 Good morning everyone. My call with fellow governors in the White House this afternoon is going to be this afternoon at 2 o'clock instead of the usual 11 o'clock. So unfortunately I don't have any new information to share with you just yet, but we'll let you know if there are any developments after that meeting this afternoon. Yesterday we began a phase 5a of our vaccine roll out those 55 and older with certain high-risk conditions. On the first day under 10,000 have signed up which is a bit fewer than we had hoped. As you may remember we had planned to roll out 5b those 16 and over on Monday. So we're going to move that up. We're going to move that date up until up to Thursday instead. As a reminder, the total population of this group is about 75 thousand. So we want to make sure that we get to them as quickly as possible. Secretary Smith will talk about this in more detail in his remarks. At the same time, we also started on a parallel track to vaccinate school staff, child care providers, more troopers and correctional staff. Again, this second track is possible as a result of increased federal supply, which includes the single dose Johnson and Johnson vaccine. As we've done from the beginning, our focus has been about protecting the health and safety of Vermonters. And in this case, it's our kids. As the data has shown, they're struggling with mental health as a result of the pandemic and the remote and hybrid learning that came with it. That's why putting school staff and childcare workers on this parallel track is critical and in line with our work to prioritize health and safety. Once we complete this phase, everyone in the state who is at most risk of severe illness and death will have had the opportunity to be protected. The good news is so far we've seen a high uptake rate with over 80% of those in the 75 plus age band having received at least one dose. Getting the vaccine is important, not only to protect yourself, but the entire state. So the high acceptance rate is something we need to continue to strive for. So let's keep it up by signing up when it's your turn. Secretary Smith will have more on vaccines in a few minutes. Next, as you may have seen, yesterday, the CDC made some changes to its guidance on gatherings for people who are vaccinated. I just want to remind folks that last week we made similar changes, allowing those vaccinated to gather with others who are vaccinated as well and with one household that is not on Friday, we'll be taking another step forward. This time for those who haven't yet been vaccinated, but we'll talk about that in more detail on Friday. Over the last 12 months, we've taken one of the most methodical and disciplined approaches to the virus in the nation, which has made us one of the safest states. After Halloween, we saw cases rise significantly because of large parties and get togethers at homes. So before Thanksgiving, we restricted multi household gatherings to help slow the virus down and most importantly to save lives while we were waiting for a vaccine. Since the January peak and with vaccinations ramping up for the most vulnerable, we've seen a significant decline in deaths as well as hospitalizations. Our positivity rate has also come down from over 3% to around 1.7%, which is one of the lowest in the country. So on Friday, we plan to announce changes for small gatherings as well. This will have an impact on other areas like restaurants too. So stay tuned. I know everyone is anxious to get back to normal, but even as we vaccinate more people, it's as important as ever to follow the public health guidelines like wearing a mask, washing your hands, staying physically distanced and staying home when sick. We're in the final quarter of this very tough game. So let's all do our part so we can exit the pandemic as quickly as possible. And with that, I'll turn it over to Mr P check for our weekly modeling update. Mr P check. Thank you very much, Governor. And good morning, everyone. You know, this week in Vermont, we reported 901 new COVID-19 cases, over 200 more cases when compared to last week, and the most weekly cases we've reported in a month. You can see that the increase is represented in the increase in the seven day average. A week ago, we were averaging under 100 cases. Today we're averaging just over 130 cases per day. Certainly the COVID-19 outbreak at the Newport prison contributed to the rise in cases this week. However, even when you remove these cases from our case count, you can see that cases are still increasing in Vermont over the past few days, albeit more gradually. If we were looking solely at this case data, you might be discouraged. However, a closer look at our data reveals that we are making continued progress, and there are greater reasons for hope today than at any other time during the pandemic. First looking at our most vulnerable age group, we see that even though overall cases have slowly improved and recently ticked up, the cases among our most vaccinated, those who are 70 years and older have fallen more rapidly and continue to fall as well. Similarly, the number of long term care facility cases has remained remarkably low with only five cases in the last three weeks and only two active outbreaks. These critical improvements among our most vulnerable are not due to chance, but as the governor mentioned, because of the significant uptake in vaccinations that we're seeing among these populations. Over 82% of Vermonters 75 and older have either started or completed their vaccination. This compares to a U.S. average that's closer to 70% for this age group. We're also making significant progress among those 65 to 74 years old with thousands more scheduled to receive their vaccines in the coming weeks. With fewer vulnerable individuals contracting the virus, we're also seeing reductions in hospitalizations. In particular, a steady decrease this week in the number of people in the ICU. And as of today, no one requiring ventilation. When you look collectively at these metrics and compare them to the peak we experienced back in January, you can see how much we've improved among these most vulnerable populations. And with these metrics improving, most importantly, we can anticipate the COVID fatality rates in Vermont will drop for the rest of this month and into the future with March forecasting seven to 10 deaths, a significant decrease from what we saw in December and a step down from what we saw in January and February. Looking collectively at this data, it is probably the most optimistic I have been since the start of the pandemic because we're seeing the impact of vaccinations. But to get to that finish line, we really need everyone to receive a vaccine. And for all of us to continue to follow that basic public health guidance until we've made more significant vaccination progress. Even with the uptick in cases this week, Vermont is forecasted to have a steady trajectory of cases that will not rise any further. And it's still projected to see a gradual decrease and then a more steady decrease as we get into spring. Similarly, our hospital forecast expects resources to be much more than sufficient to cover all the need over the next six weeks. And looking at Vermont's vaccination progress for the first time, we are averaging over 4000 daily doses administered on a seven day average, which is a 14% increase week over week. In terms of where we rank nationally, in terms of doses administered, Vermont currently ranks 13th nationally and third in the Northeast. And in terms of fully vaccinated verminers, we place 11th nationally. But another encouraging sign regarding vaccinations comes from a pulse survey conducted by the US Census Bureau. That found among those who are not yet vaccinated, almost 70% of verminers said they would definitely get the vaccine, which is the highest ranking in the country. But as you can also see, there's still a significant number of people who are unsure about the vaccine. And as you saw from today's data, getting vaccinated is the key to getting out of the pandemic. And it's certainly important to encourage your friends and your family to step up when it's their turn. Giving a brief overview of the regional national data, you'll see that after a stall last week, the cases in the Northeast region have started to decrease again. With the region reporting 76,000 new cases this week, an 8% decrease compared to last week. And the other regional metrics are improving as well with positivity rates, hospitalization rates and fatality rates, all continuing to decline. Further, the regional forecast continues to expect cases to decline over the next few weeks as well, all of which is good news for Vermont. Looking at the national numbers, we see continued improvement overall, with cases clearly back on the decline after a short stall seven to 10 days ago. Cases are down 15% over the last 10 days. And national hospitalizations and deaths are also decreasing with hospitalizations down 15% over the last 10 days. And deaths down 14% over that same period. And finally, with the first confirmed case of the COVID variant B117 identified in Vermont, we did want to show the rise in this reported variant across the country over the past few months from CDC data. Just to let it serve as a good reminder that even with all of the positive information we're seeing in our case data that the threat of the virus is certainly still real. And we need to do everything we can to protect ourselves and our communities by following the public health guidance and getting vaccinated when it's our turn. And at this time, I'll turn it over to Secretary Smith. Thank you, Commissioner Pichek. Good morning, everyone. As I mentioned last week, we started vaccinating new groups yesterday. They included public safety, the education community, those 55 and older with high risk conditions. As a result of these efforts and others planned for next week, more than 110,000 people will be eligible to register for a vaccine. As of 9am this morning, among those 55 years old and older with high risk conditions, as the governor mentioned more than 9,000 people have made appointments. 8,600 teachers and school staff have also made appointments since yesterday. Next Monday, we are scheduled to open up 16 and above with the high risk conditions. But given our supply of vaccine and ability to accommodate large numbers of appointments, we have decided to accelerate this time schedule to this Thursday. So beginning at 815am, this Thursday, those 16 years old and above with high risk conditions can make an appointment to be vaccinated by going to the state website, healthfermont.gov slash my vaccine or by calling the vaccine call center at 855-722-7878. Again, at 815 on Thursday, those 16 and above with high risk conditions can make an appointment to be vaccinated. Licensed childcare providers will continue to be eligible to make appointments on Monday, March 15. And those clinics of those clinics available to teachers and school staff will be available to regulated licensed childcare programs too. They will also be eligible to avail themselves of Walgreen appointments as well. Just a reminder, although teachers and school staff and childcare providers have been given instructions on how to register, these groups can make an appointment through the state system with an educator's vaccination clinic when it has been scheduled. And they can make an appointment at Walgreens and bring their confirmation email to their appointment. The state website is healthfermont.gov slash my vaccine and Walgreens is Walgreens.com. We are working to ensure there there are vaccination sites in each district over the next few weeks. While they have instructions, some educators may not see sites near them in the system to make appointments at this time. We appreciate your patient as more sites are scheduled. As I said on Friday and previously, this will begin to ramp up pretty fast. Please choose a location near your home. So far, we have scheduled the following counties for next week. Addison, Beddington, Caledonia, Chittenden, Rutland, and Wyndham. Department of Corrections staff in Burlington, St. Johnsbury, Rutland and Springfield locations have been offered vaccine and have completed their appointments. I really cannot express enough appreciation for the EMS teams that continue to support a successful vaccination program across our state. They've been wonderful partners in this effort to vaccinate each and every one in this state. They will start and complete the next round this week at St. Albans and Newport. Just to give an overall progress, as of today, 127,500 people have been vaccinated against COVID-19. 58,500 have received their first dose of vaccine. 68,900 have received their first and last dose. I just checked this morning, we're closing in on 200,000 doses of vaccine given to Vermonters. Areas with additional vaccine appointments. I just want to spend a few words about vaccine appointments. As you know, our goal is to make it easier for Vermonters to get vaccinated as soon as possible. For the next six days, we are adding additional vaccine appointments in the towns of Grand Isle, Colchester, Essex Junction, Derby, Island Pond, Randolph, and Hartford. If you would like to reschedule for an earlier appointment, please call the Vaccine Call Center at 855-722-7878. Once again, thank you for all that you do to help protect yourself, your loved ones, and your community. And now I'll turn it over to Dr. Levine for an update. Thank you. This morning, I'm going to talk about a number of topics, including sports, the variant, the CDC, wastage, and vaccination of the BIPOC community. Today, we're reporting 87 cases, 30 people in the hospital, including seven in the ICU, with a seven day average positivity rate of 1.7 percent. We're continuing to monitor spread in Franklin County in Stowe, where we were able to offer additional COVID testing opportunities last weekend over this past weekend. We encourage people in those areas and across the state to take advantage of regular test sites, which you can find on our website healthvermont.gov slash testing. Remember, testing is still a critical tool to finding cases and stopping further spread. With all the excitement and anticipation of vaccination, it is so easy for the fundamentals like testing to be forgotten, or to feel that they are no longer relevant. We also continue to see cases affecting workplaces, healthcare and childcare facilities and schools. Sometimes cases in schools do affect sports teams. And we typically don't see spread to multiple other players. We have seen this situation involving hockey again recently, but we don't know if it's a result of play or other factors such as car pooling or gathering. Or perhaps if a player just acquired the virus because it was in the community or their own household and was infectious on the day of a practice or a game. Importantly, these types of situations do lead to students quarantining, which is definitely challenging, but they do not typically disrupt in school learning. These instances just occurred in the past 10 days, and there were not significant problems before then in hockey since we allowed competition. Likewise, we have noticed isolated instances of basketball players with COVID, but remarkably little disruption to team activities. You heard yesterday that we officially now have discovered the B117 variant in Vermont. We've expected this result for a while, as it's been discovered in virtually every state now. And mutations discovered in Burlington wastewater had already pointed to the likelihood it was here. So what does this mean? We don't need to change what we do to stop the spread of COVID, but this variant is easier to transmit. So we need to make sure we're fully committed to those prevention measures. You already know them. But remember, you can make them even stronger by doing things like making sure your mask is well fitting or double masking and definitely avoiding indoor crowded situations. The good news is that the data shows the current vaccines are effective against this variant strain. And Vermona should have confidence in the vaccines available. So get vaccinated when you're eligible. And in the meantime, help protect your fellow Vermonters by wearing your mask, keeping your distance and avoiding crowds. The other big news from yesterday was CDC's guidance for people who have been fully vaccinated. I was happy to see it really shows Vermont is again, once again, ahead of the curve when it comes to deliberate easing of guidelines, while still maintaining important protections like mask protocols. This guidance includes you can stay indoors with fully vaccinated people without wearing a mask or staying six feet apart if you're vaccinated. You can gather indoors with unvaccinated people from one other household, for example, visiting with relatives who all live together without masks, unless any of those people or anyone they live with is at an increased risk for severe illness for COVID-19. If you've been around someone who has COVID-19, you do not need to stay away from others or get tested or quarantine unless you have symptoms with some exceptions. But vaccinated people should still take steps to protect yourself and others in many situations, like wearing a mask, staying at least six feet apart and avoiding crowds whenever you are in public, gathering with unvaccinated people from more than one other household, which in Vermont you should not be doing anyways, and visiting with an unvaccinated person who's at increased risk of severe illness or death from COVID or who lives with a person who's at increased risk. Again, this all agrees with what we've laid out in our easing of gathering restrictions to allow Vermonters more freedom while keeping them safe. I should note finally that CDC did not make any changes to its travel guidance or recommending against medium or large size gatherings, even of vaccinated people. There's another area of good news that I also want to highlight because there is a need to provide a little more context. As we've been putting thousands of doses of vaccine in people's arms and scheduling appointments for tens of thousands more, I've heard concerns about what is often called wastage. This is the amount of vaccine dosage that are not or could not be used. As of today, Vermont has had 458 non-viable or wasted doses, which accounts for 0.2%, a small fraction of all doses, well below the CDC's recommended standard of less than 5%. Our COVID-19 vaccine wastage rate to date is comparable to or lower than other routinely recommended vaccines. And that is what the number of challenges unique to the COVID-19 vaccines, including the time limits on use. There are always errors that result in a lost dose, including accidents, problems with equipment, as well as issues with planning. But I want to make it very clear there's no person, program or facility that wants a single dose to go unused. Everyone involved from the depot team who received the federal shipments to the person giving you your shot is committed to vaccinating every person who can be vaccinated. As more doses become available, we are committed to working together to improve and ensure the systems are in place to minimize wastage and keeping our rates as low or lower than they already are. And finally, I'd like to briefly outline some plans for another group we have prioritized for vaccination for monitors who are black, indigenous and people of color. As we've said many times here, our data shows that BIPOC for monitors are more likely to get COVID-19 compared to white, non-Hispanic for monitors. They are overrepresented among COVID-19 cases in the state, making up 6% of the population, but 18% of positive cases. They have significantly higher hospitalization rates and rates of most chronic diseases, often related to issues of higher exposure to COVID due to types of employment or public transportation issues. They are also more likely 54% to be part of an outbreak than white, non-Hispanic for monitors, 22%. BIPOC for monitors are more likely 46% to have had a household contact with a case than white, non-Hispanic, 19% and are more likely to be living in multi-generational households. We are working with community organizations to try to rebuild the trust in public health that has eroded through historical injustices and to expand access to education and outreach. But we are seeing significant disparities in the rate of vaccination among BIPOC for monitors compared to white, non-Hispanic for monitors. We have listened to our BIPOC community partners about the kinds of approaches that would work for them and have learned that some element of prioritization is one pathway that may contribute to greater uptake of the vaccine. Yet our priority schemes to date, which emphasize older age and residents in a long-term care facility, do not always help this population due to the lower likelihood of living in such facilities or in having sufficient life expectancy. For example, compared to 20% of white for monitors who've received at least one dose of vaccine, only 3.8% of indigenous for monitors, 9% of black for monitors and 11% of multi-racial for monitors have received the vaccine. We can and must do better, not only in engagement, the building of trust in reducing vaccine hesitancy, but in realizing better health outcomes. Our goal to achieve community immunity and to protect all for monitors can only be achieved if we work to lessen the barriers and make vaccination equitably accessible to all groups of for monitors. Over the past month, we've been holding vaccine clinics for eligible for monitors and members of their household who are among the groups at higher risk for COVID-19 due to language barriers such as English language English language learners. Beginning next week and over the ensuing weeks, we plan to continue and extend that strategy to other BIPOC communities where an eligible for monitor who meets the age category, for example, may also bring other household members to be vaccinated. This will be statewide and not only in Chittenden County, from our southern border to mid-state farm workers to indigenous for monitors in the northern part of the state. Clinics will be arranged in coordination and with the support of community partners around the state. As we established clinic locations, we will post information on our website at healthvermont.gov. I want to thank all of the individuals and our community partners and leaders who have provided us with the supports needed to meet this important aspect of our public health mission. Governor. Thank you, Dr. Levine. We'll now open it up to questions. Thank you, Governor. So, Mr. Pichek touched upon the data aspect of this, but why do you feel comfortable this coming Friday lifting gathering or loosening gathering restrictions, especially as cases are on the rise and we're seeing the bearing? Yeah, again, I think if you look back at the cases on the rise, if you look at one in particular, the outbreak at the correctional facility and that did skew the numbers a bit. But overall, we've done fairly well. The amount of hospitalizations is coming down. Number of deaths is coming down and we're moving in the right direction. Spring is upon us. People will be getting outside more and I think that this is an opportunity to continue to do what we think is enough in terms of allowing more less restrictive guidance as we move forward because the you know, we do see light at the end of the tunnel and I believe that this is the right step forward. So we'll do it in a methodical and very disciplined way. But this is just one one small step and will continue to make steps all along the way. And second question for Dr. Levine, you know, you mentioned that Secretary Smith said that vaccine uptake they're signing up for the vaccine for moderate underlying conditions. It's been a little slower than the state of hope. Why, what are you hearing and why are people hesitant to sign up for the vaccine? I'm just wondering maybe does it have something to do with, you know, whether people can't choose what type of vaccine they get at this point or I just what are you seeing what are the reasons so far? Yeah, I think we're pretty optimistic on the teacher side that those are pretty solid numbers that we saw on the teachers and school staff side. On the on the high risk conditions side, I think we got to give it a little bit more time. You know, a lot of these people are working. So that may be some of the issues that we want to make sure that we give it just a little bit more time. With that said, I mean 9,000 people, 10,000 just under, you know, 10,000 people is a lot. That's a lot of people. And so, you know, let's give it a couple more days. But we feel comfortable now that we've opened up registration here that we can open up registration for the other group quicker as well. So I would, I think, Calvin, as I'm repeating myself, I think just give it a few more days. Why? Why move up the 50 or the 18 to 55? Why? Why move that deadline up if we're just well, we have the vaccine and we have the registration capability to do it. So what and we have the slot. So why not is the question? You know, a lot of these people have been waiting a long time for vaccine. So, you know, let's get them slotted. Let's get them scheduled. Let's get let's get vaccine out there to people. Mike, since you're there in signing up for the or the lack of the pace that you thought you might get, is it possible that this is pointing towards maybe a little problem with the with the website itself and the process of signing up going through quite a few layers, quite frankly about, you know, I don't think so, Steve, because we've never seen this in the you know, the website has been up for a while and we've gone through multiple bands 75 plus 70 to 75 65 up and we've had solid numbers along the way. I still think, you know, we're starting to run many of those people that we've already vaccinated and already signed up, obviously are retired or near retirement, maybe have a little bit more time to sign up. But we haven't run into those. I don't think it's a website that's causing the issue. And I just I don't want to under I don't want to overemphasize this because I don't think it's true. I just think it's we're going to see the uptick differently than we saw the uptick on on other age groups. And maybe for Dr. Levine, some people are pushing back on the travel guidance that's been issued by CDC. Specifically, I think the airline industry, your thoughts on possibly air travel and relaxing, you know, our every state is doing something different here as far as travel. And the reason for that, Steve, is because the CDC generally deals more with international travel than domestic travel. So the pushback probably is because they're being pretty meticulous about the international travel with regard to vaccination with regard to testing and making sure that people are not bringing yet another variant into this country. Domestic travel is a whole different ballgame, obviously, as we know. And though they don't weigh in as much on it, I think there will be some emphasis on that and future iterations of what they come out with. Because I do think it is a little chaotic to have every state sort of make their own decision and come up with their own plan, whether it be about vaccination, about testing protocols, etc. There should be an ability to have some consensus about this, but we'll have to wait and see. Is it is it in the future that we're going to carry some sort of a travel card or something like that to be presented at a at an airline gate? The Biden administration is actually looking at that right as we speak. I'm getting quite serious about that. There's lots of potential benefits and there's some pitfalls. So it has to be done very carefully. But in the meantime, we all can have a card when we get vaccinated that says we've been vaccinated. So we should not throw that away. We should make sure we keep that with us because it will come in very handy as these decisions are made. I just wanted to add another answer to Calvin's question about moving up the registration and all that. You know, the goal here is to get all Vermonters vaccinated as quickly as possible. So anything we can do to push that along is going to be a benefit. And maybe we'll find there are more thousands in the 55 down to 16 age group than we thought so that the total number will still add up to a number that we were expecting all along. We'll just have to see. Thank you. I could just add a couple of things as well. You know, that was an estimate that we had of 75,000 of that age band, 16 to 65 with certain health conditions. And we don't know about the demographics. It could be a shift. So we were going to open it up the entire age band all at once 16 to 65. But then we thought if there were a number of people in the first age group, we didn't want to overwhelm the system. And we wanted to take care of them because we know age is a factor in terms of hospitalization and death. So we wanted to make sure we got to those folks first. And but we didn't know what to expect in the broader group. So opening up sooner is not going to impact us in any way because we'll continue to vaccinate those Vermonters overall. I mean, that is our goal. In terms I just want to go back as well to the travel policy because I just want to reiterate that we did open it up to Vermonters can travel in and out of the state with after they've been fully vaccinated. So and that includes air travel as well. Thank you. Good morning, Governor Scott kind of just going off that travel guidance. I believe it was last week, main Governor Janet Mills kind of opened up travel for all New England's. I mean, do you have any plans in the future to open up travel for those who are not vaccinated yet or going back to that former that kind of county by county map we had late last year? Yeah, there's there's a number of initiatives that are on the table, and we're having those conversations amongst our team. And you can expect that we will be having will be updating on that policy in the near future. But it's not to Levine has said repeatedly, March is a critical month for us here in Vermont and for our country. As a matter of fact, so we need to pay attention until we until we know exactly as well how much supply we're going to get from the federal government, which includes mostly the Johnson Johnson allotment, and they're able to tell us exactly what we're going to get. I'm we're a little bit hesitant as to making huge changes at this point in time. But I will say that by the end of the month, first week in April, between now and then, you can expect that we will have more detailed plans in terms of showing you exactly how much of the the vaccination bans and so forth in our strategy in detail, which you can expect throughout the exit as well. Soon after that, we will will be able to outline and give the details as to what our exit strategy is as well. So stay tuned for that. Be patient. But we have it all mapped out. And we think it's a solid plan. But but we need this other piece of the puzzle and mainly that supply from the federal government and the commitment that they will be able to supply us with the vaccinations that we think are needed in order to to initiate our plan. So stay tuned. Peace. When it comes to teachers being eligible for the vaccine, are substitute teachers also eligible to receive a vaccine? I believe I believe that is the case. Is that the case? I'm getting head shakes and yes, they are part of that. Anyone who is engaged in the within the footprint of the of the building. Great, thank you very much. Aaron, I have a question about the eligibility of out of state or getting the vaccine in Vermont. Tracy Dolan kind of suggested or seems to be saying that there's been a recent change in eligibility for those people. So I'd just like to know exactly who is eligible and how that's changed in the past weeks or months. Specifically, you know, out of state or work here versus people who maybe get primary care here or other things that would qualify against the vaccine. Yeah, I'll let Secretary Smith answer that. But we do have an agreement with Hampshire, for instance, on the vaccination of the education system. They're a little behind us in that regard, but we are moving forward and we are going to be vaccinating some from New Hampshire who teach in our schools. Secretary Smith. Thanks, Aaron. And thank you for asking the question. I did reach out to your organization to to provide some clarification on a story. The story had said that that there wasn't any sort of reciprocal vaccination going on between Vermont and New Hampshire. And in fact, Dartmouth has vaccinated 2,133 Vermonters. And I believe they're mostly health care workers living in Vermont and working at Dartmouth. So I just want to clarify that because there's been some confusion. Also, it mentioned a out of state is being vaccinated at a figure of 6,400. It's actually 5,500. And 17. And that's the 883 that are different in that number are Vermonters whose addresses couldn't be found. Just let's set the table on this. Most of the out of state is vaccinated in Vermont. Come from the 1A category, health care workers, based upon the timing of their vaccination. As Dartmouth vaccinated Vermonters in their workforce, our hospitals and health care facilities vaccinated out of staters that were in their workforce. New Hampshire and New York primarily, where the residents commuted to New York to work in health care, commuted to Vermont to work in health care or long-term care facilities. Now, this was essential to keeping Vermont healthy and particularly Vermonters healthy that needed to access health care in Vermont and keep a stable workforce in the health care field. Now, just so you, besides 1A, we had originally said when we started, we used primary care as a criteria. We had two criteria. There's one, you had to be a Vermonter. You had to work in Vermont. Or three criteria. You had to be a Vermonter. You had to work in Vermont. You had to have primary care in Vermont. And the primary reason we put primary care in there is because older age-band individuals were most likely to be hospitalized and occupying Vermont hospital beds. So primary care was there. And as the age bands get younger, this eligibility will be eliminated and is being eliminated. So besides 1A, where each state, particularly Vermont and New Hampshire, have demonstrated that we do reciprocate in the health care fields, it's also anticipated that we'll do the same for teachers and school staff, as the governor had just mentioned, and child care providers, where we will vaccinate their residents that work in Vermont. And they will do the same for Vermont residents that work in New Hampshire. As a result, working in Vermont will be defined to mean these areas, health care, public safety, child care, teachers, and school staff, so that we eliminate any confusion that we have with bordering states. Does that answer your question? Yeah, so just so that I can nail this down exactly. You said that the primary care eligibility is kind of being eliminated. So is anyone currently eligible for a vaccine included in that group? Anybody that has signed up and registered, and that's probably 65 and older by now, is eligible, but we have cut it off as of the other day. So people 55 plus with high-risk conditions would not be able to get an out-of-state vaccine? No, if they were an out-of-state or with high-risk conditions, they would not be eligible to get a vaccine. Thank you for clarifying. This is kind of a second question, but do you feel that as eligibility expands to these different kind of groups, that there may be kind of confusion about who is eligible and when those new eligibility periods start? I feel like both the media coverage around the expanded eligibility last week focused on teachers now qualifying. Do you think perhaps that the high-risk conditions to news may have been kind of varied by discussion or that media coverage? Perhaps. But I think we've been pretty clear on, as I've pointed out to your organization, pretty clear of what we're doing and what we're saying. I was pretty explicit in an email on this. I was talking more broadly about the new eligibility periods and the thing that you mentioned with a lower number than expected of people with high-risk conditions signing up. That was obviously kind of not premeditated. That was not a last second change, but a very quick change from pretty statements about eligibility. Do you think it's possible there was confusion around who was now eligible to get the vaccine? Yeah, it's possible. I don't think so. I mean, you get on to the website. It basically will let you know what eligibility criteria there is. So, you know, out of status with these high-risk conditions that, you know, the only thing that's changed is now if you have your primary care in Vermont, you're not eligible in those lower age bands. And secondly, if you know, that was the change, and we'll move forward with that. Yeah, I mean, again, I was speaking about, you know, Vermonters, you know, in general, not necessarily. Just so we're clear here, if Vermonters, it doesn't affect Vermonters at all, it affects only out-of-staters. Yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. And what's the question about high-risk? Well, you said that there were fewer than expected high-risk Vermonters signing up to get the vaccine. And I was wondering if you'd considered that maybe the news about them qualifying now has been kind of lost in the fray. Because there have been, you know, many new areas of eligibility opening up very quickly. You know, this is a bit of a change from your previous language about how people qualify and things like that. Yeah, I'm sorry, Erin. You're absolutely right. It probably has been lost in the fray on that. There's been a lot going on. We're opening up to a lot of people, as I said, over 110,000 Vermonters. So you're absolutely right on that. I think probably it may have been lost in the fray. So let's be clear. Those that are 55 and above with high-risk conditions can sign up for vaccine starting on Monday. And those that are 16 and older with high-risk conditions can sign up on Thursday, just to be clear. But I'm sorry, I misheard your question. I think maybe with a lot of this, with a lot that we've been doing and opening it up to a lot of groups, this is something that could have been lost. I will say this, and the governor has said this, we're looking at getting back to age band which makes things a lot easier after we get through these groups. Okay, thank you. Hi, good morning everybody. I'm kind of curious the surge you see, I don't know if the surge is the right word here, but the increase in cases over the last week, you don't seem terribly concerned by that. And I think just wondering, I mean I heard all the good news that everyone was talking about earlier, but isn't this concerning that these cases are going up like this? And it seems that over the last month or maybe six weeks the number of the counties with the increase in cases have kind of moved counterclockwise around the state. If you started in Bennington and then moved north and has now seemed to be heading east. And I was just wondering, is there any common theme here, and am I incorrect in thinking you don't seem too concerned about it? Well, first of all Wilson, we're concerned about every case and every death, but the deaths are a lagging indicator. So when you see three or four or five weeks ago, the high number of cases we had, we have to assume that there may be deaths associated with that. Having said that we have seen as well due to, we believe, vaccinations of those in those high risk categories and then coming into fully being the efficacy of the vaccination process coming into play that we're going to see fewer deaths and we have seen fewer deaths. And as well, we have a very small population obviously here in Vermont and again when you see the cases and maybe the average age of the cases are starting to drop as well just because we've fully vaccinated those in the higher risk categories. So we're concerned, but it seems to be at least in level and we do feel that our strategy as we continue to vaccinate those by age band after we get through this high risk category will be beneficial to the state and we'll continue to see no escalation maybe of the cases but the death rate is what we've been hospitalization and death rate is what we've been watching. Okay, thank you. Anything to add? Dr. Levine or Commissioner Pichek? Dr. Levine? Just a quick comment. So obviously you're looking at it as an increase in cases around the state and I don't think the data that Commissioner Pichek showed really indicates that it's really leveled off in a 100 to 100 teens kind of seven day average of cases but I will echo what Dr. Walensky of the CDC has said the country has leveled off at about 69, 70 thousand cases a day and that's why they have not gone hog wild with their current guidance and recommendations and are strongly arguing against the states who have opened things up completely just because it seemed like the time was right. So the cautious and more deliberate approach that they've taken and that we in Vermont have taken respects the fact that there are these leveled off numbers of cases and the unknowns about the variance but it doesn't mean that necessarily we're concerned that things are going to get much worse because as you've seen, the groups that have been getting vaccinated are actually doing much, much better. Commissioner Pichek has an addition as well. I have a question, Wilson. I just want to make two points. One, you saw last week that the cases in the region were increasing and this week that trend has reversed and through both last week and this week the forecasting is anticipating that cases will go down so I think you need more data to see if this is a change introductory or just sort of a stalling but I think more importantly is when you look at those individuals that are the most vulnerable by age and they're going down and they're going down and they're staying down they're low and they're continuing to decrease among those that are 70 and older and if you have fewer cases among that age group you're going to have fewer hospitalizations and fewer deaths so I think that's primarily why we're so optimistic. Okay, great. Thank you all very much. And again, Wilson, I think every time I see a report that comes in in the middle of night from Secretary Smith I breathe a sigh of relief when it's under 100 and yesterday it was I think 87 so that's good news as well. We're starting to see hopefully a trend a downward trend but again anything under 100 was positive news from my standpoint. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Thanks Rebecca and thanks to Secretary Smith for calling us from last Friday. Governor following up on last Friday's issue about where there was no communication between the state of Vermont and the Veterans Administration hosting a first come first serve clinic at the Essex Fairgrounds when the state was having its own clinic there. Secretary Smith did correctly note that communication is a two-way street. I'm just wondering about Vermont's side of the street since last Friday is any leader in the health department or any leaders on behalf of the state picked up the phone, reached out to the VA leaders to start any sort of communication about COVID in the state I mean does the VA have extra vaccines that it could share and help speed up vaccination in Vermont? Does Vermont actually know how many people have been vaccinated by the VA? Does that impact the numbers and the percentages that the state keeps listing? What has the state learned since Friday? I would say yes we have been in communication with the VA in terms of trying to make sure that we are in the loop so to speak whenever they do this again and they I think we had advised that they might want to go to some sort of appointment system and it appears they will on their next meeting that they do this so I believe we receive all the information from them in terms of those vaccinated with Vermonters vaccinated but I might ask either Secretary Smith, maybe Secretary Smith can answer that. If they're Vermonters we receive the information that they've been vaccinated so we make sure that we understand who's been vaccinated and try to make sure that we have a relationship with them. I think one thing that you pointed out Mike is that am I correct on that? Okay Dr. LaVine is going to get more technical with you Michael on how that works but the one thing that we've learned is and I said this this is a two-way street I wish the VA reached out to us you know you surprised the governor and myself with this news on Friday they had not reached out to either my office or the governor's office about this. I think they've learned a few things you need an appointment system I think I saw on the news somebody said they should run it like the state does with an appointment system I think we would advise them to do that in the future I don't think we should sort of mix areas of the appointment system being run a lot more efficiently the next time they do this and we will continue to work out work with them as they move forward. I'm going to ask Dr. LaVine to make a correction if I said something wrong here so just go ahead Dr. LaVine. Just two quick points. Number one through no fault of local VA people but this is a national issue and then it was decided the VA would be doing vaccine for its veterans they have a separate record system and there was no requirement for them to actually tie in with any other state record system and we had numerous communications actually with White River Junction during that time period and this was much more of a federal mandate kind of thing that occurred that they didn't have a lot of control over but that complicated life needless to say. The second point is on the day of the infamous clinic that you're referring to we were notified by a number of people about the lack of orderliness about how vaccine was happening lack of distancing in line not a real organization of that and when the moment we found that out one of my deputy commissioners was on the phone with the person running the clinic and quickly we learned from people who were in the lines things got much more orderly so it became a much more safe experience for those veterans as well in terms of adhering to usual public health guidance. I heard it was I know the VA has done really good work apparently down at their hospital but yeah being out on the road I'm not sure it was good the first person in line waited for quite a while finally got a card that said he was number 266 so there were some problems I guess clearly on their end and everything like that and I also understand you want to share your records with the VA and the VA probably doesn't want to share all their medical records with the state of Vermont so it's a little dicey trying to have only one person in charge my other question is a follow up to secretary Smith on gaming the system one of his favorite topics I'm sure we did have an inquiry from a teacher who questions how apparently the school district has specific codes for signing up for the vaccine as an educator and she's thinking that the code is there anything to prevent the code from being shared with friends and family essentially could a husband of a teacher also use that go in and sign up or as a state with some sort of system to block that kind of gaming of the system we're monitoring that that wasn't lost on us when we were putting this forward but we had to come up with a system that was something that was at least usable and understandable and efficient so we're going to monitor this and make any adjustments we need to make but we're looking for just what you're talking about and we'll see how it goes we're hoping people don't abuse the system but as we know it happens and our goal again is to make sure that we vaccinate as many Vermonters as possible but we want them to wait the turn in order to do so but by monitoring it does that mean like school district will get a list of who supposedly signed up within that district and the name shows up as a husband or a spouse or a grandparent or somebody or a friend it's not as though we don't know who's in the system it's not as though we don't know who's in the system it's not as though we don't know who's in the system I mean that's a defined list so we will try and correlate the two my fear is that we do it, it's too late because we're doing this in rapid fire I mean we've already started vaccinating the school staff and we've done a number of them already this week so this will continue and we don't want to slow that up we don't want the perfect to be the enemy of the good here we want to make sure that we get as many of the vaccinations and arms of the school staff as possible so we can get kids back in school that's our goal because we know it's better for our kids because our kids aren't doing okay so we'll do what we can to tighten up the system as needed but as of yet we haven't seen anything that would cause us any cause of us any concern but that doesn't mean it's not happening and we acknowledge that but we're going to do everything we can to make sure that doesn't happen and I'm clear on the relations with the VA is there going to be ongoing regular daily communications with the VA or every other day or what was the agreement as far as keeping the doors of communication going? we have a good relationship with the VA we're all on the same team here we all have the same goals but they have their mission it's with the Department of Defense and they have their supply and they are doing what they're supposed to do is to vaccinate veterans when they have something of this scale when they have something where they're inviting people without registering without telling us and I'm saying us the administration they may have coordinated with others but not with our administration so we advise when they do so in the future just let us know we'll help out in any way we can I think this is why I'm concerned in some respects even with the pharmacies and some of the contracts that the federal government has directly with the pharmacies and as well with the Department of Defense we lack, we're losing control in some respects in a more small state I can't imagine what's happening in other states so it would be my preference if we were to get this supply of vaccine into our central supply and then we could distribute it from there to the pharmacies and so forth and that way we at least know what's going on we don't always know when the federal government is involved what actually transpires so this is just another case of that situation but we want to do everything we can to help the VA and make sure their mission of vaccinating those who served and protected us through many, many generations so we want to help them in any way we can Great, thank you very much Thank you very much Lisa, the Valley Reporter Hi there This question is probably for Dr. Lavigne Since kids can't get vaccinated are kids simply left out of the household gatherer equation when vaccinated households get together with other vaccinated households or an unvaccinated household This question comes from a family of two educators with a 10 year old daughter wanting to know if their unvaccinated daughter could visit her unvaccinated friend in a house with vaccinated parent A vaccinated daughter can visit her vaccine Unvaccinated daughter The children are unvaccinated because they can't get vaccinated right now So the answer is no Okay But that may change Okay, thank you Over time that may change Okay, thanks My other question is for Secretary Smith or Secretary French on school based vaccination clinics Are they primarily for staff in that district or can educators from any districts make appointments in any district where a vaccine clinic is being held We had one that will be held tomorrow in our local school district and some local educators couldn't get registered and were concerned that other educators from other districts had taken those slots What's the policy on that? I'll let Secretary French comment on that Yeah, thanks Yeah, you are correct particularly on these initial sites that they're open to any educator and that was a function to a certain extent of the early sites that we stood up but we'll look to refine that but it is also as the governor mentioned in our interest to vaccinate as many as possible so we're sort of our response is to continue to expand the number of clinics that are being offered with the attempts to ensure there's good access for everyone Thank you very much Thanks, now that Congress has done its work for the next stimulus bill do you have any more information and what's your message to business owners to communication union districts to the folks municipalities who are looking to get the next round of federal money any idea the timeline there? Yeah, thanks very much Congress hasn't actually finished their work the house has not taken action I think they'll be taking action tomorrow as a matter of fact it was put off today they've taken a final vote tomorrow we are actively trying to go through the bill to figure out it's a big bill and there's a lot of complexity to it and trying to get to the details to understand what it really will mean to us but we're learning every day my I guess my message to business is as soon as we are confident in what we can do and what we can't do we'll be working with the legislature to get this money out the door to help them because we know that they're struggling in particular in the hospitality sector so we'll do what we can as quick as we can but until the details are all unraveled and we have a better understanding of that I don't want to promise anything as well we know that there's a lot of money in there for broadband and that's very good news it's something that's highest on one of the high infrastructure needs that I think we have in this state and this is good news and we are already moving forward with the bill that I put forward or had it as part of our budget so that looks like it's getting momentum in the legislature so this will just add to it hopefully so again too early to say exactly what it'll mean for some of the some of those districts as well as any provision within the bill but we see clarity every single day we're working on it as you speak do you expect lawmakers that we'll be working on this through the summer this is again one of the advantages of this bill of this recovery package is that it's not as tight a frame as the first one we received as you remember last year when we received this money it had to be committed by December 31st this has is open for a number of years I think it's two or three years but I don't even know that for sure so that's good news that flexibility in terms of timing will allow us to be strategic I believe one-time money that isn't ongoing so it shouldn't be used for program or programmatic needs this should be used for unmet needs in terms of infrastructure broadband in particular but other areas stormwater systems any other infrastructure that we know we are in great need of we could utilize some of these dollars for that to strengthen our foundation so to speak for future generations so I'm excited about this I think this is great news and we'll again be reporting this as we know more about this and presenting some of our thoughts and ideas to the legislature as well and work with them so that we get the most benefit the best return on investment we possibly can for Vermonters and not have any as a result of funneling money into programs that we can't pay for in the future great thank you Joe the Barton Chronicle I've got a couple of questions about vaccinations from readers the first is from a gentleman who is 65 and has multiple sclerosis he has had problems with shots in the past and believes that the Johnson and Johnson vaccine would be his best choice and wants to know whether there's any way that he can make sure he gets that particular vaccine yeah again Joe we're planning I think people should have a choice that this shouldn't be forced on anyone so we're trying to develop a system to make that possible but we also need to know what our supply is so that's the that's the missing piece of this puzzle we haven't been able to acquire from the feds and maybe this afternoon they'll give us a little bit more guidance or insight as to what they're expecting but until we know how much we're going to receive it's going to be difficult for us to come up with a plan in order to distribute so time will tell we will have some more information on this in the coming week or two great the second question is a little more complicated I'll give that one to Dr. Levine then okay well I'm sorry about that it's from women who got vaccinated at Walmart she got the Moderna vaccine she and her husband both did and their appointment for the second vaccination she noted was in one case five days later and one 26 days later she is concerned because she knows that the recommended time is 28 days and although she knows it's acceptable to have a shorter interlude that's not what she says is it's not proper to use that ability to have a shorter time when scheduling she contacted Walmart and they said they could not make appointments beyond March 30th which meant that gotten vaccinated farther into the month than would have allowed for a 28 gap to stay within that time so she's concerned about that and wonders what the state's relationship is with Walmart and whether this is a problem or not so this rather than throw Walmart under the bus completely this could happen at another pharmacy this might even potentially happen at another site in the state but forgetting that the real question is a matter of timing and you don't want timing to be a matter of convenience because of a scheduling system not able to accommodate something beyond the end of the month so if you got your vaccine on March 15th you'd hate to hear that you were getting your second shot on March 30th because that would be way too early but by the same token the conditions you just presented about this woman and her husband which is really only a few days ahead of the 28 days could also be a few days after the 28 days that would really not matter much and though the trials are done trying to adhere to a specific schedule and that becomes what we draw our clinical guidance from everyone agrees that several days before or after is not going to matter too much the CDC has also weighed in and said that should you get your vaccine six weeks later that's probably alright as well but don't go beyond that point because we do want to try to adhere as closely as possible to the guidance that the trials provided us okay I guess that's very clear thank you very much I was reading a chart in the New York Times yesterday that tracks vaccinations by state one of the columns was percentage of doses used in Vermont it says we've used 76% of doses which is a bit below the U.S. total of 79% I'm wondering why that is are doses being thrown out at all has anything happened there let the Chris repeat check and answer that yeah thank you Courtney for the question and I'll also let Secretary Smith add anything to that as well but just a couple of things to keep in mind on that percent used I mean when you look at the states that are leading in that category 8 out of the 10 states are behind Vermont when it comes to fully vaccinated as a percent of your population so something is incongruent there in terms of the reporting and the data the states that are doing the best in terms of vaccinating their people the ones necessarily leading on that percent used metric and as I said it's actually shown to work in the opposite way as well I think for Vermont the most important metrics are to look at the population that's had the vaccine available to them for the longest period of time which is the 75 and older and they're 72% and the national average is closer to 70% so that's really favorable in the long term also you look at the percent of the uptake of those that are unvaccinated that are willing to get it really high on that metric too so really I think it comes down to more of a reporting anomaly and an inventory management in a way that these states are using their inventory West Virginia a few weeks ago put out a press release from their governor's office saying they had used over 100% of their vaccine today they're at 83% so states are really moving all around on that and again I think it boils down to more about how are they reporting it and how are they using their inventory in a way that maybe or maybe not be responsible you also have got to look at how states are doing first and second dose and we're starting to get reports that some states are using their second dose as their first dose so that will increase their percentage in that area in Vermont we don't do that we hold the second dose for the second dose and I think many other states are doing that as well but what we'll find in some states and it will catch up sooner or later to them is that they're using second dose as first dose hoping that the inventory will increase enough where they can keep going on first and second dose and again we just don't do that here in Vermont okay thank you I'm going to add one more layer of suspicion from my standpoint we are a rural state if you've traveled in Florida for instance there is a Walgreens or a CVS or something on every single corner in every community we don't have that in Vermont so we're not in control of all of the inventory some of and this is what I described earlier we don't receive the doses we don't distribute them to the pharmacies the pharmacies are in control of their own inventory we actually found that one of the pharmacies we've been dealing with was sitting on thousands of doses because they can only administer so many during a week or two week period because of the lack of of the infrastructure here the lack of stores within Vermont so we were able to claw some of those back and put them to our advantage but again it highlights the fact that my preference would be that we receive the supply and that we distribute to the pharmacies as partners in a way that is efficient in a way that they can use them up so we get charged for that inventory as well so our total is the overall total and we get charged for even if they're sitting in their inventory and it's the same with 1A I mean we there were hospitals that received some of the vaccination vaccine and they had some inventory as well so I think again because of our small state it really does have an effect on our overall performance okay that makes sense thanks Governor thank you Rebecca good afternoon Governor we're hearing from multiple childcare providers who are I hope I get this right are registered with the state but unlicensed and they're feeling like they're being left out of the system for vaccines one of these childcare providers serves a family which includes a doctor another one of these families that we heard from has another healthcare provider in them many of these providers are already feeling like they're being held to a different standard by state regulations and this seems to just be exacerbating that feeling Governor I'm hoping you can address why the state would exclude these types of childcare workers in the current vaccination stage Greg this is Mike Smith we have used the list that we can find and that's licensed childcare workers and we're using licensed childcare workers as the basis to vaccinate those childcare providers I think it's a good method that we have we know who they are they're licensed that does not allow any sort of ambiguity in terms of what is going on out there you know the governor has mentioned this many times and I wish it was different but it isn't different we have X amount of supply that comes in we have to figure out the best way to distribute that supply in the most efficient and effective way as possible we've used the list of licensed childcare providers as the supply becomes greater we'll continue to expand through our age bands as we go through those age bands that will capture a lot of people and I think the governor is sort of forewarned this is going to go fairly fast as we move forward so I would say to those childcare providers that are either single family or non licensed we'll get to you but right now we're using licensed childcare as the area for moving forward primarily because we know who they are so I'm told that the state does know who the unlicensed providers are because they still have to register with the state is that wrong? well let me do this let me get the exact situation that you're describing and let me look into it and we'll reach out to you Greg you know these many times these one offs don't appear to be what they actually are so let me get the actual situation and we'll take a look at that sure thank you and I think that'll be it for me today thank you governor Hi governor obviously the American Recovery Act is in law until the president signs it but there's very high expectations that will happen by the end of this week even the using one time money for one time projects there's big kahuna items on there like broadband and wastewater that you've mentioned but it'd be easy to see how this gets parsed out into many many projects and then it becomes literally watered down and you're not getting enough to make a substantial impact on wastewater broadband how do you keep that from happening or is that what you want to try to get a sort of a fill well again from my standpoint we want to get the biggest bang for the buck and we want to make sure that we prioritize what our initiatives are I think you can look back to our budget and get an idea of where I think we should focus we are also asking our cabinet members to come back to us they're working on this in fact they've established a working list and they'll be presenting it the secretary of administration secretary young will be presenting that to me and then we'll work through that to present something to the legislature as a framework as to how we move forward so again there will be some smaller projects I'm sure that will be included but we really do want to focus on areas of biggest need again climate change mitigation initiative with sewer water storm water so forth those are areas that we have significant need in the state able to figure out how to pay for it and this is something that we should focus on again to strengthen this foundation for future generations because we've been struggling with deferred maintenance and so forth in some of these infrastructure needs you know this better than anyone else probably the legislature could take one-time money and actually pensions have been mentioned in this already and using a large chunk on pensions which would mean that they wouldn't have to put as much from the budget how this would work that would be sort of getting around the idea of using one-time money for one-time purposes I'm sure you have some sort of plan to build that we know the pension unfunded liability is a huge issue for our state it's grown from 4.3 billion in unfunded liabilities to about 5.7 billion over the last couple of years so this has an impact on us so I know that Treasurer Pierce and the legislature has committed to moving forward I've said that we will be at the table with them that's an opportunity for them they need to lead on this and again I don't want this to be deemed as partisan but they're in the majority they need to lead on this issue and we'll work with them in any way we can but we need to solve this there's some structural problems with the pension liability the pension system the OPEB system and so we need to bring that all together and move forward I don't believe the recovery money can be utilized for pension pension deficits but there are other ways around that as you noted to make that happen but again we'll be at the table we'll do what we can to strengthen the future of our economy for the future generations I'm out of this stronger than we went in thank you can you hear me now? yes go ahead Ann I think this is for Dr. Levine people are starting to go to pharmacies to get left over vaccinations at the end of the day that would otherwise go to waste I've heard about this in Vermont and in other states and I'm wondering is there any way to create waiting lists for these people so that at the end of the day they could call people and say you can come in now even if you're not in the exact age band Secretary Smith and we have issued through the health department have issued guidelines in terms of what you do with excess dosage at the end of the day and there is a priority list that you're supposed to be following and that priority list includes advance appointments appointments that you have in the future that you can bring forward and call those lists you have the names you have the numbers 1A if you have anybody that is scheduled that are 1A in sort of those healthcare workers number 2 is the next age band if you are number 3 is the next age band and in this case it would be the 5B or even lower the next thing you would do is that if there is nobody out there if there's something that you can get to home health somebody that's homebound that would be one area as well but the procedure says at the end of the day if there is no one then don't waste that dosage get it into somebody's arms arm and that is the procedure all the pharmacies have that procedure all the healthcare facilities have that procedure all of our vaccination sites have that procedure so we hope that they follow that procedure and set up their own their own sort of criteria because there's multiple ways that various locations do it set up their criteria set up their system based upon that criteria but we definitely ask them to set up a system a callback system based upon that great thank you also has the state health department encountered any vaccine refusal among school staff or just people who work in school buildings boy I don't yeah it's kind of early this Monday I don't know if we would have that information and Dr. Levine is shaking his head no I don't know if we would have that information yet I will say this we've had high intake on uptake on healthcare workers in general and we have some information on that and we have a high uptake with residents of long-term care facilities so we do have we've seen high uptake and if you saw in commissioners P checks slide 82% of 75 plus that's a pretty high uptake okay last but not least when you talk about getting back to the age bands is it possible to give us any idea of say when people 60 and over or 55 and over might be next in line I know that as you said it depends on vaccine supply but if vaccine supply stayed as it is right now do you have any idea when those groups would be able to start becoming eligible to register say 60 yeah I would expect some time in the next two weeks from my standpoint but we'll have as I said earlier and within the next two weeks we'll be able to lay out our plan our strategy for the age bands and when you might expect those to come up so stay tuned on that but those in the 60 to 65 I would say in the next couple of weeks I just wanted to make clear something else up and I think you talked about a refusal in the schools I just want to make sure everyone understands we're not forcing teachers to receive a vaccination so I'm not sure how they would refuse it's a sign up system and they can have the receive the vaccine or not maybe I should have used the word decline too early at this point and we're using both those onsite in the schools as well as the pharmacies so it's going to take a little while to work all that out and see but from what we gathered when we sent the survey out a high percentage of people of staff members who are willing to receive the vaccine which is one reason why we decided to move forward thank you very much I'm following up on my question from Friday Governor, my colleague Olivia asked the NEA and a superintendent yesterday whether they would be back to full in-person learning once their teachers are vaccinated and the short version was they felt that it itself was not enough and that they felt they were safely back to in-person learning if students could not stay to be apart what was your response upon hearing that? I don't know that that's across the board in fact I think I was watching CEX this morning and you reported a story where Essex Westford has committed to going back in person in April so I think we'll see I think there will be some momentum I think it will inspire others to do the same and instill some faith and trust so as we vaccinate more of the school staff I think there will be more of an inclination to going back and I would hate to put them on the spot at this point in time again they need to feel comfortable with this they need to be safe we need to listen to the experts the scientists the healthcare experts and others to determine distancing requirements we need to discuss and they have to be comfortable with and then communicate to the schools and so forth so that's not a political decision this is going to be a science based decision well that leads into my follow up question quite well actually so Dr. Levine does the health department feel that it is safe for students to go back to in-person learning full time if the spacing requirements cannot be met in the classroom or do you feel that the spacing requirements just want to remind everyone as well that the elementary schools have had a three foot distance many of them have already gone back into in-person instruction or from the very start and have done so quite successfully Dr. Levine just the additional the health department is actually using science and data as well and there are studies pending that are coming out that will help inform this CDC director has more or less said the same thing and they had put out some preliminary guidance but said that there will probably be some changes coming so we need to be a little bit patient as well but as the governor says and I believe secretary French has some data behind this the percentage of elementary schools that have more in-person education is quite high in Vermont so it's not that they're returning to anything they're already there it's the more higher level grades where these decisions will have more impact and I have to say this again vaccination is really going to be a wonderful pathway if you will to moving forward but it is not the prerequisite none of the guidance that's come out from anywhere has said that schools can't operate if teachers aren't vaccinated teachers are going to feel a lot more comfortable and will be more protected by being vaccinated but the goal is to set up schools in a way that everyone feels safe regardless of that knowing that the majority of students except for maybe a 11th or 12th graders at best won't be able to be vaccinated until we have a vaccine that has been authorized for that age group I guess what we're trying to set out for the people who have emailed with questions about this is is that three foot spacing requirement safe for the older grades as well as for the elementary school students and I'm going to hedge on that because we are really waiting some data that I think shed a little better light on that so I don't want to say anything more than that for now when will we expect that data it's not coming from me so I can't give you the date it's coming out. Nationally people have talked about having it this month but that's all I know Thank you Yes, good afternoon Governor, a question for you and for Dr. Levine regarding the court proceedings in Newport involving the UPS store owner for the Governor reaction to an argument that's being presented this morning that the mask mandate the emergency powers you've used to issue it are unconstitutional and for Dr. Levine response to the testimony yesterday from a microbiologist arguing that masks are ineffective and as well the notion that the short duration of interaction within that type of store really limited exposure risk Well the first part from a constitutional standpoint I think we're quite confident that it is constitutional the powers that I have during a state of emergency are broad and guidelines that are invoked are just like law so I think it's constitutional I think that they will come to that conclusion themselves but we'll see how the court proceeding goes Dr. Levine I'll be careful to not say too much because this is an ongoing proceeding but our state epidemiologist testified yesterday and provided all the kind of factual information I would have provided if I was testifying regarding the impact of masks on potential transmission of droplets and infecting other people the impact of mask mandates where they have been put into play on improvement in rates of transmission and I'm not sure she referred to this study but I believe she may have there was a recent morbidity mortality weekly report from CDC again looking at the impact of mask mandates and showing a dramatic decline within a 20 day period of COVID infections so there's a lot of supporting data that I believe was presented at this trial and that's why I stopped there okay thank you again I just want to add once again as I've said before this is a unfortunate situation and completely avoidable so it's unfortunate that there has to be any court proceeding at all thank you good afternoon I have a question here about compliance and getting the cards that show that you've been vaccinated and what I think to do is offer two scenarios and ask them how we're supposed to respond if a person walks into a couple of people walking to a bar or restaurant without a mask on is the manager supposed to ask them if they've been vaccinated and approve it so they can be in the place without wearing a mask so if a law enforcement officer goes into a business and sees an employee who's not wearing a mask do they have to ask them for proof that they have been vaccinated yeah these are scenarios that I don't know as I have the answer to maybe Commissioner Sherling at this point and these may be just details we need to work out because this is going to get more complex I think the CDC guidance made it a little bit more the complexity increased as a result but these are things we're going to have to work through over the next three to four months and again because this is going to happen quickly we're going to get more and more people for monitors vaccinated over the next three months we think we'll get at least the first dose into the majority and if we have questions for those who can wear masks if they're vaccinated and we still have the mask mandate obviously these are questions that are going to continue so we'll work through that Commissioner Sherling anything you want to add to that or would you like to just take a pass at this point Governor I would only add that as you observe the mask mandate still in place we do of course anticipate that for some period of time even as vaccine continues to mitigate spread so it's not an issue yet it is something we'll contemplate as we move forward okay very good thank you thanks for taking my call in the power point Jack it says that Vermont ranks 11th in percentage of population fully vaccinated where does Vermont fall in percentage of population having received at least one dose Commissioner P check yeah Tom we can check on that in terms of the one dose the CDC definitely provides information about all doses administered so they include first doses with the second doses to get a ranking and on that ranking we're 13th I think we put that in the slide deck as well but in terms of a single dose we don't track that but we'll see if the CDC provides that information thank you one of the reasons I was curious is that looking at a letter sent to the New England Journal of Medicine from a couple of physicians in Canada talking about the fact that from the Food and Drug Administration if you don't start measuring until two weeks after someone has the first dose that they found from that data that first dose can be up to 92% effective with Moderna and Pfizer which would leave one to think that it might be more beneficial to get more people vaccinated by getting more first doses out first at some stage of doing was that taken into consideration here well again we talked about that initially but we decided to move through to the full vaccination that was our strategy from the start we decided to continue to fulfill that again adding to the complexity is the Johnson Johnson single dose and how that correlates well is that a that'll be first and last dose and how that has an effect on the data so we'll have to see again there are some states that look as though they're way ahead in terms of using their vaccine supply but they may be using the strategy of using all their doses for first dose and not fully vaccinating so that's why we're keeping track of it in terms of full full vaccination last question would your administration consider evidently going to single dose postponing the second dose for some just to get more people vaccinated in time? not at this stage I think we're committed to the process we have in place and as we you'll see over the next couple of weeks when I describe what we see as the next two or three months how fast we're going to get through this so we're committed to the process we have and we'll just keep adhering to the strategy okay thanks very much I think my question I have a couple would be for Dr. Levine or Secretary Smith the first one we've heard from a few people that newly hired healthcare workers might need to hold off on getting their vaccinations and I see that UVMMC has a waitlist for people in the Tier 1A group so I was wondering if you could give some details on the state's protocol when it comes to vaccinating newly hired healthcare workers I assume any waitlist boils down to allocation estimates but if you could just provide some background should they expect to get on the UVMMC waitlist are there other mechanisms for people who are recently licensed to sign up and get their vaccines yeah so you're talking about new people to the healthcare workforce and I believe we still get requests for allocations from all of our partners in the healthcare system on an ongoing basis so if those are accounted for in the mix they will be accounted for in the 1A we're also pivoting towards an ability for 1A eligible people to go onto the website and register themselves that is not operative today but that is hoped for in the near future so that workforce will be taking care of either way great and I just wanted to follow up on the state prioritization of the BIPOC community in the vaccine rollout I just wanted to make sure so the idea is that someone who's a member of the BIPOC community and falls into one of the eligible vaccine groups can also bring household members who are outside of that vaccine group to get vaccinated is that the idea? that is exactly the idea and that's what we've been doing in the ELL or English language learner community thus far great and I think just a quick follow up then because the BIPOC community is relatively small has the state considered opening up a vaccine group that I'm specifically or is the supply too limited at this point to make that call? at this point we made our initial decisions we felt that even though you say small for any community or any group that's interested in getting a vaccine in general it's always thousands of people so small is all relative and when we initially made all of the decisions we were making we wanted to make sure that this group had priority within each of the specified and already delineated and that's the way we've maintained and we'll keep going with them great, thank you this thing is almost over Governor, Catholic leaders across the country are asking the faithful to decline the Johnson and Johnson vaccine because testing and development involve stem cells from aborted fetuses is this true about the vaccine? have you seen any opposition in Vermont? and how would you decide for monitors and conscience to proceed? well again, Guy it's our plan to allow people to make that choice I've heard on the other side of the equation where many people are waiting for the Johnson and Johnson they want the one shot or regiment and they're looking forward to that so I think it'll be fine either way and I would just say if you do not want the Johnson and Johnson you're not going to be forced to have it we'll make sure that you get on the list for the other Moderna and Pfizer vaccine thank you do you expect to make remote working for state employees a permanent thing? you've extended the work at home for most state employees through April what is the plan on state employees returning to their offices? yeah, it's still work in progress secretary Young to comment on this as well but I would expect in the future there are going to be a certain percentage of those who can work remotely not everyone can and not everybody wants to so we're trying to contemplate that for the future I'm sure it'll be part of the future I just don't know the percentages and what the uptake will be but we'll have those conversations secretary Young anything you want to add to that? thank you governor yeah we're looking very closely at what the future of the workforce is in terms of remote work and the balance between remote work and in-office work so we've got a good survey from the workforce that seems to be quite satisfied with some hybrid it's not a full-time model remote and we're taking that and we're now working through several options with cabinet members and the like to see what works for each department and agency my expectation is there'll be a hybrid thank you can you hear me? yeah go ahead ham uh governor I'd like to just change the format just very briefly this press conference I'm very concerned about the blood sugar level of your team and I don't think there's much oxygen left there for long rambling stuff so what I'd like to do is this Mark Levine over the next five to six weeks to if he would consider the question of the thing that's looming past the immediate time which is that we may have to deal with the Brazil variant and the South African variant and that could get to the question of whether we're going to need booster shots for people that have already been been vaccinated that's a really complex mess and I understand that and I don't even want to hear the answer right now I just hope that Mark Levine would be able to incorporate a look at that as we go forward over the next five to six weeks because the question is going to get more complicated the second question would be the same idea to like Smith which is I understand that everybody's all hands on deck for the virus distribution and I'm not, I don't disagree with that and I think the state of Vermont this my opinion and eight bucks to get you coffee but I think you guys are doing an awesome job but as far as Mike Smith is concerned we talked a couple months ago about rebooting one care Vermont the reform is still sitting out there and it is taking shape because all the budgets for fiscal year 2022 are now starting to go together and I would think that over the next maybe six to eight weeks that if Mike Smith and his team can get some time that they would begin to tell us a little bit about where they're headed on this matter anyway I'm not listening to the answer guys I'd like to have you look at those well he's got the same answer as Dr. Levine look their head yes alright thank you thank you very much and that concludes the media briefing we'll see you again on Friday