 Good afternoon, everyone. Today we'll have our updated data and modeling presentation. Secretary French will give an update on schools. Secretary Samuelson will discuss hospitals, testing and vaccinations. And Dr. Levine will round us off with a health update. First, as we continue to keep a close eye on the data, and you'll see in Commissioner Pichak's presentation that trends in our region are encouraging. But just like everything else with this virus, there are no guarantees. The good news is, Vermonters continue to step up to get boosted, so they're up to date, and it's making a real difference. As we leave the nation in vaccination and booster rates, we also have the lowest hospitalization rates. For context, if our hospitalization rate matched the national average, we'd have over 250 people in the hospital with COVID today. If we had New York or Nevada's rate, it would be in the 300s. But I want to be clear. Our hospitals are still facing stress, and I share this data only to emphasize how important it is to get vaccinated and boosted. Staying up to date protects you from severe illness and keeps people out of the hospital. And even though we leave the country, there's still about 200,000 Vermonters who are eligible for a booster, but haven't received one. According to the CDC, over 95% of Vermonters over five have begun vaccination, and that number continues to grow. But as well as we've done, we still need to keep working to push this number up. There's no doubt Omicron has caused disruption and stress for hospitals, schools, and businesses. So as we keep moving forward, Vermonters can help themselves and each other by doing the things we talked about for months. Get vaccinated and stay up to date. Stay home when sick. Use testing as a tool, and wear a mask in crowded indoor settings. These common sense approaches work, and they'll keep us heading in the right direction. So with that, I'll turn it over to Commissioner Pecha. Thank you very much, Governor. Good afternoon, everybody. So taking a look at our presentation this week, we start with just a look across the United States map. Cases in the country have not yet seen this clear and steady decline that we're seeing here in the Northeast. But as you can see from the map, a very broad improvement across much of the Northeast and mid-Atlantic. Parts of the country that were hit first with Omicron had the experience most significantly right before the holidays, during the holidays and after the holidays. But still, other parts of the country are seeing their cases either continue to rise or not yet plateau. But fortunately, as the Governor said, we are seeing that improvement here in the Northeast. In New England in particular, cases are down 18 percent over the last week, down 45 percent over the last two weeks. On the next slide, you'll see Vermont overlaid with all of the Northeast states. You can see that the other states in the region did see an impact from Omicron earlier than Vermont. And for the most part, for all of those states, the impact was also more significant in terms of their case counts on a per capita basis got higher than Vermont. And they saw more case counts than Vermont. So a few of those states like New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut, their cases have been coming down around 50 to 60 percent since their peak. Vermont were down about 30 to 40 percent. So that's really good improvement. But we're a little bit behind, maybe by a week or 10 days, some of these other states that saw a much more significant and early impact from Omicron. So getting to Vermont's cases, you'll see that our seven-day average is just over 1,100, 1,121 cases. Again, down 27 percent over the last seven days, down 37 percent over the last two weeks. So again, some really good news here in terms of the trend that we're seeing. But then again, a reminder that our cases continue to be averaging over 1,000 a day. So we want to continue to see those trends go down and want to see some much continued improvement before we are comfortable that things are significantly different than they are at the moment. You'll see that testing has come down over the last week or so, down about 17 percent. But again, our cases are down more significantly than that, down about 27 percent. So the case reduction that we're seeing in Vermont, not an artifact of simply a reduction in testing, does appear to be a real decrease. And there's other metrics to support that as well. Looking at higher education, you'll see one of those examples. We had fewer cases on campus this week, although over 300 cases. But that was when colleges were doing significantly more testing as well, about 2,500 more tests this week compared to last. So more testing this week on college campuses, fewer cases identified. So one example of certainly improvement. One place where we haven't seen that improvement yet is in long-term care facilities. So there are 25 active outbreaks in long-term care facilities. The chart that we show here is showing the facilities that have cases identified. There's about 10 that are not on this chart where the number of cases are not shown. But in total, it's 25 outbreaks and 325 active cases associated with those outbreaks. And I think Dr. Levine will have a little bit more information on that. So turning to the next slide, you'll see this is the forecast page. So again, we anticipate that this trend will continue, that we will see cases come down in Vermont over the next two to three weeks. That through the end of February, hopefully they'll get to a much lower place than they are today, which is certainly very good news. That the trend down is occurring more quickly than we thought it would. We thought we'd start to see this at the end of January. You know, we've been seeing it now for about 14 days. So confident that the trend is moving in the right direction. But again, cases are still high relative to what we were experiencing prior to Omicron. The other thing that will keep a close eye on is some of these international jurisdictions that saw a really significant Omicron peak and then decrease, in particular the U.K., Canada, and South Africa. So in all of those cases, they have seen their COVID-19 positive rate start to slow down in terms of the decrease in recent days. So we want to see if they're going to plateau out at a certain point, or if they're going to continue to see their cases drop to a very low level. That's what we'd hope to see, but want to keep a close eye on that. And for the moment, at least in a couple of these jurisdictions, it does seem like their cases are plateauing out maybe at a little bit higher level than they want to see. So again, just another word of caution as we look to these improved trends in the Northeast and in Vermont. Looking at our statewide hospital numbers, you can see that up about 7 percent. So this is just starting to see some slowdown in our hospital figures overall. We're still reporting over 100 people in the hospital and have been for about 11 days. But we do anticipate starting to see hospitalizations come down over the next week and continue to come down as fewer cases are reported in Vermont. So that means that there are fewer people going to the hospital that need to be treated for COVID. But because there'll be less cases circulating, there'll also be fewer people who are admitted to the hospital for other reasons who happen to test positive while there. So as cases come down, we should see those hospitalization numbers come down for both of those reasons. On the ICU side, we are already starting to see some improvement. The ICU numbers are down about 4 percent over the last week. And you can see that majority of those in the ICU, as in with general hospital beds, are those who are not vaccinated. Looking at our slide that we show every week about that difference between those who are not fully vaccinated versus those who are fully vaccinated and boosted, you can still see that significant difference. Now we have about 280,000 Vermonters who are fully vaccinated and boosted. That population continues to grow. But the number of people requiring hospitalization in that group remains pretty steady. And again, about 11 times difference for those who are fully vaccinated and boosted, compared to those who are not fully vaccinated. Another emphasis that we want to make note of is the fact that older Vermonters continue to go to the hospital at a greater rate than any other age groups. So you can see here the per capita numbers, those over 65, much more likely to end up in the hospital, regardless of their vaccination status. It's just a fact across the board. Although vaccination makes it less likely that you'll need to go to the hospital and that your duration of hospitalization stay will be shorter as well. But again, for those that are in that vulnerable category, something to be mindful of over the next few weeks as cases come down. Fortunately, on the next slide, you'll see that the reported cases of the flu in the hospital, those that need to be hospitalized for the flu, have remained very low so far this year. So that's certainly good news as it relates to not having additional pressure in our hospital systems. And we'll again hopefully see that continue to stay low through the rest of the flu season. In terms of hospitalizations across New England, we mentioned that we think we'll start to see our hospitalizations fall over the next week. You can start to see some of those other states within the Northeast, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts. They're starting to see their hospitalization numbers already clearly ticked down. Again, we think we're just about a week or so behind some of these jurisdictions. We think we'll start to see the same thing over the next week. But even as our hospital improvement has sort of just hopefully started, one thing that we are seeing clearly is an increase in the availability of hospital beds, which certainly is good news. As of today, 65 hospital beds available, 22 ICU beds available. So we've had a trend down in terms of the availability of those types of resources, but that has shifted over the last few days and we're starting to see more availability across the hospitals. So looking at our COVID-19 fatalities, now 523 fatalities for the entire pandemic, you can see we had 43 deaths for the month of January. And just want to make a note of those deaths that we saw for the month of January to date of the 43. So the majority of those deaths when you look at when they tested positive and when they would have been infected occurred when the Delta variant was the dominant variant in Vermont. Minority of those deaths have occurred when Omicron was clearly the dominant variant in Vermont. So we do anticipate that the death rate will stay higher until maybe two or three weeks from now once cases have come down. But we also have to be mindful that a lot of the fatalities that we've been seeing in the month of January were due to the more severe Delta variant rather than the Omicron variant that has become dominant over the last two or three weeks. And again, as we continue to show pretty clearly that if you are not vaccinated and boosted, you have a much greater chance of death if you do contract COVID-19. So over a nine times difference over the last six weeks for those who are not fully vaccinated compared to those who are fully vaccinated and boosted. And then just finally here, a couple of updates on vaccination slides. You can see Vermont continues to lead the nation in those five to 11 who have started vaccination up to 61.6 percent and over 50 percent now fully vaccinated. And as the governor said, Vermonters continue to go and get boosted. Just about 7,800 Vermonters over the last week got their booster shot. So we still have a few hundred thousand that are eligible. We need more and more Vermonters to get that booster shot to put this Omicron wave behind us. And we are doing a pretty good job averaging about 10,000 a week, but we want to see that remain steady and even increase. So if you haven't gotten your booster shot yet, certainly make sure you do that at your earliest convenience. And with that, I'll now turn it over to Secretary French. Thank you, Commissioner Peachek. Good afternoon. Many of our school districts are now transitioning to our new Test at Home strategy. Before I get into an update on how that's going, I just wanted to recap what that strategy is and why we had to make that change. Test at Home expands the use of testing in schools by using antigen tests, which give immediate results. This expansion of testing is coupled with a change in how we are notifying presumed contacts in schools. Previously, this notification process happened through a labor intensive and relatively slow process of contact tracing. With Test at Home, the old contact tracing process in school has been replaced with a more general response notification process. Although Test at Home greatly expands testing, the use of the testing is tied to specific protocols that are founded in our revised guidance at the state level for isolation and quarantine. Basically, these tests are used in schools dependent on the vaccination status of individuals. When vaccinated individuals are presumed contacts, they are eligible to take home two tests to be administered on the fourth and fifth day after their presumed contact, and they would continue to attend school. Unvaccinated individuals who are presumed contacts are eligible to take home five tests, which would be administered daily. They too would continue to attend school if they test negative each day. Another component of Test at Home is school nurses will have tests to conduct screening of symptomatic individuals in schools. This is important since many of the milder symptoms of common colds are like those of COVID-19. So why did we have to make this shift in our policy? The short answer is we had to. Became clear that what we were doing before was not going to work with Omicron, which is more infectious and transmits more rapidly. We saw this play out immediately after the holiday vacation when Omicron was starting to take hold in the state. We saw several schools close not only because of new cases but because they were placing many students in quarantine because of a backlog in contact tracing. We also saw several districts have difficulty with our guidance on stay home when sick. Schools did not have the capacity or the tools to discern the difference between mild cold symptoms and COVID-19 symptoms, so they aired on the side of safety. School nurses who typically would have been involved in making these kinds of clinical decisions often didn't have sufficient time to do so because they were directly involved with logistics of both tests to stay in contact tracing. So test at home was a necessary evolution in our strategy. We made this shift because we had to, not because the timing was ideal or for that matter even good. In fact, this is one of the more challenging moments we've seen in schools during the pandemic, but we are working together as we speak and I'm confident as we get through this moment successfully we'll get through it just like we have all the other twists and turns that this virus has sent us. Test at home is dependent on the supply of tests. We've been working closely with our partner agencies to ensure schools have enough supplies to implement the program. It is part of a broader state strategy to deploy rapid antigen tests in our communities. Secretary Samuelson will provide an update on that larger testing effort in her report. We have had situations where schools have run out of tests sooner than projected in an environment of these very high case counts. Some districts have gone through their supply more quickly than others. When this happens, we rush to provide tests to them as quickly as possible. I just want to reassure parents if your district runs out, don't worry. They will have more tests soon and schools will remain open and you should send your child to school regardless. We are confident we can manage the supply for this program but we're also working on the demand and the demand for the test is not just the function of case counts. It's also a function of us needing to further refine and explain our guidance. So the tests are being handled out in accordance with our recommendations. We are working with school districts to develop additional guidance in the form of FAQs frequently asked questions to refine our protocols and that's ongoing work that started last week. Our overarching goal is to make tests at home as simple as possible to implement but the flip side of that simplicity is the need to be able to manage and predict supply. This will become easier to do so as we continue to iron out the practical aspects of implementing the program and certainly become easier to do as hopefully case counts continue to come down. I am asking Vermont families continue to have patience so schools work through the specifics of the new program. Schools are still the beginning phase of implementing it we're working closely with them to troubleshoot it to make sure it can be implemented in every single district in the state. With the transition to the broader deployment of Anson Chess and their administration at home we have lost some of our reporting capability on cases that could be directly attributed to schools. As a result we stopped updating the school report on the health department website as of January 10th. Lastly I wanted to provide an update on PCR surveillance testing. We are planning to sunset the state level program in the coming weeks. We will work with districts however who are interested in maintaining some form of PCR testing availability in their districts. Districts will have access to lamp testing as well which like PCR is a confirmable test but has the advantage of giving immediate results. That concludes my update I'll now turn it over to Secretary Sanderson. Good afternoon. Today I'll provide an update on our COVID preparedness. I will review the work completed over the last two months and highlight Vermont's and Vermonters ability to adjust and respond to the ever-changing pandemic. We have watched the data carefully, observed what was happening in other countries and other states with Omicron and used that information to help Vermonters plan and prepare. In some cases, like vaccines, we knew that our existing tools were our best options and defense. In other areas like testing, contact tracing, and hospital capacity, we identified ways to adjust in response to the high transmissibility of the Omicron variant. The ability to monitor the data and evolve our response has been a key to Vermont's COVID operations. We are now about a month into the Omicron stage of this ongoing pandemic. I'm going to walk through each of the areas of operations, starting with vaccines, then testing, contact tracing, and hospital capacity and identify what's happening in each of these areas based on the stage that we're currently at. First, and most importantly, we continue our efforts to get as many people vaccinated and boost it as possible. This is our best defense against significant poor outcomes related to COVID and hospitalizations, including with the Omicron variant. As of today, as Commissioner Petschek said, more than 50 percent of children between the ages of five to 11 are currently vaccinated. And over 50 percent of Vermont, 57 percent of Vermonters age 12 and up are currently up to date. While these vaccination rates are leading the nation, we hope to see more Vermonters become up to date in their vaccinations. And we continue to make vaccinations as convenient and easy as possible to get, including boosters, which are widely available across the state. In December and January, Vermonters received over 195,000 doses of COVID vaccine at pharmacies, public health clinics, through our healthcare providers, and through other providers. With the recent updates to the recommendations for children and booster vaccines and on boosters, there continues to be a focus on school vaccines, including 145 clinics offered in December and January. And 38 clinics scheduled in schools between now and early February. In addition, we are spreading out into the communities and going to events, worksites, and other areas where Vermonters are congregating to make it easier for them to get vaccines. This includes holiday shopping, worksites, and ski resorts and more recently winter festivals. We have more than 98 clinics spread across the state in December and January so far. We currently have 65 clinics planned through the end of February and we're adding more every day. To schedule an appointment, you can go to healthvermont.gov backslash COVID-19 backslash vaccines. If you're an employer, a community organization, or a group holding a gathering, we would be excited to come to you. Simply contact us by going to healthvermont.gov and clicking on your community. Testing is an area where we've had significant effort. We have evolved our testing strategy that in addition to offering PCR tests which have been critical throughout the pandemic, we are working to get many rapid tests into the hands of Vermonters to take home where they can test in the privacy of their own home. In the face of national shortages, we've still been able to expand our test the supply of rapid tests coming into Vermont. As part of this effort since early December, we have increased the number of test manufacturers that we're supplying for tests in Vermont from one to five and that has allowed us to focus on getting tests of vulnerable Vermonters, keeping schools open and ensuring that critical infrastructure is able to operate. We've done this all the while continuing to make sure that we're getting rapid tests in the hands of the general public. All told more than one million rapid tests have been distributed in Vermont since late December. For the general population that's been more than 450,000 tests or more than 100,000 distributed through public testing sites and 350,000 distributed through the online program Say Yes which was conducted in partnership with the National Institutes of Health. Focusing on schools more than 175,000 tests were targeted for the return to the K-12 schools after the holiday break. In addition in the month of January more than 440,000 rapid tests have gone out to advance several of our testing programs as discussed by Secretary French for schools and also for our childcare providers. This effort is designed to keep kids in schools and in classrooms and children in their day care providers. That's more than 600,000 tests focusing on keeping kids in schools and in childcare. For our vulnerable Vermonters since late December 30,000 rapid tests have been distributed through organizations serving our BIPOC community through food shelves, homeless shelters, emergency housing sites, senior centers, after school programs, libraries and churches and parent child centers just to name a few. Plans are in place to double that amount hoping to distribute an additional 30,000 kits to these partners in the coming weeks. It's important to remember that the expansion of the rapid tests are on top of our PCR testing system. Over the same time frame from December through today Vermonters have accessed more than 300,000 PCR tests through the public testing programs and sites. This includes through healthcare providers, employers and other providers across the state. As we look forward we will continue to maintain our PCR based testing system and expand the availability of rapid take home tests. Through the federal government individuals in Vermont can also get tests online by going to covidtests.gov. You can also call 855-722-7878 if you're interested in finding out more about when it's appropriate to test and when not. On contact tracing Vermont stood up one of the best contact tracing programs in the country and it has truly slowed down the spread of covid. But traditional contact tracing done by health officials is less effective with a more transmissional omicron variant. And Vermont has pivoted towards arming Vermonters with information they need to isolate and reach out to their contacts. This transition started nearly two months ago as has been discussed in several press conferences with the newest evolutions occurring in just earlier this month. Dr. Levine will cover it in more detail momentarily but it's important to note that our evolution in contact tracing is part of our strategy to follow the science and the data and to keep pace with the covid variants and it's in line with our national experts. Lastly on our healthcare system we continue to fund 139 subacute beds which allows hospitals to transfer patients who no longer need hospital level of care to subacute settings. This helps to reduce the pressure on our hospital system. Like other components of our pandemic operations ensuring the continuity of operations in our healthcare system has evolved. Over the past three weeks the burden on hospitals and healthcare settings has shifted from the number of cases in the hospitals to the number of staff who were out due to the covid. Vermont has managed to maintain the staffing needs to keep our hospitals and healthcare organizations functional initially by bringing in 30 EMS staff and paramedics from FEMA to three hospitals. That cadre has now been reduced to 20. We recognize that other states had greater needs and anticipated this decline in the FEMA staffing With this in mind we leveraged a statewide staffing contract to bring more staff to our healthcare providers. Today 104 staff are available in long term care facilities hospitals and human services providers through the healthcare staffing company TLC with more than 30 staff on their way to Vermont by the end of the month. This crucial resource resources are being deployed where they're needed the most and to best serve Vermonters and our healthcare system. Finally 27 members of the National Guard are supporting some of our hospitals by providing food service maintenance phlebotomy and patient observers. This help is critical. Through these efforts as we change and adapt our policies and programs our healthcare workers are holding strong but they could use your recognition and encouragement. As you'll recall at the beginning of the pandemic there was a lot of footage both in Vermont and across the country of Americans going outside and expressing their gratitude and showing solidarity in various ways for healthcare providers including first responders. As we move into the third year of managing the pandemic healthcare workers have been on the front lines vaccinating testing and caring for those who are sick. So if you know someone who works in the healthcare field no matter what they do give them a call send them a text or drop them an email to let them know that you're grateful for their work. And if you're unvaccinated the best thing you can do is to get vaccinated to show your support for them. And I'd also want to thank all the state employees for their work and unprecedented collaboration supporting our testing tracing and vaccines and other operations. These dedicated state employees continue to work in partnership with so many Vermonters to support the response and infrastructure we have in place. With all of that said I'd like to turn it over to Public Health Commissioner Dr. Levine. Thank you. So we are continuing to see hopeful signs from the latest surge driven by the Omicron variant. As you've seen cases appear to have peaked in the northeast and are on the down slope. We hope this will lead to lower rates of transmission here in Vermont over the next coming weeks something we'd all very much welcome. Now our case rates are following an improving trend. We've also seen corroborating evidence from our Burlington wastewater collection showing improvements in the levels of Omicron detected in all of the stations that are tested in that municipality. Now one key indicator which is our hospitalization rate which was considered high but as you can as you saw that's for Vermont and the governor has aptly illustrated the fact that it is certainly not high when compared to the national experience and these numbers have come down from their prior peak and are really in a steady range over the last week or so. ICU bed availability has been sufficient and on any given day at most only a handful of ICU patients are on ventilators. This is testimony both to the presumed lower virulence of Omicron but also our ability to manage a patient's breathing in non-invasive ways. Now many of you have been asking for some time and have questions about how do we count COVID hospitalizations. In short there are two categories those who are hospitalized for COVID and those who are diagnosed with it after being hospitalized for other reasons. Of the people in the hospital who have COVID about 67% went in because of their COVID related illness and about a third were in the latter category where they were in for another reason but tested positive for COVID. Suffice it to say though that every one of these patients are treated and attended to as appropriate for their COVID status and require significant hospital resources and manpower. Things like do they require isolation? How are they provided for with hospital resources? PPE staff exposure all other aspects of hospitalization remain important for both groups. Now while we look forward to a time unless virus is in our communities we need to remember COVID is still here. Case rates lower than the peak are far from zero. It is not going away just yet. We've seen how quickly the virus can and does change but the good news is that it continues that Omicron seems much milder for many people especially those who've been vaccinated and boosted. Now while I am certainly delighted that our state ranks first in the percentage of remoders who have been boosted and I firmly believe much of our favorable hospitalization data is because we are so highly boosted. I must once again emphasize that being over 50 or 60 percent boosted for the age 18 and over population is still not nearly good enough. I'd love to see that percentage much closer to 90 so if you are eligible and haven't yet gotten around to it please jump up go out today and get your booster that takes almost no time at all or at least make a plan to do so by the end of this week. Now we use the term variants a lot allow me to remind you that variants are viral mutations. The mutation of viruses is a lot like evolution in real time overdrive. With a planet of people to work with COVID has certainly fine tuned its ability to spread. The Omicron varied and so contagious it causes many infections still and compelling public health officials worldwide to quickly consider how best to respond to this evolving situation. Now Vermont began adjusting its strategy earlier this month. We've begun moving to rapid testing in schools and discontinued the slow laborious and increasingly ineffective process of universal contact tracing. Replacing it with a much more targeted effort in the age of Omicron. This strategy I'm delighted to say today has now been supported by national public health leaders the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists and other leading public health organizations just released a statement supporting health departments in making just this type of transition away from universal contact tracing and case investigation. In their statement they note many of the points we've spoken of here previously. The shorter incubation period of Omicron which means the highest risk of transmission occurs before symptoms begin or before a positive test. The large number of infections that are asymptomatic or mild cases which often means many people never seek testing. Mild cases that never undergo testing and the results of self-tests that are not reported and widespread vaccination which is protecting a large portion of us from the most severe outcomes. So this is why we are continuing with this shift in Vermont fully moving away from contact tracing for the general population as it is simply no longer effective against this fast moving variant. We continue to base such decisions on the current science evaluating the data and evolving our practices so as to protect and promote the best health for Vermonters. Now the Health Department had already been prioritizing contact tracing for those at higher risk and asking all Vermonters who tested positive to isolate immediately and reach out to close contacts. Let me assure you that contact tracing for COVID will still be done in certain high risk settings like congregate residential settings long-term care facilities shelters correctional facilities where it can still have an impact and it remains an important public health tool and will continue to be used for many other important infectious diseases just not the current variant of SARS-CoV-2. On an individual basis the Health Department will be contacting all Vermonters who have tested positive for COVID-19 when we receive a lab result. This will help ensure that people quickly receive the guidance they need to isolate and notify their own contacts as we've already been asking them to do they'll also be connected to specific resources if they are in need. So if you do get a call from the Health Department please know it is likely because we've received a positive result and answer the call you need to make sure you have the information you need to protect yourself your loved ones and your community. It'll be a very brief call since there won't be a lot of questions asked about your exposures or your contacts. The reason for the call is to go over the steps to take now and talk about what needs you may have. With these tools we can empower Vermonters to add quickly to slow the further sped of the virus right now. During the Omicron surge it's critical to stay home if you feel sick wear a mask indoors avoid crowds and gather safely. Help encourage others to get vaccinated and boosted. And although treatments for COVID are limited by the federal supply right now please reach out to your health care provider if you are at higher risk and have tested positive. I also want to speak very briefly about concerns that student athletes their parents the VPA and schools have regarding return to play after COVID. The pandemic has led to a seemingly endless set of complex hoops for us all to jump through. Not the least our families and schools trying to manage all aspects of education and extracurriculars. Keep in mind that Omicron has only been in this country and this state on the order of weeks and not months. The national organizations that sell guidelines and provide guidance to our health care professionals are working quickly to try to bring their guidance in line with the science as it develops real time. I can't promise that these recommendations will unfold any less complicated than they have but I can assure everyone that any requirements will continue to be driven by the science and the medical decision making process of pediatricians providers and students and families. All with the goal of safeguarding the health of the individuals as well as their fellow athletes and their school community. I want to end on a final note to address a topic that seems to be coming up more now that we're dealing with a relatively milder variant in a highly vaccinated population. Should we all just get COVID and get it over with? My answer is no and I'll give you a few reasons why. Even though many of us are vaccinated and highly protected from serious outcomes we cannot always predict who may become seriously ill. Also our hospitals remain strained albeit more by workforce issues than bed capacity and if you do get sick enough to go to the hospital you may face delays in care and you'd only be adding to their strain. Your own health may be just fine but you could still spread the virus to someone else who's too young to get vaccinated or is vulnerable and at higher risk for COVID. No one wants to be sick now. Even milder COVID symptoms can be miserable for some and the inconveniences of having to miss school or work while you're isolating can really add up. Not to mention we still don't have a lot of data about Omicron and long COVID or whether and how soon you could be infected again. And we do expect more treatment options are on the way in addition to access to rapid tests and high quality masks. The longer we can avoid getting Omicron the more likely we are to have more options to protect ourselves and others moving forward. As always, I want to thank all Vermonters for their patience during this tumultuous time. I know how difficult it is to adjust to changing guidance as new science comes to light but I hope we can all maintain our shared value for public health as we begin to emerge from this latest surge together. Governor. Thank you Dr. Levine. We'll now open it up to questions. On that front is there any talks of needing a second booster shot anytime soon and what made that look like as far as a timeline goes? So there is no talk in the United States for needing a second booster shot so no timeline either. It's really going to be evaluated over the course of the next calendar year to see how well boosting induced immunity is maintained. I will comment that the country of Israel has of course gotten way ahead of the curve on this starting with people age 60 and older or higher risk and now they're trying to expand that to younger portions of the population. Many in their country though in the scientific community do admit that they too are still accumulating the data and they may not have the data yet to fully support certainly any U.S. switch in policy at this time. Before you leave. I just wanted to ask about the very encouraging optimistic presentation that Secretary excuse me Commissioner Pichek gave. I just gave you a promotion. It's I think for monitors appreciate that optimism. We want reasons to be optimistic but if the data is not really complete because I think we all know that people aren't necessarily reporting the self-test data. How much confidence should we have in that data? I would still have a lot of confidence in it because we're seeing a consistent amount of testing throughout most of those days that the data has been provided for. So even though we know there's all this additional testing superimposed on the testing system we know we get results from. I think we can be pretty confident about that. I think we'll also start to see really based on the hospital data being in a very stable place that we're not seeing additional new cases all the time that would have gotten more serious because even as we said earlier when you have a less severe variant you may have less people in the hospital but when you have way more people with that less severe variant you'll still have more people in the hospital proportionately and we're not seeing that happen at this time. Did you want to say something as well? Dr. Levine mentioned it during his presentation but the wastewater detection from Burlington is sort of confirmatory in terms of the trend that we're seeing with the the amount detected trending down most recently you know that cuts through the fact whether somebody doesn't test at all whether they do an at home test whether they do PCR test it's sort of you know collecting you know independent of that. So you know one of our largest communities in Vermont sort of confirming that downward trending cases similar to what was being seen in Boston and Massachusetts in terms of their wastewater reduction and then their case reduction as well. So I just think another important data point. Guesses if there's a million tests that have been distributed since December do we have any guesses about how many unreported self-test results are out there? Anyone want to venture a guess? I wouldn't venture a guess but we have an excess of 5,000 positive results that have been reported which is a huge number and just to add and belabor the point you know from the very beginning we've said we're going to watch the hospitalizations and that's what we've done and when you couple that with the number of people in the hospital with COVID not because of COVID I think it does make the point that we're seeing a milder variant but if we keep focusing on the hospitalizations the health of Vermonters I think that's the best metric to use and it's consistent so that's why we've done it from the beginning Governor maybe a quick follow for Dr. Levine we don't know I guess what do we know about this new VA 0.2 variant I guess it's an offshoot with Omicron there's a few cases courted out in Washington what can you tell us about this new variant? Absolutely nothing there's just not a lot of information right now and I don't think it's being pretty confident it's not being listed as a variant of concern I'm not even sure if it's graduated to the variant of interest level at this point in time I also want to just say the 5,000 actually 200 plus cases that I mentioned earlier are since December 20th so literally in a one month period What time this week or when this week Vermonters can expect to get the N95 masks in pharmacies and community health centers? Maybe Is commissure Shirley on? I am Governor I was hard to hear the question I think it was how many N95 masks in the stock No it was when they will be distributed this week I think distribution is going on a rolling basis so I'd have to check for an update for emergency management to get you a specific timeline for for various areas We can get that to you Jolie I'm back back to your question and about the the comment about the variant I just think we all have to be aware and prepared there's going to be other variants that's the nature of the beast and something that we've seen and they'll be in different forms and hopefully if they are a variant of the Omicron it'll be much less severe so that's what we're hoping for but but again this is something that we have to be prepared for over the next a couple of years not not something to be concerned with but just be something to be aware of Governor Scott something not totally related you proposed using half of the surplus in our education fund to give money back to Vermont home owners you treated that out recently and got some backlash on Twitter folks saying that there are plenty of ways that that money could be used to improve various parts of the education system so what would your response be to people who think that 45 million dollars should go back into the education system? Yeah, well we spend a billion dollars for education we have a lot of money right now in relief money S or dollars S or one S or two S or three hundreds of millions of dollars still there to invest in different aspects of education this is something you know that Vermont is overpaid they paid too much over and above what was needed so it just from my standpoint it should be returned to them in some way at least part of it and I think it's the right thing to do because again we can spend money we can continue to spend money but but at some point Vermont I think I've identified this from the very beginning I think affordability is an issue for us and if we have an opportunity to make it a little more affordable by giving some back I think we should do so maybe Secretary French anything you want to add to that I can't go ahead yeah I think you know to echo the governor's comments there's it's an interesting dilemma to have for the education fund but it is it's a moment where there's a lot of federal dollars coming into the state and school districts you know we think about like school construction projects and so forth money's not necessarily the issue with those projects sometimes it's often finding the contractors to do the work finding the workers to do the work and so forth so it is an interesting moment and you know I would agree that it reminds me of any annual conversation about a school district surplus you have that you have to balance those needs with providing immediate relief to the taxpayers that the governor mentioned it's essentially money they overpaid in the form of their taxes and that that needs to be reconciled with the needs of the system are but right now the systems in pretty good shape relative to the additional federal dollars that are coming in so I think it's it's a reasonable approach and one that should be embraced by policymakers Governor Scott what do you make of the latest version of the the budget adjustment act that's the senate is looking to pass track this week put on your desk and specifically what do you make of the the $15 million investment in the pension funds well again there's a hundred and fifty million that's been set aside they took another 50 million for whatever they have agreed upon but I think I it was two weeks ago I said that the devil is always in the details and I don't have any details in the same same thing holds true today I don't have any details on what this does and and I don't mind paying down debt I don't mind making investments but in this case want to be sure that it makes the structural changes that won't lead us into the same position we're in today so if this doesn't fix the problem if we put 200 million or and I've heard upwards to 300 million I just not sure what the figure is but if if we're going to invest 200 million into the the pensions we we probably should make sure that we're we're laying this out so it's sustainable in the future and I don't know if it does that or not as you might recall it was just two or three years ago I was in a bit of a disagreement with the legislature on how to spend I think it was 34 million they wanted to put it into pensions and said that it would reduce our our liability reduce our payments that didn't hold true I mean our payments are increasing not decreasing that investment didn't didn't do any good because we didn't make the structural changes to give us a best return so again the devil is in the details and we just have not seen the details unless you have or others have I just we just haven't seen them but look forward to them and look forward to working with the legislature on this Governor another question about COVID since we last saw you in this venue Vermont passed the very sad milestone of 500 deaths of course you know there more than a number there human beings would you mind just sort of reflecting for us on what that milestone meant to to you and what it should mean to all Vermonters who lost that many neighbors yeah I think again every death is tragic and in particular with with COVID it's it's something you know years ago three years ago two years ago we didn't expect and while we still you know one of the leaders in the nation in terms of deaths per capita it still means something that it's a family member a friend a colleague who is who has passed the way due to due to the virus so it from my standpoint it continues to be a point what we have to continue to reflect on and it's not just a number but it's a reason for us to do the very best we can to get people of accident to get them boosted try to put this behind us so that we don't have any additional deaths in the future but but we can again we can be proud of the fact that we've done we're one of the best states in the nation in terms of of preventing death but we still tragically had too many deaths as a result Dr. Levine we heard a lot today the term being up to date you know get up to date on your vaccine is that what we're now using instead of fully vaccinated you know can you reconcile the but the terminology is that we're using now yeah I think the word's fully vaccinated now antiquated archaic we shouldn't use that anymore we should consider fully protected and up to date those are really I think the words that count the most unfortunately that's what we're saying in Vermont but you know depending on where you go there may be different terminology used but the belief is if you really want to consider yourself protected you need to be boosted and you know it's wonderful that you chose to get your primary vaccine series but having done that you now need to just keep up just like you do with your tetanus shots move now onto the phone starting with Wilson Ring AP um Hi everybody as always thank you for doing this Governor a month or so ago you mentioned how many people and you think there are in Vermont who have not who have either not been not been infected or not been vaccinated and I think the number you said at the time was about a hundred thousand what would you estimate that number is now and at the same time more recently you said something to the effect of if you're not vaccinated you're going to get it and how many people are remained to in both of those categories and it might be the same number well again in my remarks I mentioned the CDC has us at 95 percent in terms of of those who have been vaccinated in some capacity so that would leave us to believe there's probably 30,000 that have not received any type of vaccination whatsoever but again as we've seen if you haven't been up to date and fully protected you're still at risk of contracting this disease the COVID but but you're much much better protected at the more up to date you are so I think we've seen over the last few weeks that that that fact held true that if you weren't protected in some way it wasn't just a question of if it was just a question of when and we saw a number of people who were unvaccinated contract this this latest variant the Omicron and then how many do you think are in that category who are unprotected is that the 30,000 you mentioned I'm just pulling that out the top of my head maybe Commissioner Peach can give some some numbers and numbers to it yeah thanks Wilson I think the two categories are those that have natural immunity and those that have vaccination immunity and just from the natural natural immunity standpoint you know we just went over 100,000 cases today in in Vermont so out of 600 and you know 23,000 plus people we've always said that there's some number of unreported infections you know the the actual amount of infections that are incurring that used to be like two you know two and a half times maybe with Omicron the estimates are maybe it's you know four or five times the number of cases that we're seeing so you know there's at this point quite a few people that have gotten COVID in Vermont now whether they still have natural immunity if they got in March 2020 to now probably not so that's part of the calculation that's kind of hard to determine if you look at how many people are fully vaccinated how many are rather how many people are not fully vaccinated who are eligible you know there's maybe 70,000 or so that are not fully vaccinated or eligible there's another 33,000 maybe that are under five years old so you know when you put those populations together you get down to a pretty small number that probably hasn't either had natural immunity or some vaccination immunity okay and a final question on all of this you keep asking encouraging people to get vaccinated or boosted or both do you think that message you've been using that message well since the vaccines rolled out and they became available do you think people are still listening well I think something is working I don't know if they're listening to us or they're just doing the right thing but we're a leader in the nation in regards to boosting and vaccination rates so something is getting through and again I'm not saying that we should take credit for that but it's been a consistent message from the very beginning and we are seeing the benefit of that but we've continued to need people to keep you know moving forward we still need people to to become up to date with their vaccinations and being boosted Dr. Levine and I think the data that Commissioner P-check showed on one slide basically shows every week we continue to have abundant people come to mostly get boosted their majority are boosting and not starting a fresh series just because there aren't so many left who need to start a fresh series so I think they are hearing the message and to sort of synthesize both your questions into one the message is not that you're going to get sick from Omicron so why get vaccinated because yes even if you're you're vaccinated and boosted you may actually test positive or have a mild illness from Omicron but the most important message is you're not going to be a statistic you're not going to be in the hospital you're not going to be in the ICU you're much less likely to be a death if you've gotten the full vaccine series and been boosted and that's what the vaccines are here to protect us all from okay thank you very much the other aspect of all of this on Vermont is the level of difficulty due to our demographics we're the one of the top three third oldest states in the nation and achieving what we've been able to achieve whether it's hospitalizations or deaths is remarkable and is a testament to what Vermonters are doing because it this has affected the elderly more than anyone else both in terms of death and in terms of hospitalizations so so we have a lot to be proud of because of again adding that the level of difficulty due to our our age thank you Chris Roy Newport Daily Express we'll move to Joseph Gresser Barton Chronicle Joseph we can see you but I think you might be being able to move to Lisa Loomis value reporter oh I see Lisa and the Lisa Loomis value reporter hello can you hear me we can great I'm back in the nick of time um Dr. Levine you mentioned that when the health department calls there's calling very specifically to give people information about how to contact what to do if they test positive but you also mentioned that the health department would help people with resources what does that mean specifically does that mean access to food shelter money to pay for not working at least two out of three of those for sure so if you're unable to isolate alone or in a home or don't have a home or what have you or you're putting others at risk and you want to go to a facility where you can be isolated that can be established during that call if you are able to isolate but you're concerned about things like deliveries of food groceries medications what have you that's when all of that information can be transmitted needs established and a path forward for you so that's what's the intention for that great thank you very much and I want to follow up on Jolie's question to Commissioner Sherling about the availability of KN-95 and N-95 masks for adults and children what I heard was a very generic response in that they're being rolled out throughout the state can we get some more clarification on that do they exist how many exist and how will distribution take place certainly it's not that that information is available it's that I don't have that information in front of me right now emergency management it's a managing and I've been immersed in legislative activity for the last few days so I just don't have an updated assessment at a minimum there are a number of sites around the state where masks are being distributed simultaneous to testing and vaccination operations although I would caution that those we don't want people to go to those sites specifically to get masks in terms of what's available we have upwards of three million masks the varying types to 0.2 million procedure mask something on the order of 700,000 KN-95 and another half a million medical grade N-95s which would not be distributed publicly I just note that they exist those are for medical use and I can get more information I've actually already requested more information we can get to break down this distribution operations just in if I have it great because people would like to know where are those sites where they could go pick up such masks and will those sites where masks are available be linked on the state vaccination and testing website in some place? important to note so you've seen that an interesting an opportunity to again remind folks that masks of really of all types are at this stage ubiquitously available around the state from hardware stores to grocery stores pharmacies et cetera so finding them that they are not a rare commodity as they were in early 2020 when we were stockpiling so the first bet to have easy access to masks is to look to local retailer even online retailers the price of those masks are fairly nominal at this stage a couple of other quick notes around masks layering is something that is recommended so if you've got a cloth mask you can find instructions online or layering that with a procedure or surgical mask to increase efficacy and additionally of note that when you if you do get a hold of something like a KN95 whether that's through retail or through one of our distribution mechanisms that it is they're not being distributed as medical grade so if you you shouldn't be in close proximity to someone who's a known COVID patient or someone who's in isolation or quarantine they are precautionary and while they have a higher grade of efficacy against the Omicron variant based on testing precautions are still necessary so all the opportunity to provide a variety of context around masking and and the various options and opportunities thank you I do appreciate that and with all due respect there are many people in our state who can't necessarily afford to purchase proper masks from the hardware store and I think that availability and ready knowledge of where people who can't afford to buy protective masks where they can pick up those masks will be important going forward we'll get back to you at that shortly thank you very much that's it for me Karen Potanko VT Digger so I kind of wanted to hear more about the experience of long-term care facilities as they are experiencing what appears to be the biggest surgeon cases since basically winter of 2020 you know we we have some details about how how cases have risen in long-term care facilities but have you listed a data on kind of severe illness and deaths among long-term care residents? Dr. Levine yes thanks for asking that Aaron because that that table that was shown earlier can be rather imposing I guess would be the word and make you think the worst so indeed we are seeing many many more cases in long-term care facilities I've gotten a recent report from a healthcare facility outbreak prevention and response team which basically is mostly reassuring some of the cases are in the staff who generally are younger and having milder illnesses though of course it precipitates absenteeism and stresses the workforce more the cases that are in many of the residents of these facilities are either test positive but no symptoms or very mild symptoms there are of course some very very vulnerable people who live in our highest level of care facilities the skilled nursing facilities that have many underlying illnesses and even a mild or moderate case of COVID can really be the straw that breaks the camel's back and make them quite ill or even cause death when we look at our outbreaks across facilities right now even when the outbreaks are in the 20s and 30s or more of people generally those facilities are showing zero one or two deaths at most so it's not anywhere like the beginning of the pandemic when we would have 50 to 100 people in a facility and unfortunately because it was really in an error pre-testing pre-vaccine pre-any treatments that we had available we would see a significant number of deaths so it's a very very different picture right now not to minimize the fact people are getting infected in those facilities but due to the very high vaccination rate of the residents themselves the majority of them are actually doing well the long-term care on Buzman's office just published a report expressing concern that most staffing levels in long-term care facilities have led to a reduction of care at all levels not only for COVID but for other aspects of the residents life as well it's the state planning to do kind of any additional follow-up to that report or kind of analyze it in the context of COVID about whether there's anything we can do to help long-term care facilities that are under this strain so what I can say is I need to see the report because I haven't yet seen that report but our department of aging and independent living really is the regulatory arm of what happens in those facilities so they are pretty up to date on the status of care and the quality of care and actually intervene when needed when that's an issue the state as Secretary Samuelson recited today has done a tremendous amount for providing for care when the facilities themselves had no other caregivers to provide through a variety of contracts that we've had that have allowed beds to be opened up and open beds to remain staffed at times of workforce stress as we're in now so that's about the best I can do to answer that at this point in time okay I see that there probably has been anyone from Dale on the call would someone from AHS like to comment on that I don't know if you have anything to add I don't believe there's anyone from Dale but Secretary Samuelson is coming to the podium yeah I don't have anything to add at this point I think Dr. Levine is correct we've done a significant amount of effort to get staffing into those facilities in some rare instances we are helping to support facilities who are struggling with staffing in order to keep up their care but I I'll have to look at the report and get back to you to be able to specifically comment on it okay thank you and just you bring up a good point Erin in terms of staffing whether it's the hospitals or the long-term care facilities or any of the psychiatric facilities we have everyone is facing staffing shortages as well as every single sector across the state whether it's law enforcement or manufacturing so this is an area that as you know I've pinpointed in the budget everything is revolving around workforce and how do we grow our workforce and in healthcare being one so we hope the legislature it seems as though they have they have the same interests at this point so we'll see what we can do because this isn't going away after COVID even subsides but we're still going to have these staffing shortages throughout okay that's it for me Tom Davis Compass Vermont Thanks, Jensen I'm trying to understand exactly what the protocol is when getting information from the state police our team ran a story because the state police was seeking information for missing juvenile in the Northeast Kingdom it's from the Derby Barracks and Compass Vermont published that story I'm not hearing anything we followed up three times at the action barracks and then once in Montilier just to find out if there's any update on the status and receive no information we understand that sometimes in suing circumstances can be confidential but it's best a status report is something I'm wondering if there's a protocol to be able to get that Mr. Shirley certainly and my lucky day for questions today you should be getting a response even when or if there isn't any information to add excuse me Adam Silverman our public information officer that would be the first stop and if that doesn't work if Adam is off or encumbered with something certainly called a barracks ask to speak with a supervisor or the barracks commander and if you get no response feel free to email or call me and I will still take one if I can just loop back to Lisa's question no granular detail yet but the distribution methodology for Vermonters need masks but can afford them is through the agency of human services field offices who are also doing distribution to community service agencies and in their particular districts so Vermonters are listening and they need masks the first call I would suggest is to any community service agency that you might be engaged with and in the event that you are not the human services office would be able to point you to where to get a mask or or actually give you one if you were to stop in there okay thank you I would like to point out that we sent out two emails made two calls left two messages at the barracks and then did contact Mr. Silverman who's usually pretty quick at responding but this one has just gone unresponded to so I do appreciate knowing how to continue to get information just because the public sits worried not knowing what the circumstances are I will pay me a public information officer now and if you don't have a response of some sort by the end of the day feel free to reach out to me appreciate your help thanks very much that's all I have Greg Lamaroe the county courier I think we had you for a second Greg move to Guy Page from our daily Chronicle hello governor question for you or or Commissioner Levine or or Secretary French I've heard that some Vermont high schools are requiring EKGs for student athletes who are who have tested COVID positive could you comment on this and say whether this is a a growing trend or not yeah this is a return to sports I think Commissioner Levine had spoke about this in his remarks but maybe you can elaborate a little bit more I'll keep this rather general because even before we get updated guidelines that are Omicron specific which haven't happened yet the long-standing guidelines throughout the pandemic have been for ascertaining the level of illness in symptomatology that the high school student would have had with their illness and coming to a clinical judgment about the need for an EKG based on that so obviously someone with a mild cold and nothing else would not necessarily need an EKG though they might need still a graduated return and a number of days till return but someone with a more moderate or significant illness or someone with some underlying pre-existing issues might require an EKG so it would be inappropriate to just generalize and say any high school student that had a positive COVID test needs an EKG first and I'm not aware if schools are actually doing that but certainly the pediatric community is not doing that so you're not aware of this happening in Vermont schools well it's the schools don't necessarily make the decision it's a it's a medical decision made between the healthcare provider for the student and the student so the school may develop its own policy I suppose but they've been usually very respectful of the medical community being able to assure them that if a student has been ascertained to be ready to return to play sports that all the appropriate diagnostic and other interventions have been made before that decision was made thank you I'm also wondering if given the the low rates of hospitalization among children and the hopefully reduced of virility of alomacron and the high vaccination rates at some point when will our our schools be returning to a parent the parents deciding about masking and not this not school districts Hi guys this is Dan French when our most recent updated guidance might recall we have a recommendation on 80% vaccination rate and masking we push that back to February 28th so that isn't a direct answer to your question but it gives you a sign of sort of where our thinking is at the moment we're going to evaluate the circumstances and will as we have throughout the pandemic revise our recommendations accordingly so could you expand on that a little bit I'm sorry I missed seeing the the context of that yeah so our long-standing recommendation for this school year starting at the beginning of school is that school districts should require masks for students we have an exception in that so when a student vaccination rate level in a school reaches 80% the mask may be removed we push back the implementation of that recommendation I believe three times now and most recently pushed it back to after February vacations which is approximately February 28th and in our most recent guidance we signaled that not only pushing it back to the 28th but we'll also reevaluate it at that point so at the moment everyone wears the masks and on February 28th they're going to look at okay what do we what do we do now we're going to even be thinking about the whole 80% 80% mark yeah right now it's our recommendation that school districts require masks and that we've deferred action on the 80% exception until February 28th okay all right thank you Andrew McGregor Caldonian record yes thanks for Secretary French again questions on the test at home policy are schools expected or allowed to verify the testing is being completed at home when called for thank you for the question now actually there is no expectation that they do so as part of our I'll say compromise in our policy to alleviate some of that surveillance strain on schools to monitor essentially the public health policy so there is no expectation that they do that essentially I would say an honor system in that regard the trade-off is that we're we're now sending out far more tests into the community than we did previously do schools have any recourse to turn kids away when it's known families are choosing not to test no what about when students are being sent to school who are symptomatic or known to be positive if they're symptomatic that is something that we address in schools in our guidance as well symptomatic students should not be attending school but you know the same the scenarios you describe existed prior to test at home and you know I would argue part of what we saw going on before that led to a lot of stress in schools was a lot of the conflict that was being set up between school nurses in particular and parents in terms of cooperating and just the broader sense of fatigue that was setting in so one of the certainly one of the aspects of tests at home I think that will be more successful is not only the the broader distribution of testing but also a higher degree of cooperation I think it'll be easier for folks to comply with cooperation I think students and staff still allowed to attend school even when the school lacks the sufficient supply of tests and and they may you'd like to be testing is that a true statement I miss the last part of the question but yes even when supplies aren't there we've had issues where schools didn't have supplies to continue that students are allowed to continue to attend school what do you say the school staff and families that feel all of this is a step in the wrong direction in terms of keeping school safe yeah certainly I think you know you point to a lot of the anxiety that came up pretty pretty immediately enforceably when we announced this need to do to pivot but I think it's just important to acknowledge you know again that you know we've heard from Dr. Levine his colleagues and the broader medical community and now at the national level that you know if folks were having some comfort in the idea of comfort contact racing or surveillance testing in this environment they that perhaps should not have and we think this new approach will provide a greater degree of safety but also I think equally important and this is I think important to acknowledge as part of this newest approach we're also balancing the risk for education of students not being in school and we had earlier this fall we had large numbers of students being excluded from school and that brings a lot of risk even with test to stay which was a more targeted approach we saw I think a 1% positivity rate in test to stay so even that being a more targeted approach was still yielding the quarantining of a large number of students that never had COVID so you know it's important that we increasingly try to seek that balance between not only the safety but also the educational needs of students and as I've pointed out before that educational need is a cumulative need and it's been accumulating for the last 2 years so there is some sense of urgency that we do our best to keep schools open and keep kids in school as best we can Are all AOE staffers back to normal operations working in person in the state offices at this point? No AOE employees are just like all state employees we're back but there are exceptions for a telework policy that's enacted across state government but no telework policy for school staff who are expected to be in person that's correct you know this sort of comment has come up at the very beginning of the pandemic I would say the nature of our work is fundamentally different at the agency that it is in schools itself thank you very much a follow-up question for Dr. Levine what's the health department's recommendation for what should happen if a student or staff has been identified with an exposure risk but can't or won't test can't test because there's not supply or maybe chooses not to I think if there's no supply a call to us would help because we can direct supply there if the problem is choosing not to again if you are a student who's been vaccinated fully vaccinated I hate to use that term again but that's what we're using for the schools if you've been a student you can continue to come to school without testing we do recommend a day three or day five test if you're an unvaccinated student we are counting on you to be testing on a daily basis if you've had that significant exposure before you come back to school so that continues to be our guidance so if the school doesn't have enough tests to distribute to unvaccinated no and exposure risks should they stay home or should they come to school the school should be connecting with us so that we can get them the test kits they need sort of a dodge but I'll accept it thank you Michael Doherty Vermont Digger thanks another question for Dr. Levine and this is a question I think that always pops up when numbers are going up or going down sharply and that's you know how should people change their own individual behaviors if at all and right now if these numbers keep moving in a positive direction how will people who maybe are still behaving very cautiously know that we've reached some kind of baseline where it's okay to loosen up yeah these are indeed the important questions first of all I want to preach against overconfidence because we're still at a time we're grateful for the direction of the curve but we're still at a time of high levels of community transmission so this is not the time to totally loosen up completely but at the same time for people who are up to date and fully protected who have been cautious to do things the environment is getting better so that they may feel more comfortable in a setting that they might not have felt comfortable with with the curve going up so I'll just say that one of the things that we're discussing very actively as a team right now and in fact this afternoon we're having further discussions not just within our team but with the CDC has to do with this transition to endemicity to the point in time when we can really feel like the virus is at a lower level and it's going to be like other viruses that come and go in our existence every year and that we have chosen to live with over time whether it be you know rhino viruses whether it be influenza viruses etc so this is the time for us to begin thinking about how that world will look for all of us the other thing people should keep a focus on the initial map that commissioner Pichek showed around the country was essentially purple with some gradations of red and then greener areas depending on where you set your threshold levels the whole country looks purple and some maps if you look at the New York Times and so you have to be careful to understand what's the level of transmission of virus going on at a point in time so it's one thing to see our numbers come down and to see the national numbers curving in the same direction it's another thing to qualify for a level of virus transmission that's below high and substantial more in the low to moderate range because that indicates that a lot has happened in your external environment that will enable you to begin to do all of those things that you want to do more freely once again so we'll be reporting on this sort of next phase of trying to get to endemic over time as we go through the next several weeks because that is a focus of what we want to be able to inform Vermonters on as well I guess that's very interesting to hear that those conversations are taking place and I'm curious about kind of where your head is at now going into those conversations and one thing in particular that I'm curious about is you know if we do find ourselves in a lull where Omicron seems to be in the rear view mirror do you think we could expect any of the protocols that we've moved away from to come back for example contact tracing for the general public or just kind of generally practicing more of a containment strategy do you think that would be back on the table or no I think it's so hard to say because you know what comes after Omicron as the governor was sort of saying many minutes ago in this press conference we you know we hope that Omicron does what it did in South Africa in some other places and really gets suppressed down to a very low level but we've also seen what's happened in the UK and other places where it's come down and then it's sort of leveled off and nobody's really sure where it's going and the key emphasis continues to be vaccinating as much of the nation and the world as possible so the next new variant with its new Greek name doesn't become an issue that is a game changer again in terms of our scientific approach to how we live so it's really hard to do the hypothetical you know what's contact tracing going to be like etc when we don't really know what's around the corner yet I will say though that in a state that is this highly vaccinated and especially when we get to being as highly boosted as I know we will get to be over time I think that does allow for a little bit different approach and then cases of whatever variant we're dealing with will probably be more unique and hopefully not spread throughout the whole population and we can almost do a containment strategy knowing that people who are going to be accessing testing are probably doing it because they're sick in some way will have some surveillance tests and wastewater surveillance testing in place as well and so we'll have an indication of where disease is and you can almost imagine a SWAT-like approach to trying to contain virus at that time but that's really challenging for me to expound upon at this point because we've got a ways to go to get there and we don't know what's around the corner well thank you for expounding this much I appreciate it Lexi BPR Hi a couple questions first about hospitalizations you know the slide showed available hospital beds remain at some of the lowest we've seen throughout the pandemic and then you know those skilled nursing facilities that hospitals rely on for discharging patients are dealing with a lot of their own outbreaks so is there anything the administration can do to help hospitals and healthcare workers get through the next few weeks as you know hospitals are still in a really tough place right now yeah and we've been doing that all along throughout the pandemic and especially over the last few weeks but I'll let Secretary Samuelson expand upon that Lexi thank you for your question what we have seen is that there are a number of long-term care facilities that we've made investments into in order to ensure that there are adequate beds and we continue to monitor the ability for those long-term care facilities stay open and we still are seeing additional sub-acute beds available in addition to that for hospitals and our long-term care facilities and some of our other facilities such as our our mental health organizations supporting the Department of Children and Families we're using a contract that we have with TLC which is a staffing company to deploy staff members into those organizations right now we've got over a hundred and four staff members deployed across the spectrum of long-term care hospitals and some of our DCF facilities in addition to that a few months ago we put in an a two months ago we put in an application and received staff from FEMA those staff came in from FEMA to serve three hospitals they're still are serving two of them that helps to reduce the strain on the nursing staff and more recently in the last week we have worked with our National Guard recognizing that it's not just clinical staff but it's staff that are working in our food service in environmental services doing phlebotomy in our healthcare facilities particularly our hospitals we've been able to as they've stepped forward every single time we've asked use the National Guard to come into our hospitals and organizations to help support them to alleviate some of the strain from the staffing what I heard from the Vermont Hospital Association others earlier this week is they are experiencing strain but at the current levels and current numbers they feel confident that we're that they can continue to sustain the level of care that they're operating in particularly with these additional resources that have been added did you get everything Lexi? Oh just one our two more questions actually I wanted to clarify something about the test at home policy you know we heard reports of schools running out of tests in the first few days of that change so right now do schools have enough rapid tests to follow the current guidance and is the supply healthy enough to keep this policy going? Secretary French sort of the longer view you know we feel confident the supply is adequate there are schools right now who are looking for tests and that's something you know it's very dynamic right now we have orders coming in all the time and supplies going out all the time and as I mentioned we have a statewide conference call this afternoon to kind of review some of those mechanics so it is it's a very challenging moment in a lot of ways but people are really rising the occasion doing the work at all levels one more quick question for Dr. Levine which is just to clarify is the state looking to expand wastewater surveillance of COVID beyond Burlington? the answer is that actually already is beyond Burlington in a few select locations but yes there's a federal initiative that is looking as we speak to expand across the country and they're particularly looking at communities that are diverse communities that may have more healthcare needs have more of a vulnerability index that's higher so we'll be participating in that to try to ensure there are more Vermont communities in that list thank you and maybe just to get back to the the test supplies we still are concerned obviously about the number we have a lot on order we want to make sure that they get delivered we've been hampered a bit by the federal government having their allotment be satisfied but the folks at the agency of human services are working diligently as well as the emergency operations center and many of across the state government are working the phones work the phones myself calling CEOs of some of these suppliers to make sure that we get what we we think we're supposed to get so again this has been an all hands on deck approach and so far so good but we still are a bit concerned about the supply but right now today we're in we're in good shape and we just want to make sure that we have those next week in the week after we'll move to Michael North reports that's it okay thank you very much we'll see you again next Tuesday