being. So, though many parents and caregivers are already likely taking more precautions, and I thank you, I'd like to remind everyone that even if you don't have children or someone else in your life who may be vulnerable to the virus, you can still help by giving the virus fewer chances to spread during this Delta surge. You can also help us move more quickly against this new variant by knowing what to do if you do test positive or are in close contact with someone who does. Here it is, if you have COVID, isolate yourself right away and reach out to your close contacts. If you're a close contact, get tested and quarantined as appropriate. Don't give the virus another way out. You can continue to find the information you need at healthvermont.gov slash COVID-19. Speaking of children, pediatric cases are in the news and on our minds, and I'd like to say a few words about them. Frankly, there are frightening reports from other parts of the country of cases and hospitalizations. Two other CDC morbidity and mortality weekly reports published last week looked at illness in children since the Delta variant arrived. And these reports provide additional lessons about vaccines. First, COVID-associated hospitalizations since Delta rose nearly five-fold among children and adolescents with hospitalization rates 10 times higher among vaccinated than unvaccinated adolescents across the 14 states involved in the study. In the second report, an analysis looking at children ages 17 and younger, COVID-related emergency department visits and hospitalizations were found to be about three and a half times more frequent in states with the lowest percentage of the population vaccinated compared to states like Vermont. With the highest vaccination rates. This again shows the power of community vaccination and other prevention measures in protecting our children. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, of all the states, Vermont has the third lowest rate of COVID cases among children. But third lowest is not none. We've had five pediatric COVID hospitalizations this year with one currently hospitalized, all since Delta arrived. And we see clear difference in COVID in Vermont pediatric case rates when comparing those eligible for vaccination with those not eligible. If you look at the gold line, that is the oldest age children 12 to 18 who are all eligible for vaccination. You see that nicely flattening out at a rate of 16.1 per 100,000. When you look at the children who are either ages six to 11 or zero to five, you see the rates are almost twice as high. These children, of course, not yet eligible for vaccination, but we hope that will occur into the fall. This is yet another example of the power of vaccination and its impact on our pediatric population. So once again, vaccination is still our strongest and most protective defense against COVID-19 right now, even protective for those who have not yet or cannot yet receive vaccine. I'd like to also briefly address the health department's reporting of daily case numbers. We're glad that the data has been so informative and useful, and I wanna thank our data teams who's behind the scenes efforts are simply above and beyond. It's an important point to know that our infectious disease surveillance data is reported as provisional and subject to change. In fact, that statement is on the health department's reportable disease data webpage. It applies to pretty much every piece of data we report. In a real-time, fast-paced pandemic, we are always balancing the need to provide data quickly with the work that has to be done to make sure it is complete and accurate. COVID-19 data is reported as completely as we know it to be on any given day, and it is updated as new information is learned and reviewed. In recent weeks, like earlier in the pandemic, large numbers of cases have been added to the prior day's case count as lab reports from the prior day are investigated. We're working, as you heard from Secretary Smith, to reduce that number and have implemented some changes in our processes, but it does not affect our ability or the public's ability to see and analyze the data once it is complete. I also want to update you on where we are with booster shot planning. Very simply, a CDC advisory group is meeting on Friday to discuss data related to boosters, and we will keep you updated as soon as we have more information to share. While I feel somewhat confident about the fact that patients in nursing home facilities will be prioritized and have boosters, I cannot be confident of anything beyond that at this time. On a final note, I'd like to bring attention to a project the health department's working on with the University of Vermont to better understand the current health status of people who have tested positive for COVID-19. We are reaching out to Vermonters as part of this project, and the effort will help the state's healthcare system respond and adapt to the effects of COVID-19 on the health of Vermonters. About 2,500 people have been randomly selected to participate. So if you had COVID-19 in the past six months, you may get a call or an email from the University. If you're contacted, please answer the phone and return the call or reply to the email. Your help will be greatly appreciated, and any information you give will be kept confidential. Thank you, Dr. Levine. We'll now open it up to questions. We'll start with folks in the room. Governor, have you given any thought to bringing in a special prosecutor to investigate new evidence filed with our court showing that state officials knew about the misuse of funds at JP, and yet continue to take money from deep-rooted investors to finish the work potential? Have not contemplated a special prosecutor at this point. Wouldn't rule it out, but have not considered it. We are relying on the advice of our counsel, the Attorney General, and his office and staff that have been conducting the investigation from the beginning and representing the state in this matter, and continue to represent all the different employees that were considered involved. The Attorney General's office was directly involved in the Burke Hotel continuation of the fraud by virtue of paying the contractor in 2015? Considering it's a different Attorney General, no. I'm not concerned about there being, they being specifically involved, and I believe that they are acting in our best interests as our attorneys. Are you willing to call for the release of state records? I have been, again, from the very beginning. I think we should be dispersing those documents quicker than we are today. I've been advocating that with our counsel, but he is the Attorney General's office as the holder of those documents, and it's part of their legal strategy not to do so, but I'll continue to advocate, and hopefully we'll come to some conclusion because I believe that they should be out in the open. Why do you think the Attorney General's not released? The records that are now in federal court under SEAL, for example, that get into some detail about this, why do you think that? Again, part of his strategy, may be a better question for the Attorney General. So is this his strategy to hide the state's role? I wouldn't say it's their strategy to hide the state's role at all, but it's just part of their legal strategy that they've been utilizing from the very beginning, and I can't question what they're doing, or I can question it, but again, we're relying on them for their legal expertise. Wouldn't you want to get to the bottom of this? Yes, absolutely, and I believe we will. It's just taking more time than any of us had hoped. Maybe Governor Tukit, getting to some of the data that we're seeing, I mean, we were hearing, I guess last month, we were looking toward Israel, our data is eventually going to come down, and our cases are going to come down, but it seems like we just keep hearing the same thing week over week in terms of cases, and maybe where they're going. I guess what is really kind of the bigger picture forecast? I mean, are cases ever going to come down? Again, we didn't expect this elevation of cases this early, but we thought it was going to happen later in the fall, but here it is, and it's affecting all of us with this new Delta strain. I think, again, it's good news that it's flat. It's elevated a little bit more than we had hoped, but we are certainly down below most other states. But I think it's a combination of factors. We have reduced restrictions a great deal from six months ago. We've lifted the state of emergency. We have 80,000 kids in school. There are many, many more outdoor activities, indoor activities that people are taking advantage of, so it's a different atmosphere out there, and again, with a combination of having more visitors from out of state and all the activities that have happened since the end of the summer, I've been concerned for a few days. I think I mentioned it last week. What effect Labor Day will have and all the activities surrounding the private events and so forth are going to have on case counts. Now, we haven't seen dramatic rise, but we did see an elevation today, and I'm not sure we'll have to just wait and see whether this is as a result of those activities about eight, nine days ago at Labor Day weekend. Yeah, thanks for the question, Calvin. Just to be clear, the cases did drop this week by about 86 cases compared to last week, and for Vermont, we're about nine weeks into the Delta surge. So when you do look at other jurisdictions, whether in the United States or internationally, it was that seven to nine week period where they started to see their cases slow and then ultimately drop as well. So we're in that same framework. Still, we're sort of cautiously optimistic about whether we're going to continue to see that downward trend, but the country as a whole hasn't seen that same downward trend in a uniformed way, but parts of the country have a much bigger country, more diverse than many of these other jurisdictions that we looked at. But again, those areas of the country that were hit early as seven to nine weeks later, they did see their cases come down. You can see some other states out west, even Alaskan, Oregon, which were more recently hit hard, they're starting to see their cases come down. So it's still following that similar trajectory. We're, again, cautiously optimistic about what that means in Vermont that they actually did fall this week, but we'd like to see some more data before saying that it's a clear sign that it's trending down. Secretary French, are the contact tracing changes that are happening in schools? You mentioned some issues. Are those issues related to what Secretary Smith was talking about with the contractor not sort of rising to meet the demand of Delta right now? Yeah, I think there's two variables. One is capacity, and I think that's the kind of Secretary Smith was addressing, but I think just in terms of refining our process, and I would say that's largely focused due to the speed of Delta. I think that's put a lot of pressure on schools, and as Commissioner Beechak just said, not the best time of year with school opening to try to address that. So it's been a real struggle, I think, to address process improvement in the middle of opening school at the same time, but there's some things I think we can do, and I'm optimistic in particular if we can leverage making sure schools have the vaccination information more at their fingertips, that will go a long way to making the process more efficient at the local level. As I mentioned, the other place where we've noticed patterns are the large common areas like cafeterias and buses and so forth. So I think we can make some progress and make the process work better for schools and for the contact tracers themselves. Secretary Trach, do you have an aggregate number of the number of cases we've seen so far since reopening with the number of districts that have seen cases since reopening? We were looking right for the press conference. I think the Department of Health's website was recently updated. I think it's updated on Tuesdays. I think we saw 78 cases in schools in the last seven days, and I think the total is now about 156 somewhere in that ballpark. I don't know if I had any expectations per se, but certainly I think as we've always sort of noticed that there is a direct correlation between viral activity in communities and the viral activities in schools. And so to a certain extent aren't surprised because there is a lot of virus transmission happening. I think again, from my perspective, really watching what's going on in the hospitalization rates is really a critical part of that. So we're not seeing the similar commensurate uptake in the hospitalization, so that's good news, but it's a lot of activity for schools to manage because there's a lot of activity in our communities. Governor, do you anticipate the federal government is going to make any change with respect to the Canada border in the next week when the order expires? I haven't heard that they are. I have another meeting with them on Homeland Security this week with other governors, so maybe that issue will come up. What is the contract with CIC, CICS? What is the state going to do to make sure that student data is protected? Secretary Smith, is that something you could answer? In, I'm not sure I understand the question, but let me try to answer a question that I'm not sure I understand. With contact tracing, we get the results every night, lab results of positive cases, and of course that's protected health information. We reach out through contact tracing to either the person who is a positive or the guardian of that person who's a positive. So I, you know, there isn't a, there are other sort of people that may be involved in it, but they all have sort of a need to know. I think that's not the right phrase, but I'm going to use it for this purpose. It's a need to know in terms of the criteria of HIPAA criteria for this information. We've never had a problem with that, and I don't expect we're going to have a problem in the future on this. I don't know if I said contact tracing. I think I meant surveillance testing, the new surveillance testing program. That's, I don't know if that changes your answer or not. Not really. But, you know, we haven't had a problem in our testing protocol in term, and we're very careful on that in terms of, you know, your surveillance testing and, you know, the labeling of your test and who it goes to, the test results. We're pretty careful on that. So I, unless Dr. Levine or Secretary French have anything to add, I think, you know, we haven't had a problem in the past. I don't foresee us having any problems in the future. So I have answered contact tracing and surveillance testing. I also have a separate question, probably for Commissioner Harrington as well, if he's on the phone. Commissioner, can you, maybe Governor too, I mean, can you explain what's happening right now with that additional $25 unemployment supplement that was approved by the legislature, signed into law by you, but I guess now, is it happening? Yeah, Commissioner Harrington, I believe, is in a hearing with the legislature right now, but we may have the deputy commissioner on. But again, from my standpoint, this is pretty simple. We, I, as you mentioned, this was a supplemental benefit that was described as a supplemental benefit by the legislature. It's in the bill in law as the supplemental. There's a, there's part of the bill right there. It's called supplemental. And we, we have the unemployment trust fund that the legislature and we had agreed to try and fund this supplemental benefit with the trust fund. So we are under certain restrictions. The trust fund is just that. We are entrusted to protect the fund and there are certain criteria restrictions and so forth details that we, we can't misuse the trust fund. We, the restrictions are in place for good reason. So they aren't used for any other purpose other than unemployment. So again, we, with full knowledge of the legislature, we reached out to the federal government, the secretary of labor, the Biden administration and asked them if this was an approved use of the funds. They had had determined after a long period of time that it is not something that we can utilize out of the trust fund, which means that it will have to come from other funding sources if we move forward, which means the general fund. So again, this is, I know that there's a lot of conspiracy theorists out there that feel that this is something dark and mysterious that happened, but it really is about the federal government just saying this is not appropriate. You can't do this. And we have to follow there the rules and regulations. So it's as simple as that. Now we have to go back to the drawing board a bit with the legislature to see where they want to get the money from. At least one lawmaker is calling for commissioner Harrington's resignation. I mean, what do you make of that? If I was to ask a commissioner or a member of my cabinet to resign due to them following the law, I think that would be inappropriate in itself. So no, I think the bottom line is he was just doing his job and we have an obligation. Again, we're entrusted to protect the unemployment trust fund and we're doing just that. We're just trying to follow the law. Governor, with the appointment of Justice Robinson to the federal bench, that's gonna open up another Supreme Court opening. Have you started looking? No, I mean, that goes through the regular process. So I'm sure the court is well aware of this and then we'll have the judicial nominating board involved as well. So this will take some time if she's confirmed, which I hope she is. I was gonna ask you for a comment on her appointment. No, I've worked with her a bit in the past and when I was the Lieutenant Governor and she was with the Shumman administration early on. And I've, of course, watched her work over the last number of years and it's very impressive. She has a great work ethic and I'm fully supportive of this new endeavor. So in fact, I wrote a letter to Congress asking them to confirm her because I think she's the right person for this position. No, I mean, we have to go off whatever is put forward to us, so that's putting the cart before the horse. All right, we'll move to the phone starting with Lisa Raffke, Associated Press. Thanks, Jason. It looks like over the last number of days here, we've had five or six deaths in COVID. If I'm reading this correctly, three, it's yesterday and then then over the weekend and one Monday. I'm just letting the doctor we mean to give us any more information about them or any of them in long-term care facilities may be among unvaccinated or anything like that. Sure, thanks for the question. I can give some generalizations without getting very specific. If you look at them in aggregate, they're not all that different from previous deaths. First of all, each and every one of them unique and tragic in its own right. Secondly, combination of people who have been vaccinated or not. More of them have frankly died of COVID, severe complications of COVID. There are times in previous deaths where that COVID was a contributory cause, but many of the more recent deaths COVID is clearly implicated in the death very directly. Again, there have been residents of long-term care facilities, but that's not the entire group. That's only a small number of them. Does that pretty much give you what you need? Can you tell us anything more about the ages and how many deaths have there been since Saturday? I don't have the number of my fingertips. I'd like to say five, but could be four, could be six. And ages have been fifties through nineties. Okay, and then I also wanted to ask, if you're not seeing any healthy people getting an extra dose before the boosters are approved? Yeah, that's a really good question. Just to put it in context, as more and more discussion about boosters occurs, there are individuals who are taking it into their own hands and hoping that they can walk into whatever site they wanna walk into and ask for a dose of whatever vaccine and get it. There's also very conflicting guidance coming out from people who are frequently quoted in the press, some of whom are very much against, some of whom are saying that seems reasonable. So puts people in a very challenging predicament, which is why I've been saying we need to wait for the science to be reviewed adequately and the appropriate guidance are coming forth. Our state-run vaccine sites, and as far as I'm aware, all of the pharmacies are really very good at making sure that they know what person is asking for what and are they indeed due for that dose of whatever they're asking for. So I've not heard a lot of instances of people getting a special dose, if you will, that they would call a booster. The ones that we have the most concern about are those who are truly immunocompromised, who can and should indeed be walking in and saying I have an immunocompromising condition and I would like a booster. So that's the group that we really focused on until we have other guidance. But I'm not hearing a lot of individuals who have succeeded in just getting a dose because they felt it was the right thing to do. But it's not a metric we can really accurately follow for you either. Okay, thank you. Ed Barber, Newport Daily Express. Yes, good afternoon. I have two questions. The first one, I'm trying to figure out how you spread the needle in that last year at this time, we had a COVID virus, we didn't have a vaccine. We tried to have the safe guys in place for students, including social distancing. This year with the Delta variation, which does go off, you know, does make our kids vulnerable. We don't do the social distancing in the schools. That's about doing it on the school buses, but in the schools themselves. I'm trying to figure out if the science was that, the social distancing was critical last year. Why is it not just as critical this year among that younger population where the Delta mutation is especially lethal? Well, I think the one thing, I'll let Dr. Levine answer this, but, you know, the science, the data, we learn more about this virus every single day. And what we thought in the beginning is sometimes not what it turned out to be now. And so we're learning a lot in this short, relatively short period of time, learning from other states and CDC and just our own experience. But I will say, you know, we have heard from pediatricians who have testified about the need to get our kids back in school and to think that we have 80,000 kids back in school right now in a relatively low number of cases that are developed as a result. In some respects, it's good news because they weren't doing well. We heard that time and time again from the pediatricians and experts and educational experts as well, that our kids were not doing okay. So now putting them back into a school environment has been beneficial to them. And again, with the masking policy that we have, I think that it's going as well as could be expected. Dr. Levine. Just to add on to that great answer, actually. The, you know, the bottom line is if there's an important thing on the list of things to do, it's to not send kids to school when they're sick or adults to school when they're sick. That's probably the most powerful intervention. Beyond that, masking is so effective that that's listed at the top of the list of the kinds of mitigation procedures you can exercise. It's still, it's not true that distancing is not on the list anymore. It's just a lesser consideration and it directly is impacted by what the governor just said. The cost of having kids not be an in-person education are much greater than the cost of not having school because you have distancing requirements in place that don't allow you to have the class be a class. You can't fit enough kids into the space that you have. So even the CDC, who's put out sort of the textbook on this now recognizes that and said, don't let distancing get in the way of getting kids back to school. I just want to also use your question just to take advantage of it to contextualize a few of the things you've heard this morning because you're right, the Delta variant is very different. But even with the Delta variant, the cases we're seeing in school to this point with rare exception have come in from the community because that's where the virus is being transmitted. And the kid shows up in school and then it becomes a case. But the reality is the small numbers relatively thus far, even though they may involve a large number of schools are not closing down the entire operation and not impacting 80,000 kids in the same way that they would have been in the pre-vaccine era. And you saw our table of long-term care facilities and in 134 I believe cases listed amongst about eight facilities. Before vaccine, 134 cases would have been one or two facilities. And we would have been seeing death rates that were horrifying and we would have been seeing potential hospitalization rates, though many of the patients weren't destined for hospitalization due to their advanced directive. But the reality was this long-term care situation is much different. We're seeing dozens of cases in a facility not tens to hundreds of cases. And with colleges, they've just come aboard so it's a little early, but we had our usual college call this morning. And yes, there are cases that are being picked up as the students have arrived here and are testing positive, but they're a very small number. They are not super ill and they're not disruptive to the beginning of college for this semester at this point in time. And their vaccination rates are extraordinary and very laudatory. So we applaud all of the schools for what they've done and the students for complying with their mandate. Thanks. Just thinking- I have a question on a completely different subject matter. Governor and the courthouse here in Orleans County is one example, but there are defense attorneys who are at this point saying that justice delayed is justice denied. The fact that this courthouse doesn't have a good ventilation system isn't a reason to continue to put criminal cases on hold until the pandemic is over until they eventually find suitable space. Is there any reason why they can't find a space outside of the courthouse where they can hold trials and start taking care of a backlog of cases? None that I'm aware of, Ed. And that's probably a better question for the judicial branch, three branches of government, judiciary, executive and legislative, and that's under their control. Okay, very good, thank you. Secretary French, did you want to answer? Yeah. He may want to expand upon the first question. I don't know if there are two of them. Yeah, thanks, Ed. I was just thinking, just to re-emphasize a couple points relative to school from this year and last year, definitely reacting to Delta, which is a new experience, but I think when we think about, which I think is what we're really focused on this year is trying to balance the education policy goals with the health goals, the experience from last year educationally is accumulating for students. And as I remarked at an earlier press conference, we can't afford to have another year of disrupted experience for them, so that weighs heavily in our decision-making. And I think specifically to your question on distancing, that's the mitigation strategy, as Dr. Levine said, that's in our toolkit, but it is the strategy that really gets at the heart of balancing the educational objectives with the health objectives, because if we go to distancing, like as I mentioned previously at the high school level, that almost automatically shifts high schools into a hybrid learning mode, which isn't gonna work for kids. And it's also very counterproductive for younger students in terms of the healthy socialization that they need for development. So it's something we're aware of based on our experience to your point, but it's also something we're really looking closely at trying to really balance the educational needs of students with the public health needs as well. Okay, very good, thank you. Tim McQuiston, Vermont Business Magazine. Hi, Governor. Just to follow up on the UI question, the $25, is there nothing you can do between now and the legislature reconvenes in January and 16 weeks or so? Not that I'm aware of. I mean, we're talking about, I mean, $25 doesn't sound like a whole lot, Tim, but that's really millions of dollars a year. And I think they put a cap of 100 million on it over the next several years. So this is nothing that I can think of that we can do without legislative authority. Is there possible to reconvene the legislature before then, either by your order or by theirs? Or is that even within the realm of possibilities? Do you, certainly could call a special session. I don't know if it rises to that level. I mean, that would be extraordinary from my standpoint, but I'm willing to listen. Okay, thank you, Governor. Yeah, thank you, Jason. Clarifying question for Secretary French. We define a close contact as someone who has been within six feet of an infected individual for a total of 15 minutes over 24 hours. Correct me if I'm getting any of that wrong. Is the guidance to schools that if a student is fully vaccinated, then they would not be considered a close contact even if they need that CDC definition? Yeah, hi, Peter. You're almost there. You did cite the definition of a close contact from the CDC and that is the one we are maintaining. The definition around vaccination, the other variable is you must be also be asymptomatic. So the CDC and Vermont guidelines say that if you are vaccinated and asymptomatic by definition, you are not a close contact. So then how would schools know whether or not somebody is symptomatic or not? If they're trying to decide, okay, who is it we need to reach out to? How could they take fully vaccinated people off that list of close contacts without having knowledge of whether or not they're symptomatic or not? Yeah, I mean, it's a great question because it gets the kind of the mechanics that school nurses and COVID coordinators have been juggling. The first, again, two variables. One, what is your vaccination status? And then second, are you symptomatic or not? And the vaccination status has been, I would argue, part of the logjam, if you will, in the process that previously was only confirmable by the Department of Health. So what we're empowering now are districts to use their local vaccination information. So they'll have that variable at their fingertips more readily. Similarly, the school nurses and other school officials are capable of diagnosing, if you will, identifying symptoms that are COVID. And as Dr. Levine said, one of probably one of the most important points of our recommendations this year is stay home when you're sick. So continue to reinforce that message and have families and certainly the health folks in schools identify people who are symptomatic. But I think, again, I think the issue has been largely on identifying vaccination status in a rapid manner. Hopefully we'll address that in our revised guidance. Got it. So just to be clear, if once students have that list of who's vaccinated and who's not at their fingertips, are you recommending that they not call fully vaccinated students who have been in close contact with somebody who was infected if they haven't gotten word from the school nurse that so-and-so said they had a sore throat? Yeah, it's a complicated question. Firstly, I think what we're proposing is informed by the contact tracers and the health expertise of the health department. So part of it is to get, again, at the sort of immediate issue of identifying individuals that are vaccinated so that can help make the process more efficient so they then can move on to those individuals that are not vaccinated. But we're also, as I mentioned in my statement today, the health department will be publishing additional like template letters and so forth. In the case of recess to help parents know that there might have been an exposure on a playground, but that exposure, hypothetical exposure or probable exposure doesn't necessarily translate in the need for quarantining. And that's the big goal here is again to try to balance the educational goals with the public health goals and try to prevent the, say the identification of students that are asymptomatic and certainly asymptomatic and vaccinated for quarantining when we should be focusing our efforts on other students, perhaps. Thank you all. Joseph Gresser, the Barton Chronicle. Joseph Gresser. Come on, Joe. Come on, Joe. Thank you, gotcha. Come on, Joe. There, Joe, I think we have you. Move to Mike Donnelly. Good to get you, Jason. Governor, I was wondering your react to the almost virtual shutdown by the Department of Public Safety this week for law enforcement due to its new computer system called Valkor, apparently everybody knew it was flawed. And even back in April, when the first of three rollouts started and now yesterday, the troopers got an email from the administration urging them not to be proactive, not to make traffic stops, not to use the radio, not to use the phone that the dispatch centers, the two dispatch centers are virtually flooded. And essentially some of the local police departments that were on the old systems, Bowman have apparently gone back to paperwork because they can't get through. They make traffic stops and they're waiting for the system to work. I'm just wondering, I mean, you've obviously been, I assume, updated about this whole situation, but the department was warned back in April. They didn't wanna hear things I'm told and I was actually told one of the dispatchers warned about the Valkor system was pushed off a committee because they didn't wanna hear that. And I'm just wondering your thought about the administration telling people for the next 48 to 72 hours that they had to limit their use of the Valkor system and reduce motor vehicle stops and so forth. A lot to unpack there. I think I'm going to ask Commissioner Shirling to comment first before I comment. Okay. Good afternoon. There is a technical issue that has arisen beginning late yesterday and our team is in close coordination with developers, the folks in the communication centers and the agency of digital services to work to resolve the slowdowns on a system that has just gone live as you observed on Sunday. In terms of the remainder of the premise of the questions around warnings about the system, I would take the differ on whether there have been any concerns about the ongoing rollout to this point. All right. Well, I was forwarded an email that apparently came from DPS or from State Police. It says Valkor is currently experiencing tremendous slowdowns based on several factors, including heavy loads on servers, Valkor technicians, DPS officials, agency of digital services are all aware. And then it goes on over the next 48 to 72 hours. We need everyone to limit use of Valkor. Their technicians work to improve the system. This includes reducing all proactive activities such as motor vehicle stops. Additionally, during this time it's important we try to alleviate any pressure on the PSAPs, including radio traffic and phone calls. So you knew back in April that the system was flawed. The second rollout came Sunday. There's a third in October. Governor, are you have any thought on halting the rollout of the third, the third part of the rollout? One moment, Governor. Mike, the premise of your question is skewed. The system's been in use for over 11 years in Vermont. There have not been any substantive issues with its performance. So any characterization of known issues prior to yesterday is simply untrue. We're working on a three prong strategy. The first is coding updates. The second is adding server resources. And the third is outlined in what you just read, which is reduction of load over the near term. So it'll be fixed and things will move on. Where did the Valkor system come from? How many bids did the state get? And how much are the taxpayers paying for this program for the state of Vermont? Governor, if you know. Yeah, I don't have that off my head. I know that as we enter this digital age, we are constantly trying to improve processes. We're relying on IT for almost everything these days. As we've shown in the Department of Labor, for instance, we have a 50 year old mainframe that needs to be replaced and enhanced and improved. But we've become so reliant on that, we have to continue to utilize that infrastructure until we can build upon that to make it better. The same holds true for the 50 year old system, legacy system in motor vehicle. So we are moving forward with that. Valkor is no different. That's, again, 11 years old. It needs constant updates, constant improvements. As we know with our own systems, I'm sure, Mike, this would be like going back to just having a pad and paper and transcribing all your notes to a typewriter. Everything has changed these days and how we communicate, how we develop our information and how we report. So again, during this brief, brief period where we've had an issue, going back to some standard policing is something that has to be done and we're doing it and we'll have this system up and running shortly. So again, anything we do with our services and so forth are typically a bid process, but I don't know the particulars of this one. But we'll certainly, I can get Secretary Young to connect with you and describe that. Okay, because obviously it impacts fire and rescue squads also apparently are being forced to switch from the Spelman system to the Valkor system if they're dispatchers, state police. Maybe the commissioner can outline where the Valkor system came from and how much they're paying the taxpayers are paying for and how many different agencies or how many different companies were considered for this upgrade. I believe there were six bids. This goes back to the middle of COVID. So we'll have to reference the documents for the details. Be happy to provide that on request. And where did Valkor come from? It's built by a company called Crosswind Technologies. It originated in a public-private partnership in Burlington in 2010. And were you part of that? Yes, I think you're well aware of that, Mike. Just want to make sure. Are you still part of it? In terms of part of it, that was the chief in Burlington when we acquired the system. I have not been part of anything to do with public safety IT for about seven years. And Wallace Allen, seven days. To Greg Lamarrow, the County Courier. Good afternoon, Governor. Last week, I asked you about mask mandates of public meetings. You mentioned that you'd probably be looking into it with legal counsel in your office. I wonder what you've discovered since. I have not. I did bring it up with our counsel, but I haven't followed up on that at this point in time. And I think I suggested you contact the Secretary of State. Maybe you could tell us what you found out. Corrected it in a pretty lengthy story on it. I was more curious what you found out, seeing that you were happy to point out that it was a division in government. So I wanted to find out what your branch of government thought of it. Yeah, again, I haven't followed up with our general counsel. But it's on the to-do list. And I'll have to pick up a copy of the Courier and find out what you did. You found out. Ha ha ha ha. All right. This may be for Commissioner Harrington. I had a local from Monterey reach out. And they spent a better part of the year trying to work in the Department of Labor in regards to lost payment from a program called the Wast Wages Assistance Program. Currently, the Department cut a check to them. It was never received. It had a very lengthy time trying to get that paid. In the meantime, tax season came around. The Department said, here's a 1099G. You still have to pay the taxes on the money, even though you haven't gotten it yet, because it's income from 2020. We're now pushing almost a year since this person was supposed to get paid. And out of self-injury, they've had to fork out tax money on income that they haven't received. Tax money that presumably some of it went to the state of Vermont. I'm wondering, where do people go when all of their calls for the Department of Labor have gone unanswered or at least no solutions? Commissioner Harrington, I think I said this earlier, is in a hearing with the legislature at this point in time. The deputy commissioner degree may be on, but I'm not sure that he can answer that. But I'll give it a try. The LWA program was the supplemental program that the president instituted towards the end of 2020 via executive order. It was a short-term program. It is possible, certainly, that this person has fallen through the cracks. If you would be willing to share with me their information break, I'll make sure we get in touch with them and try to provide that person's answers. Certainly. And I guess I'll follow up on it next week. I guess, lastly, this may be for Education Secretary, with the caveat that nothing's been finalized, what do you expect to see for winter sports this coming year? Hi, Greg. As I mentioned earlier, we're working on that now. We have, I would say, a fairly disciplined approach to doing this sort of decision-making. We evaluate each sport for its risk relative to COVID. And we're also, certainly, very aware of the Delta environment and what mitigation strategies we have in our toolkit, including vaccination and surveillance testing. So too early to tell. But we are hoping to produce some recommendations in early October. Well, presumably, there's been some discussions. I'm just trying to find out, like I said, with the caveat that nothing's been finalized, what are some of those discussions? Are we talking even about the possibility of fans attending games this year? Or has that already been cut from the options? I'm just trying to get a rough idea of what you're working at and what some of the discussions have been. Yeah, I appreciate the question. It's definitely too early to describe that. Again, we have early October in mind, precisely because we know people need to have some forewarning of how to implement the recommendation. So it's a little too early, but happy to talk more about that in early October. And Secretary Curley's on the line, and she might be able to provide a little more context. Yeah, I definitely don't want to speak to high school and middle school sports and step on the toes of the education community, but wanted to try to tackle this from the perspective of the current situation on the ground. Right now, activities like singing and theater and sports are permitted. We don't have an emergency order or anything that would not allow people to be playing those sports or enjoying the arts as they wish. But again, we remind people to take a peek at the Department of Health website where we talk about recommendations around when to mask, particularly indoors, where there are people who are unvaccinated, whether they can't be vaccinated or have chosen not to be. So those are really important pieces for follow-up. But for now, I mean, I think, you know, we obviously want to offer hope and say that unless the situation changes drastically and again, Dr. Levine could maybe weigh in on this, that we expect that people will be able to enjoy those activities that they love so much. But again, as Secretary Prince said, there are some different strong recommendations in the school system and so the school court there needs to be some additional conversations to make sure that the recommendations line up with what the expectation is in the school system. May I just run a little bit forward? Good afternoon. I have two questions for Dr. Levine. I was wondering if you could give your opinion on the use of ivermectin for COVID treatment or prevention. And I also want to know if you or the Department of Health are hearing about the drug being used for COVID at all in Vermont. He answered this last week, but I'm sure it hasn't changed. That's correct, Governor. You know, it's received a lot of press lately, but I do have to say the medical and scientific community are being pretty unified on this, that it has not been shown to have a role for human beings in treating COVID-19 or in preventing COVID from occurring. And I would urge those who are seeking to avoid vaccination but find something else that might be magical to help them that this would not be the path to go down. And it's because of what you just mentioned that there have been numerous reports in the medical literature about significant adverse effects from people taking ivermectin, which is often dosed for horses and cows who weigh a lot more than human beings. The experience in Vermont, I am not aware of anybody who has been treated for severe adverse effects that doesn't mean it hasn't happened. I'm just not aware of that. Michelle Monroe, the Islander. Thank you, Jason. My question is actually for Secretary French concerning whether or not the State Board of Education might consider changing its position on not counting education that's happening remotely while students are in quarantine. Because we're certainly seeing at the elementary level that entire classes are being forced into quarantine by a case in the classroom. And what I'm hearing from administrators is that teachers are continuing to work with those students remotely because to do so for seven to 10 days while all those students tested would adversely impact their education, yet the school doesn't get credit for 10 minutes for those kids. Yeah, thanks for the question. I think, firstly, the State Board hasn't taken that issue up, so I can't speak for the board in that regard. But I think it remains to be seen what the pattern of the school year will be. And there is, even if the regulations don't change, there is an opportunity for a waiver request that exists under the current regulation that we might see districts trying to leverage. That waiver process doesn't kick in until after the first of the year, however. So we'll have to wait and see. But the State Board, I believe, hasn't taken up the issue yet. Thank you. And also, cafeteria, they were remaining. The guidance is allowed for resumption at cafeteria. And that's certainly one of the areas that's being raised in the revised guidance. But it seems to me that children, unvaccinated children, in an area where together they're not massed, it's very hard to keep them from wanting to interact, particularly young children, actually the middle school children. So is there a chance that guidance may change around cafeterias and allowing use of cafeterias for unvaccinated students? Yeah, I think your question raises the issue, again, of balancing the educational goals with the health goals. And cafeterias, firstly, schools have other places they can use other than cafeterias. But cafeterias are important social environments for students as well. And it's often a time where they, I want to say, blow off some steam, but they're allowed to relax a little bit in a non-academic way and connect with their peers. And that's an important consideration. We'll certainly, as we are, monitoring the contact tracing, in particular, if we see patterns that are directly pointing to cafeterias as being a source of problematic spread of the virus, that would be something we'd be focusing in on. But we're not seeing those patterns right now. In our recommendations, firstly, when they are in cafeterias, certainly they're removing mass when they're eating. But other than that, we do recommend that they move through that process as quickly as possible and put their mass back on, or at least get back to another environment where they can safely engage with one another. But to your question, I think it remains to be seen. We monitor the data very closely, particularly from contact tracing. And if we saw a pattern, we would consider recommending some further steps. OK. Thank you. And then I had a question for Secretary Smith about testing. An island resident reached out to me about wait times for testing in the island. She was saying that it took her five days to be able to be tested in the island. And certainly that's a concern when we have kids who need to be tested on their seven day mark, and testing is limited in the island. So is there any potential solution other than islands residents are going to have to go to Franklin or Chittenden counties if they need to be tested more rapidly? Let me look into that. I hadn't heard of the islands in particular having those sort of issues. But let me look into that, and I'll get back to you. How's that sound? OK. Sure. Thanks. That's it for me. Thanks, gentlemen. Michael Zordy, BT Digger. Thank you. I want to jump back to school surveillance testing. According to the figures that you provided, a month into the school year, about half of all school districts still won't be participating in this. School districts that we've talked to have said that they are struggling to staff this effort. And in other cases, they're saying that problems with either the state or with CIC are delaying their ability to actually roll it out. I wonder, why isn't the state doing more to accelerate this process? Hi, this is Secretary French. I think the issues you raised are ones we're aware of. I think it's in terms of accelerating the process, it's a really hard time of year again, particularly with the work that's going on around contact tracing to expect the process to move any quicker. But again, we do want to emphasize that surveillance testing had played an important role for us last year, and it will play an important role going forward. So we're definitely very interested in resolving any kind of logistical considerations. The ones you mentioned are ones we've heard as well. But again, I think it's also really, it's kind of unrealistic to expect schools to deploy this any quicker at this moment of time. And I'm sure we'll make a lot of progress as we get past the opening of school. It seems like in a lot of cases that the schools themselves are certainly yes, staffing on their end is an issue. But we've heard specific reports that it's specifically with the state or with CIC that they're not able to get the resources that they need. Schools that really want to roll this out sooner and can stand it up sooner. Yeah, I mean, there's a tremendous demand for testing right now. And CIC is a regional vendor. They're seeing that demand. And they're working hard to ramp up their support as well. And we're definitely taking concerns from the district and taking them into our process improvement model and doing what we can to make it work better for everyone. But it is, it's a bit of a log jam on testing right now and we have to make it work better. Okay, thank you. I had one other question related specifically to the number of fatalities that we've seen so far in this surge. We, in the modeling reports back in early August, there have been a forecast of looking at a maximum of around six deaths for the month of August and I think we ended up at 18. So far in September, we've seen 13. Certainly these numbers seem a lot higher than what had been forecast and there hasn't been a forecast included in the modeling reports. So I'm curious, what should Vermonters be expecting for the next six to eight weeks? What are you forecasting in terms of the number of people that are likely to die from COVID in this time period? Yes, sir, Peter. Thank you, Governor. So Mike, just wanted to point out that we do continue to include fatality forecast in the online version of our presentation, which is the sort of full 60, 70 page presentation. It's the CDC Ensemble that puts together a bunch of different forecasts and gives an expectation for Vermont. You are correct that in early August, you know, going into the Delta wave, we anticipated, you know, that those deaths might be a little higher than July, but not as high as they eventually got. We did revise that forecast in the month of August up to, you know, a range of, you know, I think it was 15 to 18. Right now we currently have 19 deaths for the month of August. So it was certainly in that ballpark. For the month of September, you know, if the expectation is that cases, you know, will eventually come down, we're hoping that the trends on the case side are reasoned to be optimistic. As we know from previous waves, it takes a little while for those hospitalizations to follow suit, and then unfortunately deaths is a lagging indicator as well. So, you know, the CDC forecast, I think generally shows that the median expectation is that maybe we would continue to see five to six deaths a week, sort of this pace that we're on right now. But certainly as you get toward the end of the month of the cases come down, you would expect the fatality rate to come down as well. And it seems like practicing deaths a week for the next several weeks could put us to where we're looking at almost roughly the same number of deaths that we saw in the first wave of COVID back in, you know, March, April, May, 2020. I wonder just how can we kind of contextualize that? It seems unusual to think that at this stage of things that a surgeon cases would be seeing the same, you know, same number of fatalities that we saw back in 2020. Yeah, so I think there's a couple of points. One, you know, when you look at the overall fatality rate for the entire pandemic, Vermont is now tied with the lowest number of fatalities per capita with Hawaii. So Hawaii had been considerably ahead of us and through this Delta wave, unfortunately, their experience has not been as good as ours and they've seen quite a few deaths. So other places are certainly seeing an increase in fatalities. Vermont, like I said, is one of the lowest in the country through the Delta wave, the lowest through the entire pandemic. When you look at the, not just the spring surge in 2020, but the winter surge in 2021, you know, obviously you see a lot more fatalities at that point in time than what we saw back in March. And I think really the difference is obviously it's a different virus now than it was back in March, 2020, obviously we shut down almost every aspect of our lives in March of 2020 in a way that, you know, was pretty significant. So just a different time now, certainly a different virus, but certainly also the protection of the vaccines as well. And we see that the case fatality rate for those who are fully vaccinated obviously is very, very low. And I think that's the key message for people to take away. Okay, thank you. Guy Page from on Daily Crockle. Hello, Governor. Does the Vermont Department of Health keep records of the identities of vaccinated Vermonters as reported by healthcare providers? And if so, how will this information be used? I believe they're all gone into our electronic records keeping. So we do keep them. So I'm not sure how it would be used other than for data, but I'll let Dr. Levine answer. Yeah, there is an immunization registry. And so we keep track of all immunizations in the state through that. There's also an opportunity if a person is in someone's doctor's office and they're not sure if they had a certain immunization and they're able to get it, that that doctor can check records to see if the person has actually gotten the immunization and hence doesn't really need it all over again. Or if they don't have it and they're eligible to have certain immunizations. So it's used in a clinical sense in that way. Obviously in aggregate, it's used in a population level as well and reporting back to the CDC and in our state keeping track of rates of immunization with various vaccines. So we have an idea of how much of our population has received one vaccine versus another, which go into important public health decisions. But you don't expect to be reporting those numbers, the identities, the names to the CDC. No, no. Governor, your opioid overdose response a few weeks ago addressed pandemic isolation but did not address the year over year decline and prosecution of illegal opioid dealers as shown in the health department dashboard. Would your administration advocate for more aggressive arrest and prosecution of dealers as a path to reducing overdoses? Yeah, I think it's a multi-prong approach. And I think enforcement is one of those, one of the three legs of the stool, so to speak. So yes, we continue to advocate. In fact, I think there was a significant event in the Northeast Kingdom this past week. Yes. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Jason. Governor, the administration, I just have five-year favor words. No questions. Thank you. And Jim McGregor, how about any record? Yeah, good afternoon. Thanks for sticking so long beyond your scheduled stop time. Probably for Secretary Smith, concerns from Northeast Kingdom School nurses with the availability of testing and the turnaround times for results. I'm being told it's taking nearly a week for some tests to come back. There's no testing capacity in the kingdom on Sundays, at least according to the health department sign up, none on Saturdays in Orleans County. And it's pretty discouraging to school staff that are trying to manage and keep kids out when it's so hard for families to cope with what essentially is a two-week absence from school. And the last thing is wait times even when you can get an appointment, cars at the drive-throughs waiting for as much as an hour and hearing the anecdotally about some vehicles cutting line and there being minor confrontations between drivers waiting for their turn to get tested. So just thoughts and reaction to whether there's testing concerns here in the kingdom. Thank you for bringing that up and we'll certainly look into that. One of the things that I had mentioned that's different that we had done during a low period was we're allowing walk-ins for the various testing sites. And that is in a high sort of a higher virus prevalence time. That is causing some problems in because we staff up for certain capacity and then all of a sudden we have walk-ins. So what I am doing is encouraging for monitors to make reservations and like I said, appointments. And like I said, if we see shortfalls and I'm glad you brought this up, if we see shortfalls, we'll add capacity. We look at all the testing sites almost on a daily basis to look at capacity and how they're doing with capacity. We will continue to do that and we will add capacity, we will add testing sites if we need to. And then lastly, we'll look at other ways. For example, you brought up students, maybe a self-administered test at the home, maybe a way to look at that. We'll look at innovative ways that we can address any of those issues along the way. Like I said, we have 33 state testing sites in addition to 21 pharmacy sites and we do test a lot in the state, 36,000 tests over the last seven days. That makes us fifth in the nation in terms are in the top five in the nation. Sometimes we're number one in the nation in terms of testing per capita or testing per 100,000. So I really do appreciate you bringing this up. Give me a chance to look into it and we'll go from there. Okay, thank you. Sorry about that. Months into the pandemic and here we are. So the question is about the wait time inquiries, inquiries that you guys started. I wanna know how it's going because I think you guys announced it maybe three weeks ago. And then I was wondering, like when do you guys plan on releasing your findings for this sort of urgent issue? Thank you for the question. We have had several discussions between the three entities, the Department of Financial Regulations, the Green Mountain Care Board and the Agency of Human Services on how to proceed in terms of this investigation. I think you'll start seeing some of that movement in the next week or so as we start moving and asking questions in terms of looking at this. I'm hoping that we can wrap this up by the legislative session at the beginning of the legislative session. And the reason for that is because I wanna be able, if we need legislation to be able to introduce legislation at the beginning of the legislative year and have it go through the legislative process in a very, very thoughtful process as we move forward. So that's the timeframe of wrapping this up and also what we've been doing in the last few weeks of looking at the data that we have now, looking at what we're going to need to fill the gaps in that data and looking at what we're going to be needed in terms of personnel and to do this investigation. And so what in the meantime for folks who are waiting for specialists right now, like what should they do? And, you know, because it does seem kind of, like it's gotten very, very serious. Well, it has and we're trying to work as expeditiously as possible. You know, I've seen the letter from UVM in terms of what they sent in response to the investigation. I was a little disappointed in the letter because it talked about what other people need to be doing but it didn't talk about what UVM should be doing. What UVM should be doing in terms of how they should be changing their practices in terms of procedures or operational procedures that they should be changing to address this. It didn't talk about any sort of changes in management. It didn't talk about how they can attract and keep and retain talent in that organization. And they talked about the various aspects of funding when in fact, you know, we as an agency have funded the UVMMC's 72 million, almost 73 million dollars in the healthcare stabilization fund as well as we had a sustained monthly program that we contributed 3.6 million. That total with the health care stabilization fund and the sustained monthly came to about 73 million dollars that we've provided. We've provided increases in 20 going into 21 increases in hospital Medicaid rates. We're looking at the budget process to include another one this year. And if you look at the network as total, you know, we have a quarter that received 1.2, almost 1.3 million in healthcare stabilization money and CVMC, which received about 8.1 million in healthcare stabilization money. We fought for the ability to sustain the healthcare system. The governor's, the governor and his administration and myself fought for keeping, stabilizing the healthcare system. And with the help of the legislature, we've provided a lot of financial assistance. We do have some expectations. And that is people that are running these institutions to find ways in conjunction with us to fix the problem, instead of sending memos that just lay it on one side. And so for now, we're gonna have to wait for the findings but it sounds like maybe you have some grads with UVM. No, I think we've had it system wide. We're looking at this system wide. It's not only UVM. The reason I mentioned UVM is because they sent the memo. But secondly, I think the other factor is they are the big, they are large in comparison to the other systems. And so I think you'll see that we are, we are gonna be fair. We don't want to punish people. I've said this multiple times. What we wanna do is fix the problem. And so Commissioner Pichek, do you wanna add to that? Yeah, I just wanted to add on to the point about what should Vermonters do at the moment. The investigation, as Secretary Smith said, will unfold over the next number of months. But our department does have regulations in place at this moment that says those with commercial insurance, so Blue Cross Blue Shield, MVP, SIGNA, that you must be seen by a doctor within a reasonable time. If it's an emergency care, that's 24 hours. If it's non-emergency, it's two weeks. If it's preventative care, it's 90 days. So if you're not being seen in those windows of time, you have the ability to go out of network at the same price and get care. With telemedicine, that becomes a little bit easier because you could do that potentially from your own home. Obviously, it's not the solution to this problem. It's just something that Vermonters should be aware of and take advantage of while we look into it further. Thank you, I appreciate it. I'll just add one more piece of advice I received from one Vermonter in the past week. They had been waiting for a specialist in a couple of different areas for the last few months, two or three months, and couldn't get through and couldn't get an appointment. So they went outside the network, went to another hospital and got in within a week. So you might want to search around a bit. There may be different hospitals around Vermont that may have an opening for you. So you may want to at least explore that. And this person was well satisfied. Thank you. Okay, thanks very much. Reminds me of the old days, two hours and 15 minutes. And we'll see you again next week.