 Before we get to today's topic, I want to give a quick update on vaccines. As we announced on Tuesday, we opened up our next age band 65 and over for this Monday. But because Walgreens receives doses directly from the federal government, we gave them the okay to open 65 and over yesterday. As a reminder, the pharmacy vaccination program is run by the federal government, not by the states. So if you're 65 or older, and you'd like to try to get an appointment with Walgreens, you can visit their website. But again, everyone in this age band will be able to sign up for the state run clinics beginning on Monday morning, I believe it's at 8.15. Moving to our weekly education update. Today we'll go into detail on our education picture. In particular, how our kids are doing and why it's so important to get them back into school. The unfortunate reality, as you've heard from us and pediatricians before, is that kids are not okay. And we're going to talk about some of the sobering details on that today. But I want to be very clear. I know our school administrators, teachers, staff, parents and kids across the state are working incredibly hard and facing challenges we've never faced before. The fact that our kids are struggling is not a reflection of the efforts of our schools, teachers, parents or kids. The pandemic has put a tremendous strain on everyone. And I know they're doing their very best. Thankfully, because of all your efforts, we're much closer than many other states in getting our kids back to school five days a week so they can recover from the impacts of this pandemic. It was nearly a year ago when I made the very tough decision to close in person learning at our schools. We all work quickly to set up remote systems and mitigate the impacts to our kids. Over the summer, schools develop remote and hybrid systems. And in September, we reopened with most schools, understandably choosing hybrid instruction. Today, about 30% of schools are in person. About half are hybrid and about 20% are still fully prevent, uh, fully remote after nearly a year. I appreciate the work of school employees and know that everyone is committed to doing what's best for our kids. As you'll hear today, the reality is we've got a lot of work to do because even with the improvements in remote learning and some in person instruction available, it's not enough. As a result, our kids are not okay. And I know that's not acceptable to any of us. In fact, many kids are really struggling. Some seriously enough to end up in our emergency departments. Additionally, the increased demand on our mental health system is making it difficult to meet the need. We're also seeing many less severe but still harmful and troubling developments like kids reporting more anxiety, stress, sleeplessness and substance misuse. Some kids have reported spending 12 to 14 hours every day online. Just think about that for a moment. Again, this is not a reflection of the hard work and commitment by our educators, but it is evidence that even with the very best remote learning experience, it doesn't compare to the value and benefits of in person education. This is why in my inaugural address, I set a goal of getting all kids back into a full person instruction before the end of the school year and hopefully by the end of April. And I want folks to understand this goal isn't just about what I want. It's because the science and the data tells us our kids aren't doing well. And you'll hear more about that in a moment. The science and the data also tell us that we can put our kids back in school and still manage the effects of COVID-19. So the real goal here is, and I know it's one we all share, is to reverse the negative impact of the pandemic on our kids. As a former contractor myself, I like using building metaphors and a few apply here like when you find yourself in a hole, stop digging. And it's all about a good and solid foundation because a building, a system, a child is at risk now and in the future if it has a compromise or a weak foundation. Here's the bottom line. We have to start assessing the educational, social, and emotional impact the pandemic and remote learning has had on our kids. Then we have to work together to reverse those impacts as quickly as we possibly can. And that means in this case, in person instruction. This is the recovery work Secretary French has been talking about at these briefings and that he's been working on with his team at the Agency of Education, as well as the Department of Health and through his regular meetings with superintendents, principals, and the teachers union. In a few minutes, he'll present the first phase of our recovery planning guidance. Before that though, you'll hear from the Commissioner of Mental Health Sarah Squirrel and Holly Morehouse from Vermont after school about how kids are really feeling. If you're anything like me, you'll come away with a better understanding of why this is so important. But I want those involved in education to know I understand the worries and the challenges that come along with it. I know there are logistical obstacles that make it harder than it may sound. And if but if we can agree on the goal, we can be creative and work through those details. We can clear the roadblocks and we can achieve this goal while managing cases when they do occur. We have nearly a year of experience. And I'm confident that if educators share this goal, there is no barrier we can't overcome. We also know that the vaccine will help make this transition even easier. With our age banding strategy, we've already we're already seeing the positive impacts and protecting those at risk of serious and severe illness and death. And we're also seeing case rates decline. But I understand the cases in schools, even when they're not transmitting within the school itself can be disruptive. And I recognize vaccines will help reduce that disruption and give more peace of mind. This is why I've said with increased supply, I'm open to adjusting our strategy after we protect those at greatest risk of death. And as Secretary Smith has shared over the last several weeks, we're continuing to have productive conversations with a Vermont NEA. When you consider we're now vaccinating those 65 and older, and we're moving more quickly toward those with high risk conditions, we're clearly nearing our goal to protect those at most risks. And we'll get there, I believe we'll get there a little ahead of schedule. Still, the challenge remains the supply. But I'm optimistic we're getting to a good place on that front as well. So you can expect some additions to our vaccine strategy sometime next week. While we also continue to move forward, those at greatest risk through age banding and health conditions. I hope this gives some comfort to school staff because we're truly in this together. And by pulling in the same direction, Vermont can again late light the way for the rest of the country. So up next, we'll have commissioner squirrel talk about what she's seeing. Thank you, Governor. Good morning, everyone. Certainly, as for monitors, as the pandemic continues to wear on, we all continue to feel the impacts of COVID, the impacts on our mental health. And we know that those impacts do extend to our Children. We know that the impact of public health emergencies can have both short term and long term consequences to the mental health of Children and youth. The pivot to hybrid and remote learning has left many of our Vermont Children lacking the benefits of access to school, the social interaction, the personal connection, the sense of safety, the structure and the routine. When we think about healthy development and buffering risk for Children, we think about promoting protective factor factors, social connections, concrete supports and building social and emotional competence. Access to school is one of the most powerful protective factors that we can provide to our Children and youth. And every effort should be made to get our Vermont Children and youth back to school. The costs of not getting them back are truly devastating, especially for the most vulnerable. We know that even before the pandemic, we were seeing concerning trends around the mental health of Children across the state. The additional stress and strain of COVID has really revealed some of the fault lines that were already there. Even before COVID, one in three youth were reporting feeling sad or hopeless. Six out of 10 LGBTQ youth reported feeling sad or hopeless. We have seen rising rates in depression for youth and increased visits to pediatric emergencies across the state. And again, this was all before the compounding impacts of COVID and additional isolation. I'm going to walk us through what the current data is telling us. And one thing we have to keep in mind is that data is like a temperature gauge. It tells us we have a problem. It is up to us to take the action to fix it. A PACE study was done recently in collaboration with the Vermont Department of Health and UVM. It was a survey that compared data from the fall of 2020 to the fall of 2019. Youth age 12 to 17 reported increases in depressive symptoms, increases in anxiety. Those increases in anxiety extended to young adults age 18 to 25. And around 70% of youth reported that the pandemic made their anxiety, worry, mood, loneliness, a little or a lot worse. When we look at the data related to school based mental health, children receiving school based services, 59% of those youth who were surveyed using the CAHN's assessment child adolescent needs and strengths were identified as lacking community connection. 48% identified as lacking optimism. And in 2020, the rate of youth ED visits for mental health visits across the state increased. We also know that pediatricians across the state are reporting increased demand and increased mental health needs. A pediatric emergency physician noted the adolescent age children are struggling. There are increased number of emergency department visits for acute mental health needs. A primary care pediatrician noted my practice has 11 mental health providers. In September, we had no wait list. Now we have 70 on the wait list. 75% to 80% of what I see every day is related to mental health in the last six to nine months. Another primary care pediatrician notes the children are not okay. Every single day, the bulk of my time in pediatrics is spent managing mental health concerns of kids between the ages of 11 and 18. Our private providers across the state are also reporting long wait lists. We're seeing increase in absenteeism and truancy. Community health providers reporting increased acuity, particularly in adolescence. And families are also under incredible stress. And we have to keep in mind when that caregivers have diminished capacity. It increases stress on children and decreases the buffering that we have to decrease risk. We also know that school is where we see our children and youth. It's a point of both access to services and assessment of need. Without the school key safeguards in place. They're less available to those children and youth who are most vulnerable. In calendar year 2020, 48% of children receiving Medicaid services, mental health services, receive those in a school setting. The number of students served through school based mental health treatment and services in schools increased. And the Department for Children and Families has seen a 21% decrease in calls to their centralized intake and emergency services. The two most important factors in helping children cope with anxiety, our communication and connection. And children are missing that connection right now, especially for adolescents who developmentally should be more oriented toward their peers right now. With less access to resources, less access to protective factors leads to increased vulnerability and risk. And decreased calls to child protection indicates that many children may be suffering in silence. We also have to acknowledge and recognize the stress on teachers, the need to care for the caregivers to support their well being. Educators are critical to creating an environment where children can thrive, where they can build resilience, and retain and regain some of those social connections that are so necessary. It also is so important that we hear from the youth. We hear what they are thinking and feeling. So I'm going to turn it over now to Holly Morehouse, the executive director from Vermont After School, who will share with you a little bit about the youth perspective. Thank you, Governor. And thank you, Commissioner Squirrel. One of the many things that I love about Vermonters is how deeply and wholeheartedly we care about our children and youth. And what we have to focus on now, what we are hearing that at this moment in time, as the governor said, many are not okay. I'd like to talk for a few minutes about young adolescents and teenagers in particular. This pandemic has challenged us all. But the emotional impact on adolescents and teens is especially significant. Just at a time when everything they are biologically, developmentally and socially is supposed to be about connecting with peers, figuring out who they want to be, building a sense of self identity, and experiencing growing independence, many are cut off, isolated and lonely. The other thing that we need to consider is that a year to us adults is very different than a year to someone who is 12, 14 or 16. For a 16 year old, it is one 16th of their young life and a quarter of their entire high school experience. This is a year they will not get back. And it's a year that should be full of milestones, time hanging out with friends, developing new hobbies and interests, venturing out and benefiting from all the connections and interactions informal and formal that come from being together with adult role models, teachers, youth workers and peers. At this critical moment in time, young people need to feel safe and supported to re engage in learning and recover from this period of loss and isolation. They need not only academic support, but also social and emotional support. They need help sustaining and rebuilding relationships, talking about their experiences and emotions, developing as leaders and agents of change and re engaging with their interests. They need time with friends, teachers, youth workers, mentors, opportunities for creative enrichment and expression, healthy meals, daily physical activity and projects that allow them to explore and learn. Now more than ever, we need to listen to our young people. In times like these, youth voice and youth agents, agency are extremely important. At Vermont after school, I have the great privilege of working with youth serving organizations from all across the state. What I'd like to share here is recent data collected in October 2020, from which we can learn more from youth about how they are feeling and what they are experiencing. These data are just a small piece of what was collected as being collected as part of a five year initiative called the Vermont Youth Project. Through this project, Vermont after school is working with a number of Vermont communities to take a comprehensive look at how to strengthen protective factors for young people. We are utilizing a survey tool developed by the researchers from the Icelandic Center for Social Research and Analysis located at Rikovic University. The Vermont Youth Project is affiliated with a global initiative called Planet Youth. We are in the second year of this five year effort in Vermont. All students in grades seven through 12 in the participating communities were invited to take the survey. It was voluntary and had a 65 percent overall participation rate. Now, not all the data is bad. Youth report spending more time with their families. And in some cases, substance misuse is down due to increased supervision. However, I'd like to draw your attention to the data points on the screen. Youth reported that in the past month, 38 percent of them report that they sometimes are often felt that difficulties were piling up so high and so much that they could not overcome them. Over 45 percent of high schoolers say that COVID has made their mental health worse. And when you dig further into the data, they are concerned not only about their own mental health, but about the mental health of those around them. 47 percent of high schools, high schoolers reported that COVID has worsened school connections. And 57 percent of the 11th and 12th graders who responded say that it hurt their educational experience. Over 50 percent of the 11th and 12th graders say that they are lonelier due to COVID and 48 percent feel more anxious. 41 percent of youth had nervousness in the last week and 35 percent over one third of our young people had sleeping problems. One other note I'd like to make on the data when we did the survey in 2019, we had an 82 percent response rate this year. We had a 65 percent response rate and I just want to note also that difference and be able to connect with and reach out and hear from young people has also been challenging. When I read these data points, I hear youth speaking out strongly and telling us once again that all is not okay, that we need to focus on our youth right now and find a way to do more. I appreciate our state's efforts and all that is being done to get all of Vermont students back in school in person to expand access to after school programming and to offer engaging and enriching summer programs this year. I hope we can come together and do everything we can to create a spring and summer for our young people that is about connection, healing, youth voice, learning and growth. Thank you for your time this morning and at this point I will turn over the podium to Secretary Dan French who is going to speak about the Education Recovery Plan framework. Good morning. Thank you Holly and thank you for the work of your organization. Before I get into the recovery planning, I just thought I'd give a couple of quick updates on related education issues. Firstly on surveillance testing in our schools, we had about half of our schools run vacation this week so we didn't run the testing. The testing will resume next week. In collaboration with the Agency of Human Services, we published a survey this week for school staff and childcare providers to understand their interest in getting vaccinated. To date, our vaccination strategy has largely been determined by the very limited supply of vaccine. As we said along, as the governor mentioned, as those supplies increase and they continue to increase steadily now, particularly with the prospect of having the Johnson and Johnson vaccine available, our strategy will evolve and essentially that's what's happened this week. Our planning has been ramped up as a result of potential new supplies coming into the state. We're not settled yet on what the next phase of the strategy will be, but we want to obtain a sense and interest among school staff and childcare providers to inform our planning. Greatly appreciate their flexibility and quick response to that. It was a quick turnaround and survey still open through Monday, but it's going to provide critical information for us to inform the next steps in our vaccination planning. As I mentioned on Tuesday, we received word from the U.S. Department of Education last Friday on the status of the waiver requests over SBAC testing this spring. I thought I'd provide a quick update on that. Firstly, the U.S. Department of Education will be inviting states to submit waivers on the testing, but the waiver invitation will not include the ability to request a waiver for holding the test itself. We will be required to administer the SBAC. We will be provided a waiver opportunity for some of the testing provisions. These areas include possibly reducing the length of the tests, using online testing and possibly extending the testing window into the summer and the fall. Also, we may submit a waiver to not have the test count as part of our accountability system. The next step in this process is the U.S. Department of Education will issue a waiver template form. Once we receive the form, we'll make a decision as to which of the waiver options make sense for Vermont. The waiver process will include a mandatory public comment period, so we will be soliciting public input on our decision. Meanwhile, we're working with our testing vendor to understand our options for modifying SBAC administration relative to what could be available under the waiver. Not every state uses the SBAC, so it's important that we understand what the impact of the waiver might be on the SBAC itself, and our decisions will be determined to a certain extent around the specifics of the SBAC. And now to turn to the recovery. This afternoon, we will be publishing our first guidance document for what we're terming the recovery phase in education. This will be the first in a series of guidance documents that will guide our recovery work in the coming weeks and months. We do find ourselves in a fairly unique position as a state relative to the pandemic. Through the hard work and sacrifice of all Vermonters last spring and summer, we were able to suppress the spread of the virus to a very high degree. This allowed us to successfully reopen our schools in September, and most of our schools have remained open throughout the pandemic due to the hard work of school staff, state employees, and the cooperation of the students and their families. At the same time, however, we know the current disposition of our school system does not begin to approach its pre-COVID-19 effectiveness. Students that were at risk of falling behind or had developmental challenges prior to the pandemic are no doubt more at risk now. Some students who normally prefer perform very well in school are not doing so well right now in the remote environment. And the pandemic has been the cause of heightened anxiety and depression among many students. With the advent of vaccines and return to warmer weather, we can anticipate the conditions in our communities will start to improve significantly. This provides an opportunity to position our education system to address the impact of this pandemic more directly. We are calling this next phase recovery, which is a term better known in emergency management. Although this public health emergency is not over, we need to act now to prevent an educational emergency from occurring. Our forthcoming guidance will outline a structure and process for us to organize our recovery work. The recovery work will be a partnership between districts and their state support teams which will be organized and led by the agency of education. The recovery work will be broken down into phases, with the first phase being the assessment of school district conditions in three focus areas. And then the process will shift the planning and then to implementation. All of these phases, including the assessment phase, require more in-person contact with students. So while the recovery planning process unfolds, we'll be encouraging districts to implement more in-person instruction. 30 percent of our schools are currently operating with full in-person. This includes 50 percent of our elementary schools. The point I make is that we know how to do this right now in these current conditions. So as the conditions improve the virus in the coming weeks, we want to see more schools operating at full in-person to enact the shift in this recovery phase. As we build momentum towards full in-person this spring, our goal will be to have districts to have their recovery priorities identified and plans established prior to June 1st. This timeline is coincidental with the planning processes districts have for federal grants and acknowledges that the recovery process will continue into the next school year. We want districts to be able to focus their grants in spending strategies on the recovery work and to think about how they might leverage summer activities in particular to meet the needs of students in the three focus areas. I suspect that many districts will utilize summer programming to address non-academic priorities such as student engagement and social emotional supports. At the state level, our support teams will assist districts with gathering the necessary data to inform their planning priorities. Another key function of the state support teams will do to coordinate with services with other state agencies such as DCF and mental health. I do want to acknowledge that this recovery planning work will take place in a context with school staff are extremely fatigued and under considerable stress themselves. Nevertheless, we must find the energy and inspiration to get our kids back full time and begin the end of the pandemic. It is our hope that by working together through a focused recovery process, we will demonstrate that the Vermont education system has managed both the safety and the educational needs of our students better than any education system in the world. In the early phases of this pandemic, we benefited greatly from difficult experiences of other countries such as Italy at a time when no one understood the impact of the virus on society. Now it's our turn to share our expertise and the hard lessons we've learned. Vermont, with its model management of the crisis to date, has a responsibility to be one of the first states to articulate an education recovery plan and to lead in the practical work of helping our students recover from this pandemic. That concludes my update. I'll now turn it over back through the government. Thank you, Secretary French. We'll now open it up to questions. As a reminder, while not here in person, Commissioner Levine and Secretary Smith are on the phone and really willing and able to answer any questions you might have. Thanks, Governor. So, you know, you mentioned that we're making additions to our vaccine strategy that potentially bring some comfort to educators. So I guess at this point you know, do you plan on school staff getting their own vaccine prioritization? Well, again, we're not ready to make that decision at this point. We're gathering information. The supply has a lot to do with it, but we're comforted by the fact that we've seen an increase in supply almost every week. The Johnson and Johnson vaccine coming online this weekend is going to enter into the equation as well. And we're awaiting the results of the survey that we put out to educators and staff amongst the educational community to see what the uptake is, what the demand will be. So there's still a lot of factors to work our way through, but we're meeting, trying to figure out what it is that we can do to get our kids back in school and relieve any apprehension they might have in doing so. But first, we want to make sure, again, we protect the most vulnerable. Those 65 and over, we're going to be starting those, we started those in the Walgreens today, but on Monday we'll start signing them up and then go to the chronic conditions underlying health conditions so that we need to get through as well. So again, we're not, we want to continue down with our approach that we've been taking, but, but as well with the increased supply, we might be able to do another system. So we're contemplating that as we speak. What's in the survey with educators, what threshold would you need to see, you know, 50 percent, 70 percent, 80 percent? Again, we'll see what the uptake is and what the survey comes back with. We're just, I'm just hearing a lot of different, I guess, statistics throughout the country. It depends on what you are. I'm hopeful that this, there'll be a high uptake here in Vermont, but in other parts of the country it's, it's rather low. So again, we'll just see what, what the desire is, what the demand is, and then we'll go from there. I guess on a separate note as well, Congressman Welch says that potentially if Congress passes this new $1.9 trillion stimulus package, Vermont could see upwards of 900 million, about 300 to towns and 600 to state government. How do you envision some of those funds being spent in sort of a priority as we recover? Yeah, it's difficult to say at this point. We need to see the final version. A lot can change as we know. It can change in our own legislature. It can change in Congress, even if it passes the way we see it today in the, in the House, still has to go through the Senate. There's a couple of things that I'd like to see worked out and I have a little bit of concern over one being at the dispersion, disbursement of funds may be connected to your UI, for instance. And we have a fairly low unemployment rate in Vermont. So that wouldn't be good for Vermont in many states that have done the right thing in trying to keep their economy going and investing in those areas. So we'll just have to wait and see what the final version is, but we'll work together and make sure that we put it into place to help those in need as well as help our businesses recover and get to a position where we're really much better off than we were maybe before we headed in. On that same note on the state side of things, I believe the House is passing today or there are response to the COVID recovery. It looks like it's going to have an easy time of it over here in the House getting over to the Senate. Any comments on that? Anything you'd like to see or have they done a sufficient job? Yeah, again, in large part, they took a lot of the things that we had put forth in our budget. So I'm encouraged by that. I'm a little concerned about the pension aspect and what that means for some. Again, we have a huge pension liability issue in the state, both in retirement and the pension fund and so forth. And we need to to work those details out. And I know that they put aside 20 million dollars to do that. But we have a five point seven billion dollar problem on our hands. And this is going to have to be solved by, I believe, led by the legislature and the treasurer. And I'm a willing participant, but they have to lead in this area. I've been talking about this for quite some time, as has others. But this is clearly an area that they're going to have to take the lead on. So I don't want anyone to get the wrong impression. Twenty million dollars is not going to fix the problem. And they're going to have to again take to take this opportunity to fix it. And to try and get to the to the to the root of the problem. And again, I'm willing participant, but but I'm a little concerned that we're kicking the can down the road a bit. And we just have to again work together in order to to take take on this incredibly difficult, challenging problem. But it's something that we can't continue down this path at the present rate. It is the proverbial elephant in the in the room. And really within the next a year or two years, we're going to have to have some sort of step towards that. Do you have any? I mean, going to have to raise revenue somehow to to do this, don't you think? Well, I think there's a lot of ways to to accomplish what we need to accomplish. But again, it's going to take leadership in the legislature by the majority party as well as the the treasurer. And we'll have to have some input as well as well as the the unions that are involved, whether it's the state employees or the teachers union, they have to be at the table too. Because again, we can't force this. We're just going to have to work together and be realistic about what we can do and what we can't do. But I I know this is going to have an effect on our bonding ability in the future. This is increased from four point three billion to five point seven billion in a matter of a couple of years. So this is truly, truly an area of great concern for me and many others. And we just have to to come to the realization that that we have to solve it. Thanks. Good morning. Given all that you've just said about kids suffering and teachers being the key to fixing that with more in person, why struggle with the decision to prioritize teacher immunization? Well, again, Stuart, as we've said, we had a path forward where we wanted to make sure we took care of the most vulnerable. Again, 90 percent of the deaths in Vermont have been 60 age groups, 65 and over. And we know those who have underlying certain help underlying health conditions are impacted as well. So we need to take care of the most vulnerable first. And then I've said we're willing to have conversations about where we go next. But we want to make sure again that everyone is willing if that will reduce the apprehension that if we can move forward in the vaccination process in this sector that they will indeed everyone will come to the table and and find a way to get our kids back into the classroom. So it just there's a lot of moving pieces and we just need to consider all of that before we make any decisions. But but again, the Johnson Johnson is key in order to get more supply as well as the commitment from the Biden administration to continue to increase our supply as we move forward. So it all works together. And and again, the Secretary of French has been meeting with educators and and other interested parties throughout the last number of weeks. So hopefully we're in a good position where we can move forward. We'll hear more about it next week. But the but the time isn't today because we're still waiting to hear some details from the federal government. Sure. Secretary French indicated that the survey results were I guess due back on Monday. But can you share what the survey of public school employees? Can you share what they're telling you so far? Secretary French. Hi, Stuart. No, I don't I don't have analysis. The results I would just comment that, you know, we stood up the survey very quickly. Once again, the supply information is is improving in its quality and it's been a pretty rapid turnaround. We deployed to survey Wednesday afternoon very quickly. Within the first hour, we had about a thousand responses on the school survey. And by the end of that day, we had over just about 6,800. This morning, we have over 10,000 responses. But the key piece is we have half the schools on vacation this week. So we're going to see a big response on Monday. So I can't really speak to any of the trends we're seeing from the data that we have so far. I'm pleased with the response, but we'll see a big response on Monday as well. Mr. Secretary, would there be any extension of the school year in light of the disruptions? Well, as they sort of outlined in the in the recovery plan, our first step is to understand what exactly are the conditions on a district, a district basis. There's a lot of speculation about what the possible solutions would be. And I mentioned summer, I think that's an obvious one. But I think really if we can carve out a couple of weeks to really do that assessment, we're going to be in a really good position to create strategies that will actually work. And I think the other piece is that we have, as you know, Holly indicated, we have an opportunity in Vermont really to partner with a lot of different support groups and people providing services, summer camps and so forth. So there's a lot we can bring to the table, but it does require us to do sort of an initial assessment to really understand what's before us in terms of the recovery work. All right, thank you. Thank you both. Brian, Lisa at the Valley Reporter. Good morning. Local Reading and Event Venues reports that their clients who have June events are now at a procedure cancel point. They need guidance. They're trying to retain business for the balance of summer and fall. And collectively they report already having lost half of their 2021 event business. Given that Massachusetts has recently issued wedding and event guidance that is effective March 23rd, when can Vermont wedding and event venue operators expect some tangible guidance? Yeah, I understand the complexity and the challenge they're facing. Right now, today, as you have noted or have seen, our focus is on trying to get our kids back in the classroom. We think that that's the most pressing need we have in trying to get as many vaccinated as possible. I would say sometime, the first part of April, we will be able to, if everything goes right, be able to lay out the timeframe and a strategy that we're using that we've already developed. But there are many pieces of the puzzle that have to come together first. And we're not, I'm not willing to move forward on that until I'm assured that other things have fallen into place. So again, we're working on it and I understand and I certainly have a lot of appreciation for what they're going through as a former business owner myself. And they see this challenge ahead of them. But we're just not there yet. And every state has a different strategy. I'm sure you can go to Massachusetts and find that we have done a lot of things and move forward in a lot of areas that they have not. So everyone's using a different strategy. And for us right now, we just can't, we can't commit to moving forward and giving them what they want right now. But it should be in the very near future. Thank you. And then I have a question that is most likely for Secretary Smith. When do you anticipate that people with chronic health conditions will be able to make appointments to get vaccinated? Thank you for that question, Lisa. I would stay tuned on Tuesday. And just one quick follow-up. If Vermont does prioritize educators and front-facing school staff, how many people does that represent? We're looking at approximately with childcare in just over 30,000. Great, thank you very much. Thanks Rebecca. Governor, the state has said it's partnering with Walgreens and other businesses to provide vaccine shots. Wondering how much the state of Vermont is receiving from each of these for-profit businesses and will the money be earmarked for COVID related expenses or promotion or COVID related items? We've heard mixed reviews, by the way, from people that have been unable to sign in to Walgreens in the islands, in Chittenden County, Washington County, Caldonia County. And I'm just wondering what you've heard as far as that and the money that the state's getting from these for-profit businesses. Again, these contracts are between the federal government and the pharmacies. Not we don't have contracts with them ourselves, but I'll let Secretary Smith make sure that I'm correct on that. But again, that's been some of the challenge, but also we've been able to utilize them in certain ways as well. So they're getting, receiving their doses directly from the federal government. Secretary Smith? Yeah, that's right, Governor. That's a contract between the federal government and the pharmacy, and they will get their doses directly. I do want to say we knew that Walgreens had an allotment that was coming in on Wednesday or Wednesday, and we gave them the permission to go ahead and use that earlier on 65. Now that was an allotment that was unanticipated, but we knew the supply was limited. I think it was about 4,300 doses. So right now Walgreens is full, and we pretty much knew that was gonna happen given the size of the group. But if people will call on Monday or use or sign up for our program, that's 65 plots on Monday that opens up on March 1st, we have slots for everyone that is in those age groups. And again, the thing that I would recommend is go on our website at healthvermont.gov slash my vaccine and start an account and sign up at 815 on Monday for an appointment. We have ample appointments, we have slots for everyone, and I would urge everyone to go to that. But for this one sort of situation where they had 4,300 doses that were available, we allowed them to open up early on the 65, recognizing it was gonna fill pretty fast. But we did hear from one caller who did get through or online, and but was, I guess online, but was insulted that they had to agree to accept the promotional emails from Walgreens with their flyers in order to advance off the page. And that's why, obviously, they're making a ton of money off this. And I guess I get your answer that State of Vermont is not getting any of this money. It's all going to the federal government. My kid's going the other way around. The federal government's going to Walgreens for the money. Okay, yeah, that's what I meant, sorry. My follow-up to Stuart's question about the teachers, I think it's pretty clear that there are two great groups that few, if any, object to, and those are the grocery store workers and the teachers. And I think the news story this week about the other groups wanting to cut the line didn't really, it didn't seem to be any groups that were really bubbling to the top and probably in the eyes of the public. I mean, it's sort of like the police, everybody agreed they ought to be near the top. So I guess I gotta ask again, so what's wrong with grocery store workers and cashiers, teachers? I mean, I think everybody seems to be pretty strongly in agreement that they ought to be the next group. And I'm just amazed that there isn't an announcement that they're next. Stay tuned, Mike. I mean, we're contemplating this. Again, our data, the data in the science tells us who's really impacted. And when you look at some of those and those age groups, they're the most impacted. So they have to come first. When you have a limited supply, you have to make decisions, you have to prioritize, and that's what we've done and done so successfully. And I think in the end, people will see the merits to what we're doing. We're not seeing a great deal of impact for those who are in person at this point in time throughout Vermont. We're not seeing a huge number of those impacted by the virus. That's just the fact. That's part of our data and the science that tells us that. But it's important to us to move forward in this system, in the education system, as because of what we laid out today. So we may want to move forward if it removes some of the apprehension, if it reduces that apprehension and gets our kids back into school, then we may have to do that. But we're going to have to go a little bit further in order to understand that. But again, the older you are, regardless of the age band, the older you are, or with certain health conditions, they're more impacted you are by the virus. That's just the fact. I might ask Commissioner Levine if he has anything to add to that. Thank you, Governor. The only thing I would add to your very apt decision is the fact that there are states that have chosen to try to do it all at once. We try to get the very old, the most ill, and all of the sectors that my colleague was talking about vaccinating concurrently. And that strategy for most of them has only led to disappointment among all of those groups. Because they're all competing with one another for what has been until now a very scarce resource. Our choice of the preserved life strategy is really critical because we want those people done very, very quickly. We want to get them all in the first wave of vaccination without the feeling that they're competing with a bunch of other groups who will still benefit from that too, no question. But they probably won't die from COVID or be hospitalized and hope. And that's really what our data has shown us and that's why we approach it in this manner. Thank you. No, I understand age is important, thank you. Mike, I would just add as well, if we all of a sudden, and I want to be clear about this, if we do move and vaccinate the education system, we'll do it concurrently with the plan that we have in place right now. We are not going to put the education system in front of those with underlying conditions, for instance. We'll continue to try and have parallel paths and do it simultaneously to that. But I would guarantee if all of a sudden, tomorrow we decided to vaccinate the whole education system and put them ahead of someone else, you'd have one or two of your readers probably reach out and say, well, why not me? I thought I was next. Why are they coming before me? I'm more impacted and I may be at risk of being hospitalized or death and the data shows that they're not. Why are they doing that? So I would say this controversy will continue throughout the entire vaccination process until we get to the end. But we're doing the best we can using the data and the science to influence our decisions. And thus far, I think we're doing it right. Thank you very much, I appreciate it. Is reporting an outbreak of at least 21 inmates at a Northern State Correctional Facility. I was wondering if there had been any updated numbers since the last time that was published and what the state is doing to kind of respond to that surge in cases there. Yeah, Secretary Smith. Yes, Aaron, we are just, we're gonna be sending out a press release as soon as I can get off this call and approve it this afternoon. It talks about the Newport Facility is in full lockdown because there are 22 positive cases. There are one, there is one staff member in the Newport Facility that has tested positive and 21 incarcerated individuals that have tested positive in that facility. Just to let you know, system wide, we have six staff members that are positive and 30 inmates that are positive system wide right now. Those are still statistics that are better than the statewide average here in Vermont, but nonetheless they are troubling and we are trying to figure out the best way that we can to meet this challenge is figure out how we stop the virus from entering the facilities. And that's gonna be key here because where we have found that these facilities are susceptible to the virus coming in and we've had great success as you know, we've had great success in these facilities throughout the pandemic. We have to find a way to make sure that we can stop the virus from coming into the facility and we're looking at that right now. We're also looking at how we can enhance our quarantine process in order to make sure that we can protect those that are in those facilities moving forward. Okay, any insights so far on what could be kind of causing this particular latest outbreak? I suspect no, we're doing contact tracing right now, but I suspect it's like the other issues that we've had, it's come from outside the facility, usually you know, a person or two that are bringing it into the facility from the outside. We're just gonna have to wait till the contact tracing tells us what happened in this case. I mean, it focuses on kind of preventing the virus from coming into the facility. Is there anything that you can do to kind of limit its spread once it gets into a facility? I mean, more social distancing, more protection for the inmates and staff? Well, when we do that, frankly, everybody is masked, there is, you know, an attempt to make social distancing as much as possible, you know, in many respects, these facilities have, and they're locked down when there is a situation within the facility. We've been quite lucky for some time here, but at the same time, when we do have something like this, we do have to lock down the facility, we do have to make sure we do an evaluation of that, we do contact tracing to make sure the spread is limited. The other thing that we do that is probably unique to Vermont, we do a lot of testing of our facilities. And when we do have an outbreak, that testing is multiple, multiple times within a week or so period. So, you know, we're working on that as we move forward right now. This facility will be tested multiple, multiple times to make sure that we can isolate and make sure this doesn't spread. Okay, thanks. I also have a question for, I believe, Dr. Levine, are you concerned about the news of a variant that is potentially less, you know, the vaccine is potentially less effective against appearing in New York a couple of days ago? Yeah, thanks for that question. It gives me a chance to announce that we did get some results back from the assessments we sent earlier in the week for genome sequencing. It has been delayed because of all of the weather events. And those samples that were predominantly from Burlington and from Bennington County were all negative for any of the variant strength. Obviously, we continue to be monitoring this very, very closely in Burlington wastewater assessment that was just performed the past week. Did continue to indicate the presence of mutant sequences that were tested that might indicate the variant strength present. So, we continue to send Burlington's specimen on a weekly basis to see if any of them will show this in the sequencing. But thus far, Vermont is really one of only a few states that have not yet found the variant strength in the PCR testing that we do. So, having said that, all of the variant strength is for me, not just the new ones that have been seen in New York City, but there are also new ones that have been seen in California. It just tells us that the virus is doing what it's doing because it's had an opportunity to replicate multiple, multiple times and be transmitted from person to person, very effectively at a time when the country was in what's now being called, I guess, the third search. So, the good news is that the vaccine that's being debated about today and will probably get immersed in youth authorization seems to be effective against all of the mutant strains, including the South Africa. The Pfizer and Moderna have performed relatively well against most of the strains that left well against the South Africa. And we just don't know much about the ones in New York City yet because literally they've just been announced within this week. So, it's gonna be a little hard to tell how that goes. But I do think that this could be an opportunity for me to say that the country has been in a marked downswing and cases and hospitalization that has just recently leveled off and in some places it's starting to go back up so at a very gentle rate. But that's a concern to me more than new strains being found in new places because I really think the month of March is going to be a critical month for us all. We're gonna have increasing amounts of people with both natural immunity and vaccine-mediated immunity which is gonna be a wonderful thing. And we hopefully will still have the impact of positive behavior change that occurred after the holidays have passed. On March is a month where we're already seeing some of the states in the country saying we've won this battle, we can ease off in some of our restrictions. There's been talks in some states of eliminating their mask mandate. Most people in the infectious disease and epidemiology communities do not believe for one minute that we can ease off on all of the things we do every day. It's typically with mask and with distancing during the month of March. It's going to be the month that really counts. So we shouldn't just relax because more people are getting vaccinated. We should realize that if we don't want to see more of these strains like the ones that appear in the New York City, we need to be very focused on trying to not let our guard down and continually on the behavior patterns that we've been trying to practice faithfully all along, just a little while longer because this is a chance to really allow more perception of the virus and more of us get vaccinated and less chance for mutations to occur. Okay, thank you. 22? Yeah, Dr. Levine, my question was actually about rumors that other states like Texas are considering lifting their mask mandate. And you talked about how important the month of March is. On the flip side, how important once the weather starts getting warmer are sort of innovative outdoor ideas going to be. I know there were a lot of those that were sort of put in place on the fly last summer. What are you sort of interested to see now that businesses and towns have had a little bit more time to consider what this summer might look like, some of the sort of innovation that can happen with outdoor stuff this year? Yeah, thanks for asking that because I didn't want my previous answer to be a gloom and doom answer by any means. It's just a very committed faith about the month of March. But even here in Vermont in the middle of winter, we've been able to really do a lot and we've been able to let our population be more active in the outdoors environment and feeling less restrictive during those times compared with group gatherings and the indoor stuff. So we've been able to demonstrate that people can get outside and still respecting the basic rules do a lot more than they might have imagined. It's certainly far away from where we were a year ago in March. With regard to even beyond March this year, just the spring and summer, there is a belief that some of that seasonality will have an impact due to temperatures you may be considering on the amount of virus that's active. But we remember we did have a second wave in the country during the summer last year. There's also, I think, as more people are vaccinated, it's a great opportunity for us to do more in the outdoors environment that won't require as much rigidity with regards to the practices that we practice now. That won't mean you can go to a movie, a board, and not wear a mask. But certainly if you're at a beach in the summertime, I do think there'll be opportunities for us to be really much more relaxed in that space. I don't wanna get ahead of things and talk about things that would involve group gatherings because, again, that's what the virus and any virus slides on is people in large groups and very close proximity not wearing masks. We'll have to see where we are if these months evolve. But clearly the first thing we did in the pandemic management was, of course, reduce the size of gatherings. So one would expect that that's not gonna be the first thing we'll get to relax as time goes on. And even in states that are allowing some of their stadiums to function again, we're talking about 10 or 12% capacity right now, which is very minimal, obviously. But I think you should look forward to the opportunities for more of those kinds of things to occur. And some of them, even in a mask-free way, outdoors, as the summer wears on, assuming that a lot of the success we see in the vaccination continues and the success we see in it holding the virus numbers down continues as well. All right, thank you. Hi, at WCAX. Hi, this one is for Commissioner Squirrel. It's about adult mental health. I did an interview earlier this week with some folks from Washington County Mental Health Services who told me their call volume has doubled and there's a 100-person wait list for individual therapy that translates to about an eight to 10-week wait. Of course, they can reach people who are in direct crisis sooner with different programs, but an eight to 10-week if you want, wait if you want an individual therapy. I imagine they're not the only agency in the state that's seeing this kind of demand for adult increase during the pandemic. Is there anything the State and Mental Health Department could be doing to help ease the burden on some of these local agencies? Yeah, thanks for the question, Kat. Certainly, as we've focused our attention on children and youth today, we know that adults are also in need of mental health services, which is why, as we've looked at resources coming into the state, federal funding and grants, the Department of Mental Health has been in receipt of SAMHSA COVID relief dollars as well as additional federal grants that we have all targeted towards our community mental health agencies so that they can continue to expand and be responsive to the needs of Vermonters across the state. We also have stood up COVID supports Vermont, which I spoke about many weeks ago in terms of access. Vermonters can simply call 211. We have embedded clinicians that are ready and available to take your call. And then continuing to look across other grants and opportunities that are coming into the state so that we can continue to expand access as well as ensuring and working with our private practitioners across the state as well. And they told me a lot of, of course, the demand they're seeing is due to how long the pandemic has been going on for. How long do you expect it will take adults? And then, you know, if you want to address it, given today's themes, separately kids and teens to recover from the mental health impact of this pandemic? Yeah, that's another great question, Kat. And certainly we anticipate that there will be a lag in terms of ongoing impacts of COVID-19 pandemic on our mental health. The good news for children is that children and youth are very resilient. And if we can double down on our commitment to get them back to public school where they can access resources and supports for most children, they will be able to recover, to regain that social connection, to rebuild that resiliency in the context of school where they access many of their most nourishing and safe relationships. And for adults as well, you know, as we, you know, the outlook has become more optimistic. There is hope. We would also anticipate that as we move forward, adults will certainly start to feel some of the weight of the pandemic lift. And I think where we will continue to need to focus energy and attention is on those individuals who prior to COVID were experiencing more serious and persistent mental health challenges, really ensure that they have the targeted resources that they need, the outreach, the case management that's all essential to their ongoing recovery. Thank you. Thank you, Kat. Good afternoon. I have gotten another message from a reader whose questions I have forwarded to, I guess, Dr. Levine before. She is still very concerned about her inability to see her mother, her mother's been vaccinated, she's been vaccinated, her vaccination was long enough ago to have taken full effect. And obviously, since she is qualified to be vaccinated, her mother is older, is that the nursing home where her mother is still not allowing her to have a contact visit with her mother. And she wants to know if the state is providing more guidance to long-term care facilities that will encourage people to be willing to open up a little more quickly. Secretary Smith. Yes, Joe, thanks for the question. About a week ago, I announced that we were revising our guidance for, in particular, to the question that you're asking in visitation, especially with residents that have been vaccinated. It's on a case-by-case basis with the facility, but at the same time, we have met with all the facilities, the long-term care facilities, this week, in regard to this guidance, and we'll be issuing this guidance effective today, I think it is, will be on our website with that guidance for the individual, but the way that you've described it to me, under our guidance, that person would be allowed to visit their relative. Just for Mike Smith and Dr. Levine. Mike, regardless of what the next phase looks like with conditions and whether school staff is included, you are gonna have to parse that group because of the size of it, right? For instance, when the advisory panel offered its report, it suggested that Don Citrus and Citrus Health and Indian Pregnancy should be in that group regardless of age in the next chronic conditions group. There will be a parsing in some way of this group, is that correct? Yeah, that's correct. There's gonna be a list, and actually it's listed on the Health Department website right now of what we consider high-risk conditions that will be included in that high-risk list. Now, you gotta remember, some of it's gonna be limited by the vaccine itself. We can only go as far down at 16 with one vaccine, 18 with another vaccine, but we will have, there are going to be certain conditions. You will have to meet in order to be in that high-risk category. Dr. Levine will go over that on Tuesday in terms of what those risk factors are once again, but we will have those listed, they are listed on the Health Department website right now. So when you do open that up, it'll be that entirely. But I was even wondering whether you would have to parse it within that list you've already described. In terms of size of that group, you mean parse it in terms of size, or parse it in terms of other things as well. Well, some other factor like an age banding even within that initial. Yeah, I get you, Tim, on that. I think because it's so big, 75,000, we may have to have a group A and a group B within that, but they're not going to be that far apart when we decide to do that. They're going to be within a week of each other before we open it up. I think it's fair to say that the Johnson 11 could affect your decisions going forward on that. I would say stay tuned on Tuesday, I will lay it all out for you. I was anticipating that answer. Dr. Lee and I was wondering the persistence of, we were still getting a couple of deaths today. I'm wondering what the profile of those folks has been since you've done such a good job in protecting older remoders. Who are the people that are frankly still dying at this point? Yes, that's a great question. The majority of them have still been actually in the older age set. Some from the long-term care environment, some who have been in our hospitals and obviously were quite ill of death with their outcome. They've all been in the same age with the decent we think that characterizes the largest set of deaths in the world. One notably was in their 50s, but there was significant chronic illness that was counting for the kind of election towards death. We did look at an analysis of how long after someone had COVID, death might occur. And some of the deaths do occur quite a long time after not allowing that scene to have really been a factor for those individuals. And I would definitely anticipate the CDC's rates come down, mainly because of the fact that less people are getting a call taken in the long-term care facility and less people being hospitalized and at risk for death because of serious disease. So I did fill a graph, I believe it was on Tuesday at the press conference or last week, I'm not sure now, that did demonstrate there's been a dramatic decrease in deaths overall. Admittedly, one or two a day is too much, it is tragic, but at the same time, when you compare it to just a week to two weeks ago, the curve has come down very, very nicely and we were hoping to continue to say that one. Tragically, we did surpass the number 200 earlier this week. Still probably lowest in the country, but nonetheless, sad indeed. All right, thank you very much. Time check, it is 12.20 and we're only halfway through you two. Greg, the county courier. Good afternoon guys. As you probably know, we've seen a instance here in Franklin County where a major outbreak has been made much worse by a nurse and her family who disregarded health department guidelines even after at least some of them knew that they'd tested positive. I'm wondering in your words, Governor or even Dr. Levine, what does this mean when medical providers don't even follow the guidance from the health department? Well, I don't know anything about that instance and hadn't heard that, but again, this is why we keep talking about being vigilant and continuing to adhere to the guidance and why it's important to do so. By and large, Vermonters are doing the right thing, but there is some fatigue out there admittedly and people want to get back to normal, but getting back to normal is we're not gonna get there any quicker by disregarding the health policies we know have an influence on the rate of transmission. So we need to, until the vaccine is fully available to everyone, we need to continue to do our job or do our duty to protect others. So Dr. Levine, anything you can add to that? No, it's very well stated. I really don't have much to add to that at all. I don't have guidance guided to the personality or the person that's being referred to. Clearly, I would not want to over-characterize the health care sector as reluctant to conform to what's been regarded as evidence-based and science-based public health practice because you'll find that this is an unfortunate exception to the rule, but nonetheless, this is the time that we need to all double down because we really will have a much better outcome coming out of this pandemic. This is gonna all hang in there a little longer, not let politicization of things like masks or personal feelings interfere with what the science has told us and how it's gotten belong to the place it's in right now, thank you. Governor, perhaps you can touch base with the Secretary of French offline and he can probably tell you more on this, but I'm wondering your administration has said time and time again that it's important to keep secret who's gotten this virus to protect their identity. They don't know that they're gonna get it. It would treat them badly. But once they know they have it and they make ill-advised decisions such as continuing to go out in public, it brings up the question, should they be treated the same way drunk drivers are where there are press releases and the public knows that they've been making unwise decisions and putting the rest of the community at risk? What's your comment on something like that? Well, again, there's a difference there. One's criminal and one, we're in a pandemic and I wouldn't say secret is the right word. I'd say confidentiality is the right term and people value confidentiality and there's laws to protect that as well. So we're adhering to the law. We want people to do the right thing. We want people to think about others as they either adhere to the guidance or not and what impact that will have on others. And again, as I said before, if we're in a race to get back to normalcy, not adhering to the guidelines isn't going to get us there any quicker. In fact, it's going to slow down our recovery. So I'd advocate people just buckle up here. We need to, we're in the last stretch of this long race and but we can win this if we do the right things, adhere to the guidance and be vigilant. Just one last question on that subject, Governor. You said that this isn't criminal. As a lawmaker, do you think this should be criminal to ignore guidance and continue to go about your daily life even after knowing that you or your family's tested positive? That would be for the legislative body to consider. But from my standpoint, again, we're in a state of emergency or in a pandemic. There's no playbook on this. I believe by and large people in Vermont in particular are doing the right thing. And I want to, again, thank them for doing so. This is the only way we're going to get through this and get through this healthier and stronger than we went in. So we've done a lot of things right here and we've had a lot of compliance and I would just advocate to continue on that approach. And I'm not sure that making it a criminal act is going to prevent anyone from doing anything different at least at this point in time. So we'll get through this again and we'll be better for it. And again, I thank Vermonters for doing the right thing. Okay, it sounds like you've put support making this criminal. But thank you, Governor, for your time and have a great weekend, safe, safe. I have the question about the incoming school guidance. Local school officials have been saying the number one sticking point to bringing more mill and high school students back is distancing recommendations, which I believe currently calls for six feet between students of this age. Does the administration plan to change these recommendations to achieve its goal of resuming in-person classes? And if so, how do you plan on convincing teachers and staff that this is safe given existing CDC guidelines? Secretary French. Yeah, it's certainly something we have on our radar, but again, it is definitely our goal to bring it back more in person, but it's also part of the reason we've achieved or focused on that goal. As you heard today, there's compelling risks involved for students if we don't do that, but that doesn't mean we're ever gonna sacrifice the safety of our schools. We made a consistent point, I think, that we expect conditions to improve. And as I mentioned, 30% of our schools are operating in-person now in these conditions. 50% of those are elementary schools. We expect conditions to improve, particularly with the advent of vaccines. So we will definitely modify our guidance accordingly, but it will be in conjunction with an assessment of the safety of the conditions. Right, yeah, I think you're referring to our Safe and Healthy Schools guidance, which is the broader guidance that speaks to the operation of schools. The guidance that we're putting out this afternoon is about sort of framing out and outlining the recovery process. The two aren't necessarily the same issue. Sure, okay, and but could you just say kind of, frankly, do you anticipate a change to the distancing recommendation within the next couple of months? If conditions improve, I definitely would think our guidance would adapt accordingly. I also would just point out, you mentioned the CDC guidance. The CDC guidance is advisory in that regard. It says something like six feet to the extent possible or something like that. So we definitely, you know, we take that information as we have all along. We think the CDC guidance is extremely helpful, but we evaluate it for ourselves and definitely look internationally what's going on. Many countries in the world are operating at one meter or around three feet, but we'll definitely look at our guidance as a function of the conditions. And once again, we expect the conditions to improve here in the coming weeks. And then just one question about the survey. I've seen some teachers, and I think you alluded to this note that some schools are currently on vacation and it sounds like there's gonna be a rush of responses coming on Monday, but can you just reiterate the purpose of this survey? It's not like these people are signing up to get in line for a vaccine. It's more to gate the interest, right? I mean, what possible side effects could happen if not enough teachers sign up? Yeah, thank you for bringing that up. This is not about signing up for the vaccine. It's really to inform our planning process. And once again, we haven't settled on what the next phase of our plan will be. But as we've seen, I think the governor alluded to nationally, we need to understand to what, you know, what is that basically, that percent of interest in accepting a vaccine? It might sound obvious that everyone wants a vaccine, but we've seen different uptake percentages around the country. So this survey was set up very quickly as a result of new supply information. I'm very pleased, very, very pleased actually in the response we've seen so far. But we do acknowledge it is vacation for some districts, but we have the cooperation of school districts to get that message out in social media and so forth. So I'm confident by the end of the day Monday we'll have a good understanding of what people's interest is. But it's not about signing up for the vaccine. It's just getting a sense of their interest. I was wondering if we could get some more information about what this outside of the school year programming would look like, such as who's running it and who would be paying for it. Secretary French. Yeah, I think in terms of school districts, it's something they typically always run, but I would expect summer programming this year to probably look a little different. Again, I think it's really important that districts do that assessment of their conditions before we decide on what the solutions will be. But the issue of funding is an important one, and I mentioned briefly, but we're seeing considerable federal resources now come into the state for education. And potentially we'll see additional funding under the new appropriation from Congress. So at this moment, I feel very confident that the additional funding from the federal government will be sufficient to support our recovery efforts. But the first step is to understand what the needs are, and then the second step will be to devise the strategies, and I'm sure summer will be part of that strategy. And obviously this has been a pretty stressful time for students and staff. Do you think they will need a really true summer break, just kind of a break from anything school-related? No, absolutely. It's one of the things in our guidance we sort of acknowledge that. It is, as we point the system to doing this planning and focused work this spring, I think there will be an interest probably just out of their concern for students to try to basically remediate for the entire pandemic experience in the six weeks that we have left in the school year. And that's probably gonna put way too much stress on the system, and it's not advisable from an educational standpoint. So we do want to acknowledge at the time we have this unique opportunities to stay with our conditions being very positive and our strong experience on how to manage things that we have an opportunity and also responsibility, I think, to do more right now. But we have to do that in a very thoughtful way. And I think there's gonna be a lot of opportunity for us to articulate that out in a thoughtful way that won't have a negative impact on the kids. But I think, I feel a sense of responsibility to the system to try to move forward in this area now. Thank you. Governor, the 10 names finalists for the Cannabis Control Board have been turned over to your office. I'm wondering if you can remind us of how you're prioritizing the tax and regulate system and when you might think and expect give those three names over to the Senate for final confirmation. Yeah, we're working our way through the process. We wanna make sure that we have all the names of those who are qualified and then we'll make our decision. We'll be taking, we'll be interviewing in the coming weeks, so stay tuned on that. So you don't know if it's gonna be months or weeks or when the Senate's gonna get it this session or anything? Oh yeah, no, I'm sure we'll get the names to the Senate during this session, yes. Okay, and one question for Dr. Levine, we got an email from someone. If someone owns a second home in say, Massachusetts and they drive from Vermont right to their home in Massachusetts, just enter their home, do their stuff there and return to Vermont. Do they need to quarantine upon return? Not if they're vaccinated, but if they're unvaccinated, I believe the same travel guidance for pain as did before. Okay, supposedly they were told differently but thanks for clarifying that. I'm all set, thank you. Thank you. With the entry of Walgreens offering vaccinations through the federal program, it seems that could be confusing to some thermoners. What is your guidance to thermoners in choosing between Walgreens and the Vermont Health Department? Well, again, I just wanted to, the addition of Walgreens was because they had some supply and we wanted to offer this as an enhancement of the program that we have, which is quite expansive in some respects. We'll get through this next band, 65 and older, probably in a matter of two weeks and we'll be finished with the addition of Walgreens. So it's just an enhancement. And so don't get discouraged if you can't get your vaccinations through Walgreens. It was a limited supply, but we wanted to get that out there as quick as possible. But you'll, as Secretary Smith had said before, you'll be able to sign up on Monday or Tuesday or whenever next week after 8.15 on Monday, and we'll get you vaccinated within a short period of time. Are you receiving any information from the federal government or Walgreens if they receive another supply and want to make this offer again? They will continue and Alice should let Secretary Smith answer this, but they have this ongoing relationship with the federal government. So their supply is, they're resupplied every week. So I would expect with our pharmacy program, other pharmacies as well, not just Walgreens, but other pharmacies will continue as well as the FQHCs in some instances will be receiving their supplies on a weekly basis, just like we are, but at a much reduced level. Secretary Smith. Yes, thank you, Governor. The pharmacy program, both at the federal level and whatever we can allocate at the state level. For example, we're going to have a thousand a dose pop up in Washington County that's going to be run through Kinney. So the pharmacy program, both at the federal level and what we do at the state level, it's going to be an important component of the vaccination strategy. What we want to make sure is that it stays coordinated with anything that we're doing. Kinney's has been, Kinney's has been is fairly integrated into our system. Walgreens, we're trying to get more integrated into our system, even though the allocation comes from the feds. We know what that allocation is when it arrives at Walgreens and therefore we can help to sort of coordinate that. As we move on, these pharmacy programs are going to be essential in terms of how we look at our vaccination strategy moving forward. Thank you. One last question is Walgreens and Kinney's and any of these other federal programs through these pharmacies, are they required to stay within your timeline and plan for Vermont's eligibility to get vaccinated? Yes, they are. And by the way, Kinney's is under our state program. Walgreens is under the federal program. Thank you. Yes, Secretary of French, many of the questions in the teacher's survey about vaccination interests asks about underlying health conditions. And what are you hoping to learn from those responses? Is it how many teachers will have been covered by previous vaccination efforts or an idea of how many teachers could return to in-person instruction if they receive their vaccine or what are those reasons? Yeah, this is your original question, the health department would like to see that information disaggregated to understand to what extent folks might be covered under the other part of our strategy. Okay, gotcha. And then also teachers are questioning why the survey was sent out this week when half of them were on break. Can you explain that timing? Yeah, again, it was really precipitated based on new supply information that we had coming into the state. We were fully aware that half of the districts were on vacation, but we also had confidence that districts would put the word out. And again, we are seeing a strong response. So it is a pandemic and we have to move forward very quickly on this opportunity to potentially vaccinate school staff. So I appreciate your flexibility. Gotcha, but my last question was, and when you mentioned the recovery plan, you said there were three focus areas in the assessment phase. Can you share what those three focus areas are? Yeah, so we have three focus areas that'll transcend the entire recovery area and they're large, but one is the sort of well-being of students, which would include mental health and the social-emotional well-being. That's one domain. A second is the engagement domain, which I think is really important. As we heard, particularly with the teenagers, a lot of the social activities related to school are probably equally important right now to some of the other more traditional aspects. So that the piece of engagement, which is also where we get at some of the truancy issues and attendance issues. And then the third domain is academics, the core of it. But the point I'll make with those domains is we see them as sort of all being equal. We want schools to focus on all three of those. We think a balance on all three will be critical in our success and recovery. Great, thank you so much. Yes, my question is about this year's graduating class, high school seniors. Are they prepared for or will they be prepared for their next phase in life? And if not, what can be done for them? Yeah, it's a great question. I would think so. I think it's important to remember that this has been one slice of their entire academic career. And I know schools have been really focused on ensuring those seniors are able to move on to their next plans. But again, this pandemic's been disruptive for all students, not just seniors, and certainly for all seniors around the country. So it is a challenging moment for them and my heart goes out to their situation. But I was gonna make the point earlier too. I think one of the questions I received is about how the year would end. And I think it is important that we acknowledge that the year should end on a celebratory note. And I think if we can get back to in-person and really start to focus on developing those plans for recovery, but we should endeavor to end the year on a celebratory note because it's been a tough year for everyone and it'll be great to see everyone back at school and those normal routines, such as proms, I had an email the other day from a parent asking me about proms already. Proms, graduations, all those things that we normally see at the end of the school year would be great to see those back up and running. Okay, thank you. Okay, hi. I'm asking today about the coronavirus and what accounts for immunity. Specifically, if you get the virus, if you've been confirmed to have it and recovered from it, will that count as immunity for purposes of travel, visiting households and so forth? If not, why not? I guess, Commissioner Levine, maybe you could answer that one. So there is a degree of natural immunity that people will have if they had coronavirus, had COVID-19, had the illness. The question would be the durability of that immunity and will it go beyond several months and persist longer into the future? The recommendations currently are for anyone who has had COVID-19 to still get vaccinated because we want to augment that immunity as much as possible. And there's some very important data that just came out regarding from UK that shows that with the Pfizer vaccine, the people who've had prior coronavirus illness can probably suffice to have just one of the two-shot regimen and not require the second shot because their immunity has boosted to such a high degree after the first. Now, this is only in the UK right now and it's only data. And it's the front of the CDC, but it's not active in this country at this point in time. But you'll hear debates about that in a few weeks. Okay. Can you share data that are studies that show that vaccinated people are safe to do all these things? What are the studies on that that you can share? Well, the guidance currently is, again, and we use this is within the 90-day period, we believe people are fine in terms of interacting, not having to quarantine if they come in contact with another case, et cetera. We're not certain yet, yet on the 90-day after the natural infection if that would persist. So we're going with national guidance on that one to this point in time. I think Dr. Levine, I think you were talking about the vaccine, the efficacy of the vaccine and durability of the vaccine. Again, we're just going by CDC guidelines at this point. But behind those CDC guidelines can the Vermont public see the studies that they're using to write those guidelines or does that have to do with the CDC for that? All the references are available on the CDC website. Okay. All right. Thanks a lot. Okay, thank you. Chris, Newport Daily. Yes, good afternoon. I'd like to circle back to the situation at the correctional facility here in Newport. And I understand that there is a lockdown, but I'm wondering exactly what that means and what about the staff who works there? Are they also in lockdown and what's to prevent them from going out in the community and potentially spreading COVID outside on the outside? Secretary Smith. I'll take that, Governor, if you wish. Right now, we only have one staff member in that facility who has tested positive. As you know, Chris, we test those facilities quite often. And once we do have a positive in those facilities, we test them rigorously in that facility. So we know who has COVID at this point. We know that it's one staff person and 21 incarcerated individuals. We'll continue to look at, we'll continue to test to make sure that we have a handle on that. In terms of lockdown, I'll refer you to corrections in terms specifically what that means because it does have a, there's a specific term of what that means and I'll have them get in touch with you, Chris, about what that means. Okay, thank you. And just a quick follow-up. How does something like this happen anyway? You have everybody there, it's supposed to be wearing masks and practicing social distancing. Yeah, Chris, that's a great question and sort of the contact tracing will help us determine that but in the past, what we've determined that the facilities have been maintained to be pretty safe where it's introduced is coming in to that facility from the outside. We're just gonna have to figure that out through contact tracing. And if an inmate refuses to wear a mask, can, again, what's the punishment for that? Do you put them in isolation, put him or her in isolation or? I will have to refer you to corrections and you can ask them that when they call you, how's that? Okay, sounds good. Thank you. Yes, thank you. I had a couple of follow-up questions on the prison outbreak as well. And I'd be happy to take a call for corrections too, but I'm curious, maybe you know off the top, is this the largest outbreak in a Vermont prison since the one, the early one in Swanton? Yeah, I hesitate because I just can't remember but it's one of our, we've had three large outbreaks. We've had the one in Swanton, we've had the one in Mississippi and I think it's this one as well. In state it may be the second, at 21, it may be the second largest, but I don't know the correct answer. Let me get corrections to get back to you on that. Okay, and do you know in the early on there was the establishment of a special arrangement at the St. John's Free Prison for transfers. I feel like that operational standpoint has been phased out long ago. Is the intent to keep everyone at Newport or is there still some aspect of moving positive inmates around? Now, the, right now the aspect, you know, we had that facility because we didn't know in the beginning of what sort of capabilities we had and what capabilities we would need in terms of an outbreak. Because as you know, back in March and April and May of 2020, we didn't know a lot of things in terms of this pandemic. We've gotten a lot better and we believe we can keep these individuals where they are in the facility isolated, especially with our low inmate count throughout the system. And do you know with 22 cases, I guess, up there, are those cases also reflected on the health department dashboard? I see they've had about 24 cases in the last 10 days up in Orleans County. Is it safe to assume that the 22 prison cases are the vast majority of those on the health dashboard? Yeah, I don't know that, but I'll get back to you on that. Okay. And then if I may, one quick follow up for Secretary French, you alluded just a few moments ago with the hope that the school year might be able to end on a positive note. Are you tangling the possibility that there might be problems and graduation ceremonies of some form this year? Andrew, before he answers that question, I just wanted to assure you that we do account for those positives at the correctional facility. They will be on the dashboard, the question. I think Mike was trying to determine whether they already have been or they will be, but they are accounted for. I see. Okay. Well, thanks. I was expressing my hope that we'll be able to do that. I've had several questions from superintendents and principals about end of year celebrations. I basically told them just to stand by on that. We need to, we have some important decisions in front of us relative to vaccination and getting the recovery process oriented. We also don't really have an understanding of what the conditions will be like in June, but I expect somewhere around April one we'll start to contemplate those end of the year situations. Okay. Thank you. Hi, can you hear me? We can. More time. Well, good afternoon, I guess. I guess my question goes towards Secretary Smith. I was wondering if you could refresh our memory on what the plan is for the Motel Hotel that's a program good towards houses, individuals and families and sort of like how the program itself will sort of transition or shift as we move into the summer and the fall. Thank you for the question right now. We have approximately 2,600 people housed in hotel motels that has been consistent since the start of the pandemic. We spend about $75 million a year. Most of it is reimbursed by the federal government right now that won't continue forever. So our plan is to transition to a plan that we've been talking about for a couple of years now and that is to transition to a plan that provides the funding to local areas to bring the shelter in. We won't eliminate the hotel motel program but to bring it down to a more local level where it can be managed at a local level more efficiently and more effectively. That has not changed. We're just making sure that the timing aspect of it is past the pandemic. So right now we're looking at October as the date we would start to transition that program to a more manageable and sustainable program and go back to where we originally were two years ago in moving that program to a more localized program where needs can be assessed, where there isn't all these regulations that have to be sort of applied at the state level that don't really fit the needs of various communities that there's more flexibility in the program. And I think you'll start seeing that implemented as soon as we have a good idea of when we're gonna be coming out of this pandemic. And I suspect by the fall we'll be well beyond coming out of this. Sir, to that point, just yesterday in Washington County there was a public forum organized by some homeless guests at the Hilltop and in Berlin and there's a lot of testimonials raised by guests describing the strengths and weaknesses of navigating DN's system and working with the program. And I know we've heard in the past some concerns around fiscal safety that have gone on and that was touched upon. But some guests also brought up just like the challenges around navigating resources and support from service providers and especially trying to find what is available in terms of the current housing in and around the area. So I guess I was just curious based off of that how do you envision these local service providers being able to manage the transition out of the program when it appears that there've already been challenges in terms of trying to meet everybody's individual needs especially as more people have been brought through the hotel and motel system? Yeah, I mean, we're gonna have to work through those issues with local communities as we move forward. Obviously, the hotel motel system has provided a lot of challenges as well. It's not an ideal situation. We need to move people to permanent housing. That's number one. And we can do that at the local level, I think very in a more flexible manner. Secondly, we've got to eliminate sort of the red tape that's involved in making sure that we address the needs of the homeless which I think we can do at the community level. But right now, the hotel motel program has its challenges too. Even though we are protecting people from COVID, it does have its challenges. We are housing and feeding, like I said, 2600 people, but there are security issues that we have to deal with. There are mental health issues that we have to deal with. There are substance abuse issues that we have to deal with. So the program itself needs to be fundamentally changed once we come out of the pandemic to meet all those needs. And I think we can do it the way that we're looking at it at the community level as we move forward and come out of this pandemic. Okay, and my last question is like, do you have an estimate towards that? I know things are still in the works about the transition come, like you said, October, but do you have an estimate of how, what the reduction to the program would be in terms of how much vouchers would be distributed towards? There's a 2600 desk? Yeah, I don't have that breakdown in terms of, you know, what we've done during the pandemic is loosen up eligibility quite substantially. I think we'll probably go back to eligibility standards at some point in terms of who qualifies for the program. Right now it is, you know, during the pandemic, we've been fairly less restrictive in our regulations dealing on who's qualified for the programs. Do I think that there will be more qualifications that will be applied to the program as we move out of the pandemic? The answer is yes. All right, good. Thank you. Well, thank you very much for tuning in and we'll see you again on Tuesday.