 Good morning, everyone. Well, first of all, yesterday was National Nurses Day, and this week is Nurses Week, so I wanted to take a minute to express my gratitude for all the hard work of our nurses and healthcare workers over the past year. Your efforts under intense pressure have saved lives, and we're all grateful for your commitment to service into your communities. And the best way Vermonters can show their gratitude to our healthcare heroes is to get vaccinated. As we mentioned on Tuesday, it's now easier than ever. And although we're making good progress, we still need people to sign up. Secretary Smith will go into details in a few minutes, but this weekend there are a lot of opportunities, walk-ins, and drive-through opportunities across the state. This includes Johnson Johnson events tomorrow at both Bear Ridge Speedway in Bradford and Devils Bowl Speedway. Bear Ridge will be offering about 150 vaccinations, no sign-up needed, from 4 to 7 p.m. And if you choose to save for the race, your admission will be free, or you'll get a free pass for another race. At Devils Bowl, there are about 180 slots for walk-ins at the race, and it will be run from 4 to 7.30. And I wanna thank both those facilities and all our partners who have been stepping up to try and work towards the goal that we have. I know most are anxious to get back to normal, especially as the weather begins to get better. This has been a long, tough road. And every day we get closer to the end of the state of emergency and a return to normalcy. Even as Vermont leads the nation in rate of administration of the vaccine, and with nearly two-thirds of Vermont adults vaccinated, there's still much more work to do. We need Vermonters who haven't yet scheduled their appointments to do so if we're going to meet our targets. Vaccines are our ticket out of this pandemic, but it's going to take everyone's buy-in, especially younger Vermonters. At this point, we're still on track to hit our vaccination targets for reopening, but we really need those 18 to 30 to sign up to make sure we can continue moving forward. Vaccinations mean no more mass, larger gatherings, concerts, weddings, celebrations, and parties. They mean full restaurants, breweries, and theaters, but we'll only get there if you sign up. Your state, your country, and your communities are counting on you. So with that, I'll turn it over to Secretary French for our education update. You're on mute, Secretary French. Yep, thank you, Governor. Good morning. We concluded our weekly surveillance testing program for school staff last week, and we're now in the process of launching a pilot surveillance testing program focused on students. The idea is to launch a limited pilot program this spring and summer, and then expand the program more widely in the fall. The cost of the testing program will be covered by a federal grant. This program will offer testing to unvaccinated students, age eight and above. Testing will be voluntary, free to families, and conducted with parental consent. Results will be reported to families via a secure online portal, and any positive results will be followed by a direct call and support from the health department. We're still working out the details for the summer and the fall, but we are ready to move forward with a pilot group of districts this month, and potentially test up to 6,300 students. Schools from the following districts will participate in the pilot program this spring. Burlington School District, the Grand Isle Supervisory Union, Orleans Southwest Supervisory Union and Hardwick, Caldonia Central Supervisory Union and Danville, Two Rivers Supervisory Union and Ludlow, and the Southwest Vermont Technical Center in Bennington. Not all the schools and all these districts will be participating. Burlington and Grand Isle had expressed early interest in implementing a testing program of their own, so they were identified for inclusion in this pilot program. The other districts were identified through a statewide survey and selected to ensure geographic diversity in the pilot. The new testing will likely lead to an identification of additional cases, but this is good because it will help us in our efforts to stop the virus from spreading. I thought I'd provide enough data and guidance that we issued this week. We issued a clarification to the spring sports guidance relative to the new directive on when masks should be worn outside. Student athletes participating in low contact and no contact school-based spring sports, such as tennis, track and field, baseball and softball, are no longer required to wear masks as long as six feet of physical distance can be maintained. Student athletes participating in sports involving moderate contact or close proximity, such as boys and girls lacrosse and ultimate frisbee, must continue to wear masks at all times during practice and gameplay. Spectators are not required to wear masks at outdoor school sports events as long as six feet of physical distance can be maintained from anyone outside of a single household. Spectators must wear a mask at all times while attending indoor school sports events. We are also publishing a frequently asked questions or FAQ document later today to address questions that have come up relative to our graduation and end of year celebrations guidance. As been our practice throughout the year, we anticipate the need for FAQ documents when districts start to work through the practical application of our guidance documents into specific situations. We encourage them to send us their questions and then we look for patterns and themes in their questions and work with the health department to provide responses in the form of FAQs. Many of our responses are advisory in nature since they get to gray areas that often need further state guidance and can be helpful to local decision making. For example, a number of schools asked about the distance or seating at graduations. We advised that households should be seated together as much as possible with six feet of distance between households when possible. We also received questions about distancing at proms. We explained that strict adherence to classroom distancing requirements is not necessary at school social events like they have their different modes of learning. This survey gives us a sense of the amount of in-person, remote or hybrid learning students are experiencing each month. We gave districts an extra week because of the recent school vacation period. I will report on April's survey data next week. Looking across the state, however, it is very clear there's a very positive trend towards more in-person instruction. I hear almost on a daily basis from schools that are moving in that direction. I'm very pleased with the results we've seen so far. And now when the case counts coming down I expect even more districts will be extending their in-person learning opportunities. And confident that we'll end the year with more in-person than when we started. That concludes my report. I'll now turn it over to Secretary Snutton. Thank you, Secretary French. And good morning, everyone. Today I'll update you on the progress with the vaccination program and remind all of us to take a moment to recognize Vermonters that may need our support as well as individuals who support our mission and vision. We continue to make access to vaccines as easy as possible and I encourage everyone who is eligible to make an appointment. Today we are opening registration and walk-in availability to anyone who lives out of state but works in Vermont regardless of their occupation. And a new age group may become eligible soon. Next week we hope to hear from the CDC regarding emergency use approval for the use of Pfizer vaccine for young people aged 12 to 15. Upon approval, we will begin registration for this age group immediately. Families with children in this age group will be eligible to go to any site that offers the Pfizer vaccine. We will offer school-based sites to make it more convenient for students and all these sites will be open to the public. Next week I will have more information to share with you on this particular effort. Here are just a few of the many vaccination options available today and throughout the weekend. Vaccine clinics will be located at Northern Vermont University in Linden today and then tomorrow at Castleton University. Today we are offering a drive-through clinic at the Tumbridge Fairgrounds. It is operational right now. You can sign up online at healthvermont.gov slash my vaccine or you can call 855-722-7878 to make an appointment. Doses for walk-ins will be available and registration will open soon for drive-through clinics in Highgate at the airport on May 13th and Lancaster, New Hampshire on May 21st. Turning to race tracks, as the governor had announced, tomorrow Bear Ridge Speedway in Bradford and Devils Bowl in Fairhaven will host vaccine clinics from four to 7 p.m. and four to 7, 30 p.m., respectively. These are walk-in clinics only. No appointments are necessary. In fact, those vaccinated, as the governor mentioned, at Bear Ridge will be given a free admission to that night's race or a future race at the Speedway. And don't forget, tomorrow and Sunday, our EMS partners, Newport and Glover Ambulance Services and CalX will be in Essex and Caledonia counties hosting mobile clinics at nine locations. You can sign up online at healthvermont.gov slash my vaccine or you can call 855-722-7878 to make an appointment. These also have some doses available for walk-ins. These barnstorming events are also being planned in other counties. For example, Wyndham County next week on May 18th, 19th and 20th, Rescue Inc. will provide evening clinics in five communities. These clinics will have available appointments and walk-in opportunities. More details will be coming soon. We will have more information at future press conferences as well as a major event coming up that will involve EMS throughout the state. Like I said, more is coming next week. We continue to try to reach as many Vermonters as possible and offer convenient opportunities to be vaccinated. Next week, those who have signed up for food distribution can be vaccinated at the site. Although I mentioned some specific events, you can still make appointments at vaccine clinics and pharmacies throughout the state. There are plenty of opportunities in this state to get vaccinated. In terms of overall progress, as of this morning, 360,200 people have been vaccinated against COVID-19. 104,900 have received their first dose of vaccine, 255,300 have received their first and last doses of the vaccine. There is a slight delay in the CDC reporting vaccine information to our IT system that impacts our vaccine dashboard. The problem is on their end, not ours, but it should be resolved and the information and dashboard should be up to date by tomorrow. Dr. Levine will provide more information during his update. Now, I'd like to take this opportunity to recognize that May is a very, very busy month for awareness, especially in human services. I have a long list, but while we are distracted with so many other things, it is also important to take a moment to remember Vermonters that are struggling or may be struggling, as well as celebrate those who support Vermonters in need. Today is National Child Care Provider Day. Child care workers celebrated on this day include teachers, nannies, caregivers, all of whom are essential workers in helping working parents continue to provide for their families. It is because of your dedication that essential workers, parents, and caregivers were able to continue working or get back to work during the pandemic. We truly cannot thank you enough. And it's Nurses Week. While we appreciate, as the governor said, it's Nurses Week while we appreciate their work every day. This week is a chance to honor nurses for their incredible work in our communities and especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Nurses play a critical role in our society and I would like to thank all nurses including the one I'm married to for their service. It is also National Correctional Officers Week. This week celebrates correctional officers for their dedication and commitment to their profession. Vermont's correctional officers have adjusted to the tremendous changes in this past year demonstrating dedication, adaptability, and resilience in the fight against COVID-19. And May is Mental Health Awareness Month. It has never been more important than now to recognize that mental health is an essential component of overall health and well-being. Mental health includes our emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It affects how we think, feel, and act. It also affects how we handle stress, relate to others, and make choices. We have no idea, we had no idea that all our worlds would be upended by the pandemic and as human beings, none of us are immune to worry, isolation, loneliness, depression, and anxiety. In fact, one in five adults in Vermont live with a mental health challenge and many of us have the unfortunate experience of witnessing how mental health challenges affect our children and elders. If you're struggling, please reach out for health. You can call the National Suicide Hotline at 1-800-273-8255. You can text the crisis text line at 741-741 and then text Vermont, or you can call 2-1-1. May is also National Foster Care Month, which is a time to share our gratitude for families and professionals who help children and youth in foster care find permanent homes and connections, as well as supporting birth parents so that they may safely reunite with their families. Young people in foster care have been particularly impacted by COVID-19. They are navigating circumstances that are already tough and those challenges are compounded by a public health crisis that make housing, employment, and educational opportunities even harder to access. Again, thank all Vermonters for what you're doing on the vaccination front, but particularly in this month. Let's thank the Vermonters for doing their part in these particular areas. I'll now turn it over to Dr. Levine for a health update. Thank you and good morning. Happy to report that cases are still trending well. Well under 100 cases reported daily in the past week. Positivity rate 1.2%, hospitalizations remain in the teens at 17 today with four in the ICU. And as of yesterday, our seven day case rate in Vermont is 84 cases per 100,000 compared to the national average of almost 97 cases per 100,000. Geographically across the state, all counties seem to be performing pretty close to one another in terms of the lower number of cases. So things are indeed looking better here across Vermont, but our work is certainly not done. We still have to pay attention to those prevention basics, wearing masks, keeping an appropriate distance and avoiding crowds while variants of the virus are out there. This, while we work to make it easier and easier for more and more Vermonters to be vaccinated. But I'm not saying this to create excessive fear about the variants. Quite the opposite. Think about this. If the variants, especially B117, which is now the dominant strain in the US accounting for about 60% of COVID infections, if the variants were doing end runs around the vaccine, we would certainly not see case rates going down, whether it be in Vermont or elsewhere around the country as we ramp up the pace of vaccination. So for now, the variants clearly are not evading the vaccine and we're hopeful that that won't change. Nonetheless, our restart process remains measured and phased and tied into vaccine uptake. And if we continue to use all our masking and distancing and crowd avoiding strategies at the same time, for just a little longer, we can prevent more transmission of virus, which means we're putting up a strong guard against the potential for more mutations and new, perhaps more lethal variants. It's as simple as that. Which means for those of you who are getting vaccinated and thank you for that, but then think you can throw away your mask, hold off for just a little bit more. I just asked for patience, we're almost there. And for those who are thinking, I got vaccinated, but I'm anxious about throwing away my mask, which I'm hearing from increasing numbers of you, that's okay. Keep doing what you're doing. As I said, vaccination progress is good, but we're not quite there yet. But to everyone, we are moving in the right direction toward living in a much more relaxed way once again. All of the science tells us that the vaccines are so good and the conditions are going to be so favorable that if we continue our great vaccination trends, we can make it to that proverbial promised land on schedule. When it comes to vaccination, as you've heard, Vermont is doing great with around 66% of those 16 and older having at least one dose and 45% fully vaccinated. So I wanna again thank each and every person who's gotten their shot as far, your why we're moving the needle. And we are doing it at a rate much better than the remainder of the country. And as a region, New England is excelling at the present time. For the rest, we know many of you do intend to get vaccinated. So I will again say, your shot is ready and waiting for you. We're going to do our best to get it to you. You've already heard about all the ways we're working to meet for monitors where they are. And we are working to do more. This means offering vaccine in ways that don't require logging into a website, having to crowbar an appointment into your busy schedule or drive a long distance. With drive-throughs, walk-ins, and whatever other ways we can think of, we're going to make it as easy and convenient as possible for you to do this simple but critically important thing. The more options we have, the more chances for people to find what works for them. We've been sharing these opportunities on our healthvermont.gov slash myvaccine website and our at health Vermont social media channels. And we hope you'll help us spread the word because this is really not meant to be some secret strategy. In fact, not only is it based on good public health science, it's also in response to what we know many are looking for and have been waiting for. If there is a Vermonter who has not been vaccinated but has been waiting for a convenient time, location, a more interesting experience, or a walk-in or drive-through opportunity, or just doesn't want to be bothered with scheduling and planning, well, it's your turn to shine. Your moment has arrived. I sincerely doubt you will remain unvaccinated because of lack of opportunity. And it has become clearer every day that in Vermont at least, confidence in the vaccine is usually not the issue. It is the challenge we face in reaching you, a challenge I think you'll agree we are meeting each and every day. And if you do need to become more confident, here is the summary of a CDC publication from the last few days, describing again real-world outcomes with the vaccine. They looked at a multi-state network of US hospitals between January and March of this year. And looking at them, we learned that in adults who are fully vaccinated with one of the messenger RNA vaccines, the vaccine was 94% effective in preventing hospitalization. And even if you were only partially vaccinated, 64% effective. These encouraging results almost entirely mirror the original large study data that got the vaccines approved in the first place. But this is real-world experience now. So let's keep working together to protect one another and get closer to the end of the pandemic. Just think back to when the virus first descended upon us. So many things were taken away so quickly, things we probably never truly appreciated until they were gone. Getting vaccinated means we get to embrace many of those things once again, pun intended, hugs, school, hangouts, sports, dinner parties, live music. It may take some getting used to it first, but we can not only have them, we can actually enjoy them without the stress and anxiety we've lived with for so long. This is the future I see for us all if we get vaccinated and help each other get vaccinated. Let's turn COVID from the disease we once feared to the disease we defeated. Soon we'll be able to protect even more Vermonters if the FDA approves the Pfizer vaccine for 12 to 15 year olds. The advisory committee for immunization practices is meeting next Wednesday and will give its recommendation to the CDC. If approved, we plan to open vaccination to this age quickly, almost immediately. So if you have a child in this group, you can start planning ahead by creating an account on our website. Or if you already have one, you can add your child to your account as a dependent. Then you'll be prepared to make their appointment when we open registration. Finally, as Secretary Smith alluded to, for those who do check the vaccine dashboard on our website, I just want to mention that there will be a delay in some data. It is due to delays in the CDC reporting. Vaccine data from yesterday and today. The data related to approximately 6,600 first and second doses will not be published on the dashboard until Saturday. Thank you for your patience and now I'll turn it back to Governor Scott. Thank you, Dr. Levine. We'll now open it up to questions. Starting with Calvin Kupner, WCAX. Thanks, Governor. So I think probably a question for Secretary Smith. So we've hosted a number of vaccination clinics at colleges so far, targeting that demographic. I mean, how has turnout been and have there been any leftover doses to what degree? Calvin, before the press conferences, I usually go through and try to anticipate every question that you and others are going to ask and that was one question that I didn't do the research on. I know that the UVM clinic was very well attended. Now if, you know, we'll find out, I'll find out about St. Mike's probably tomorrow or over the weekend in terms of what was the results there and these clinics that I'm seeing, you know, Middlebury and those other ones, I'm gonna have to just try to figure out what the success rate. I do know UVM was very successful. And hopefully, I mean, hopefully, the other ones will be equally successful today at Northern Vermont in Linden and then of course in Castleton tomorrow. I'll have an update on that next Tuesday, just so that we have an update on how those university clinics are doing. I do wanna say this because those aren't exclusively university clinics. Those, the community members are welcome to those clinics. So I would encourage anybody that wants to have a, use a clinic to go ahead and do that and walk-ins are encouraged at those clinics as well. So I'm probably going to report to you that they've been going fairly well. And then I guess probably a follow-up for the governor. You know, at what point if this lower uptake of among younger people persists, I mean, at what point is that a concern? And, you know, if that continues, I mean, how will that affect our July 4th reopening date? Yeah, well, again, you know, everything we've done on the steps of the Vermont Forward Plan is based on vaccination rates. We took a conservative approach. We believe we'll be okay, but obviously those are the categories we're most concerned with. And that's why we're taking some of the steps, some of the measures that we're putting into place and trying different, trying to be creative, meet people where they are, make it as easy as possible. So we'll continue to do that. And we'll learn a lot. I mean, this weekend is going to be huge in some respects in all the different types of approaches we're taking. And then we'll learn from it and we'll see what works and we'll find out from your listeners what might work for you. And let us know because we do intend to meet you where you are, make it as easy as possible. So there's no excuses for not having your vaccine. Thank you. Steve? Governor, with the, as we're getting closer to the end of this emergency situation, I'm sure recalling state workers back to work in person. And you have a significant number of vacancies. Is there a plan in place to try to get those vacancies filled? And at the same time, have you gotten a lot of pushback as far as returning to the office spaces? Well, I had a couple of things. I mean, we are suffering along with every other sector in trying to bring more people into the workforce. Having said that, we just started rehiring. We suspended hires for a while, put a freeze on that. And then so we've listed that. So we're having some success in different areas but we have a ways to go. In terms of people, we're trying to be as flexible as possible, trying to get people accustomed to this new transition going back to normal. And I think that we'll have, we'll find out in the future, there's going to be opportunities for us to continue to have some remote working. And there are some people who we need to come back and who would rather come back. So again, we're working through all of those scenarios and stay tuned because we're not forcing anybody back but there are going to be opportunities for them to come back in the coming months. The various communities, I'm thinking Barry, Waterbury, among others that have a significant state workforce that are not there now, they've gotten hit hard by that. There's no doubt, right here in my up till here, they've been hit fairly significantly due to those who are not here. So again, I don't believe that we'll return back to where we were pre-pandemic because we found some efficiencies along the way and we found that it may be viable and more beneficial to the taxpayer in some respects to continue with some of the remote work but not in all instances. So I think we'll find that balance and I think that we'll be bringing more and more people back and more and more people coming back into the communities for other reasons as well. So I have faith that we'll reinvigorate our communities and part of what we've been focusing on with our approach to both my budget and to the ARPA federal funding has been to invest in our communities and to try and get people into their downtowns and try and instill more economic vitality there with the approach we're taking with housing and water, sewer, storm water, all those initiatives that we've talked about with a billion dollar ARPA money. And as we've turned the corner or are turning the corner right now, have you set somebody to the task of looking at state government and finding what we've learned? Oh absolutely, and we're reaching out to the workforce as well, the state employees and others and our cabinet members and we're, we have been working on that. We haven't ignored that at all. And I might ask if Secretary Young is on here, she is heading up a lot of those initiatives and might be able to add something to the discussion. Good morning, Governor, good morning, Stuart, I am on. Yes, we have had a very robust review of opportunities and how we can best return to the work site. As you know, state government did not stop working, but we're basically moved into a almost total remote work site for those who could. And so we've done extensive work since November, December, surveying state employees, surveying cabinet members, surveying other states and other businesses and working on a proposal to transmission folks who want to come back to work, to come back to work as soon as they would like to within the safety guidance and provide more flexibility over the summer for those who are coming to grips with, you know, the openings of schools, the needs that they have and what's gonna work best for them if it's sort of hybrid remote or for some other opportunities. So yeah, we've been very, very focused on this. And as the governor said, stay tuned, we're putting some finishing touches on a memo that we promise the state employees next week. Stuart Ledbetter, NBC Five. Good morning. A couple of viewer questions. One, with all these walk-in clinics coming up, one woman who drove a long way to get her first dose is asking if she can walk in to these events and get her second. Just keep in mind, not all of the walk-in opportunities have two doses. Many of them are Johnson and Johnson. So first of all, they would have to make sure of that and which manufacturer it is as well, Pfizer or Moderna, so that's really important. Your second dose has to mimic your first in terms of the manufacturer. But I'll let Secretary Smith answer. A lot of these clinics are first dose clinics that we're talking about now, Stuart. I would encourage her to go back to where she got her first dose to get her second dose. It just, from a flow point of view, it makes a lot more sense as she, because in your first dose, you were scheduled a second dose. I would just go back and get your second dose at the place that you were scheduled. Okay. Second question. For those who got one brand of vaccine, would there be any harm in getting after a period of time, couple of months, a different vaccine? Is there any additional protection that would afford? I'll turn that over to Dr. Levine, because you don't want me giving you that advice. Probably not. Good morning, Stuart. I would tell the viewer, wait for the science to weigh in. The science is beginning to weigh in a little, but not in a robust, peer-reviewed fashion yet. And indications are that there may be some advantages to getting another vaccine. But do those advantages outweigh what you normally get if you just did the two doses of the same vaccine that you were originally signed up for? We really need to wait for the science to inform us. But people are looking at this specifically because of the fact that they want to see over time how much immunity we all have, i.e., do we need both boosters or not? And they want to see if the virus itself changes in some ways with varying strains coming about, are there advantages to one vaccine formulation versus another? So I would expect by mid to late year we will have the beginnings and maybe even more than the beginnings of answers to these questions, but it's a little premature for anyone to start mixing and matching and experimenting now. We should go with the science as it is now, which says if you have a two-dose vaccine, you're gonna have a really good protectiveness from that vaccine. And if you have the one-dose Johnson & Johnson, you're gonna have a really good protectiveness from that vaccine. And we should just go with that. Okay. Finally, Governor, as you pointed out on Tuesday, Sunday's mom's day, I bet you wanna go see yours. Yeah, you know, it's interesting. I've talked a lot over the last couple of weeks about the sacrifices of the greatest generation and my dad and so forth, others made. And my dad paid the ultimate sacrifice, dying from those war-connected injuries. But he left my mom, of course, with three boys, eight, 11, and 12 at the time. And I don't know if I fully appreciated just how difficult that must have been for her because she made it look easy. And I look at her strength, her courage, her attitude, her spiritual faith, her common sense, sense of humor, just her overall attitude. And she still embodies that today. So I'm very fortunate to still have my mom and I look forward to seeing her. I haven't seen her for a year and a half, although she watches these, by the way, because she says that it gives her an opportunity to see me. So she's fully vaccinated now, as am I. And I certainly look forward to seeing her sometime very soon and I wanna wish her a happy Mother's Day and I'll be calling her, of course, on Sunday. Thanks. Wilson, AP? Hi, good morning, everybody. Governor, I have to say that was a nice Mother's Day card that gave your mother right there. Anyway, I'm not sure who wants to answer this question, but as you probably know, some states in the country are turning down, are turning back to the federal government or not ordering their full allocation of vaccines that they're entitled to because I understand Arkansas declined its entire allocation last week. What is Vermont's week? I know it changes a bit, but what's Vermont's weekly allocation and are we taking the full amount every week and are we using the full amount every week? Yeah, you know, we talked about this a little bit because other states are being challenged by their uptake and the demand has been reduced. Other supplies overwhelm their demand. We don't have that problem yet in Vermont. Obviously it's been reduced a bit, but we're still taking our full allocation and we're asking for more as well. So I think it's around, I'm gonna ask Secretary Smith if he has the numbers there to give you the exact amounts, but it's somewhere around 20,000 doses and we continue to request that and we're asking for in that federal pool that they announced on Tuesday, we're going to be asking for more. You can ask for up to 50% of whatever your allocation is based on per capita and then it resets. So they are the other states that didn't ask for their allocation. They can go back and get their allocation next week so they're not going to be penalized for a long period of time and hopefully their uptake rate will increase, but we've been truly blessed here in Vermont and we're not experiencing that and I think it's all due to Vermonters and their attitude and their willingness to be vaccinated so we can get back to normal. So we hope that continues and again, but we're seeing that we're going, we're happening to take different approaches and that's why we're going to have walking clinics and no registration, no appointments and try different ways to get people vaccinated. So this is a big week. Secretary Smith. Wilson, thank you very much. For our state allocation for first dose, this is for the week of, call it week 16, for the week of 512 to 518. That's what we'll be coming in next week. A state allocation of 19,230. The governor was almost spot on on that. Whereas also there's other sources where vaccine comes in. For example, the federal FQHC allocation is, and this is an approximate number, it's about 600 doses that are coming in. Again, these are all first doses and then the federal pharmacy program, first dose is about 5,220. So for a total that come in through all those, the state allocation of 19,000.2, the federal FQHC of 600 and then the federal pharmacy program about 5,200, total about 25,000 for next week. And that's gonna be our allocation. We have been, I said this, I think on Tuesday, we've been fortunate in Vermont to be able to use our full allocation. And as the governor mentioned, we may actually take advantage of the extra doses that may be available through reallocation. So thank you Vermonters for keeping this up. And we hope to take full advantage of other doses that may be coming our way. Okay, thank you. I hope it's a simple question. Assuming that the 12 to 15-year-old age group comes online next week, would that change the state's percentages? I mean, would you add that, I don't know how big that population is, would you add that population to the number that you have? So it would at least initially drop the number or the percentage of people who've been vaccinated? Yeah, I mean, that's about a 27,000. We'll finish those in about two weeks. We have two numbers that we track. We track total population vaccinated and those eligible population. I don't think that's gonna sidetrack us one iota in terms of our progress to the June 1st deadline. In fact, it may even help us. Okay, okay, great. Thank you very much. Just to add to that, Wilson, if you use the percentages based on the number of people who can be vaccinated, the percentage itself shouldn't change. We'll just add more people to the denominator. Okay, okay, thank you. So, McQuiston, Vermont Business Magazine. Hey, Governor, I know that Commissioner Harrington sent a letter to the legislative leadership earlier this week to try and change how the UI trust fund is funded in that note that you have to get that done by next week. And I was wondering what progress have been made on that front? I know the pro tem actually responded to the letter with a call to Commissioner Harrington, which I thank her for and is doing what she can within the Senate to try and make sure that that is a priority. Thus far, we haven't seen anything yet, but we've been, as we've said before, we've been asking for this since last September. And this is a high priority for us, high priority for businesses. If we don't have it, it's going to require us to go to schedule five, which is going to cost already impacted businesses a lot more money. And so, we're hopeful that they will see their way to trying to put this either attaching it to another bill, just getting the measure passed so we can do something that is much more reasonable for the business community. So, even though you only have a week, it still could be done at this point. It can still be done at this point, but every day gets us closer to we're not going to have any choice. Also, I was wondering how, I know that the new claims have been taken offline. I wonder if that seems to have solved the fraud issue that the Commissioner had been so concerned about. Yeah, well, it certainly reduced it. And again, I think that the point, we've heard a lot about the fraud issues and we had those before the pandemic, but this has become a business for some. And we, again, took steps to mitigate that. It seems to have helped, but I just want to make sure everyone understands just because we were part of where they wanted to go, those trying to commit this crime, doesn't mean they got through and doesn't mean we paid it out. So, we did find a number of instances and shut that down just as quickly as possible and it did seem to have a positive effect. So, slowed down the rate, the number of claims we could process and we're working on that as well, but we think we have a handle on it at this point in time. But we need to upgrade our mainframe, our IT structure in order to prevent this in the future if we are inundated again. And every step towards returning to normal gets us in a better position so that there's less fraud impacting our unemployment system. All right, great, thank you. Greg Lamberow, the County Courier. Good morning, got a quick follow-up on Tim McQuistion's question. I believe there's a bill in the Vermont Senate sponsored by Senator Randy Brock to make unemployment fraud a felony. Would you support that? I haven't looked at the bill itself, but obviously highlighting this is important. I mean, this is a crime that should be a felony, I believe. So, yes, I mean, in general, I appreciate the effort. I don't know that it's going anywhere. If it hasn't moved out of the Senate or even moved out of committee, the chances of it passing this year are pretty slim. But hopefully we'll take a look at this further, especially as we see the vast impact of these fraudulent claims. Awesome, and another quick follow-up or it should be a quick follow-up? Greg, can I just go back a little bit? The only problem with that might be a felony, but many of these crimes are being committed by those outside our borders in other countries. So that would be a little bit difficult to actually go after them and then provide a felony on them. So I just want everyone aware that these aren't all coming from inside the country. Certainly, thank you for noting that. Moving on to another quick follow-up, and I think it should be a quick follow-up anyway. Still waiting on an answer on how many troopers are actually baking of the St. Albans barracks. We're told that there's one vacancy based on not having employment for a person on the roster. So 21 people out of 22 are actually on the roster, but I'm still not able to get a hard number on how many people are actually able to work on a regular basis that are on that roster. So essentially I'm looking for who's out, how many people are out on the employment, family leave, medical leave, administrative leave, that kind of thing. It should be a very basic question and shouldn't take about a minute for a command staff to be able to think about 20 of their subordinates and think, okay, what's their status? Do I have them available? Yeah, I don't have the answer to that. Perhaps Commissioner Scherling does or could get that information for you, for a reason why not. Thanks, Governor. Greg, we've communicated a number of times via email, I believe out of supplements given you a pass to obtain that information. We would ask that you follow that pass. Well, it's a pretty simple question. Do you not know it? It's a report that would have to be created, Greg. We've given you a pass to the information. We've also responded with incredibly granular information about staffing statewide as you requested at the last press conference. Simply follow the instructions that Adam's given you. We'll get you the information if it's possible. Okay. I guess one more question here on the line, Commissioner. In researching this, it came to my attention that there were a number of high-level crimes that were never reported to the public. Most pollutants of these conduct arrests, sexual assault or numerous sex offenders not reporting, even numerous assaults that the public was never told about. And that was all in the month of April. I'm wondering, you know, of these arrests that were not, we were not previously told until we did a public records request. Are troopers just bailing to put out a press release or is there some sort of state policy that trying to keep these arrests quiet? Greg, our policy is to publicize every arrest via a press release. The only thing that's withheld at this point are the names of juveniles who are headed to or potentially headed to family court for their arraignments. I have no basis of knowledge of the front end of your question. I don't believe that's accurate. Well, maybe it's something you should look into because we've found probably eight felony arrests in just the month of April out of one barrack that was never reported. Do you want to send me those? I'd be happy to research them. Sure. I think that's it for me today, Governor. I hope you have a great weekend and wish Mother Happy Mother's Day for from all of us. Thank you very much, Greg. Sean Cunningham, the Chester Telegraph. Thank you. My question is either for the governor or for Secretary Curley, and it has to do with the Travel Information Council. The town of Chester has done a state-funded Village Center master plan, including a plan for way-finding signs which need council approval. The council hasn't met since 2019, and it appears from the state website that the terms of office of all the members have expired. What are the plans to get this moving again as towns and businesses are looking for sign approvals ahead of the summer tourism season? That's definitely a question for Secretary Curley. I don't have any information on that one. Secretary Curley, are you on the line? I'm here. Okay. I am, I wish I had an answer. I actually don't have an answer. This is the first I've heard of this, and I'm gonna look into it and happy to get back to you. That would be great. I'll send you an email with my email address. Thank you. I appreciate it. Erin Botanko from Mt. Vicar. I'm just gonna have to read you reach out to me who was asking why their local independent pharmacy around the quarter from them hadn't gotten the vaccine yet, and they said they had talked with the pharmacist who had applied. It got me curious, you know, if independent pharmacy wants to start providing the vaccine, what's the process for them to start doing that, and what does the state look at in terms of like, what would qualify a pharmacy to start giving the vaccine and what might get them rejected? Yeah, I'm not sure about that. Maybe Secretary Smith can answer. Dr. Levine, you can chime in if I miss anything, but basically there's a registration process that occurs in terms of a pharmacy registering to administer vaccination. And it's the same sort of procedure that we use with hospitals as well as other sort of providers that will do it. And then, you know, it all depends on the amount of vaccine and how much vaccine can be pushed out during time. We have some independence. I think Northfield is an independent pharmacy that has signed up and been approved through this process, but that's the process. And I can't give you any sort of specifics in terms of what's happened in this case to the person that's reached out to you, but we are, we will review every sort of application that comes in to be approved for vaccine distribution. Again, it's on sort of the availability of the vaccine and secondly on this registration process that we use. Dr. Levine, do you have anything more? He says that I've covered it. Any clue how many independent pharmacies are registered for the program? I know there's one right now. And I've just got to, I'll get back to you, Erin, on if there are others. Okay. What about, has the state considered offering, not necessarily walk-in appointments for people visiting their primary care provider, but if you're already at the doctor for your everyday health appointment, kind of offering people the vaccine while they're there. Just facing this off, the study I saw recently that said people kind of wanted to get the vaccine where they were already going to the doctor. Yeah, that's a very good question. And one that we are sort of transitioning over, you will see in the future, probably transitioning to primary care. But in the next two weeks, we're going to be doing some I would say pilot programs with primary care, with vaccine at the various locations, mostly with independent docs that we will start because most docs that are affiliated with a medical center, for example, most of the medical centers here in the state have sort of a centralized process. And the FQHCs have their own sort of process that comes in from the federal government. So I think in the next week or two, you're going to see a transition to at least some vaccine going to primary care independent docs. Okay, thank you. Erin, one of the limiting factors for some of the primary care facilities is the storage capacity and their ability to store some of the vaccines. Obviously, Johnson and Johnson is eager, easily stored, but the others are not. And they come in larger quantities as well for a small primary care facility. And in fact, we've had this discussion with the White House and other governors have brought this up that in the rural areas of their states, they can't deal with the large quantities of the number of aisles that come and without splitting them up in some way. So this has been an issue. It won't be as big an issue with Johnson and Johnson, but some of the others could be a limiting factor for some of the providers. Yeah, so it kind of depends on the supply of Johnson and Johnson to an extent, would you say? I think, you know, if they are willing to take that Johnson and Johnson, I think that would be easier. And the supply, we're hearing that the supply will increase as the weeks move forward. It has to do with a facility in Baltimore that hasn't been given reauthorization at this point to start manufacturing again. So that's what we're hearing, the limiting factor is on the Johnson and Johnson, but we're hearing possibly by the end of the month that we'll receive more. Okay, thank you. Chris Roy, new for Daily Express. Yeah, good morning. I have two questions this morning. We've been quarantining for just over a year. And I'm just wondering if you're here and from anybody you're hearing about, anybody who's kind of resistant to go back to the quote, unquote, norm and what is your message to them? And my second question is, when you start having these open events or events, concerts, et cetera, how are you gonna ensure that the attendee was sitting together actually from the same household? Well, first, Chris, maybe you could define quarantine because we're not really in quarantine at this point in time. We have this guidance that we've instituted and it's that universal guidance. So everything is somewhat open in some capacity. So maybe just tell me what you're talking about in terms of quarantine or are you talking about that we've had so many restrictions over the last year that people don't have enough faith to get out at this point? Exactly, that's exactly my question. Okay, well, I can answer that and I might ask the others, so Dr. Levine to chime in as well. You know, we're seeing, due to the vaccine actually, we're seeing that there are fewer hospitalizations, fewer deaths, we're getting a handle on this. Number of cases has dropped. I mean, this is something that we know is gonna take time for people to fully anticipate and to take in and build up that faith and trust that it's okay to get out. That's why we instituted the universal guidance. That's why we've increased gathering sizes. That's why we've reduced restrictions, opened up the bars and restaurants to a larger capacity. All of this should give people the comfort that it's safe to get back out there. Just adhere to the guidance we have in place. Dr. Levine. And Chris, just to review again, we had our big surge with the rest of the region in the beginning of this year and I think you'll agree, the approach we took to managing that was very different than the approach of stay home, stay safe a year ago. We could be much more directed in the strategies. So we knew that household gatherings were an issue. We knew that travel could be an issue, so obviously we focused on those things. But keep in mind, the entire retail establishments, we didn't really have to do anything too because that's not where cases were coming from. Even places where other states were having experiences like one-on-one encounters with hairdressers, let's say, or being in gyms were not a big issue for us either. And of course we did take some guidelines with regard to restaurants and bars, as did most places. But certainly it wasn't as all-encompassing an issue as stay home, stay safe was a year ago. It was very directed. And we kept our schools going during the entire time. So people aren't coming out of as strict a set of conditions now as they were back then. Though I understand some may feel that way, but clearly it's been a very different world. And I would think that at this point in time, they would recognize that the vaccine has allowed a lot more opportunities that are well detailed in the Vermont Forward Plan. And each step of the way, sizes of gatherings, increase, et cetera. We've also noted that the masking behaviors outdoors when you can be physically distanced can be relaxed because the science is telling us that it's a very unlikely way for people to get disease transmitted. I think your other question was relating to how can you ensure that households are sitting with households at different events? And I think the way we've really moved forward, every step of the way in Vermont is trusting Vermonters and expecting that they use the guidance appropriately and that's been a successful strategy up until this point in time. So I would expect that that will continue. But keep in mind, there's now strategies that involve numbers of people who are vaccinated or unvaccinated at public events, whether they happen to be in the same family or not is not the issue there. Because we're talking about, as you were talking about, public events as opposed to gatherings in the privacy of one's home or what have you. Looks like the governor may want to add something to that as well. Yeah, again, Chris, just to re-emphasize what Dr. Levine has already said, that's the household gatherings or those in the same household at some of these events isn't a limiting factor any longer. In fact, the universal guidance is just about numbers and spaces and so forth, inside versus outside and total number of people. So you don't have to be in the same household. In fact, if you're fully vaccinated, that's the gateway to more independence and mobility just being vaccinated. So I might ask Secretary Curley or Commissioner Shirling to add anything that we might have missed in that regard, because I think this is really important for you and the media to understand this Vermont Forward Plan and to describe it so that people understand we are moving transitioning back to normal, but we're doing it methodically in a step-by-step process based on vaccine rates. I'm happy to jump in. I'll go with Mike first. No, go ahead. I've already spoken once, Lindsay, you go ahead. All right. So no, I think both governor has got inductive of being answered it well. I mean, really our goal with universal guidance is to let Vermonters put into place all that they've learned over the last year in terms of keeping themselves in their loved one state and giving them the tools to know how to continue to mitigate the spread of the virus while we get more people vaccinated. And it is a slow reopening, so to speak and a process that's designed to let people who are ready to go and do something. For example, I had a really great dinner out last night. It felt really comfortable to me. Some others might need a little more time with that. So put the responsibility of it on the person who's choosing to do an event or an activity and they should be thinking about what their level of risk is or their tolerance of risk and take the precautions that we've suggested as well as the business owners that are or the event planners that are providing the opportunities for people to get out. They have really five key tenants that they need to think about. And it's stay home if you're sick, wear a mask, proper hygiene, uncrowded spaces. And again, that's just asking people to really think about pushing away from others. If they feel crowded, if it feels uncomfortable, just back up a bit, make some space. And as long as businesses are providing that amount of space, as the governor referred to, it should work really well. And then the other piece still in effect is the travel, like know the travel policy. So I think that they had it, again, we're happy that Agency of Commerce has a webinar that was presented a couple of weeks back and it's posted on our website, but it really does answer a lot of different questions people are having in terms of how to interpret this new guidance. But again, we're happy to help folks navigate that. Okay, thank you. Commissioner Sherling, anything you want to add to that? I think Secretary Kerr really covered it. I've just reiterate a couple of points that have been made relative to gatherings. You know, we're asking for unvaccinated people, one person for 100 square feet up to 150 and any number of unvaccinated persons indoors and outdoors 300 unvaccinated plus any number of vaccinated people. Again, physical distance and masking being the sort of core tenant there, but we're hearing from a lot of folks that spoke to a restaurant on our last night who's working to pivot to the universal guidance and the indoor capacity limits and things seem to be going pretty well. Thank you. Okay, thank you. The Islander? Thanks, Jason. Governor, one quick follow. You were asked on Tuesday about the legislature's plan for this year to try to focus primarily on COVID related issues, but they were apparently straying the bar. And the question was about the percentage of bills reaching your desk that were not COVID related. You said somebody could look into it. I was wondering if your staff was able to come up with a percentage or some numbers or what it would show? We took a look and again, this is in a criticism of the legislature. These are just the facts. And it's about 15 to 20% of the bills that I've signed thus far have been COVID related. And that's not to say they aren't important. I mean, there are a lot of initiatives that we've asked for that aren't COVID related. So, but this is what we found. It's about five, I think out of 30 and there are more on the way. So we'll see what happens. But again, we have to continue supporting government and making changes along the way. And some of these initiatives are in fact, what we've asked for as well, but they're the ones that made the statement about focusing on COVID related issues. Okay, thank you. My first question, the House and Senate are beginning to review a new architectural study that suggests a legislature could resume work at the State House in January. And the proposal would restrict the State House only to legislators and staff. And that essentially means, I guess the public press would be eliminated, no lobbyists, no school trips, no bus tours, no more advocacy groups coming in about domestic violence, mental health, sexual assault, drug driving. So it sort of sounds like Vermont's longtime moniker nickname for the State House, the People's House will soon be lost if this is adopted that the people won't be allowed in. I'm just wondering what your thoughts are about state laws being adopted without full monitoring by the public. Yeah, you know, I've been talking a lot about where we get back to normalcy. And I believe after the 4th of July, we'll hit our targets. And a majority of Vermonters will be vaccinated. We'll continue as we move forward to get more and more people vaccinated because that really is the ticket to normalcy. From my standpoint, my perspective, I don't see any reason why they couldn't go back into session. After we lift the emergency order, we feel it will be safe as safe as it was pre-pandemic. And we'll just, we'll have to see what they do. It's not something that we have any, they make their own rules about what they do. But I think it would be a mistake to, and I think that that's one of the travesties of what's happened through no fault of their own. There have been a number of people who have not been able to have their voices heard as a result of what they had to do in going remote. It's just not ideal. I believe that there'll be something, maybe a hybrid of what we're seeing today. I think that it's good to have some of the proceedings, all of the committee proceedings videoed so that people can jump on and see what's going on. But as well, I think that it is, as you stated, the people's house and you can't close the doors to the people's house. It's just against everything we stand for. So I look forward to, again, getting through this, getting as many people vaccinated and then getting back to normal. But I would say anything we did pre-pandemic should be safe enough to do after the emergency order is lifted. But my other question is, and I wasn't planning to ask this, but I think it sort of dovetails with the question Greg had asked. Readers have been telling us that they just don't see state troopers out on the interstate on both 89 and 91. I just had a friend drive to Massachusetts and didn't see a trooper the whole way down 89 and 91. I know the last numbers I saw said the state police had like 30 or 35 vacancies statewide. There were another like two dozen troopers on leave for deployment, suspensions or whatever. I mean, that basically equates to five troopers stored after each barrack, each of them barracks. I mean, is there a problem? I mean, can't they hire anybody? Is there not enough overtime? Why are people not seeing people out on the interstate? I have to be honest with you, Mike, pre-my involvement in this gig, I would have called that a good day if I had gone from one end of the state to the other without seeing a trooper on the interstate. But maybe a commission. With your lead foot from the, with your lead foot from Dr. Rote. No comment. Commissioner Sherling, can you add anything to this? I can, Governor, thanks. Thanks for the question, Mike, for highlighting that recruitment remains a challenge. We do have roughly that number of vacancies that you mentioned around 30. They are spread, however, not only in field force, the state police does a good job at managing the vacancies to the best extent possible. So some of them are in investigative and other assignments that don't affect emergency response. My experience in the last couple of weeks, I have had occasions to go both to Montpelier and Waterbury over the last couple of weeks. And my experience actually is quite the opposite. I've seen quite a robust presence of troopers on the interstate. So it may be happenstance and they just be at the time of day. There was a larger call volume. I think it's, there's a lot of different factors that go into whether you see some, you see troopers on the interstate at any given time. I've heard that like it was a trooper from the Williston barracks had to be assigned to Derby for six months because it was such a shortage up there. And now there may be a second trooper that has been sent up there for the next six months. I mean, which barracks are really short-handed as far as you know. We just produced a staffing report for Greg this week. So be happy to send it to you. Okay. But you don't know off-hand what your report shows. I'd have to get into that report and it's buried several hundred emails deep. So give me a minute. I can get it, but it'd be easier to forward to you. Okay, great. So forward to reading it. Thank you. Thank you, Governor. Have a great weekend and same for your mother. Hope there's a great mother to take. Yeah, thank you. Thanks for having the Governor for us. Tom Davis, Compass Vermont. Thank you, Jason. Governor, I see that the Senate is proposing right now to allocate a hundred million dollars to the broadband expansion. I know initially you, I believe I have it correctly, initially you were looking at 250 million based on what you and your administration put together for a plan. Do you feel confident that that much less money if that passes into law will get the entire state covered? Yeah, no, no, not at all. And I'm not sure in defense of the legislature whether they believe that either, but it is short of what I requested and that's why I want a longer term plan, something of a master plan, some vision to see where we go with this in the future because a hundred million is not gonna cover it. I think the House had 150 million. We've got 250 million. I'm not even sure 250 million will cover it. So I think that that's, it's imperative that we lay out a vision, agree on where we wanna go. And again, 250 million for broadband, about 250 million for housing, a couple hundred million for water, sewer, storm water, some relief for some of the businesses as well, as well as climate change mitigation initiatives. We've heard a lot, I believe climate change is real and something that we need to tackle. And here we have an opportunity and I suggested 200 million for that. So again, we weren't anticipating spending it all in one year. It's something that the Congress has allowed us to do over a three to four year period, but we need to, I think, agree to where we're going to go and somewhat the limits and parameters of this in order to be successful and to really make a difference for the state of Vermont. Thank you. One other question. Have you heard any more about the possibility of the Senate walking back the decision on the P.P. loan forgiveness tax? Interesting you brought that up. I was thinking the same thing this morning. I don't want to miss that and I hope that they could easily do it in one of the bills or the budget bill and I will bring that back to the table if they aren't considering it on their own, but I'll look into that because that's a good point. They could do it so easily. Just a few words. Okay, thank you very much. Have a good weekend. You too. Devin Bates, local 22, local 44. Yeah, good morning, Governor. Mike Donahue already asked my question. He's very good at that, but I'll pivot here. I know that it looks like most of Vermont's county bears are going to be able to happen this year and that's kind of a rare opportunity to get a lot of people in these rural areas sort of gathered. I know this has been touched on a little bit, but are there plans underway to get vaccine clinics to those county bears? How big of an opportunity do you think that could be and also if Secretary Smith has anything on that as well? You must have been listening in on one of our meetings this morning because I brought that up and I said that, you know, the fairs are going to be starting. It's not too early to start thinking about them in July and throughout the fall, even though we'll hopefully be out of this emergency situation, but that's a great opportunity to have a lot of people in some of the areas that we're seeing that need some help. And I talked about trying to find a way to either set up a clinic during those few days of the fairs or some sort of in conjunction with the Vermont National Guard or the EMS or Department of Health, some way, somehow. So we just talked about that this morning. I think you'll see, I believe you'll see something at those fairs, it's a great idea. Guy Bates, Chronicle of the Vermont State House. Governor, the New York Times recently reported a St. Jude spirologist saying, quote, that we haven't had a traditional influence in season this low as long as we've been measuring it and that quote, the potential implications are a bit unclear. And I wonder if you or the commissioner would like to discuss what are the implications? Are some of the traditional flu cases possibly being diagnosed or called COVID or is it perhaps just that the masking and this whole thing is taking effect? What do you make of that? I believe it's because of some of the strategy, not just the masking. I think the masking has helped a lot in the spread. I mean, it spreads the same way the COVID does. So I think some of the measures we took had an impact on that as well as reducing gathering sizes as well as limiting where you could go and so forth. So all of that together, I think, has reduced the impact of flu season, traditional flu season. But I'll let Dr. Levine answer that. It's hard to add too much more to that because that's the medical community's belief is all of these factors. Masking probably being high on the list, but all of these factors playing a role in both hemispheres actually, because there was very low flu season in the southern hemisphere prior to the low season we just had. The person you were quoting from St. Jude's, I think one of the implications they were talking about is actually what does the future hold? And that's much more of a question of cultural norms because there are societies in Asia specifically that didn't just pick up wearing a mask for COVID. They had already been doing that. And I believe having some success with that is a strategy that's not something anybody in this country has ever thought of doing. It would have a dramatic impact just on people's psyches, forget about whether it would impact future flu seasons, et cetera. But that's really what the issues are going to be, are much more cultural. How comfortable would a society be in wearing masks more often and avoiding crowds during respiratory virus seasons, things of that sort. So that's why it's on the table as something that's perplexing and challenging. Pardon me? I'm sorry for interrupting. Do you think that that will become the norm from the public health community on more of a reliance on mask and distancing in traditional flu situations? You know, to be honest, we've said this a lot that COVID has had a way more dramatic impact on the population than a traditional flu season, though some flu seasons have been more tragic than others and had more hospitalizations and deaths associated. But the reality is vaccine is still something that can protect from those worse outcomes. So I would still think from a public health standpoint, we would be much more directed towards encouraging vaccination more and having the population perhaps have a new understanding of why the vaccine is important for the flu because too often people think it's to prevent getting the flu, period. And when they have one time that they get the flu, they're like, well, the flu vaccine is worthless. But the reality is they got the flu but didn't have hospitalization, death or other serious outcomes. So I think that needs to change a little bit. The other implication though, is that if you don't see a lot of flu during a season, either in the Southern hemisphere or here, it's the same principle we've been talking about with COVID. You do not see a lot of transmission from person to person and a lot of opportunity for the virus to mutate. And if you don't have a lot of opportunity for the virus to mutate, you can predict with much more accuracy how to make the flu vaccine from year to year and really capitalize on making it as effective as possible because it's targeted at what you know is out there. And you're not gonna be surprised by a lot of other different strains. So there's a lot of implications that you've raised, probably much broader than we can cover at this press conference today. Okay. Commissioner, you and the governor both have been very strong on not stigmatizing groups of people during the pandemic. I know that since your request on Tuesday for vaccinated people to reach out to unvaccinated people to get vaccinated, some listeners did pay attention and have directly communicated with unvaccinated family members that they will be held responsible for potentially passing along the virus. Sort of a shaming effect. Can encouragement cross over into stigmatization? I guess you're trying to make that point by what happened in those families. But the reality is families, if they're going to have such discussions need to really approach it correctly. So the finger pointing, the accusations are never gonna get any of us anywhere. But families trying to understand the family members' reasons for their feelings. Listen with some empathy. Listen with some empathy, try to be non-judgmental and then explore with the family member perhaps why they felt their own vaccine was good for them and what opportunities had opened up and try to have the family member decide what opportunities that might hold for them as a way and then add the bit about and if you need help getting to the site or watching the kids or what have you, I'm available for you. So being very helpful in trying to let them implement the plan that you just made with them. So there are right ways and wrong ways, of course, to communicate about everything. But those are my suggestions for this. Thank you. Henry Powell, WCAX. Hello, a recent report came out that said CVS and Walgreens have wasted hundreds of thousands of doses. Have you all heard anything from the federal pharmacy program about this happening in Vermont? And is this also happening in Vermont through the state program since we know that the amount of people getting vaccinated has slowly decreased some. So are there any shots being wasted? I have not heard anything of that nature. And in fact, on some of the calls of the White House, that has not been brought up. But it could be happening. I just hadn't heard of it. Dr. Levine? Not only are we not hearing that in Vermont, but our data doesn't support that. And the pharmacy is much like everyone else who administers vaccines does have to eventually provide us with data. And on a week-to-week basis, the so-called wastage rate, so vaccines like you're talking about that don't get utilized or what have you get spoiled, is as low as 0.1% and as high as 0.2%. So it's a very, very small fraction of the total doses administered. So thank goodness we're not hearing that in Vermont, because we, as you've heard, have the need for even more doses to come into the state. And we don't want to squander the precious ones we do get. Thank you. Manager McGregor, Caledonian Records. Yes, good afternoon. Thank you. This one for Secretary French. The pilot program for testing students, just looking for a few more details on that. How long do you expect the pilot to run? Is there any plan to expand it and to include more students in districts before the end of the school year? And is there anything in particular you're hoping to learn from the pilot program? Well, I think our goal is to definitely ramp this program up for wider implementation in the fall. So it's doubtful, we'll be able to include more districts this spring, but we're certainly hoping to also expand the testing into the summer. But again, this is sort of uncharted territory, if you will, in terms of involving students. But our goal would be have a more widespread surveillance testing program well-established come fall. Is there a baseline number of tests that you're hoping to be administering as part of the pilot? Not especially though, the districts that I listed previously, we have a maximum capacity there of about 6,300 tests. Okay. And if I could shift gears with you, Secretary French, I suspect. There was a grant application deadline earlier this week with Vermont After School for those summer programs that we're looking to get some of the subsidies to expand access to programs. Do you have any sense of how the applicants were and if there might be a number of applicants that exceeds the available funding? Yeah, I know the team is reviewing the applications and it does appear that there was significant interest, remains to be seen as to what extent that would exceed our initial funding. But we do have the capacity to add more of our state federal dollars to that. And I am optimistic that if there is demand, I will be able to do that. And is there any opportunity for families that might wanna send their kids to programs that the prices remain beyond reach as the dust settles from these grants? Is there any opportunity for families to seek reimbursement or some sort of subsidy directly? Not within the scope of this current program, but I think it does, your question does point to the issue of what are the long-term implications of this program? And I think it does point to the issue that we should be looking, hopefully, more longer term on how to expand access to these types of programs, not only from an educational standpoint, but just for overall well-being, engagement standpoint. So I think this will be a very useful program on a number of fronts. And I think if we're strategic about this, we'll see a sort of a longer-term strategy emerge consistent with our commitment to expanding after-school programs, but also considering summer as part of that. And heading into the next school year, the same idea for fall school-based programs and then independent organizational programs, whether they'd be like sports leagues, things like that. Will there be opportunities for groups to seek funding to help their program? Yes, it is also a requirement of our federal dollars that we earmark some of those dollars for after-school programs. But I think your observation that there is a direct connection between summer and after-school type programming. So certainly as part of our recovery work, we're hoping to utilize after-school to the greatest extent possible, but it also is a requirement of our federal dollars that we endeavor to do so. Thank you very much. William, VPR? Hi, I'm wondering in terms of getting the vaccine distributed out to the rest of the population, are you considering at all reaching out to employers or workplaces to just bring the vaccine directly to where people are working? And so they can also have access during the work day when they might not be able to take time off to get to a clinic or a site? Yeah, we've already started engaging with some of those businesses that have a number of employees as well as some of the restaurants and so forth and whether we can group them together in some way. And as you said, get them at a point, a time when they're there. So they're not busy maybe beforehand, working around their schedules so that we can be as successful as possible. But yes, we are at this point engaging with a number of different facilities to do just what you asked. Do you know if you would share where or what facilities those are and when that might be happening? Yeah, I don't want to name them at this point because we haven't finalized the deal. I don't want to put any undue pressure on them but be happy to share them if the businesses are willing to allow us to do that. But there are many at this point. And then just briefly, I just wanted to ask about the Canadian border which obviously has been closed for over a year now. And just wondering if you've had any indication from the delegation or from the White House or anyone in the federal government about when that might be opening back up. Yeah, it's still month to month so we're not sure we're looking forward to that. Obviously they still have some challenges. I watch that data on a daily basis in Quebec. Other numbers are subsiding. They're moving in the right direction but they've even shut down their borders amongst the provinces as well. So we'll have to just wait and see again. We look forward to what that would look like when they do open back up and what the requirements are going to be on both sides of the border. But I have not heard anything recently or in the last two to three weeks. Would you be comfortable with the border opening up? I mean now or in the next month or so? I would be with certain restrictions following our guidelines, treating them as we do other states, having those who are vaccinated coming across without any other restrictions. But if they're not vaccinated, they would have to adhere to the guidelines we have in place which would mean they'd have to have a test within three days of arrival. So I think I believe that they will, and I have no inside knowledge of this, but I would be, I think that they were going to have some sort of restriction on both sides coming in and out of the country in terms of who should come vaccinated probably. Thank you. Visa Loomis, the dialy reporter. Move to Michael Dorothy, Vermont Degard. Governor earlier, you mentioned support for having the state house back open, both the legislators and the public. And I wonder in a similar vein, could we be expecting changes soon to these press briefings? Are you planning on a return to inviting more press to attend these briefings in person sometime soon? We hadn't really considered that, but we were actually considering as we moved forward, maybe reducing the number during the week to maybe one as we get towards that fourth of July date. But yes, I mean, within the restrictions we have in place in terms of inside gatherings and so forth, we'd follow the same guidelines. Okay, thank you. But I would add, I've enjoyed having more participation from some of those entities we don't typically hear from pre-pandemic. As many of you know, we had a limited number of the Montpelier type press corps that would show up and they pretty much dominated the question and answers in those press briefings. We've enjoyed what we have today, hearing from different parts of the state and their perspectives and what's on their mind. So I, again, we hope to open back up to more in person, but I think this has allowed more of the press from other areas, more rural parts of the state to have their voices heard. So I'm hoping that we'll be able to continue in that respect, maybe not quite so long, but. Planner, seven days. Hi, I have a question for both Dr. Levine and Secretary French, I'm hoping that they can both weigh in. I'm curious about their thoughts on the Burlington School District's decision to tear down their high school and build a new one because of PCB contamination. Given with the airborne levels of the PCBs and the majority of the buildings that the high school fell below the EPA's guidance, do you think that this measure is warranted? Oh, I'll jump in first, Dr. Levine, if that's okay. I have been in contact with the superintendent on this. I think, you know, just kind of boils down to some practical decision-making on the part of the district. They had to, at some point, pivot to either planning for improvements or planning for new construction. And as they were working closer and closer to sort of having to make that choice, more information kept coming in that pointed to new construction as probably being a better approach. So, I know it's a difficult decision, but I really think they've done a great job in sort of managing those challenges. And, you know, in particular, I just call out the leadership of Superintendent Flanagan. He's done a great job this year. He's new to the state. He arrived to a new state in the middle of a pandemic. And then with the issues the districts have addressed, it's been significant. So he's done a great job at leading the district forward in this decision-making. So we certainly continue to work closely with them through these difficult issues. And the only thing I'll add is, obviously health has been advising all along regarding the implications of air levels at different levels for health of both the staff as well as the students in the schools. And we continue to do that. I think a lot of this decision-making as Secretary French was alluding to does boil down more to exactly how does one mitigate the problem in the first place and what the existing facilities and all of the measurements that were being done, is it worthwhile waiting or using certain strategies versus total reconstruction? The decisions were much more, I think, a little bit outside of the health realm when it came to that hard, fast decision that was just made, much more in consultation with their consultants and with environmental experts and EPA. I guess just to put it another way, I mean, do you think that the EPA's guidance for airborne PCBs is too high? Do you think, I mean, do you have any thoughts about that? Well, yeah, that's a totally different question that I wouldn't want to just have pertain to this instance. Vermont has established levels that are lower. EPA has had traditionally a lag time and they're pivoting from one level to another. And so a lot of states have had the same concerns about the comparisons and levels that they think are more health protective versus those that the EPA has. But I think that's a totally separate question. Thank you. Joseph Gresser, the Barton Chronicle. Yes, I think this is one of those questions that I pull out of the hat to ask Dr. Levine every once in a while. I am curious as to whether, at last, there has been some definitive answer to the question of whether vaccinated people are still likely to have enough of a viral load to infect others who are not vaccinated. And the weight of the data that keeps accumulating is that vaccinated people do not have a sufficient viral load to do that. The question is, when expert panels and guidelines setting organizations, CDC included in those, feel that the amount of evidence is truly sufficient to make that call. There's plenty of evidence coming to us from the original vaccine trials, some of which are focusing on nasal specimens being obtained during the vaccination protocol. And they're very encouraging and they really do indicate that not only are people protected from illness by the vaccine, but they don't seem to be able to generate the same viral load in their nose of coronavirus once they've been vaccinated. So that should be reassuring to us all. It's just a matter of when, as I said, these organizations that do sort of set guidelines and weigh in, feel that enough data has come in for them to commit to that. But we should expect to hear that, I would believe, in the not too distant future. That's very good. Vermont has a lot of tourism when things are going well. And given that seem to be declining rates of vaccination in some of the places that people who are potential visitors to the state are coming from, is the state contemplating trying to find ways to perhaps have clinics for visitors with perhaps the Johnson & Johnson vaccine to protect Vermonters in part, but also to continue the work of people getting vaccinated across the country, given the fact that we seem to be doing better than some other places? I suspect others may want to weigh in as well, but I'll start. It's a great question. I do think that the implications of your question are that either number one, in their own state, they just couldn't find a way to get vaccinated because it wasn't as convenient. There weren't as many options offered as Vermont. And that may be true, in which case we could grab them, absolutely. But I also think that perhaps a more likely scenario is there was a reason they didn't get vaccinated in their own state, and it's probably not going to change just because we happen to have, let's say, a rest area on Route 89 that has people vaccinating when they stop off to take a rest break, because that would be a whole different ordeal in trying to create vaccine acceptance in someone who's not confident in the vaccine. So that's my two cents. I'll invite anyone else who has anything to say about it. I won't talk about vaccine hesitancy because I think Dr. Levine talked a lot about that, but Joe, I announced today that those that work in Vermont that are from other states, no matter what profession they are, can get vaccinated in Vermont. I would urge you to stand by next week. We may have other announcements about vaccination and expanding our vaccination program. So just stand by on that. Well, again, thank you very much for tuning in. And for all you moms out there, thank you for all you do and don't underestimate the impact you have on us, your kids, and so forth. So thank you again. Have a happy Mother's Day.