 Good morning, everyone, and thanks for tuning in. Today, we'll provide our weekly modeling and data and give an update on our Vermont forward progress, in addition to our usual vaccination update from Secretary Smith and a health update from Dr. Levine. I'll provide some remarks before joining the White House call and then come back to give an update on what we hear. First, after reconciling the data with CDC as of Saturday, we're at about 78% of eligible Vermonters with at least one dose. Just 11,346 to go before we hit 80% and all restrictions will be lifted. But keep in mind, because yesterday was Memorial Day, the CDC didn't report Sunday's numbers, so we're expecting those as well as yesterday's totals later this afternoon. And all probability will be under 10,000, so we're just days away from hitting our goal. Vermont continues to lead the nation, but even after we hit 80%, we're not going to declare a victory. We'll continue pushing forward because the better we do now, the better position will be for the long term. But it's important to recognize the real-life impacts and benefits of the vaccines. For example, across the state, as of this morning, we're down to only three people hospitalized with COVID-19. We haven't had a death from the disease in two weeks, the only state who can say that. And cases continue to drop, now to the lowest levels in over six months. But again, we're not resting on our laurels and slowing down vaccination efforts. That's why, as you'll hear from Secretary Smith, there are still over 100 opportunities this week for walk-ins. And the Health Department is also offering to come to work sites to administer shots. We'll continue to do this work so that access is not a barrier. With that, I'll turn it over to Commissioner Pichak and I'll be back shortly with an update from the White House call. Thank you very much, Governor and good morning, everyone. A few weeks ago, we indicated that Vermont was getting safer by the day. And now, today, with the country's lowest new case rate, the lowest hospitalization rate, the lowest fatality rate, and the highest vaccination rate, Vermont is again the safest state in the country from the risks of COVID-19. And we anticipate that these favorable trends will continue into the foreseeable future. Most importantly, we are fortunate that we have now gone 15 days without someone dying of COVID-19, making Vermont, as the governor said, the only state without a COVID-19 death over that period of time. For the month of May, we reported six COVID-19 deaths, which was thankfully on the lower end of our forecast and with very few COVID-19 cases now occurring in Vermont, among Vermont's most vulnerable populations, we anticipate even fewer COVID-19 deaths in the month of June. Vermont continues to have the lowest COVID-19 hospitalization rate in the country. This past week, our hospitalization rate continued to decline down 19% over the last seven days and down 37% over the last two weeks. Hospitalizations remain at a six month low and we anticipate that they will continue to decrease in the weeks ahead. Vermont's cases have also continued their rapid decrease over the past few weeks. This week, we are only reporting 92 new COVID-19 cases, 129 fewer than last week. To illustrate how quickly our cases are falling, three weeks ago on May 7th, we reported 99 cases in a single day and now we are reporting fewer cases than that during an entire week. Since April 1st, our seven day rate has fallen 93%. And over the past week, our seven day average has fallen 57%. The decreasing case counts are being experienced across Vermont with all 14 counties seeing a decrease this week compared to last and in Franklin County, there wasn't a single case of COVID-19 reported this week. We're also seeing that cases are decreasing across all age bands as well in Vermont with each age band currently at a very low case level. And we're experiencing all of these favorable trends while our mobility data shows that we have largely returned to our pre-pandemic movement here in Vermont. As you can see from the graph, retail and recreation depicted in the dark blue is back to the pre-pandemic baseline while grocery and pharmacy visits depicted in the orange are exceeding that baseline. Further, Vermonters are spending less time at home now compared to any other point during the past 14 months. This is a very optimistic sign that we have continually increased our movement since April while at the same time we have seen a dramatic improvement in our COVID-19 trends, which again really reinforces the power and the protection that the vaccine provides. Taking a look at the Vermont case forecast, we continue to trend very closely to the April 26th forecast that we projected a number of weeks ago with a slow and steady decline this week. Further, our updated forecasts anticipate that cases will continue to fall. And as we mentioned last week, we are starting to see cases on a regular basis fall into the single digits. And we anticipate that will continue in the weeks ahead. Turning to Vermont's vaccination progress, and as the governor mentioned, we wanted to provide an update on the CDC data reconciliation. The chart here shows the last 14 days with the CDC's total number of Vermonters having started vaccination. As we mentioned last week, we noticed a large increase on Friday, May 21st and reached out to the CDC on that next Monday. We were able to determine that a few data sources were being counted both by the CDC and the state of Vermont, meaning there were about 15,000 duplicate records in the CDC's total. The CDC removed about 6,900 of those records on May 27th and you can see the dropdown reflected in the chart. But that means that there's still about 8,800 duplicates that need to be removed by the CDC. So for the time being, the CDC dashboard will have a higher number for Vermont by approximately 8,800 people. But as you can see on the next slide, with that reconciliation in place, we have continued to make progress toward that 80% goal, as the governor said, standing at about 78%, needing about 11,300 more Vermonters until we hit that goal, which we do anticipate sometime this week. And even with the reconciled CDC data, Vermont continues to lead the country and doses administered and in terms of the percent of our population that has started vaccination. We also continue to rank highly for those who are fully vaccinated and those who are over 65 who have started and completed vaccination. Finally, taking a look around the region, we can see that for the eighth straight week, the virus continues to be in retreat in the Northeast. This week, cases totaled under 13,000 for the region, a reduction of about 6,900 cases from last week. We will mention also that it was Memorial Day weekend, some states may not have been reporting, our testing may have been low as well, so we'll watch that in the next couple of days. But it still continues a strong decrease that we've seen now for eight weeks and represents a 35% decrease compared to last week. And for the last five weeks, it represents an 86% decrease. We can also see the improvement in Vermont, New England, and much of the Northeast in our regional heat map. And we're also seeing decreases, I should say, in hospitalizations and deaths across the region as well. We can track all of this progress back to New England's high uptake of the vaccine, which continues to outpace the rest of the country. And our neighbor to the north in Quebec, they are also seeing a considerable increase in their vaccination rates now with 60.8% of its population having started vaccination, and its numbers are falling rapidly as well. And again, because of these high vaccination rates, we anticipate these favorable trends that we mentioned both in Vermont and in the region to continue for the foreseeable future. So at this time, I'd like to introduce Secretary Smith. Thank you, Commissioner Pichek and good morning to everyone. As of this morning, as the governor pointed out, and as Commissioner Pichek pointed out, we are at 77.9% of eligible Vermonters, those that are 12 years old and above that have been vaccinated with at least one dose. We need 11,346 more Vermonters to get vaccinated to reach our 80% goal to lift all remaining restrictions. Given the federal holiday, the results for Sunday and Monday are not available until later this afternoon. We will update these numbers as soon as we have more information. As Commissioner Pichek pointed out, and I wanna reiterate the number of Vermonters vaccinated each day will determine our pace to reach the 80% and fully reopen. If 1,000 Vermonters get vaccinated today, it is projected that we will fully reopen on June 11th. If 1,500 Vermonters are vaccinated each day, then the reopening will move up to June 7th. And if 2,000 a day are vaccinated, then reopening would be June 5th. According to data from the CDC and adjusted by DFR, the seven day vaccination average was 2,500 Vermonters until the week of 5,25. That would have put us on pace to reopen on or before June 5th. But in recent days, that daily number has dropped off demonstrating a slowdown to 1,446 on Friday and 1,509 on Saturday. Those were reported a day later. You'll notice the numbers we're reporting today is only three tenths of a point higher than we announced on Thursday as we announced on Friday. Over the last four days, we've been reconciling between the CDC and ourselves to eliminate duplicates. This is an example of why the CDC will show us a little ahead of where we are before it will eventually drop back to match our numbers as Commissioner Pichek pointed out. We will make every effort to bring the vaccine to Vermonters where they live, work and play. All Vermonters need to do is show up and get their shot. The response of Vermonters has been simply amazing in protecting themselves and their families, friends and fellow Vermonters. We just need a few more to reach our goal. In terms of overall progress as of today, as I mentioned, with Vermonters 12 plus with 12 years old and plus with at least one dose, that's 77.9. I'll also mention that the White House uses a different metric. They use 18 plus with at least one dose and they use CDC numbers unreconciled. That is, their goal is to have by the 4th of July 70% of the United States vaccinated. We are at 81.7% using the same methodology that the White House uses. All Vermonters with at least one dose is 68.8. That is reconciled CDC numbers that we have obviously reconciled. Moving on to convenient opportunities to get your shot, we have 39 pop-up clinics scheduled from today through Sunday. I won't read them all, but I'll mention some highlights. You can also see the whole list on the slides. Today, June 1st, we are at North Country Hospital, the Holiday Inn in Rutland, Killington Resort, the Equinox and Route 22A, barnstorming in Virgin's at City Park as well as the Addison County Baptist Church. Tomorrow on June 2nd, Northwestern Medical Center in St. Albans, Brattleboro Subaru and the Derby Line Library. On June 3rd, the Woodstock Inn and Resort, probation and parole in Hartford and barnstorming on Route 22A at Dunton Plumbing and Heating. On June 4th, at Mount Ascutney Hospital in their professional building, higher ground at an event they're hosting on Pine Street and Lakeville Mobile Home Park in Shelburne. We will also be at Thunder Road, which was canceled over the weekend. On June 5th, at Wilmington Antique and Flea Market, and higher ground again is hosting another clinic on Pine Street. On June 6th, we'll be back at Wilmington Antique and Flea Market as well as the Holiday Inn in Rutland. Again, I just listed some of the pop-up opportunities. There are many more opportunities to make an appointment or simply walk in at our health partner clinics or pharmacies. Go to healthvermont.gov slash my vaccine or call 855-722-7878 to get more information. CVS, Kenny Drugs, and Walgreens are also taking walk-ins. Call them directly for information. To see all dates, times, and locations for business-focused vaccine clinics, please visit accd.vermont.gov slash vaccine. In terms of Vermonters making appointments, more and more people are moving away from appointments and taking advantage of the walk-in opportunities. We anticipated this shift would happen as we offered more convenient opportunities and we are encouraged that Vermonters are stepping up to get their shot. I urge all eligible Vermonters to take advantage of the many opportunities to get your shot and thank you all for doing your part to protect yourself, your families, and your community from COVID-19. I'll now turn it over to Dr. Levine for a health update. Good morning. As you've been hearing, we're closer than ever to reaching 80% of eligible Vermonters vaccinated and getting ready to celebrate that success. Vermonters have worked hard throughout the pandemic and your patience and willingness to help one another has gotten us where we are today. From the time we all first began to learn what this new virus was barely 18 months ago to how we could prevent its spread to now when over 430,000 people have stepped up to stop the virus in its tracks by getting vaccinated. This is why we can lift these restrictions because we trust the vaccine. We trust the data and the science that says it works to protect ourselves and lower any chance of spreading. This stops the chain of transmission, protecting other people too. Our reason for Mont data totally supports our policies. Case numbers have recently been ranging from the single digits to low 20s. Hospitalizations are now consistently below five and a positivity rate is below 1%. And as you've heard, but I will repeat, Vermont is the only state to not have recorded a death in the past 15 days, something for which I'm truly grateful. And we continue to watch and learn from other countries with high vaccination rate experiences. When we trust the vaccine, we can go out without masks and distancing and we can live our lives with fewer COVID restrictions. But for public health, meeting the 80% goal does not mean our work stops. We will continue our efforts to vaccinate for monitors and keep a close eye on our data. For those of you who've been waiting to get vaccinated by your doctor or primary care practice, it might be time to call and see if they are participating and if they are get scheduled for your shop or see if your work site is making vaccinations available or if your employer can help you schedule a time or maybe they even offer a reward for getting vaccinated. And if those are not yet options, you can go to healthvermont.gov slash my vaccine and choose from the many other opportunities available to you, many of which you've just heard about. Here's why I ask this of you. The higher we can get from odds vaccination rate, the higher the probability we will truly suppress coronavirus activity in this state. This leads to less opportunity for the virus to be spread between susceptible persons, meaning less likelihood of mutations and more virulent strains and boating well for the fall and winter respiratory virus season. And there are still people susceptible to this sometimes dangerous virus. There are many Vermonters, including young children and people who are immunocompromised for whom getting vaccinated is not currently an option. As restrictions lift and we gather more, we need to remember why vaccination and prevention are so important. So we will continue to offer the same important guidance to prevent COVID-19 for people who are not vaccinated, just as the CDC does. The guidance we've been sharing all along, masks on faces, six foot spaces, uncrowded places will no longer be a requirement, but it's still the way people who are not vaccinated can protect themselves and the people around us from the virus. These will simply be recommendations for people to consider for themselves and their families as we move forward towards a new normal. And that guidance, like washing your hands often and staying home when you're sick, that's just good public health guidance for everyone. Common sense rules of the road to prevent a whole host of illnesses. And you can be sure you'll still hear from us about them. Just look at how little flu and other respiratory illness we saw this year as evidence. I hope that our new attention on public health will turn some of this basic guidance into real habits and make us healthier on the whole. And I hope Vermonters will continue to trust us and turn to us for advice on all that we do in the future. You know where to find us, healthvermont.gov. And now we'll begin the question and answer portion. Yep, we'll open this White House call, just let me know when we can come back to you. We'll start with Callum. Thanks Dr. Lee. So I guess Mike, maybe it's for you or Secretary Smith. You mentioned that we're deploying vaccines to primary care providers. How has the uptake been? Do we have any data on that yet? You know, I don't think we have a lot of data on that yet because we started with a pilot on the 19th of May to a number of practices and we were only able to give Moderna at that time. We're moving now into a phase where we'll be able to give, we hope when we hear from the governor's phone call, a lot more to a lot more practices. We've been in the process of enrolling them all, making sure they're all trained, making sure they're ready to deploy the vaccine. But I think it's too soon to know exactly the numbers. And you know, I know it's come up before but as we're kind of scraping the bottom of the barrel here in terms of, you know, trying to vaccinate as many people. I mean, you know, to what degree are incentives, you know, weighing on the decision-making here? I mean, is that something that's potentially still on the table, especially as we head into winter months too? Yeah, you know, I think that we've gotten to almost 80% with very modest incentives, creamies, employers giving incentives to their employees, in some cases free tickets to events, but it's been very, very modest. And Vermonters for the most part, we're getting vaccinated before most of those incentives were in place. So I don't foresee as a team that we're going to be starting to try to get even more incentive-driven, if you will, because we're already exceeding the performance of literally every state with the stepping up to the plate attitude that Vermonters have had thus far. I have one more, but I just, I'll see if that's got enough. Go ahead. See? Well, Doctor, what, we keep talking about new normal. What's the difference between new normal and back to normal? Interesting question. You know, before we came down from the fifth floor, we were discussing sort of our experiences over the holiday weekend, and even in places where there were no signs, like when you were shopping to go into a store, the majority of Vermonters were still wearing masks in those stores, and there's a whole variety of stores. Most of the employees, but not all the employees were wearing masks as well. Outdoors, pretty unusual to find a mask, which I think is fine. So even when we say the new normal is if you're unvaccinated, you need to wear a mask, but if you're vaccinated, whether you're indoors or outdoors, you don't have to wear a mask unless you're going into an establishment that requires you to do one. Vermonters are still actually adhering to the more stringent guidance. So that's a sign of the times, I think, that it takes time to transition. Also takes time for this to sort of really settle in, like the fact that we're all of a sudden down to very modest numbers of cases every day that were almost at 80% vaccine, and achieving a level of immunity that's allowing these cases to be driven further, further down. I think it's just a way of people saying that they need to arrive at their own comfort level and at their own timeline. And I'm all for that. I think that, frankly, we are less reckless than many other parts of the country have been where people have jumped to abandoning all kinds of precautions in a very, very early time frame. And we can be slower and still be more effective as we've been. Thank you. Governor has returned. I know Calvin had one additional question. Yeah, a few comments, a fairly short call today on the White House call, but here's what we heard from White House officials. Dr. Fauci said he's pleased to see infections continue to drop across the country as vaccinations rise, just like in Vermont, getting as many people vaccinated as possible as the goal across the country, and they're not letting up on these efforts. We also got an update on our allocations for next week, and we'll be getting the same amount of Pfizer and Moderna, which have held steady for the last few weeks. Once again, the federal government won't be distributing any new doses of Johnson & Johnson. However, they said that there would be a sum available through the federal pool program. They made it clear that not every state who asks for those extra doses will get what they asked for, but we'll continue to make these requests on our end as needed. So that was about it. Not many questions after either, fairly short call. So with that, Calvin? Nothing on the border? Nothing on the border at this point in time. No, but we, I don't know, I wasn't here for the presentation, but I saw earlier in the day, Commissioner Pijak had showed the slide of the progress being made in Quebec in particular, and they've made great strides over the last couple of weeks. So I think that's good news for us. So we'll see what happens, but we'll continue to advocate for opening the border when it's safe because we're so reliant on the tourism. But again, their first doses are up over the U.S. average at this point in time. Thanks. Stu, sorry, just one for the governor, Rudd. Judging from the number of cars passing me this weekend on the interstate, most of them out of state plates, have we heard any feedback on visitors to the state at all? Have not, I received a report last night, but it didn't include the data from yesterday. So it's continuing to move up a little bit at a time, but I think by the end of the week, we should, or by Saturday or Sunday of next week, we'll know what it did up until Monday. But I expect, I saw the same thing, that there are a number of people visiting, which is good news for Vermont, and hopefully that'll continue to grow. Did you guys turn your lights on at all, or? I'm sorry? Did you turn the lights on at all? I just, you know. Did not. Thank you. Stuart Luddbetter, NBC5. Good morning, a question for Dr. Levine. Sort of mirrors one I got from a viewer, which is we saw cases fall last summer. Of course, we had no vaccine, but it was just sort of a natural ed as people got outdoors. How much of this is this year, the result of the vaccine, but is there a risk that we are going to pop back up somewhat when cold weather returns? Good morning, Stuart. Thanks for that question. What I would say is, last summer, there was a drop in most parts of the country in cases as people were outdoors more, but we did have that surge in the South and West that occurred around July, actually, July and August. You might say some of that might be because it can be oppressively hot in those places and people were going more indoors to air conditioning, but it was happening throughout a huge region. So people were beginning to doubt that this was a traditional respiratory virus that behaved like most respiratory viruses and was predominant in the winter. The reality is we're still learning about this virus. I'm convinced that the decrease we're seeing now, a lot of it is related to people's behaviors as we got into this lower phase, but so much of it is related to the vaccine. And the vaccine will be the new part of the discussion when it comes to the fall and winter. I really do believe that the more we get vaccinated and the more suppression of the virus we can have here, the better we will all be in Vermont. So though we may see a little uptick in cases because people may start to go indoors more, I just don't believe it's going to be in the fashion that we saw in this latest surge. Time will tell, so we'll have to see. There's a lot of factors at play. I believe we in the Northeast are doing our best and we are going to have a region wide ability to really impact the virus. Other parts of the country and other parts of the world are somewhat of the wild card and we're going to have to watch how that goes. All right, thank you very much. If I could just elaborate just a bit for those who are making the connection and comparison between this year and last year. It's like apples and oranges. And when you look back at last year, we had a lot of restrictions in place, including coming into the state, having restrictions on travel. Now, right now we don't have any restrictions. We have a lot more people coming into the state. We have fewer restrictions and we're still seeing case numbers go down as we increase our vaccinations. And that shows that the vaccines work and that's why we're trying to do all we can to continue to promote vaccines because we do think that this will help us in the future protect ourselves because as Dr. Levine said, we don't have all the data to know what's going to happen. But taking this step, I believe and we all believe will help us a far into the future and better protect ourselves so we can have a lot more normal winter. Lisa, the associate press. Thanks, Jason. I had a question about the number of vaccines. So what was our federal allotment last week and didn't we request any more than that from the federal pool? Was there a federal pool? Yeah. And if you could tell me what the numbers were for each of the vaccines, that would be great. Yeah, I can't tell you what our request was. I think it was about 20,000, but I'm not positive of that. It hasn't changed for the last three weeks in terms of our allotment, but maybe Secretary Smith can answer the rest. Yeah, Lisa, the number of Moderna and Pfizer in terms of the federal allotment hasn't changed at all. Last week we didn't draw down any Moderna. Of course, J&J wasn't available. So we didn't draw down J&J. We didn't go to the federal surplus pool for J&J last week. We have some J&J that is coming up for expiration in the latter part of June. So we want to use that. I can get you the Pfizer number that we drew down last week, but it wasn't the full allocation of Pfizer that we had for last week, but it was a significant portion of it. So we are trying to make sure that we're drawing down the amount that we're going to use. As I said, we have 11,000 people left. We usually have an allocation of 20,000 to get to 80%. We will draw down as much as possible each week in order to get the number of people way past the 80 if we can, the 80% vaccinated. Okay, and so this week looks like about the same? Yeah, I don't know. We just got the numbers. We sort of have to get together and talk about it in terms of what the numbers are. So I don't know, this is the first time we hear the numbers and then we sort of line up all our vaccine efforts with the numbers that we have. Okay, thank you. And General Perna had said on the White House call that there are about 10 million doses of Johnson & Johnson that are within the state supply right now somewhere within the US. And they said that there are some Johnson & Johnson available if you we need it. But everyone's trying to use up their supplies at this point in time so that they don't go bad. Right, thank you. Tom Davis, Compass-Romano. Thanks, Jason. Governor, following up on the discussion about the Canadian border, Prime Minister Trudeau said in a speech yesterday in Ottawa that he wants to see Canada at 75%. He said he wants to see Canada at 75%. He said he wants to see Canada at 75% before he thinks they should open up the border. And the latest numbers that we found showed that about 58% of Canadians had had one dose but only less than 6% had been fully vaccinated. Do you think it's realistic that we'll see Canada agree to open the border this summer? I think you said it was a 75% whether that's first dose or not. 75. Yeah. And I believe President Biden had made 70% by the 4th of July. So their first doses have gone beyond the number of people vaccinated in the US at this point in time. So I mean, it depends on what he's talking about and maybe you have that information. I just don't know if it's fully vaccinated or just first dose. But they should, I would say, at their rate right now, it would seem like by the 4th of July or at the end of the month that they would have 75% of the first doses completed. But it is the second dose and being fully vaccinated that is going to take some time. So it really depends on the negotiations between the US and Canada as to whether that can happen. To your point, he said specifically need to be vaccinated. So maybe he left that open because his other criteria was to see a continuous decline across the country in cases. So hopefully if that happens, he can stick with a 75. Thank you on that. One other question. Can I just go back to this? Again, it really depends as well like President Biden has said, his goal is 70% by the 4th of July for those over 18. So we hit that mark a while ago here in Vermont. So again, it really does matter what the denominator is and what the criteria is because if it's 18 and over, it's a lot easier to hit. So again, that does matter whether it's first dose, second dose completely vaccinated or whether it's 18 and over or not. So we'll have to see what that means. Absolutely makes sense. My other question is the latest report came out showing that Vermont remains next to last in the country in terms of supporting military retirees. And I was curious, do you have a sense of why the legislature doesn't have an appetite to improve those circumstances given the need for more people to move from Vermont and how that's such an attractive population to come here? I've been baffled by that for a number of years now. I think it makes all kinds of sense when we're one of only, I think it's six states that don't give an exemption from taxing pensions, military pensions across the US that that does preclude people from moving here and we need more people. So I'm baffled by that. If you come up with the reason why I'll try again next year. I'll take the challenge. Thank you very much. Joseph Gresser, the Barton Chronicle. Thank you. I think this is a question for Dr. Levine. Looking at other news media that say they rely on CDC figures, it appears that the passivity, the test rate in Orleans County seems inordinately high. And I'm curious as to whether this actually reflects a potential problem or whether people are simply tested these days when they think they have a problem than formerly when they were doing it because they come in from out of state or had other reasons. Yeah, Joe, do you have the number of the positivity rate? Because I don't have it at my fingertips. The number I saw was 6%, which seemed quite high. Yeah, that is quite high. We know that Orleans County has come down. Again, you saw the graph today or the map of the state showing that it as well as other counties came down in terms of their rate of growth of new cases. So I suspect the number is changing as we speak. Some of that may have been prison related, but overall we know that there were more cases there than in other parts of the state for quite a while. So I do fear that some of it may represent more symptomatic people getting tested and less of a tendency for people in a surveillance testing mode because we've had so many people who no longer need to do surveillance testing because they've become vaccinated. So I'm not giving you the complete answer on that, but that's also my suspicions. But I suspect that number is going to come significantly down since the whole state now in aggregate is below 1% positivity. I'm gonna find it challenging to believe based on the last week's case data that Orleans County is remaining high. And that the first I saw Drew was there might be undiscovered cases. You think it's more likely that those test results are lagging and that then they supposed. Yeah, I do think we're catching it on the downswing now. So I'd be very surprised if those numbers persisted. Before we go on to the next question, I'm gonna ask a commissioner Peechak. He has a little bit of an update on what Prime Minister to do had said. It might be helpful. Yeah, thank you, Governor. This goes back to Tom's question. So the Prime Minister did say that 75% of Canadians who wanted vaccinated and previously I'd mentioned that he wanted 20% of them fully vaccinated. So right now Canada is about 58%. They've been adding anywhere between four or 5% of their population every week. Quebec's even higher than that. It's over 60%. So in terms of first doses and fully vaccinated, it looks like in the next three to four weeks they would meet those numbers and their cases have been coming down across their country and particularly in Quebec. So we'll see what happens, but they're on pace to reach that in the next three, four, five weeks. So just to be clear, 75% one dose and then 20%, 20% fully vaccinated. Thank you. Diane, seven days. Hi, thanks. About those Quebec members, is there, who's ultimately making that decision and what are they basing it on? I mean, the decision to open the border. You know, it will be a fairly high decision based on the Prime Minister to do. And I would say President Biden that they will have to come to some agreement as to what that means and whether there's going to be some sort of passport of some sort, vaccine passport to come back and forth. So it's a high level decision. We've all, the New England governors have asked when it is safe to open it as quick as possible, particularly in Maine and New Hampshire and Vermont and New York, not being a New England state, but they have an interest as well. So, again, we're making the case. And in fact, we sent a letter as New England governors to see what we could do to share any excess vaccines that we might have and maybe to be able to vaccine, vaccinate those on our friends to the North when we had extra supply. Did you get a response to that letter? We have not at this point, but that was, I believe it was last week when we sent that early in the week. But I'll check on that, Ian. Thanks. So I wanted to follow up on Stuart's question about the autumn. I know there's a lot of variables at play this summer, but given that we're probably gonna have 80% vaccinated, I'm wondering, can you give me your best estimate of whether businesses are actually gonna face restrictions again or could face restrictions again as we get into the fall? Is that something you're preparing for? Yeah, I, you know, again, there's no playbook on this, but my gut tells me we won't have to do anything as long as we fully protect Vermonters. That's why it's so important. I mean, having 80% of Vermonters vaccinated and climbing, I think that puts us in a great position to be able to continue without restrictions. So there is going to be some, I believe with any like the flu season, we do see times of the year when that escalates. And I believe that we'll see the same with COVID as well, but we have something we know works and we can protect ourselves. And so I don't see that we will need a restriction in the future, particularly with how well we've done in vaccinating Vermonters. Okay, thanks very much. Andrew McGregor, Caledonian record. Yes, good morning. Thank you for Dr. Levine back to the topic of testing. The number of tests has dropped significantly statewide. I'm wondering if you think that what we're doing right now is appropriate for the situation, or if you'd like to see more testing being done just to try to catch some of those asymptomatic cases that might still be circulated. I'll let Dr. Levine, of course, answer this. But I think we have to remember that a lot of the testing was done at the universities and colleges. So when they ended their year, that that dropped off tremendously. But we still want to make sure that we're doing some surveillance testing. Yeah, if you look at the sequential testing over the last several weeks, three weeks ago we were in the mid 30,000s, but that's at a time when the colleges were still doing a fair amount of their testing. Two weeks ago we were in the mid 20,000s, now we're in the mid 10,000s. So there has been a drop off since the colleges have finished their semester. But also, again, when you're talking about 80%, almost 80% of 12 and older Vermonters, and we look at our traditional groups that we've done surveillance testing on, school teachers, correctional officers, long-term care facilities, these are all now heavily vaccinated sites, which make it challenging to tell people that they should go get tested on a regular basis because of the fact that they're protected. And when they do get symptoms, it's appropriate to test, but they don't have to test just because testing is available. And that's very different than pre-vaccine when we really did want to have a lot of testing done because it was available. It was easy for Vermonters to do. It provided a lot of peace of mind, and it really gave us an accurate picture of what was going on in the state, not just people who had symptoms, but people who might have been a carrier, but asymptomatic at the time. So it's hard to say that we're not at an appropriate level at this time based on the huge number of people that have already received vaccine. But I want people to know that testing is as available today as it was six months ago. So do not hesitate to get testing. You can probably do it on a walk-in basis at any site in any of our regions of the state. And please don't say that, let yourself believe that that's no longer a necessary component of how we manage the pandemic if you feel that it's appropriate for yourself to get tested. And does the guidance different regarding testing for someone that has been vaccinated? Say for instance, someone gets mild cold symptoms, but they've been fully vaccinated. What's the decision process there? Yeah, so the decision process is still, if you have some of the symptoms of COVID, it's appropriate to get tested. I would say that your chance of being positive as a so-called breakthrough case are very, very low, well below 1%. But at the same time, if you've got concerning symptoms, you can get tested and reassure yourself that it is or is not COVID. We will have other respiratory viruses that begin to make their impact known because we're not masking anymore. Hopefully most of those aren't gonna be very prominent in the summer months, but at the same time, they haven't disappeared from the planet either, just like COVID hasn't disappeared. So lots of common cold viruses are out there and can easily impact people with a non-severe illness, of course. But testing is one way to find out. Okay, thank you very much. So, Loomis, the value reporter. Good morning, this question is for the governor. Governor, last week H313 was approved by the House. It allows takeout or curbside alcohol sales to continue for another 24 months. Do you support this bill? Yeah, in fact, it was our proposal, so yes. Great, and to follow up on Anne's question, is it even legal for US states to share vaccines with Canada and Mexico? A reader pointed out or suggested that there's a clause in the contract for the US government to purchase the vaccines that specifically prevents the sale or sharing of those vaccines with Canada and Mexico. You know, I don't know the answer to that and maybe that's what they'll write back to us. But our thought was if we could offer them at the border and do whatever we can to help administer, so we get them that much closer to opening up the border so that we could take advantage of having them come to Vermont as they have done for decades and we could get back to some sort of normalcy. But we'll see what they say. Thank you for that. And then just a quick follow up for probably for Secretary Smith. If a local employer or event organizer or farmer's market manager wants to host a vaccine clinic, to whom should they reach out? Do you want Secretary Smith's number? 802, no, I'm just kidding. Reach out to the health department. Lisa, I'm getting, I'm looking for the number right now. It's the number that I usually talk about in my presentations and I just wanted to, it is 855-722-7878 for the time being and they will direct you to where they need to go but calling will, we'll figure it out or we'll make sure that ACCD gets the call and we'll just figure it out from there. We really want employers to reach out to us. We want to bring the vaccine to them so anything that we can do in terms of facilitating that we are happy to do that. Great, I'll pass that on. Thank you very much. That's it for me. Mike Donahue, the Islander. Thanks, Jason. Governor, continued my travels over the weekend. I was amazed to see all the job openings that are being hosted outside a lot of businesses. They can't seem to fill vacancies. I know some friends tried to go to Denny's in South Burlington on Saturday for breakfast and they weren't open because they can't fill jobs. And just wondering, the state paid and the federal government paid bonuses for people who weren't working extra money. Is there any thought of putting any sort of bonuses out that people actually go out and actually try to find jobs? I mean, it seems like a lot of people are getting unemployment, but is there any incentive program, much like moving to Vermont, that the state could implement to sign on for long-term job with somebody? Yeah, I know that there are a number of employers that are using that tactic, but I just want to again remind everyone, before the pandemic, we had the lowest unemployment rate in the country, 2.2%. I believe it was. We were struggling to find employees at that point in time throughout every trade, a lot in the construction industry, a lot in the hospitality sector, and the pandemic hasn't made it any better. I mean, this is, and it's not just isolated to Vermont. When I hear the gas prices are increasing, I think I read where 25% of the drivers, the over the road tanker drivers are not there. So they're not at capacity. They're not able to deliver fuel and gas to areas throughout the country. So this is not only a Vermont problem, this is a US problem, and we need to do everything we can, again in Vermont, to get more people to come to the state. And when we talked about those military pension taxes on pensions, that prevents a certain sector, I believe, from coming to Vermont. So we need to do everything we can to make Vermont more affordable, do everything we can to make it more welcoming, and utilize every tool that we can. So we haven't contemplated what you're suggesting, but we'll have to see come this fall and winter what it's going to take. But I'm hoping the situation will get better. And again, trying to get more people to come and visit the state and then come and stay in the state is a tactic that we're trying to utilize at this point in time. Being the safest, healthiest state in the country doesn't hurt. Keeping them here is really the trick. Okay, thank you. And Dr. Levine, following up on the CDC website report that showed that Vermont got possibly linked to vaccine shots, we got a lot of reaction to your comments from last week. You mentioned the chief medical examiner was unaware of any fatal cases directly related to the vaccine shots. Readers are wondering if the chief medical examiner's office has full access to all the individual medical reports for the eight dead patients. Did he get to review all of those in any sort of detail? And just how many investigators does the chief medical examiner's office have assigned to him to be able to conduct any sort of intensive investigations into these kinds of things? Yeah, that's a lot of questions. So the chief medical examiner often has conversations with the actual clinician who is pronouncing death at the time that that person is trying to fill out a death certificate. There are times that those conversations actually involve does the chief medical examiner wish to do a post-mortem examination of the patient versus using their judgment based on what details are provided. So it's usually a qualified health provider talking to the chief medical examiner's office. Within that office, there's a chief medical examiner and another medical examiner, Dr. Bundock. And then there are assistant medical examiners in every region of the state. So most of these conversations for like these eight cases, I'm sure would occur at the level of Dr. Shapiro or Dr. Bundock. And most of the time, it would be their judgment based on what details they had been provided about the case from another physician. That still allows for the CDC and their own investigation to come up with another conclusion. But as I said last week, we have yet to hear from them on any of the eight cases regarding any concerns that they were related to vaccine. Some of that may be because they truly have no concerns. Some of that may be because they have such a high case load. They just haven't gotten to these cases yet to make any determination. And have you reached out to the CDC on your own to bear notes? That's far no because we report these things to the CDC, but then we wait to see what we get back. Our belief is that their crew is overwhelmed with just the number of reports to the vaccine adverse event reporting system. And so they need to have time to be able to sort through everything. And the original question way back was, is there any thought of putting those eight tests on the dashboard with all the other information that the state is providing this does come from the CDC? Yeah, there's no thought of that at this time based on the fact that within Vermont, we've not ascertained that any of these cases are directly related to vaccination as opposed to other medical conditions. Should the CDC come and weigh in with one or two or more of these that they believe are directly linked, they will definitely go on the website stating such. Thank you. Yeah, the VCX question is for Secretary French. I believe and correct me if I'm wrong, that recovery plans are due to the Education Agency today. Secretary French, do you have to approve those plans? And what are the criteria you'll be using to determine if those plans are acceptable? Yeah, thanks for the question, Kat. Yes, today was our goal to have the plan submitted. We do not approve that first day. They're brought through a team and it's more of an iterative process with districts to ensure that they're personally and including strategies under the three domains of focus areas that we create as far as the planning template. You might remember those are social emotional well-being students, the re-engagement of the academic success. And then we also do a compliance check to ensure that their strategies are gonna be fine with the federal funding requirements as many of these planning issues will end up as grant proposals for their federal funding. So when do you think that there will be an actual plan that parents in a district will be able to see and say, okay, this is what my school district is doing to recover from the pandemic? Yeah, that's a great question. That should be available now more or less. There is requirement for stakeholder engagement and then additionally under we call S or three there's a specific requirement for stakeholder engagement so districts are doing a lot of that engagement now. But I would just say again, this is designed at the federal level at the state level to also be an iterative process. So it's not just like a one and done submit it and we're over, this was the first cut. Districts will be making changes to those plans that I'm sure school board and so forth will be available. So there'll be plenty of opportunity for public open meeting participation and just general participation in school districts. And then when I think about kind of the big long-term picture here, is it gonna be something that the education agency visits with districts in like a year or so to say, okay, well, how are you doing and actually implementing this recovery plan and is it actually working and do we need to make changes then? Yeah, I see it being broken down on a much more almost on a monthly basis. But I think like so much of our pandemic response, I think we can envision phases. I think as we were talking about last week, the first phase is clearly re-engagement which begins now through the summer. I can see a new emphasis on academics come the fall when school reopens. And then certainly as we work with our other partners in state government, including Department of Mental Health to think about the social emotional wellbeing. So I think it'll be an ongoing issue and we intend at the state level to staff district on a regional basis. So we'll be looking for opportunities in being regional conversations among groups the district on an ongoing basis. Thank you. Greg Lamberow, the County Courier. Good afternoon, Governor. So I just wanna clarify the last vaccine member that we have is 77.9% and that's through Friday, correct? I think it might be through Saturday, actually. So we still have Sunday, Sunday and Monday? Not, does nobody at the Health Department keep track of daily vaccines administered at least by state-run clinics? Yeah, I know what you're getting at Greg and I understand because I had some of the same questions but it gets complicated. We do have those numbers obviously because they sign up and we have walking clinics. So we keep track of all the ones that we are overseeing. But there's also a number of other opportunities whether it's in the federal pharmacies and there might be at least a couple of dozen that are enrolled in the federal pharmacies that we don't have control over nor do we have the information from them. In fact, some of that information could be held for a few days before it's sent to the CDC and then we receive the information and they update their numbers. So if we try and give just our numbers, it doesn't give the whole picture. As well as with the veterans, the DOD and so forth, there's another sector that is reported to the CDC and then we receive the numbers afterwards. So it gets a little complicated and I wish it was as easy as just keeping track of the numbers ourselves because we wouldn't have had this issue all along but in the reconciling of the numbers. But it is what it is and we have to live within the information that we're receiving. So we have to take into account those numbers in the pharmacies particularly now because the pharmacies are doing quite a bit of business. So the walk-ins and all the pharmacies. So that really does have a significant impact on the numbers. I'm just wondering if we were to add in the numbers that the health department is aware of, where we would be at? Yeah, we could do that. But again, I'd prefer if we could just keep track of that. We'll do that on a daily basis to make sure that we're keeping track of everything. But we'd like to just use one set of numbers if you, so that we don't get in the same position we were in before where some states were, we were both reporting the same numbers. So we'll keep track of it the way we have right now. We think we've got it reconciled. So this is it. This is the number we're using and I think that we'll see in the next few days that we'll be working those down to under way under 10,000, I think, as of tonight, hopefully, and then continue to chip away at that over the next few days. Okay. And finally, this may be for Dr. Levine. I spoke to the veteran over the weekend. She was going into a short quarantine to have a procedure at a Vermont hospital. This person said that even though he's been fully vaccinated, he still has to do a short quarantine, still has to do a negative test before the procedure. I'm hoping that you can explain to people much like what this gentleman is in, why these restrictions are still needed for people that are fully vaccinated. Yeah, I believe that's the province of the hospital that he's been dealing with and not any guidance that the state has enforced. So we've reached a point in the Vermont forward progress where most of the guidance that is sector specific isn't that pertinent anymore to any of the sectors. And right now, I agree with a fully vaccinated person not being required to have any specific testing or quarantine. But hospitals are businesses and we have given complete permission to hospitals as well as other sectors in the business community to set the rules as they like to see it, whether it be this pre-operative testing, whether it be wearing a mask when you go into a facility or not. So I can't really give you the justification that the particular hospital has, but that is their province to be able to do that. This particular speaking with was concerned that much like you just said, that it really wasn't a medical need anymore and that it was a move to be able to bill out another service. And I'm just wondering if it's time for the state to modify some of its recommendations as to whether somebody really needs a negative test or not and if not doing that might actually be more costly to the overall system by allowing hospitals to continue to bill out these tests. Well, as you know, the tests are free, but at the same time hospitals do have the right to warrant that. I think Secretary Smith has a comment, so hold on. Yeah, Greg, when we hit the 80%, there won't be any sort of guidelines to the hospitals. There's minimal guidelines out there now that they have to hit, but it will be up to the individual facility what they will do. I heard of one, for example, that will continue a masking policy even after all the restrictions are lifted for everything. So we have several inpatient outpatient procedures, we have visitation procedures, all those will be gone at the 80% level and it will be up to the individual hospital. The incident that you talked about, I think is probably at the individual hospital level and I think that will continue to be their prerogative. Just like any other organization or business, it will be up to them to decide what sort of requirements they're gonna have for their customers. Thank you, Secretary Smith and thank you, Dr. Levine and Governor Scott. Guy Page, Chronicle of the Vermont State House. Governor, I've seen legal opinions that institutions like businesses, colleges, schools, requiring vaccination for work or enrollment of a vaccine that is still technically, quote, emergency usage, will be liable for legal damages if someone gets sick or dies as a result of the vaccine. Is this true and can you tell us more about that? Yeah, I don't know. I haven't seen the legal analysis and I know that the, I think I believe I saw today where Moderna was going for something other than emergency usage so I would expect all of them to do that but I don't have any knowledge of the legal analysis at this point. Is that concerning as far as Vermont institutions like our five colleges for example, requiring that for enrollment? I mean, could there be some bull back there? Well, I think that's a legal question and probably better for a lawyer and a constitutional lawyer or whoever but I think that a business should be able to do what they want to do and then you have the option of either going to that institution, going into that business and if you don't want to adhere to their rules, you don't have to. There are other choices out there. Okay, thank you. So last month, the New York Yankees had nine cases of breakthrough COVID-19 including their All-Star shortstop laboratories. Each of the nine were fully vaccinated. It had been at least 14 days since their single dose of the Johnson and Johnson COVID-19 vaccine. The good news is that they're mostly asymptomatic and it didn't happen to the Red Sox but what do we to look at this? You know, why this cluster of breakthroughs and can breakthrough victims transmit? I might ask Dr. Levine to comment on that but the Yankees have been struggling this year so that might be part of the reason. You know, I expected the scientific world to weigh in much more on that and I don't have a lot of details from it except the ones you stated which were I believe there was one mildly symptomatic and eight asymptomatic individuals involved in that. They were all under the classification of fully vaccinated. On the one end of the spectrum, you could say that the fact is the vaccine was doing what it was supposed to do which is prevent against severe illness, hospitalization or death in that these individuals had mild or even less than mild illness. So that's a success story. On the other end of the spectrum, you could say, well, why did they all end up testing positive but then what does testing positive mean? Did it mean they actually had viable virus that could infect other people and cause severe illness or did it mean they just had fragments of non-viable virus that were still detectable by a very sensitive test? And I haven't seen the full sort of post-mortem on that, if you will, where they put it all together and make a decision as to what was going on. So I can't really offer you much more than that but I can say that the reality is most of the data that we have been adhering to and that the CDC made its ultimate decisions about masking with was data that shows that the likelihood of transmitting virus from you to another person if you are fully vaccinated is very, very small. And so I would go with most of that data over the New York Yankees experience but I am still like you a bit curious about what that was all about and I don't have a full accounting of it. Thank you. Seven Bates, Local 22, Local 44. Right, we'll move to Avery Powell. The time's arduous. Sorry, I'm here. Well, I think we're at Avery so we can go to Avery and then Eric. Sorry, it's having an issue with the mute button there. We are hearing from superintendents that they're having issues attracting teachers to work in the summer to start their recovery plans with summer schools. Secretary Friend, are you hearing of this issue? Yeah, absolutely. I think the governor was describing the broader demographic challenges. Same challenge as our parent and the education workforce as well. And we knew there'd be a certain amount of fatigue this summer as well. And one of the reasons why we decided in designing summer matters that we wanted to leverage as many different activities that we cared and expanded beyond the public education system to ensure kids would have something to do this summer. And my second question for Governor Scott, you mentioned that once we hit the 80% mark that we're not done just yet, what is the messaging that it'll look like going forward after 80% to kind of get our vaccinations above that? Yeah, we'll continue to offer clinics wherever we can. We'll continue to go to businesses who will want to get their employees vaccinated to protect them in the future and their workforce. So we'll use anything we can at that point in time. I would assume that we'll see something, maybe even for a younger population in the sometime in the fall. So we'll want to vaccinate younger children at that point in time as well. So it'll look the same as now, but we'll contemplate different strategies to find as many people as possible because we know that there still are 20% left and that could be expanded if the age banding is expanded with another emergency authorization. The messaging up until now has been a lot about obviously wearing masks and now that the guidance has been if you're vaccinated to wear masks, is there any more push to try to get people to unmask a little bit? I know a lot of tourists have been very stingy about keeping their masks on even when they are vaccinated. Yeah, and I can understand that. We've been through a lot over the last 14, 15 months and the masks have done their job and they prevented a lot of illness, prevented deaths as well. And so giving those up is difficult, but we continue to watch the science and the data and the science tells us that if you're vaccinated, it's okay. But I think people need to be given the space to do what they feel is right for them and they'll come around eventually, but sometimes you have to prove that. And again, every day when I watch the hospitalizations and the number of deaths or lack thereof, then it gives me again, a lot more confidence that the vaccine is working. And I think others will see that as well. So it just may take a little bit of time and we just need to give them space in order to come to that conclusion on their own. Great, thank you. Eric? Yes, is there any insight into this duplicate reporting issue with the CDC? Did they change how they're receiving reports? It just seems odd that we've been administering vaccines for six months now, and now all of a sudden there's this reporting issue. Secretary Smith. I'll call on Commissioner Pichek if he has anything to add. We've been very diligent. Once we set the number of 80%, we've been very diligent to make sure that the numbers align. And that's what sort of has precipitated making sure that we have everything that's reconciled reconciled as we move forward. We didn't want to get into this situation where we're changing numbers after we have declared victory with the 80%. So we've been very diligent in looking at this and moving forward. And so it isn't a new issue. We're just looking a lot closer as we move forward. We think we've got everything, as the governor had mentioned, we think everything now is going to be a subtraction from the 11,000. And there's no reason to believe that there isn't going to be that subtraction as we move forward. So there isn't really anything other than we were being uber conservative in terms of where we were going and what we were doing in looking at these numbers. Commissioner Pichek, anything to add? That's the explanation, Eric. So getting up to say like the 1% up to the 70%, should that also get the same kind of scrutiny? Yeah, that has been, I'll let Commissioner Pichek talk about that. Yeah, Eric, so you're talking about 70% of the full population? Right, well, it seems like Secretary Smith was saying like in getting to that 80% number, there was more scrutiny. So should there have been more scrutiny beforehand? Yeah, I see what you're saying. So I will say one thing, the CDC has reconciled data throughout the process, vaccination, case, hospitalization, death data. So it's part of their common process. And we've seen the vaccination data get reconciled in other places as well. What tipped us off was, you saw it on that slide we presented on May 21st, we saw a really large jump in our own data. So that Monday we went and looked and said, is there some duplication going on here because we submitted the VA data and we were told it would be deduplicated and we wanted to make sure it was. So that was part of what made us want to do the additional scrutiny. Plus, as Secretary Smith said, we were getting close to that 80%. So that was also critical to do it at that time. So I think that's really why we looked into it more, both that we're approaching the 80% and we had reason to suspect that our numbers jumped higher than they should have jumped. So is it fair to say that the numbers would have been corrected, but now they're being corrected in a much quicker manner? Yeah, I mean, that's the hope is that they would have been corrected eventually and we believe that they would have been, but this was something that we brought to the attention of the CDC. It was our initiative. So we believe they'll be corrected much more quickly than they would have otherwise. Okay, thank you. The gap between BIPOC and non-hispanic weight for monitors currently stands at about 5% of points, which is definitely lower than it started out. But I noticed that Native American Vermonters have an extremely low vaccination rate of about 26% compared to 72% of white Vermonters and it's 7% of black Vermonters, for example. Are you guys planning anything kind of targeted at that population, are you guys tracking this number and looking into why that Native American vaccination rate is so low? Yeah, hi, this is Dr. Levine. You know, we have already run a number of Abenaki clinics on the northern part of the state and I actually attended one and the turnout I thought was relatively good and very positive sentiments expressed there. I think the numbers for Native Americans in Vermont are very small numbers, so it's a bit challenging to make statistical comparisons amongst all of the groups. You're right, though, that the gap in the disparity between vaccination rates has gone from somewhere in the 13 to 14% range down to 5%. And most of that 5%, not all of it, but a high proportion of it is in over 65 years of age, which is very different than the rest of our experience in Vermont, where obviously we're pushing way over 95% of over 65 total being vaccinated at this point in time. Some of this is believed to emanate from feelings that those who are in the oldest population in the BIPOC communities have the longest memory and memory of the U.S. in not so many positive ways as in terms of their interactions with the government and their trust of the government, their interactions with scientific experiments and their lack of trust in some of the science. And those are very longstanding historical injustices that are very hard to change overnight. Whereas in the under 65 population, the disparity rate is much, much lower. And there's been much more enthusiastic uptake of the vaccine. So obviously we're working with all of our healthcare partners and all aspects of the community, Native American, as well as Hispanic American, as well as Hispanic and African American. And it's a long process for many of them. But we continue to actually have clinics and are trying our best to over time make some of those long held beliefs and opinions at least erode away if you will over time just because of the fact that people have more time to understand better and are interacting with members of their own community who can help influence them. Yeah, speaking of, you know, vaccine trust, survey data continues to show that, you know, a higher than expected percentage of Americans are worried about the vaccine because they're worried about the cost of the vaccine even though it's free. Is there anything that the state is doing to kind of target that sex turn and ensure people that it is actually free, particularly people who are uninsured or have a really bad history with healthcare debt and the healthcare system's financial situation? Yeah, I've been reading those reports also from around the country where people have been of the opinion that it is not free or they're actually getting charged for it. And I don't believe we've had an issue with that in Vermont in terms of that becoming something that we had on our radar screen. I believe that we've done a pretty good job here of saying at abundant press conferences that there should be no cost and that the vaccine is free for everyone. I don't know of any reports that have come in that would be to the contrary in terms of people actually being hesitant to get the vaccine because they felt it was going to impact their bottom line. But if there are any people out there who do believe that or who've had an adverse experience, please have them connect with us because that is not what our belief is that has happened. And I don't think we would have got to close to 80% now if a high percentage of our population were concerned about cost being an impediment. Yeah, well, I will say the New York Times that it's a story a few weeks ago that listed it as one of the top reasons that Vermont are specifically weren't getting the vaccine. Of course, it's only one data point from one news organization, but I don't want to take a look at that. And yeah, it's true that it's still lower than the national average. So that is that. Tim McQuiston, Vermont Business Magazine. Hi, Governor. I have a work first question, but on the vaccine front, someone mentioned to me that they wished they could just walk in and get a Johnson & Johnson vaccine. And beyond the state programs, every pharmacy I've been in, in Chilling County has walking clinics and some of them have Johnson & Johnson as well as the others. And I was wondering if there's a way to get that message out or is it just one of those, another one of those that left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing and sort of coordinate with the Federal Pharmacy Program? Yeah, I'm sure there's a better way to market it. I would think that some of the individual pharmacies, if that was something that would sell, so to speak, that was something that was attracted to some, I would be utilizing that as a selling tool to get them in my store. But beyond that, Secretary Smith, is there anything you can add to it? In various events that we've been doing, North Beach, for example, Thunder Road, that's coming up on Friday. In many of the walking clinics that we've been doing, we've been using Johnson & Johnson as well as some of the pharmacies. But Tim, your point is well taken. You can go on and find out what various vaccines are being used at various locations on the website. But at the same time, you make a fair point. We'll take that under consideration and see how we can market that even better than what we're doing now. But we are mixing and matching in accordance to events, the various vaccine. We use a lot of Johnson & Johnson out there for these special events. And we use, usually employer-based, we'll use Pfizer as well as we move forward. So I'll take it under consideration and we'll try to do a better job. But we are getting a lot of people to walk in and that's a good thing as we're moving forward. Well, Mr. Secretary, you're doing a good job, so don't worry about that. On the workforce front, someone mentioned to me why not do high school outreach? I know it's getting kind of late in the year, but you know, virtual events or even job fairs because that's a workforce population. They don't have to worry about the unemployment insurance issue. There's a lot of people right now that there aren't a lot of high schoolers taking jobs which are available to the hospitality retail, et cetera. Is there any thought about doing that, Governor? I believe we've done some, Tim, but that might be a question for either labor or ECCD, but I'm not sure who's on today. But I know for our summer matters program, I know that we did a lot of outreach in terms of those who are still in high school or graduating that there's positions available for the summer in that regard. But I think, again, I believe the individual businesses have done what they can in trying to attract and there are certain laws where you can't have someone under 18 in a certain work condition. So that complicates things a bit as well. And the long-term effect, you know, it's helpful for the summer, but many of these businesses, as you well know, are looking for employees beyond the summer. Anybody? Well, I was thinking because you've... Sorry, go ahead. No, go ahead, Tim. Well, I was gonna say, you've done such a good job bringing vaccinations to the people that maybe you almost have to bring the job to the people, especially, you know, with high schoolers. Yeah, it's a fair point. And again, trying to find the jobs that are available. And I know that there are many that bore those who are off for the summer. Anybody from the Labor Department or ACCV on? Good afternoon, Governor. It's Mike Harrington, Commissioner Department of Labor. The only other piece that I would add to is just a reminder for employers that are out there. If you haven't already done so, certainly connect with our workforce development division and get your positions posted on Vermont Job Link that right now is the hub we're using to connect individuals who are looking for employment with available jobs. So our team stands at the ready. There are multiple ways you can reach out to us either online or over the phone. We can certainly help you get those jobs posted. You know, I think to that point, you know, many youth coming out of high school for the summer, in some ways, probably have a lot of ideas of already where they're wanting to go. But to the governor's point, you know, it's really a short period of time where a lot of employment employers out there are looking for longer term employment. But again, you know, certainly if there are thoughts or ideas or something we're missing, certainly happy to work to get the word out to individuals coming either on summer break, either in high school or college and linking them up with employers if they're having a hard time finding work. Okay, great. Thanks, Mishner. Howard Weiss, Tisman, DPR. Yeah, thank you. This is, I think for Dr. Levine, a lot of towns are making and have been making decisions about their July 4th festivities. Some towns are moving ahead without masks, assuming that we're at 80% before July 4th, which I think everyone hopes we are. Some towns are canceling, some are holding kind of hybrid. What's your recommendation from your public health perspective if a town manager or a select board member were asking you if they should move ahead with their July 4th activities this year? I can't imagine a July 4th activity that would be indoors, especially if we're talking fireworks and things of that sort. They would be almost exclusively outdoors. And I would think that not only will we be at the 80%, we're pretty confident we will get to that point, but clearly it is safe to be outdoors without wearing a mask. And the only caveat that's ever been attached to that is if you're in a setting where people are too congested, but I think your traditional fireworks displays, family units, households households that are friendly with one another can all be gathered together and still not be in such a huge crowded experience that they feel impinged upon by everybody around them. So I would say those activities should be safe. And I would endorse a town who wanted to carry them out in a safe way. And just talk a little bit. What's the explanation? I understand maybe watching fireworks, but what about standing in a tight crowd with a lot of kids who are not vaccinated, maybe with people from out of state who are not vaccinated at the same rate as Vermont? Just talk about that a little bit. Sure, I mean, still the overwhelming data dating way back from March of last year is that it's very challenging to document cases that were transmitted in the outdoors environment. So outdoors is predominantly a safe place to be. I agree that if you have a lot of unvaccinated people together crowded, they may want to mask because of the fact that they're unvaccinated and can't really distance themselves from one another. But the reality is, if they're exclusively outdoors, that should not be a major consideration at this point in time. All right, thank you. Ed Barber, Newport Daily Express. Yeah, good afternoon. This is a question I guess would be productive. Of course, our focus right now is hitting that 80% vaccination rate. There are a lot of mutations that are being reported and there has been talk in the past about getting booster shots. Considering the amount of time it took to develop the vaccination before it was able to be administered and going through the regulatory process. If there is a booster shot that would be necessary, how quick does it take to develop it and get it through the process so it'll be available for use, quote unquote, almost immediately instead of having to wait nine months or a year. Good, let's start from the beginning. The concern that we've been pushing back against around the country is these vaccines will develop too quickly. So, yeah. Now we're sort of going the opposite way. Well, we had to wait six or nine months for a vaccine just to put everything in perspective. Now to move on to the variants. Very recently, within the last week actually, Vietnam has reported a variant that they believe may be more transmissible and possibly make people sicker, but no one in the scientific community really has eyes on this yet and we don't really have much data to go with. So if we ignore that, every other variant that we've had to deal with thus far has been responsive to the current vaccines. Not all at the same rate, but at the same time, the majority of the variants and the majority of the vaccines have only allowed people to get mild illness at the most. So we're not so concerned about all the variants that we already know about and that we're used to, both in this country and from elsewhere in the world, we're on the lookout for newer variants like this one from Vietnam. But I have to say, each time a new variant has come under the radar screen, we're finding that it actually still, the vaccines are working pretty well against it. So we'll see what's true about this newest one as well. If a booster's needed though, you're saying that a new vaccine would need to be developed. So if there's no new variant of concern that would warrant a new vaccine, it would just be the same vaccines and we have plenty of a supply and ongoing supply manufacturing of that going on. If there was a need to have a new vaccine, if you will, to a variant that really was evading the current vaccines, I'm told that that means in the Messenger RNA platform, inserting a new Messenger RNA into the lipid particles that they use for that vaccine. And we're talking probably a three month process for that, as opposed to the six to nine month process that went on to develop the original vaccines. So the manufacturers feel pretty agile with regard to being able to respond to a new need. But I do want to emphasize thus far, no one is saying that there is a new need and that if people get a booster in the fall or after a year of their being vaccinated, that it would have to be a new vaccine. Right now, that isn't true. So obviously things change and we'll keep watching worldwide developments and what happens. Okay, very good. Thank you very much. Next journal opinion. Go ahead, Alex. Okay, sorry, this is just a follow-up to a comment that Secretary Smith made last week and was wondering if there was any update on the proposed juvenile detention center in New York. Secretary Smith. Thanks for the question, Alex. There hasn't been an update. I know that they're still looking at permitting. There were some wetlands issues that they're resolving in terms of a parking area, but moving forward, continually meeting with local officials, I really don't have an update from last week. Sorry about that. Okay, thank you very much. All right, thanks again for tuning in. We'll see you again next Tuesday. If not before, if we hit the 80%, which I hope we do, we'll be back and report that. So thanks very much.