 Good afternoon everyone. Before I talk about the economy, I wanted to acknowledge the concerning report out of Washington that the Supreme Court may overturn Roe v. Wade. If true, this would be an enormous step backwards in damaged civil rights. As I said in my statement this morning, Vermont has prepared for this possibility. A few years ago, we passed a law affirming that reproductive health decisions are between a patient and their doctor, without government interference. In November, Vermont is well of the ability to codify that right in our state constitution when Prop 5 is on the ballot. So at the end of the day, the fundamental rights and liberties of all women will be defended, protected, and preserved here in Vermont. Next, at last week's press conference, we discussed the serious demographic challenges we face as a state and how that impacts the workforce, our schools, and our economy. As we talked about in the last 20 years, the number of Vermonters over the age of 65 has increased by over 40,000. Meanwhile, those between the ages of 35 and 65, the heart of our workforce, declined by over 40,000. What that means is the tax burden, which is one of the highest in the nation, is being placed on more people living on fixed incomes. And there aren't enough kids in the wings to fill the gap. From 2000 to 2022, Vermont lost about 30,000 people under the age of 18. These trends are having a devastating effect on our communities. More than half of our municipalities have seen their grand list, which is the total value of their taxable property, stay the same or shrink. This has happened while their budgets in school spending has increased, meaning that burden is tougher on the taxpayers still left standing. The bottom line is we need more people. And we're competing with the rest of the country for them, which is why I included relocation and workforce recruitment in my budget. And I hope it gets across the finish line. It's also why it's critical we invest in these communities, typically the rural areas of our state, which were once the foundation of our economy. In order to reverse these trends, we need to support community revitalization, make it easier to do business or expand, not harder, provide the infrastructure to support people like water, sewer, stormwater and broadband, while also offering smart tax relief and building out and improving housing stock for workers who are here and for those we're trying to attract. That's why I've been so focused on increased funding for economic development and community revitalization in the budget and why it's aligned in the sand for me. If we're going to reverse these trends that have plagued us for decades, we simply can't let this once in a lifetime opportunity slip through our fingers. My team and I will continue to make our case to members of the legislature in the final days of the session, because many Vermont communities are counting on us to spend and invest this money wisely. And I'll turn it over to Secretary Curley who will go into further details. Thank you, Governor. And good afternoon, everyone. As the legislature works towards adjournment, we are grateful that important community recovery and revitalization programs, which were first announced in the governor's budget address in January continue to be actively discussed and worked on throughout the session. There have been robust conversations about how to best support our Vermonters and the communities as we recover from the pandemic. The administration and ACCD have worked with legislators to adjust our original proposals. This includes adopting some of their ideas and feedback to meet our shared goals of better targeting areas of need. The programs we're seeking to fund will allow municipalities, nonprofits and small businesses to make the the recoveries and investments that they otherwise would not be able to make. Think about the childcare center looking to expand the infrastructure project project. A town doesn't have the resources to finance or the arts organization looking to rebuild their business after two years of being closed. Many of these types of projects are near ready to implement. They just need the extra funding to make it a reality. We have worked with the input of stakeholders around the state to create a framework for a new community recovery and revitalization program that is so needed in many communities around our state. But it needs to be funded at the appropriate level. The governor's budget proposal called for $100 million in economic development money. And as we wade through the final days of the session, we're asking that budget committees restore the majority of that ask. Grants made through this targeted program will be vetted to ensure they will help repair a harm that COVID created, will grow a town's tax base and will enhance an opportunity for all in a region. Projects will bring new jobs, provide services and make critical investments in infrastructure that will spur growth. We have very few communities and businesses who can utilize the few economic development tools that we do have in this program will help bring these priority projects over the finish line. So we have a framework that includes most of our original proposals wrapped into one economic development program and we're grateful for the work that's been done with the legislature to get us to this point. But without appropriate funding, the targeted recovery and growth we are seeking will fall flat. We will miss an opportunity to help our communities, our small businesses get important recovery projects over the finish line. We'll miss the opportunity to increase the tax base in towns around the state, especially in the rural areas. And we will miss the opportunity to make our communities more vibrant, more affordable and more desirable as a place to live and do business. We hope the legislature will work to fund this once and a generation opportunity for our state rather than letting it pass us by. With that, I'll turn it over to Dr. Levine. Thank you. We continue to watch data trends around the BA to vary and closely. Unfortunately, this current wave of cases is not yet going down in Vermont. But COVID-19 activity remains magnitudes lower than what we saw during the initial Omicron surge. We are fortunate that the vast majority of Vermonters are protected from the most serious effects of COVID-19 through vaccination. And that illness from this version of the virus is typically milder for most. However, we know BA to is much more transmissible than the original Omicron strain. And with our changing behaviors around COVID-19, and because we continue to be a state with perhaps still the lowest rate of immunity from having had COVID, we do expect the virus to continue to spread. How much it spreads and its impact will change over time, as we've seen with variants over the past two years. That is why at this stage of the pandemic, we need to continue to assess our own personal risk for COVID-19 to decide whether to wear a mask or what other precautions we may choose to protect ourselves and others. We've talked about those at higher risk due to age or health conditions, or those who are too young to be vaccinated yet. But another factor to consider is COVID-19 activity where you are. We know cases are higher in Vermont right now. But our seven day average of percent of staffed inpatient beds in use by COVID-19 patients is actually low at 4%. But our new COVID-19 admissions per 100,000 population have increased to a higher level. So it's even more important to reexamine your risk under current circumstances and give serious considerations to taking what we know are effective prevention steps, like wearing a high quality mask in indoor public spaces and getting tested if you have any symptoms. When it comes to this changing virus, we can be flexible using the tools we have to reduce spread more often when we need to and then dialing them back when conditions allow. So I again encourage Vermonters to consider this based on their personal risk as this current wave continues. I also need to emphasize again, making sure you are up to date on COVID vaccines, meaning you have at least gotten your first booster shot, especially if you're an older Vermonter. A recent snapshot snapshot from UVM Medical Center showed that a majority of people who were hospitalized because of COVID related illness were over 65 and were vaccinated. But they had not gotten even their first booster. I'll say this once again, loud and clear, it is the booster that will keep you out of the hospital. And if you are over 65 or have another reason why you are at higher risk of getting COVID, please contact your provider if you test positive, so you can discuss treatment. We received great news that the federal government has actually honored our request that Vermont received 2000 doses of packed Slovid this week. That is a huge increase over the average of 200 per week we had previously been receiving. And these doses all arrived yesterday. This means that this effective antiviral drug will be easier for patients to access and will prevent more potential cases of severe disease in Vermont. But for those of you who diagnose yourself at home with an at home rapid test, this benefit can only come by contacting your clinician. So do make that phone call to your doctor's office within the first five days of illness. Finally, on a separate topic, one that's been in the news, though, the state working with the US Department of Agriculture has identified the presence of highly pathogenic avian influenza, H5N1 here in Vermont, both in a backyard flock and in wild birds. Now these viruses have been found in many other states as well, including neighboring states in the northeast. The Department of Health is working closely with the Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets and the Department of Fish and Wildlife to monitor and investigate reports of what is commonly called HPAI. The Health Department is monitoring Vermonters exposed to the infected birds, including people wearing recommended PPE for signs and symptoms of influenza, starting after their first exposure and for 10 days after their last. HPAI is not a new virus. And while its spread is a concern, the public health risk is low. Just to provide some perspective, at this time more than 2,500 people in the United States who've had exposure to birds or poultry infected with H5N1 have been or are being monitored for symptoms. And reassuringly, only one possible human case has been found to date in the United States. I'll turn it back to the governor. Thank you, Dr. Levine. Now open it up to questions. Starting with books in the room. Feel about this print card potentially overturning roview wait. Have you heard anything from members of your own party? I have not. I mean, it happened. I was surprised to hear about this last night. I haven't really had an opportunity to talk with anyone else other than my staff and team this morning. So I know how I personally feel. And I say that in the in the message and as well as in my prior comments. So I think this if if this holds true would be devastating for our rights here in the country. And I think it would have a ripple effect across all areas of our civil rights. Do you think it would mean for the Republican Party heading into the midterm elections? I have no idea. Again, we're still waiting to hear how this happened, when this happened, getting some of the facts and so forth. And I look forward to hearing more about it. But again, I know how I feel about this. And that's why I put out the statement this morning. What did he say? What do you think? Well, I think what it does is creates mistrust in government in some respects, like what's next, like if they take this away, what's what's going to be what's the next right that someone is going to take away, whether it's LGBTQ or the right to marry and so forth. So I think that's a legitimate concern. When we see a fundamental right taken away. Yesterday, you vetoed a bill Senate bill 286, which dealt with you know, post employment benefits. I guess if you can explain like, you know, what your rationale was on with that video? Well, again, it was probably more about principle than practicality. The reality is, this my veto will be overridden. I acknowledge that I but I felt strongly about providing for more choice as well as risk sharing in the plan. We had an opportunity to accomplish that. And I believe that in five, six, seven years, we'll be back to where we are today, because it's not sustainable. I had a couple of questions about COVID for maybe yourself and Dr. Levine as well. Looks like there's at least 12 outbreaks and long term care facilities. I'm wondering if you can shed some light on why we're seeing them, what impact that potentially have and also the doses of packs loaded where those specifically are going? Yeah, it's probably better questions for Dr. Levine. But we do know this variant is more transmissible than others. But it's milder milder symptoms. But the but having packed loaded and having the quantity distributed to the state is going to be a game changer for us and trying to prevent those from that are compromised and from with health issues, that this will keep them out of the hospital and prevent further impact. This stuff tells well with my talk about assessing your own risk and who should be thinking about masking, etc. The 12 outbreaks you mentioned in long term care facilities, again, those are our most vulnerable population. And they have by and large been highly vaccinated. So what we are seeing is cases in those institutions and concerns about spread within. But again, not large numbers going into the hospital. And if you look at the number of deaths out of those 12 outbreaks, and we're talking 200 to 300 cases of very few deaths, and that in that large group of very vulnerable citizens. So that's kind of what happens when you get a variant that is so highly transmissible. And a vaccine that is doing everything it is supposed to do protect you from hospitalization and serious outcomes, but not guaranteed to protect you from becoming a positive test, or a mildly symptomatic person. We're still seeing higher cases every day. And we're seeing hospitalizations take up. We are starting to see this unlinking between cases and hospitalization. Yes, the decoupling is it's called for sure. And I, you know, I don't want to provide optimism that's unwarranted, but looking at numbers in the last, you know, five to seven days, and looking at not just case numbers, but looking at the wastewater data and everything else. Perhaps we've kind of leveled off and maybe get into the go on a downswing. One would think with a variant this transmissible, that in other countries of the world, literally raced through the population that we've perhaps had enough, and it will start to turn downward. Dr. Levine, I was intrigued by the comments you made a couple minutes ago about something to the effect of because it seemed to say to me that because Vermont was so successful at first in keeping people from being infected, that the population itself might not have the protection of other places. And do you think that's helping drive Vermont's high numbers now? I really do. It's it's multifactorial, but I think that's one. We get data from the CDC periodically on serologic testing, which is testing people's blood for antibodies. And they can differentiate antibodies to the vaccine versus antibodies that you got because you were infected. And the nation has well over 60 plus percent people with antibodies across the board. And the highest state had something in the 70 to 72% range. Vermont was the lowest state with 29%. So that's one indicator, which tells us a lot. We also know from the national news, looking across the country that are in our youth, about three quarters have shown infection since the Omicron part of the pandemic began. And in adults, it's about 60%. So I think Vermont has been below that because of our early success, as you said, do you think that's something that goes against our early success? If God forbid we were ever to be in this situation again, would you let it go faster, go through the population? Oh, God, no, no, I would never take that away, especially because we had that early success before there was even a hint of a vaccine that would ever be available. So we were really focused on saving lives and keeping people as well as possible during that time. Now with vaccine, that's been which has been a game changer nonetheless. The fact of the matter is, you still want to be protected as much as possible. And that's why we hope that new vaccines that possibly could be available in the fall, will have a little more breadth of the protectiveness that they can have. And all these other new variants, there's BA2 and BA2.12.2 and yes, I mean, all these other ones that I can't even begin to remember the name. So to those are to those how much to those concern? Yeah, well, every variant concerns us to some degree. So we're in BA2 now. But we have a sub component, it's a sub variant, which is BA2121. That one is what's overtaking the Finger Lakes and all of central New York. It has spilled over into Vermont to some degree. The genome sequencing data we have is always a couple weeks old because genome sequencing isn't like a PCR test where you get the result the same day, it takes a couple weeks. So the most recent rendition of that, it was still below 10%. But that's still a bunch of BA212 in Vermont. So we would expect that will have increased a little bit. But again, if you're immune to Omicron, the likelihood of getting one of the sub variants of Omicron is still very, very low. Your immunity is going to be across that whole spectrum. There are other parts of the world that are now seeing other variants again, of Omicron, including in South Africa now. So the whole scientific community is very cautiously watching any data that comes out of there. Do you think it would be helpful if the monitors have adjusted their mental approach to COVID in that, as you were saying, if you're fully vaccinated and you've had a booster and if you do get it, it's going to probably be mild that folks should just be thinking, Hey, I'm probably going to get it sometime. And if I'm fully vaccinated, hopefully it won't be so bad. That is one way to think. But again, you need to look at your own risk and look at your age, look at your underlying medical conditions, if you have any, look at who you're living with and who may be vulnerable that you wouldn't want to bring the virus home to. A lot of factors in play. Several months ago, Dr Fauci basically said it's not a matter if it's a matter of when you will get the virus. The new coordinator, I'm not sure what Dr. Jha's title is in the White House, but Dr. Jha basically said something very similar, said, you know, we can't guarantee that no one in the country is going to get infected. People are going to get infected. That's not even a policy goal to prevent infection in people. Because again, this virus has mutated to the point where it's not quite like the measles, but it's approaching measles level of contagion. And when you get to a virus like that, unless you sequester yourself in your house and never leave and never come in contact with another human being, which is a challenging way to live your life, it's going to be hard for you to avoid it, though you can still practice some good practices like wearing a mask indoors when things are really active out there. And I know you were saying before you guys received some packs of packs lovin, you know, the antiviral pill, I guess for those who, you know, the community that might be skeptical of, you know, taking those, you know, what's your message to those folks? About skeptical about wanting to take a drug for this. Yeah. So, you know, the reality is, in this segues nicely from the question that was just asked, if you do get the virus because it may seem inevitable, you need to know that if you've gotten the vaccine, you're very protected from the serious outcomes. And if you're a very vulnerable person, even if you have gotten the vaccine that we have treatments that are very effective and packs lovins effectiveness was astounding in all of the clinical trials. There should be very little reason to fear it because you won't be given the drug if you have a contraindication to it. And the major contraindication would be you take some medications that you can't possibly stop taking that interact with the medicine in a way that you're not allowed to take it. That's going to be a small subgroup. And that analysis will have been gone through before any doctor would have written the prescription for you. And the only other caveat is if your kidneys don't work so well. But there's now a new dose pack, which we also have in the state, tailor made for people whose kidney function is less than normal. So I would really urge anybody who's in a higher risk group and who is tested positive to take advantage of the drug if they are at high risk. There are five questions. Where did you say that they were being allocated? Is it hospitals, long term care, pharmacists? Oh, good. So so the 2000 is actually something that is coming directly to the state. And we have a whole army of pharmacies that we've been allocating to that we will increase their allocation, but also on a regional basis be able to provide more pharmacies with those doses. We also supply hospital pharmacies. There is a federal pharmacy partnership program that we don't have as much insight into how many doses are going where that the government is doing separately. So some of the pharmacies will actually get even more allocation. Then we also have another allocation going to our long term care stockpile, if you will, where we're able to have it in one repository and as long term cares request, we can easily get it to them. So I think all sectors are being taken care of. So I was wondering when the house passed the clean heat standard bill, you had a big concern about the fact that the PUC was going to make the decision and you wanted it to come back to lawmakers and and so that the governor would also have a voice in that process. The Senate seems to put that amendment in the bill. Given that, can you support that bill now? It doesn't do quite what we hoped it would do. There is a rulemaking provision that's in there that is counter to what we should be looking at for rulemaking. It's a step in the right direction, but it needs to go a little bit further before it gets my support. I really would like to see the PUC take this and design a plan and then come back to us and tell us what this plan looks like and how much is it going to cost before we move forward, put it in a bill form and then we'll we'll debate it and pass it on. I think about other situations over the last dozen years or so. If we had this opportunity to go back with single payer, for instance, that was rubber stamped, pretty much rubber stamped without anyone knowing what it was going to look like, how much was going to cost. Five years after that was passed, Governor Shumlin came to the conclusion we couldn't afford it and it was going to cost too much money. So I would just like to see the plan. I'd like to have some of those details before signing off on that. And I think it's our obligation to do that for our constituents for taxpayers to at least see it right before our eyes, be able to read it and be able to describe what it does because I'm not sure that I could describe what this does at this point in time. And I sure don't know how much it's going to cost or who is going to impact. This isn't the bottom line of this bill, though, it's addressed by the Senate Appropriations Amendment. Call for this issue to come back to the legislation. Not quite. I mean, there's there's details that are missing in there. And again, it moves in the right direction, but it doesn't get us quite there. And it really does serpent vent in some respects. The what I'm asking for, and I'm just asking for something very simple, is just to have it come back and bill for it. And give us the details and how much it's going to cost. And then we can we can go from there. So is this something you'll be working with? Yeah, we're trying to work with now. I mean, it's moved out of the of the Senate over to the to the House, and we're continuing to work with them. Hopefully we'll come to a conclusion and agreement on that. I think this is this is important. And and for both, I mean, whether you support it or don't support, I think it's important for us to take this back in and take a look. Governor speaking of all pair, excuse me, single pair. I understand AHS is looking for a one or a two year extension of all pair. I don't know if that's gone through or been fine. What are you hoping to see over the next couple of years in terms of health care? Yeah, I mean, this is a big issue. And certainly, with COVID, this has become even more of an issue that we are going to have to confront health care costs have increased dramatically. And so we want to provide for some consistency. But this isn't over. This will be the next major issue that we'll be facing. Someone will be facing over the next few years. But but we're making some gains in terms of negotiating with the federal government on the all pair model at this point. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe you have signed into law the state code of ethics. Bill, how do you plan to act on that? Yeah, that's that's today. I'm 10 to to vote or to sign that bill. And I apologize if I missed this because I was late today. But how do you plan personally on voting for prop five? Oh, I'm voting for it. Thank you. Why are you leaning towards the ethics? So why do you think it's needed? I'm not sure that it's needed. I mean, it's certainly in the executive branch that we have we have taken steps, I think to to protect the public. And I feel good about that. But this is much broader. I do think that it, you know, we need to give confidence to the Vermonters that we're doing the right thing. And if this puts more guardrails on, so be it, we're going to have to take a look and make sure that we're it adheres. I mean, we have our own standard and our own ethics policy. And then we just have to conform the new policy to that so it fits. But I have no concerns about further ethics reform. I do hope that the legislature takes upon themselves to to make sure that they're doing having an ethics policy that fits them as well. After the row decision, of course, abortion, no matter how this turns out is going to be legal in Vermont. But there's also a question of access. And we just had the clinic and the kingdom shut down. I'm wondering if you think there's anything more that the state can be doing to make sure that women can still access? Yeah, yeah, I mean, I remember hearing about that in the initial stages. And and I questioned that with our team and back to HS to make sure that we were doing everything we can to provide those services, particularly for the rule parts of the state. I mean, this is what we're seeing. And that's why I feel as though this is the time to make Vermont again, grow the economy, make Vermont more affordable to protect the most vulnerable. And we need to do that in all parts of the state. And I'm very concerned about the rule parts of our state. That's why we want to focus for economic package on revitalization of some of those communities that have been left behind. As I said, in my opening remarks, the grand list has either been stagnant or receding in many half the communities in Vermont. That's, that's not a good sign. And when you see redrawing of the maps from representation, legislative representation, you can see it's more concentrated in the more populous areas of the state, Chittin County in particular. And what happens is you don't have the representation in the rule areas. And again, very concerned about that. So we need to make sure that we're using this once in a lifetime opportunity to take the $100 million that I've asked for, and make sure that we inject that into those communities so they can take charge of their economy, grow, bring in more population so that we have some of those facilities and are able to pay for them as well and protect all 14 counties of the state. But you seem to have some pretty big differences between your beliefs and some of the policy priorities of the National Republican Party. And I'm wondering if you can give us an insight to your internal feelings over that you still have an R next to your name. Is there a kind of point of no return that you would rethink that? You know, there's, I think there's a admittedly, the moderate centrist are becoming further and further and fewer and fewer, regardless of the party, whether it's Democrats or Republicans. And when you look at the Northeast in particular, Governor Hogan, Governor Baker, Governor Sununu, so forth, I think we're more moderate, more centrist than than others. Governor Manchin, our former Governor Manchin, now Senator Manchin has taken a lot of heat for his moderate stance, his centrist stance. And I think that's unfortunate, because I think most Americans, I think are more centered. It's just that the way that our parties are made up, particularly with primaries, I think it forces the candidates to go to the extremes, either the extreme left or the extreme right, which doesn't leave us much of a lane in the center for moderate centrist candidates. So again, I think it's imperative that we continue to define that lane. And that we elect more centrist and moderates who can work together on both sides of the aisle to bring us together as a country. I'd like to frame a curveball in light of the SCOTUS news. Can you describe for Vermonters some of the health care implications for women don't have access to safe and regulated abortions and some of the health care repercussions that can happen if they have unsafe ones? Yeah, I think public health in general and certainly public health in Vermont has stood for access and reproductive rights. I would hate to see our country, women in our country have to revert to practices of a historic era where things were done, excuse me, clandestinely and in the dark, so to speak, often by the person themselves. Infection rates were astoundingly high. Hemorrhaging rates were astoundingly high. It was a very, very challenging time. And access to a procedure that is a medical procedure that actually could be done safely and effectively was viewed as a real advance. So I would just hate to see us revert to that era. Obviously, we have the laws in place to maintain, you know, legal abortions, but do they have the monetary and staffing requirements needed to be able to carry out and meet demand? Um, I can just answer very generally because I don't have any data with me at this time, but I'm not aware that access or economic issues have really interfered with any woman's right to be honored. Seek reelection and you're going to delay that decision for a while. But as you're thinking about all this stuff and considering your decision, does it ever occur to you that maybe you should run as an I and not an R? I think I've been successful throughout my career. Running is an R but being a moderate centrist. I mean, this has been something that that I've done since the very beginning. I've reached across the aisle expecting people to reach back to me as well to work together. It's more difficult being and again, whether you're a moderate centrist Democrat or a moderate centrist Republican, it's equally as hard as we as again, Senator Manchin is finding out. It's easy to go to the extremes, right? extreme left, extreme right. Everyone knows where you're going to be and what your vote is going to be. And it's not much debate on where you're going to vote and how you're going to vote. Those in the center, those moderates and centrists of either party have to contemplate what what it is that would be best for the state in this situation. Are there constituents and what's what you can live with? So I've been successful in doing that over the last 22 years. I don't plan to change. I'm a Republican, but I'm a I'm a fiscally responsible Republican. But I'm a social moderate centrist. Move to the phones starting with Chris Roy Newport Daily Express. Chris Roy. All right, we'll move to Tom Davis, Compass Vermont. Thanks, Jason. Governor, can you share with us the words that you shared with the folks leaving to be to Ukraine when you were over at the base? Yeah. So we had a couple of deployments. One was last Thursday night. And I couldn't be more proud of those members of military or National Guard members who are off to defend, protect, train with our NATO allies in Europe. And certainly, I think it's important at this point in time for us to take a stand and to make sure that we have the backs of Ukraine for those who are in this battle that they didn't ask for to to protect them and have their back in any way we can possibly. So again, I think this is important for our country, but our state as well. I mean, we're amongst an elite group who is asked to send our F 35s over there. This is what we train for. This is what they train for and what they are prepared for. So again, I confirmed with them that while they're there, protecting us, protecting Europe, protecting our way of life that we would be here, protect their families and to take that off their plate. And if they have any issues, if anyone here is listening who has a member their family deployed and you need anything at all, call us and we'll do whatever we can to help you. We that's the last thing your family members need to worry about when they're overseas. Thank you. I believe this is for Dr. Levine. Dr. Levine, are you recommending that backyard chicken owners and other people who have chicken wear PPE at this time, just out of precaution? No, that's not a recommendation at this time. Will you inform us when it is one? Sure, but I would hope we wouldn't be at that point. Absolutely. Last thing, this may be for Jason. I've noticed both I've gotten a lot of readers who've emailed me and also comments on Facebook. I guess the audio on the Facebook is the live is not particularly good. So there's anything you can do for those folks that are there. Great. We've identified some equipment that we're going to be purchasing. We see the conference. We'll see what happens over the next two or three weeks. See if we have the budget to do that. Okay. Thanks very much. No more questions. Tim McQuiston, Vermont Business Magazine. Governor, before I ask a question on Secretary Curley, just to be clear, maybe Bob Kindle knows something I don't, but when are you going to announce your decision to run or not run for governor? Sometime between now before the end of the session or by the end of the session. Whenever that is. Secretary Curley, I'm wondering in your presentation, could you give us some specifics about projects you're talking about in rural areas that would help in particular towns or something like that? Just so the readers and the viewers will know or talking about. Absolutely. So we do have Commissioner Goldstein on the line and she probably has a list right in front of her and can probably help me out. But these are projects that really range from childcare centers that provide job growth, but specifically to the center, but more broadly job growth to an area that need some funding to help get those over the finish line. We have a variety of different needs within municipalities, let's say, where it might be wastewater upgrades that don't necessarily qualify through other programs that, again, we know will lead to the kind of growth that we all agree on housing to name one very important one. But Commissioner Goldstein, if you're on the line, are there a couple of projects that you could give a little bit more color to to help explain to folks what we're talking about? Sure. Thanks, Secretary Curley. I think you've covered a lot of it. People hear me okay? We can't help. Okay. Oh, a little louder, please. Okay, sure. Thanks. The projects that sort of like two tranches, if you will, one are projects that would qualify under the ARPA ruling, the Treasury funds. And that would be, as Secretary Curley alluded to, the childcare centers like production of more slots will help everything, will help the childcare center, will help those parents returning to work, also performing arts venues that had been suffering so much since the pandemic for them to either make some adjustments to their physical space or to do expansions. We also have municipalities, small municipalities that may not have enough funding to do a full on extension of their infrastructure in order to accommodate either an economic development project, think about a business that needs to expand or a food processing facility that needs an upgrade, as well as any transportation improvements need to occur in that municipality in order for that private development to occur. So it's a myriad of private sector, non-profit sector, as well as municipal sector. I was just wondering if there's a municipality you could mention or not, or is it you haven't got to that point yet? There are some municipalities that have supported our project based TIF initiatives, namely Westford and Montgomery, as some examples. And there are many rural towns that we probably don't even know of just yet, but really have not had development in the last decade. And so we don't want that to be, we don't want lack of infrastructure to be an impediment to creating the housing that we so sorely need. We need places for people to live, and so these small towns may not have the ability to come up with a full-fledged TIF district as an example, and so this will go a long way to trying to bridge that gap in funding that they would need in order to do that type of housing development or business development. Okay, great, thank you. Guy Page, Vermont Daily Chronicle. Governor, recognizing that Senator Mark McDonald and Common Sense agree that 715, the scheme he standard, is a de facto carbon tax, will you be keeping your 2016 campaign promise to veto any carbon tax? Well again, I've asked for this bill to come back to us so that it isn't just putting a rubber stamp on this initiative. So I'd like to see what it's going to cost, what it's going, how it's going to affect us, and then be able to debate the issue again in the next session. Oh, but if it passes this year, would you I'm not support, yeah. What would you be waiting until then? Again, I've said from my standpoint, it's got to come back, for my support, it's got to come back to us and be put in bill form so that we can debate it. And we know all the details and the funding and what it's going to cost us before we move forward. Okay, thank you. Also, have you reviewed Department of Homeland Security Chief Alejandro's Mayorkas plan for a information governance board to suppress free speech in the United States? And do you have an opinion on that? I have not seen that. And I can't imagine what that would mean. I would want to, I guess, we need to support the Constitution, protect free speech. If we're, if he is talking about trying to limit the Russian bots and so forth that are infiltrating our social media with fake news, so to speak. And I think that we should get involved, but free speech from Americans. No, we need to protect that. Thank you. Lisa Loomis, the Valley Reporter. My question has been, my question has been asked, thank you. Aaron Potenko, VT Digger. My question was asked, sorry. I couldn't unmute in time. Sorry to interrupt, Aaron. Oh, go ahead. All right, can you hear me now? We can. Okay, I had a question for Dr. Levine. You said that you would ask for monitors to strongly consider taking a prevention step, such as wearing a mask. Would you say that you are recommending that for monitors wear a mask? And is there a reason you're not using that terminology when you guys have used it in previous waves to describe what behaviors people should take in public? I think I was pretty clear that I'm asking for monitors no matter what timeframe they're in in the pandemic to always be considering their own personal risk, their own personal risk tolerance, their own conditions, their own age, their own living circumstances, who they're with. And this would be a time with cases that are at higher levels than they've been previously with this variant to wear a mask and take other measures to protect themselves. Okay, so you're not necessarily recommending this for broader public consideration? Like we've said before, there are going to be many times that there are people that you come into contact with that are wearing masks and that are not wearing masks. And we need to be respectful and civil and understand that everyone has their reason at that point in time. I could see that there can be a fair number of people who may have had Omicron within the last two months. I'm not sure wearing a mask is going to benefit them or benefit the rest of us because they've already been through their infection, resolved their infection and not had the need to wear a mask. There are others who are going to view their activities to be very circumscribed and not putting them into any high risk situation. They may be younger and not at high risk for any serious outcome and they may feel it's not appropriate to wear a mask. What we're saying at this point in time is this is the time that we really should take strong public health guidance, strong personal risk assessment, and not impose upon that any major mandates or things from a governmental level because that's not where we're at in the pandemic at this point in time. Okay. I also wanted to know what do you make of the latest breakthrough hospitalizations data which shows that at least in this latest surge vaccinated and unvaccinated remodlers have very similar hospitalization rates. I wouldn't say it's exactly the same but over the past couple of weeks there have been multiple coins where unvaccinated people had a higher rate or they almost have the exact same rate of hospitalization. Yeah. Does that indicate to you that DA2 is harming or causing more severe cases of vaccinated people? That's a great question. So let's take a step back. The term breakthrough, when that term broke through, I think was a very unfortunate time because it originally was used to characterize people who'd been vaccinated who then became a case. And it totally distorted what the vaccines were all about which were protecting people from serious outcomes which is what we've been doing with vaccines for a long time, specifically the most familiar one, the flu shot. So I don't like the term breakthrough but we'll have to use it since you brought it up. With regard to hospitalizations now at times showing that there are more people who've been vaccinated in the hospital than are unvaccinated, there's several components to that. One component is, again, the words fully vaccinated are meaningless when it comes to all of the newest variants. You need to be up to date and up to date doesn't mean fully vaccinated. Fully vaccinated is you got the first series and you stop there. Up to date means when you were eligible for the first booster, you got the first booster. So that's one important criteria. The booster is what's protecting the majority of people from ending up in the hospital. The second thing is a mathematical exercise, looking at numerators and denominators. There's very few people in Vermont these days proportionately that haven't been vaccinated. We have a majority of our population, a vast majority that's been vaccinated of those who are eligible. Obviously we still have those under age five that are still waiting. So even if a vaccine is 90 plus percent effective at preventing hospitalization, if the entire state of Vermont is vaccinated, that's still a significant number of people that might fall in that 10% that didn't get the same benefit as the 90% if I can simplify it that way. So we're dealing with larger numbers of people. So I would expect we will see some of those people in the hospital data and there are times it may look disproportionate to those who are unvaccinated just because that pool of people is so small at this point in time. So if you look at it as what proportion of the unvaccinated are getting hospitalized versus what proportion of the vaccinated are getting hospitalized, you'll still see a significant benefit to being vaccinated. But if you just look at raw numbers in the hospital on any given day, you'll lose that perspective. Okay, thank you very much. And as an aside, we still keep track of those being treated for COVID in the hospitals and those who just happened to have COVID in the hospital and it's still running between 40 and 60 on any given day, one way or the other. Kevin McCallum, seven days. Thank you, Governor. Can you hear me okay? We can. My apologies if I repeat some of the questions you've already answered in some fashion. But I would like to ask you whether you participated in or voted in the Vermont GOP platform last week. They adopted a new platform and I wondered if you voted in that or participated in any way? I did not. Okay. And I wonder how you feel based on what you've said so far about the part of that platform that says we value the sanctity of human life from conception to natural death. I wonder, and Wilson asked this question in a different way, but I wonder if you could just speak to your alignment with that party given that it has a position that differs from your own so significantly. Well, obviously we have a different point of view on that and I believe in a woman's right to choose and I believe in individual freedom to do what you want with your own body and make those decisions on your own. So we have a different viewpoint on that but that's the way I've been throughout my political career. Can you say why you don't participate in the Vermont Republican Party's annual exercise in setting a platform? I think, again, whether it's the Republican Party or the Democrat Party, most I think would agree that it's the most extreme members of the party who participate in that. The others, the centrist, the moderates and so forth don't because they're overwhelmed and the voices are fairly loud on the extremes and again that's in either party. So I don't think you see as much participation from the moderates and centrist so I choose to to continue to run as a Republican but I have not participated in the platform. Okay and I have a question about the clean heat standard and I know you've touched on it several times here today but I just want to ask you could you understand how someone who, the Vermont or who's deeply concerned about climate change and Vermont meeting its climate obligations might be concerned to see your administration not supporting TCI and now having some concerns about the clean heat standard question your commitment to meeting those goals? Well first of all let's go back to TCI we didn't oppose it we had to see that the table we didn't join it we wanted to see again I mean it makes the point of the clean heat standard we wanted the details we wanted to see if it'd be beneficial to Vermont we wanted to to see what it was going to cost Vermonters and before we joined it literally fell apart I think Connecticut was the first who bailed out there were many other states who did afterwards so that wasn't our doing we still had to see the table and were willing to listen and wanted to just do what was best for Vermont and make sure that we got our fair share as well and that was never proven to us in terms of the clean heat standard I'm saying move forward but we want to see the details I think it's incumbent upon any elected official to know what they're voting on and I don't think we know what we're voting on I'll go back to as you might recall last year when we received the billion 200 billion a quarter dollars from the federal government that that I'd put forward a plan for between two and 250 million dollars for climate change mitigation that wasn't accepted by the legislative process at that point in time but I feel strongly that we need to do our part and making sure that we reduce our reliance on on carbon fuels and we'll we put our money where our mouth was in that regard so again we can still do this and I still believe when we get the details the clean heat standard that that the legislature and and the executive branch will have an opportunity to weigh in on that when it does come back but I think it's important that it comes back okay and then the last question is can you explain the general the grand list rather stagnation in so many towns in Vermont in an era where home prices are soaring and have been for the last couple of years what's the reason so many towns are struggling well again I think you'll see that the inflationary values of real estate is increasing certain parts of the state and not and others not to the same rate as well you'll see a lot of commercial properties that were in downtowns that were once the economic centers of the area that are not anymore empty storefronts empty buildings go take a drive through Springfield and they've made some improvements over the last a number of years but again just a shadow of itself when you look at what's happened even in my hometown of Barrie I mean there was it was a time when that was a vibrant economic center with Granite being the I guess the nucleus of the economy and that that change and with it change the community the downtown property values and so forth even the the population has declined over the last 20 or 30 years by about 2,000 people I believe so at that point in time 30 years ago I believe we were the third largest city in the state and nowhere near that at this point so I would say that the values are increasing in those population centers in the northwest but half the communities have their grand list stagnant or receding Secretary Curley anything you want to add to that? Joan May Joan anything you want to add to that? We could we could send you the list that was that was calculated by tax department you know there is appreciation and what we try to do is isolate the towns that you know sort of separate and distinct from appreciation we want to understand how much development is occurring in the town and that's what we are referring to the fullest value and most of them are under 1% over the last 10 years and that's what we're defining as stagnant or declining so you know the less development that happens the less sort of properties we have to share in terms of the taxable base and it's very different from for example looking at the appreciation that's occurred that's generally then the education tax will be equalized but that doesn't really give you a sense that the housing supply is increased or that the amount of commercial property available for development has increased and that's what we're after with this with this proposal but we'd be happy to send you the data That'd be great thank you I appreciate both of you Andrew McGregor Caledonian Record yes good afternoon thank you can you hear me all right we can excellent I'm very much interested in receiving that same list about the town a grand list so if that could be forwarded to me as well and on that topic I'm sure you'll see some in Caledonia County familiar names I'm guessing as much yep what is the funding gap between the 100 million investment that you're calling for and where the legislature is now and you've spoken about the opportunity and resources this would provide the rural parts of the state in that same vein but from a slightly different angle are there consequences for the rural corners that you fear if the funding isn't provided yeah I think we'll continue to see a stagnation in the rural parts of the state that we'll I mean this is if we keep doing the same thing over and over we're going to get the same results and that's what's happened to the rural areas of the state and that's why we've been focused on them I believe at this point in time we've we've communicated to the legislature that we need another 40 million to to complete some of the projects and some of the programs that we have have forwarded so that's the number I believe that we're the gap that we see at this point in time and we could always use more but that's the minimum okay and then switching subjects real briefly for Commissioner Levine curious if if it's known how many of the self-reporting positive results overlap with later confirmation tests or if if it's your understanding that the the pool of positive results that you report on a weekly basis is distinct from the from the daily case count so you're talking about the self-reported results first correct yeah so are those unique and distinct from or is there a chance that a good chunk of those end up getting confirmatory tests and show up in the daily case yeah so my impression and I would hope this is true actually is that the majority of the self-report tests are home antigen tests and that would be the positive result because it's an accurate result at a time when disease prevalence is high none of those people should really require a PCR to confirm it some of those self-reported tests could be the take home lamp test which is an equivalent to a PCR but that's going to be the minority so we don't really have a way of correlating self-report results I will say that this week one of the things that gave me that little hint of optimism I expressed earlier is that the number of self-reported tests did come down a little from its peak by a slight amount we're talking still 1600 self-reported tests and out of those 1155 were positive and 450 were negative but we'll see if that trend continues because if people are testing a little less often it probably means that less symptomatic people out there do you have any any data on how many cases or repeat cases how many for monitors have had COVID more than once now yeah we do um it's if you look from the very very beginning I think we're talking in the 100 range but if you look at Omicron if you had a positive Delta test and then you got Omicron we just put out a report with the CDC that there were five cases in Vermont and we pooled our five with around the country three other states plus Vermont so it's not a frequent event but it is possible and then finally any notion of how prevalent long COVID cases are amongst for monitors at this point yeah I I really wish I had a number for you there but we don't as at this point we are conducting our own study to try to determine that but you know to become long COVID takes several months of still having symptoms so when we talk about you know people in the most recent highest surge which would be Omicron that's still being determined because that began you know right around the beginning of the year and we just entered the month of May so it's going to be hard to say there's a little sentiment around the country that you may have less of a chance of getting long COVID if you've been vaccinated but it's by no means a guarantee but there's a reduction in the likelihood I'd like that to be verified as true that would be certainly encouraging for all of us to hear okay thank you all okay thank you all very much and we'll see you again next Tuesday