 Good afternoon everyone. We just finished our governor's call with the White House and there wasn't a lot of new information but here's what they had to say. There will be no changes in allotment this week but again supply exceeds demand at this point in time. Several governors press the FDA on a timeline on Pfizer's transition from emergency approval to full approval as they have completed their application but unfortunately the FDA wasn't able to give any information on that process at all. They also said that as a country we've hit 70% of those over 30 which is different than their original goal of 70% for those over 18 by the fourth. For reference if we use that metric we would be at 85.3%. Lastly it was General Perna's last call today as he's retiring starting under President Trump and continuing under President Biden, General Perna, a four-star general, has waged a war he never envisioned. He was put in charge of managing vaccine supply under an incredibly difficult situation and did a remarkable job. He's a perfect example of how to rise above politics and focusing on getting the job done for the American people and I for one want to thank him for his incredible work and service. Moving on, yesterday was a symbolic milestone in our pandemic response. The final pieces of our medical surge site at the Champlain Valley Exposition were removed and the space was turned back to the fairgrounds. I want to thank the National Guard and the state emergency response team for their quick work building the surge site last year and keeping it ready at a moment's notice ever since. I also want to thank the Expo for their hospitality and coordination. This was truly a team effort. Fortunately the site didn't get much use but given what we saw happening in other states it was important for us to be prepared and we were. Next many of you will be celebrating Independence Day this weekend and this year it has an even greater meaning than usual. After 16 long and difficult months dealing with a once-in-a-century crisis and all that came with it this 4th of July weekend, vaccinated Vermonters can feel safe celebrating with their friends attending parades and cookouts, fireworks, displays heading to the lake or state park are doing just about anything you'd like without having to fear the virus. Why? Because vaccines work and where the most vaccinated state in America as well as the most vaccinated places on the planet. We also know those who are fully vaccinated are protected from the Delta variant we've heard so much about in the news recently. I just want to once again remind Vermonters if you're fully vaccinated or you're likely protected against the variants we've seen so far you can do all the things you did before the pandemic without much risk. For younger children who aren't yet eligible because of our high vaccination rate it means they're more protected as well because there's less virus and transmission in the community. If Vermont had a low vaccination rate I might be saying something different but we don't. There are some places in the country where rates are much lower some states experiencing about half where we are but again we leave the nation. Almost 82 percent of those 12 and over have been vaccinated and we can benefit from our good work this 4th of July weekend and beyond. We stayed united we've worked hard and sacrificed a lot to get to this point and although we still have much more work to do taking some time for yourself having some fun and being safe is something you should take advantage of. I'll now turn it over to Commissioner Pichek for this week's data and modeling presentation. Thank you very much Governor and good afternoon everyone. It's now been two weeks since Vermont hit our 80 percent goal and Vermonters are continuing to get vaccinated. Since last Tuesday 3,600 Vermonters have started vaccination increasing the percentage of eligible Vermonters who have started vaccination to 81.9 percent. Also as of today there are now fewer than 100,000 Vermonters who are eligible for vaccination who have not yet started their process. And Vermont continues to be a national leader with the highest vaccination rates in the country across all of the categories we have been tracking for some time now. And for the third straight week Vermont has not reported a single death and we've only reported one death over the last six weeks and we anticipate that our fatality rates will remain very low through the month of July. Vermont's hospitalization rates also remain low although we have seen an increase over the last two weeks with our 14-day average increasing from 1.64 to 4.21 but Vermont continues to have the fewest per capita hospitalizations in the country and we anticipate that our rates will stay very low in the weeks ahead. Our case rates have also stayed low this week as we have seen 19 straight days of new daily cases being in the single digits and we're averaging just over five new cases a day. Although our case totals are staying very low we have seen an increase in the median age of new cases which stood at just under 30 years old at the start of June and now having risen to about 40 years old. This in part could explain the slightly more elevated number of cases we're seeing among those in their 40s 50s and 60s relative to the rest of the population because all of the age groups are very low and again it might also partly explain the uptick that we've seen in hospitalizations as well. But generally as I mentioned cases in all of the age groups are staying very low and across all geographies as well. This week we saw nine Vermont counties that did not report a single COVID-19 case and our new case forecast also anticipates that our cases will remain very low through the month of July as well. And another bit of good news fortunately the Northeast continues to see improvement this week as well with cases hospitalizations and fatalities all trending down. Cases this week just totaled over 4,000 for the region and once again is the lowest number we've seen since the start of the pandemic. And we've continued to closely track the COVID-19 trends following the full reopenings in New England and again those trends are favorable and they are all moving in the right direction. When we take a look at the Northeast and compare it to the other census regions we can see why the trends have been so good here in our region. The Northeast saw the largest drop in new cases and cases have also remained the lowest in the country and again you can tie this back to our very high vaccination rates. 66% of residents in the Northeast have started vaccination compared with 53% in the West 50% in the Midwest and 47% in the South and we're also seeing that the states that are the most vaccinated are also seeing fewer hospitalizations and fewer deaths as well. The governor mentioned a few of the states with lower vaccination rates that are seeing their cases rise and when you look at the national map of how cases have moved over the last 14 days you can see a few spots in the country where cases have risen more than 20%. In particular Missouri, Arkansas, and Oklahoma and then also Nevada and Utah. Again these are states that have low vaccination rates and as we can see from the next chart there are also states that are seeing a relative increase in the Delta variant as well or at least the regions in which the states are located are seeing the rise. We mentioned last week that the UK has seen a rise of the Delta variant in those who are unvaccinated. A couple of states now in the United States are similarly seeing this trend and for those who are thinking about getting vaccinated who are on the fence it's certainly something that should motivate you to go out and get vaccinated that fewer than 100,000 Vermonters who are eligible but have not yet started their process because as the governor said when you're fully vaccinated you can be assured that the Delta variant will not be a threat to you. And finally taking a look at Canada north of the border the trends there have been very strong over the past week. 67.8% of all Canadians have started vaccination with 28.1% now being fully vaccinated and as you can see their cases hospitalizations and fatality rates have all come down quite dramatically as has occurred in Quebec as well which should hopefully spell good news for the eventual border reopening. So at this time I would like to turn the presentation over to Secretary Smith. Thank you Commissioner Pichek and good morning everyone. Today I'll start off with an update of our progress with our vaccination program as well as announced convenient locations to to walk in and get vaccinated this week. As of this morning as the governor mentioned we have 81.9% and as Commissioner Pichek mentioned as well of eligible Vermonters 12 years old and above have received at least one dose of the vaccine and 73.7% of eligible Vermonters are fully vaccinated in this state. Let's move on to the many convenient opportunities to get vaccinated. I'll announce this week pop-ups as usual but as I've mentioned before most pharmacies around the state are also offering walk-in vaccinations. Ask your local pharmacist or simply walk into CVS, Hannaford Food and Drugs, Walgreens, Walmart, Price Chopper, Market 32, Rite Aid, Shaw's Supermarket or Costco to get vaccinated. Aside from the usual University of Vermont Medical Center locations at the pharmacies on the UVMMC main campus Fannie Allen and South Prospect Street as well as weekdays at Northwestern Medical Center Urgent Care Clinic and daily at Southwestern Vermont Medical Center Express Care. Here's what you'll find this week in the pop-up clinics. Today June 29th Springfield Town Library, Northfield Farmers Market, the Community Health Center of Burlington, Vermont Creamery in Websterville, Springfield Federal Qualified Health Center. Tomorrow June 30th Gifford Medical Center in Randolph, North Country Hospital in Newport, the State House Lawn in Montpelier Springfield Medical Care Center, Community Health Centers of Burlington and the Windom Town Hall on Thursday July 1st North Eastern Vermont Regional Hospital in St. Johnsbury, Waterbury Farmers Market, Ben & Jerry's in Waterbury, the Community Health Center of Burlington and on Friday Newport Waterfront Plaza and the Community Health Centers of Burlington again like I said the pharmacies at UVMMC their Fannie Allen campus as well as Southwestern and Northwest are open daily as well and on weekends on Saturday here's what we've got going Johnson State Park in the town of Johnson, Waterbury Ambulance, 1311 Berry Montpelier Road in Berlin, Waitsfield United Church of Christ and Williams Town flea market on Sunday July 4th Waterbury Ambulance, 1311 Berry Montpelier Road in Berlin, the Warren Municipal Complex and the Barton Fairground. So as you can see we continue to offer many convenient opportunities to get vaccinated and as you know fair season is around the corner soon we'll be announcing more clinics at fairgrounds across the state in addition we will begin using a variety of vaccination strategies in the upcoming weeks we will be moving to attend to 14 regional COVID resource centers we're both testing and vaccinations will be readily available each day we are qualifying and adding more primary care offices to administer vaccines and of course we'll continue the pop-ups but with a more strategic emphasis going to locations that have been requested and where vaccinations have perhaps lagged we will have more to say about each of these with a map that will show these locations in the next two weeks. I urge all Vermonters to avail themselves of the many opportunities to protect yourself and your loved ones right now and into the future there will be plenty of opportunities for all Vermonters that want to get a vaccine to get a vaccine it is important to get as many Vermonters vaccinated to guard against variants as well as a possible resurgence of the virus in the fall vaccines are safe and effective I'll now turn it over to Dr. Levine for a health update like I haven't said Dr. Levine that many times in the last year and a half Dr. Levine. It's one syllable longer than stiff. My comments this morning will pertain to vaccine and then our health care system and health care I do hope you're all looking forward as the governor wished you to the coming Fourth of July weekend and celebrating all the things that we can now do together again remember this is all thanks to the vaccine it protects us it stops the spread it keeps us all safe this is why even with Vermont's high vaccination rates and very low case numbers you're still hearing from us you'll keep seeing clinics in your communities and vaccine available at your local pharmacy story after story tells us that the majority of unvaccinated people in Vermont have nothing against getting the vaccine they've just not gotten around to it or haven't prioritized it they may not have thought much about it haven't found their own personal reason or impossible as it seems just haven't run into it in their day-to-day lives or they may be among the last in the wait and see group if that's the case I just ask that you consider the millions of people already vaccinated safely and join the 82 percent of Vermonters who have already made the decision because anyone who is vaccinated who is not vaccinated is still at risk as we see more contagious variants like delta overtaking the country as travel increases as other parts of the country like the south and midwest see lower vaccination rates and outbreaks of infection it becomes even more important to protect as many people as we can I often get questions here about vaccine boosters so I wanted to share with you that the CDC's advisory committee discussed this recently and has not yet come to any conclusions except that they are not currently needed and that at least for the mRNA vaccines the duration of immunity to current strains may be much longer than we thought certainly past one year so booster shots are not likely to be on the near horizon the advisory committee also weighed in on younger children we do not anticipate vaccine eligibility for children under 12 to becoming early in the fall at this point but we will continue to fully monitor the CDC recommendations closely we're already working with our pediatric providers and other partners to plan for when that time will come both in terms of providing information for parents as well as how best to carry out such an effort for this younger but relatively large population as with every step of this vaccination process the decision will come when both efficacy and safety outcome measures have been met and finally I'm hearing from almost half of our hospitals that they are seeing more admissions lately these are not COVID admissions a number of them appear to be a result of people having delayed regular health care and therefore being susceptible to more serious illness sicker patients mean more stays longer stays in the hospital and more complex needs we were very fortunate in Vermont that we were able to work with our health care system to remain open safely during the past year so that people could get back to routine medical care our data showed in fact that health care facilities were some of the safest places to be and now with Vermont's robust vaccination rates they are even safer so I strongly encourage anyone who has put off preventive care or screenings or kids immunizations to take the opportunity to get caught up when you can I recently just did that myself and if you have any important symptoms that you've been ignoring or waiting for a better time to address please find the time to see your provider the sooner the better let's avoid any additional negative effects of this pandemic and keep Vermonters healthy far into the future thank you Dr. Levine we'll now open it up to questions seeing Vermont Legal Aid filed a class action lawsuit to stop the changing of eligibility for the general assistance motel hotel program which is slated to of course happen on Thursday what what do you make of this lawsuit their concerns again this in some respects we've been talking about going back to something that was more realistic I guess after the pandemic after the state of emergency ended so this is no surprise to anyone and we feel as though we have protections in place we've taken steps to make sure that the people are protected that are coming out of the program it's expanded tremendously since pre-pandemic and actually are going to have a more expanded eligibility than before so we feel we're in a good spot obviously we'll know more as time goes on and we had a number of people at the table during these discussions so Secretary Smith thank you Governor you actually captured a lot that I was going to say DCF and AHS the expected legal aid to file this lawsuit they tell they told us they were going to do so we've been in discussions with them for some time I just want to sort of recap how we came to this agreement of what we were going to do it wasn't you know a few people sitting around one or two people sitting around in a room we actually got a lot of people together in a room through multiple meetings and with advocates and with the legislature to really try to come to consensus which we we did on how this program should sort of unwind on a post pandemic operation and so DCF and AHS worked with the Vermont legislature and the emergency housing work group which included by the way legal aid representatives of local housing authorities and state leaders to craft the new housing rules there was there was broad consensus among the work group and the legislature with that plan that the work group came up with which was acceptable and desirable in which the legislature endorsed and that plan was we're not going back to where it was pre pandemic we're actually going to expand eligibility in various criteria one of those areas was disability there was a strict eligibility requirements in terms of disability pre pandemic and it mostly associated with were you receiving social security disability were you receiving veterans disability or defense department disability those were the sort of the criteria we expanded that criteria to say if you have a doctor's note that says you're disabled we'll take that we'll take appeals as well we gave notice on all of these changes on april 30th of this year to the people in the housing program remember we did this in two steps first if you were not in the program the eligibility requirements came into effect on june 1 if you were in the program you were grandfathered into july july 1 and so you know we we have expanded eligibility just think about this in terms of what the state of vermont did the state of vermont housed just about everybody that requested to be housed in motels and hotels during the pandemic we thought that was the right thing to do a lot of people wouldn't have qualified in pre pandemic eligibility and then we expanded the rules post pandemic and let me just explain what that means on the coldest night and that was sort of the the criteria that we use because this program was to make sure people were sheltered during cold whether in shelters or in motel hotel or escaping domestic or sexual abuse that's what this program was designed among other things on the coldest night of the year we did about 300 households pre pandemic right now there will be 950 households that will be eligible under the expanded criteria that's about 1481 individuals that will stay in the program as we move forward so i think we've done a fairly good job we'll defend what we've done in court and we'll look for the outcome as we move forward absence of a viable vacant apartments to to move to i mean why not i mean the homeless services agencies are saying there's just no place to go you're they're taking some of the $2,500 and using it to suggest they go out and buy a tent yeah the the 25 and remember the $2,500 is for each individual that that is given plus there's $8,000 in stipend if you to help you with a move and other things for a new place right you can many people came from friends and family that wasn't acceptable during the pandemic because you didn't want people congregating uh congregating what we want is for those to reach out again second um a lot of people we're not dropping services for people we're trying to wrap services around people to help them in this transition and also we're giving them money to either provide them with temporary housing in other places we're expanding the shelter capacity and each day that shelter capacity expands greater and greater in fact we're putting in millions into expanding that shelter capacity and ultimately as as you mentioned um well you didn't mention it but i'll mention um uh you know we're putting in 120 million dollars of money to build permanent housing that's the solution here is building permanent housing uh you know we're expanding eligibility in these areas we're we're giving money for people to help during the transition we're not you know saying see you later there are other opportunities with services that we're providing local providers are doing their best to help out and we are placing people uh as we move forward so you know we're going to have to work through this as we work through bringing people in to the hotel motel program uh during the height of the pandemic governor the last week before lawmakers left they passed a housing bill that i think their elements of the you were very supportive of but there might have been some parts i think there was an apartment registry uh that you had some concerns about uh are you going to support that bill we haven't received the bill yet it hasn't uh we haven't gotten it from the legislature at this point in time um there's some good parts of the bill some that i i see as problematic and i see that is uh possibly setting us back a bit on our housing crisis i think there are going to be some uh who um who want to add an apartment to reduce a room or or something in their own home um that aren't going to do it uh because of the registry it's just not going to go through all the the hoops and obstacles needed to to put yourself out there so i see that as problematic i think that there are a number of people who do as well but it's up to it's up to me i guess at this point to weigh that out because some of the the good aspects of the bill were some initiatives that we put forward uh vhip and so forth and housing improvements it's money that we think are going to be necessary and could help in in many different ways so again it's going to be a close call wait for the bill i haven't really looked at it myself in depth and i look forward to doing it and then i'll have a decision make a decision within five days of receiving it do you find the registry to be that onerous i do yeah i think it will be onerous um and i think in time we'll see that it could be problematic um and i understand why uh some advocates supported it a lot of it was about market share and competitiveness and in other in other industry um but um but i think about the you know the mom and pops and so forth that might again want to put on and had an apartment in their home to supplement their income or or do you something different that just might not want to put themselves out there because they're you know it comes with uh costs and capital improvements and so forth um and that's what it'll lead to but we'll see here's the legislature did not attempt to override your veto on um s 107 the juvenile records bill not yet yeah i have have you and commissioner shirling uh come come to any sort of agreement as to what what the policy should look like in the interim no i mean we're going back to what we had before um that's uh there's still a it's still problematic in terms of uh what the statute says and what we need to do so we're contemplating that but but at this point in time we're just going back to what we had uh had been utilizing over the last few months so the state will not be releasing names we're still any any timeline as to when there will be some sort of well again it depends on what the legislature does um they'll be back and whether they seek to override it or work with us to provide clarity i i would like them to work with us and work together and provide clarity and and determine what we really want to do for the future with uh july 1st coming up in a couple of days a lot of a lot of uh action from this year is going into law what what do you see is the most important thing um going going forward from the first yeah i think the all the arpa uh money and uh what that means in terms of uh whether it's housing whether it's water uh sewer broadband and so forth uh i think those are the highlights in a lot of respects question for dr. Levine from a couple in essix who won't be last night and they're asking if you could give us a uh a profile of the typical person that is contracting COVID-19 now this month uh or uh it's hospitalized now age vaccination status typically unvaccinated i would imagine and how many vaccinated people have tested positive in vermont before the virus so the so-called breakthrough rate which means you've been fully vaccinated but you've turned up as a case is six and ten thousand which is about similar to national numbers uh perhaps a tiny bit higher than national numbers because i think we have better track of that data it's a little harder for me to give you a full assessment on the hospital because we're literally going from one or two cases a day to five or six cases a day um so it's a little harder to understand that one yet age range who's getting who's coming down with this now yeah so the ages have been quite um varied from very young like in single digits to uh sometimes in the 60s often in the 30s and 40s again we're dealing with you know three to six cases a night uh in our reports so hard to say that's you know statistically significant but clearly as the commissioner p check showed the age has gone up a little bit recently still not super high most of the time our oldest vermonters have been very fully vaccinated because we have an incredible rate of vaccine in that population so we're not seeing many people over age 60 i just had one more question for you um i think you said there were about a hundred thousand people who were yet to be vaccinated in the state of little less and last week was about 3600 does that sound right that did get vaccinated yeah so that's going to take you a couple of weeks to uh get through this group i'm just sort of wondering internally what have you said as a goal to say you know if we hit 85 we're doing pretty darn well and we ought to be happy about it yeah well you're asking a team that isn't going to tell you a magic number that we've said as a goal but the current number is not the goal it's higher than the current number so we are willing to take as long as it will take um none of our vaccine sites are oversubscribed now there are no waiting lines and as you know there's no registration process necessary you can walk into so many sites so we're going to keep them going and we're going to keep allowing vermonters even at the rate that it's happening even if it's 3600 that's still better than zero the goal would be again if everybody wants to understand this clearly be ready for the fall and winter it's fully vaccinated vermonters because uh if there's anything sneaky that's going to happen with this virus in the future it's going to be when people are more congregated indoors again in a different time of year if there are more variants on the horizon they're not going to start in vermont for sure because the virus doesn't have much of a chance here to be passed from person to person but the reality is uh if we're going to encounter new and interesting variants we need to be prepared for that so this is the time to really get yourself vaccinated and go through that process all right we will go to the phones now and if we have any uh if you have any more we can come back at the end for the folks in the room but go to wilson ring the associate press uh hi everybody um first time i've tried this technology i hope it's working um governor as i'm sure you know there's been a lot of talk and this is a question you've been asked before but i'm ready for an update uh about reopening the canadian border and making it possible for people to cross back easier uh back and forth easier than they can now which of course is very difficult um new york has its excelsior pass or six they're working on it um have you given any thought to uh coming up with something like that that vermonters could use when it's time to go to canada other than their little cardboard cards that they could show to the uh border people we haven't worked on anything uh different than what we have right now i would assume that the cards would work um and i would advocate that people should take pictures of their card while they have them uh at their disposal to have with them and um i you know again i don't have any inside knowledge as to what's going to happen but i would not be surprised if there wasn't some sort of vaccine type of passport uh that would be necessary to go back and forth across the border uh when it does open i think the the door has been open uh some what in uh of late and i believe that um sometime at the end of july we might see uh that the border will be opened up to those who have been vaccinated but but again that's just speculation on my part but if you don't have any ideas about how vermont could contribute or vermonters could uh sign up for those passes well i believe that the again i'm just speculating but i would say the vaccine card in itself presented at the border would be sufficient okay thank you like down in you the islander uh thank you uh jason uh governor i was wondering uh the state is going to have been noted going to be closing down hotel sites uh that have been provided to a lot of people at taxpayer expense uh this week and some of the people may not want to move out of the free housing what what plans does the state have to remove these take remove these people and turn the property back to the owners of these hotels and so they can rent them out or whatever they want to do with them um i've talked to several police chiefs and they've indicated they have zero interest in handling a civil issue like landlord tent disputes and evictions and everything like that so will the state police be doing any of this eviction enforcement in these towns or will the hotels be on their own yeah um i personally haven't contemplated that there would have to be some sort of eviction process in some of the motels and hotels but secretary smith might have more on that we haven't uh we believe that most people will comply with leaving the hotel motel we do have social workers that we will be deploying and those areas that may need it if there are there are some resistance in leaving the hotels at this time we haven't notified local police departments and we haven't notified the state police we hope we can resolve any of those issues on a ongoing basis mike i just want to i just want to reemphasize what we did as a state uh which i'm pretty darn proud of and and i'm pretty darn proud of what we're doing as a state uh with those that are homeless and i'm pretty darn proud of what we're going to do as a state when this pandemic hit um we said anybody anybody that says they're homeless we will put in hotel or a motel uh we did that now we have to wind down that program and we've done it in a way that expands eligibility past the past the eligibility of what the program looked like before we uh before we started and we did that with a lot of collaboration as we move forward we're going to be spending 41 million dollars just to give you some context before the pandemic we spent six million dollars in this program we're going to be spending 41 million dollars in this program uh for fiscal year 22 and then in the future what i'm pretty darn proud of is i've never seen a housing bill that i'm seeing coming down the pike for permanent housing for individuals that are experiencing homeless i mean we're gonna we have 120 million dollars in terms of housing for next year but it's a part of a 250 million dollar proposal that the governor before i've never seen that in my lifetime so we we anticipate that what we are going to do is um i i i firmly believe that everybody will be compliant but i firmly also believe that we we resolve these issues on a social services issue and and perhaps not on a public safety issue but you've seen you certainly must know of or seeing yourself that there are evictions long before the pandemic came along there were a lot of evictions in the court system and it's just going to be some people that just don't want to leave you know they're happy with the hotel and the accommodations and everything and can you somebody must have been thinking how are we going to end this granted 98% may leave but it's a 2% that you're going to be stuck with and that the hotel owner cannot reclaim his property yeah mike i i think what we're hoping is that we can resolve it on a social services type of of situation in red instead of a law enforcement um you know we'll we'll see how it goes but um you know the state has been very generous we just hope that people understand that this is an unsustainable program from twofold one is we don't have enough hotel rooms anymore we've lost 300 hotel rooms as we open up the economy that's only going to continue we had the fortunate situation of having hotel rooms available which was the unfortunate situation it was by the pandemic that did it but we had the the you know the fortunate of having rooms available we don't have those rooms available anymore tourism is starting to pick up those rooms are starting to to be occupied and secondly if we continued i just want to put this in context we're spending 41 million dollars in f y 22 but if we continued the program as is it would have cost us 108 million dollars with no guarantee that the feds would reimburse us for the full year in in in that amount of money so um social we we hope through social service engagement uh we can resolve any issues where people um don't want to leave a hotel motel and i think it's a little bit different than in fiction um a hotel motel um uh program you know we we were fairly explicit that this was temporary to begin with okay thanks no i i fully understand it's a great job you guys put all those people up and there's always going to be a few though that will take advantage of the system thank you very much and they have the the ability some of them would have the ability with a $2,500 stipend to stay longer if they'd like to if they want to utilize that for you know an overnight rate thank you chris maize the braddleboro reformer hi governor i was wondering if you can comment on the ethiopian community development council proposal being submitted to the federal government for having a center here in braddleboro and how the state or your administration is supporting the effort for a refugee resettlement here um obviously we uh we highlighted this as an initiative that we'd like to see expanded we'd ask for more of the allotment from the federal government and hopefully we'll be able to move forward with that it's just from every aspect i believe would be beneficial to vermont we need more people we need more diversity and i think this is a step in the right direction thank you tom davis compass vermont thanks jason um i don't know if this is for you governor dr levine uh i noticed a posting from the vermont national guard uh specifically the jericho vermont third battalion that uh being deployed uh and they were talking about the fact that they had a very very high vaccination rate i think with 87 percent which is impressive as is vermont however i was curious with vermont's success and with the direct involvement of the national guard not national guard in uh administering vaccinations why wouldn't be 100 well i think everyone still has a choice tom as to whether they it wasn't required uh i think i've heard some statistics across the country uh where and i was surprised by this that uh members of the military uh have across the country uh have been a much lower rate than i would have expected um so i think having as high a rate as we're seeing uh if 87 percent i think that's uh that's good news for us because again let's let's be honest there's a certain number of the population who are never going to be vaccinated will never um uh want to be vaccinated and we have to just accept that we're not going to make a mandatory and people have have choices to make on their own so i i think that's pretty good news we'll continue uh to leave that option open and hopefully the other 13 percent will will decide to get vaccinated in the future dr levine anything you want to add not too much to add governor the we don't know who those 13 percent are and what specific characteristics they might have that might influence why they aren't getting vaccinated or not the reality is as i've said before we do not view the unvaccinated group in vermont as vaccine resistant or totally against the notion of vaccine very skeptical uh quite often it's other factors that are much easier to meet the person where they are at and they eventually will get vaccinated so i would consider even the 87 percent as the floor and there may be more uh coming up getting them closer to 90 or even higher the other thing is as the governor said um at one point in the pandemic i know that the rate of uh i'm not getting vaccinated in the military was as much as one in three i hope that still isn't true but let's assume it it's close uh we're certainly way ahead of that which is great do you have any information why given the fact that it would be wasted resources to have the soldiers coming down with covid in the middle of their operations in part of the world why the united states government wouldn't make it mandatory for anybody who's in the armed forces of any branch to be vaccinated regardless of how they feel about it personally um again i don't have any inside knowledge at all and um it's probably a better question for the department of defense um but um but i would think from a readiness standpoint we would want as many of our military vaccinated as possible i think this is uh it's problematic but probably a better question for them i appreciate that one last question um the uh the reminder that the destruction of the building that collapsed in miami and now observing that secretary grudegent is in new york city looking at bridges and tunnels um there's a great database uh put together that in uh in the month the transportation department that shows the details of inspections of bridges we don't have any tunnels but um i wasn't able to find the frequency and policy of how many times and is there any sense given this focus on infrastructure that may do more uh inspections you know tom we've done um we've upped our game in terms of inspections over the last couple of decades when i was in the senate we we uh we took the initiative on and thought we had a number of structurally deficient bridges in our state and that was highlighted during iran um so we decided to double our efforts and we put on more manpower as well as equipment necessary to to make sure that we were inspecting our bridges bridges and and other structures railroad and so forth on a much quicker basis so i think that that and we and we again stepped up our efforts in terms of replacing those structurally deficient bridges so i think we're in we're ahead of the the curve here and uh i think we're in pretty good shape so i don't believe that we'll need to uh do anything more than we're doing already uh but i'd be happy to to put secretary flinn in in touch with you uh thanks very much i'd love to hear from these others very helpful and appreciate your answer that's all i have thank you Tim McQuiston from our business magazine hey governor we're still hearing a lot of complaints from employers about people not coming back to work this is especially acute of course in the tourism industry and i'm wondering uh what your reaction to that a lot of the complaints are well people are just plumbing on the sidelines taking this the federal payout for unemployment what's your reaction to that yeah um obviously we're moving in the right direction in some respects we went from over 90 000 being on the unemployment insurance program and we're now down below 20 000 i think the last i saw we were around 18 000 and then that was all in traditional ui pua and so forth um so we're moving in the right direction i think that's the the good news um there are some good aspects and then there are some concerning aspects of the 300-dollar stipend uh i think there are a certain segment of the population that uh they do the math and feel as though they can stay home collect unemployment get the 300-dollar stipend and be in better financial shape than they were if they were working there's also a segment of the population that uh that can't go back to work at this point and and need that 300-dollar stipend this lasts until september 6 and i know this is painful for many especially in the hospitality sector in particular but every single sector in vermont as you know tim because i'm sure you're hearing from your members every single sector is uh is is challenged by workforce needs but again this is no surprise just remember before the pandemic pre-pandemic we had the lowest unemployment rate in the country we also had more jobs and we had people to fill them that hasn't changed in fact it's gotten worse remember go back four or five years when i first ran i talked about six three one i talked about this uh last week but it's so true we're losing six workers out of the workforce every single day six workers so think about that i mean that's that's a couple thousand every single year it's been four or five years that's 10 to 12 thousand people since then we're also losing kids out of the school system three that was the three three fewer kids in the school system every single day so when you do again you think about that that's another thousand a day that's that's that's four thousand since the beginning so again this shouldn't come as any surprise they we're still challenged and that's why i talk about the needs in terms of the refugee program more immigration trying to track more people into the state making Vermont more affordable so people will either stay here or come here and then utilizing what we have all the attributes we have being the safest healthy estate in the country is an attribute we we earned over the last 16 months and we should take full advantage of that but as well we should the beauty of our state all the all that we have to offer selling that and again working to make sure and and i've taken a lot of criticism at times from the legislature not from taxpayers but from the legislature on on some of the vetoes i've i've imposed over the last four years most of them were financial and most of them you know budgetary issues we didn't need to raise taxes during this time because we need to make Vermont more affordable and we proved that we could do it without raising taxes and that's why we have to continue to march forward and make sure that we're not making Vermont a more expensive place to live but actually more affordable and and other things like this the military pension for the life of me i don't understand why we don't move forward with that here from military retirees every single day about uh you know we're one of six states that still still taxes their military pensions if we didn't do that they might consider staying or coming to Vermont so we uh there's a lot of opportunity out there we need to continue to focus on the needs of the state but but having more people here having more people in the workforce is something that we're challenged pre-pandemic and we're certainly challenged today but we'll uh we have to give getting back to the original question the stipend the $300 stipend will end the 6th of September we have to give 30-day notice uh whatever we do i think we should see this through but but i would say this if uh if congress decides to extend the $300 stipend i would uh be um i i would probably not accept i think it's gone on long enough and we would let it we would let it lapse as of September 6th if any any thoughts about perhaps if we're seeing a key change and how people are are entering the workforce but maybe even all things being uh equal that they would not come back to these type of hospitality jobs there's some there's some discussion about there right now that that maybe you would see a change in the uh in the overall economy but i'm i suppose uh that could be um but um but everything has a way of leveling itself out i know that the um those uh those business owners in those sectors are doing their part they're offering more money uh for people to come in higher wages something far exceeding the $15 minimum wage that many advocates had proposed and i think that again it's about supply and demand so uh i believe that employers know uh they have to offer more benefits more um higher wages in order to keep and to attract more people and they're doing that so we'll see how this all levels out i think it's a little too soon at this point to determine what the future is going to bring um i think we're just going to need a little bit more time maybe even with um some of the uh students coming back in the colleges and universities seeking part-time jobs that will help as well something that they might not have been able to do in the uh previous uh 16 months but when they come back in the fall and maybe sooner i think that i think we'll see that there'll be more that may may enter the workforce as second jobs at that point great thank you please saluma is the value reporter good afternoon um this is probably a question for dr ravine i heard from a reader who got the johnson johnson vaccine that he is concerned about the fact that it seems to be only 60 some percent 66 percent effective against the delta variant he wants to know if it makes sense for him to now go get either the phyla or the moderna vaccine in vermont thank you for the question it's uh an increasingly common question these days the um the number you're quoting again we have to sort of dissect that a little um in terms of is that the number just protective against getting any illness or getting more severe illness with the delta variant because i'm not seeing as many statistics on johnson and johnson as i've seen on astrazeneca or the mRNA vaccine most of the time when you get a number like that it's uh just getting sick at all uh and the vaccine turns out to be a lot better at preventing the more serious end of the spectrum of illness but there is you know already known that the johnson and johnson efficacy rate forgetting the strain just coronavirus in general uh from the get go was lower than the mRNA vaccines but having said that we still believe and did believe then that it was still quite effective against the serious end of the illness spectrum including hospitalizations and deaths so that needs to be taken into account the second thing that needs to be taken into account is um the the rate of vaccination and the status of the virus in vermont right now because even if the delta variant is flaring up in missouri and in arkansas and other states where there are very large pockets of unvaccinated people if some of those chose to take a vacation in vermont that virus was not going to be transmitted very readily to vermonters or to other people because it'll reach a dead end most of the people being vaccinated so keep that in mind as we talk about this what i've begun to think about is that if you're actually planning on staying in vermont and you're not going to be traveling anywhere um it doesn't really matter which vaccine you got right now they all are showing efficacy against the delta variant and we have such a very low rate of community transmission of virus now that you're going to be protected and safe if you're planning on taking an extended vacation to a state where the rates are much higher now and where not the rates of vaccination them being lower but the rates of cases being higher um and you want to have the most uh insurance against protection you might consider getting a dose of vaccine whether it be another dose of the same or an m r and a the problem with that is we don't have scientific evidence right now to support any particular strategy there are studies that are ongoing and some have been recently starting to report some data on the more mix and match approach of vaccine use getting a first dose of one type of vaccine a second dose of another type of vaccine and um it's very hard for someone in the medical profession to give you firm assurance that the approach you're choosing is going to be correct or not but having said that there is an element of what we term in medicine clinical judgment here to think about and if you're going to be exposing yourself to a place that has a lot of transmission of virus going on I don't think anybody would uh say you are being overly cautious by thinking about getting another dose of vaccine but I don't want to throw j and j under the bus by any means because again we do stand by the fact that it is effective it's effective against being very severely ill much like much to the same degree as the other vaccines that have been in use thank you Dr. Levine for that awesomely scientific answer now a process question along those same lines what would the process be in Vermont if our reader wanted to go to one of these clinics and get a Pfizer vaccine is it allowed yeah so that's when I would begin to talk with your own healthcare provider because that would be the right way to get an informed piece of advice and decision on that that provider might also be in the position because we've enrolled so many primary care sites now to be able to provide the vaccine and that would I think take care of the sort of being informed part having an informed consent process if you will because you've both thought it through very carefully and then if you chose to get the vaccine you could get it at that site as well got it and would that those supplemental doses be free as your first shot was all the vaccines are free at this point in time so I'm not aware that anybody would be charged for anything great thank you very much let me just go to Lisa for just a minute as someone who got the vaccine the Johnson and Johnson vaccine myself I'll be paying close attention to this as well and listen to the science the data and I have to believe that Johnson and Johnson is probably doing some trials on their own on this as we speak so I feel very well protected at this point but I'll be paying attention to this as well thank you thank you Jason the question that I've prepared has already been asked and my follow-up I think I'm not quite prepared for so I will touch base back a little bit off there thanks thank you Greg and Alan seven days hi I wanted to follow up on Tim McQuiston's question a little about employment and just ask if people refuse to be vaccinated and they work somewhere that requires it they will lose their job will they receive unemployment I don't have the answer to that one um that may be a commissioner Harrington question if he has the answer yeah governor I think appreciate that and appreciate the question I think as we've said before it's kind of a moving target if you will or just uncharted territory so I think we've been encouraging employers to speak with their own legal counsel to get their their attorney's perspective on that the the fact of the matter is when it comes to collecting unemployment benefits either someone is let go for cause or they have quit their position you know and and that would mean that they would not get benefits if they were simply let go but not for cause then they would be eligible for benefits and that's a very layman's description there but I think in this case it really comes down to the question of whether or not dismissing somebody for not getting the vaccine would be considered for cause or not and I think that's where it will probably play out in the court system that people across the country probably are tackling this and appealing decisions and outcomes but again I think that would be that would be a discussion that employers should be having with with their own legal counsel okay thanks and I also had a question for secretary curly if she's there I wanted to ask how the hospitality industry is doing we're definitely hearing of course that they can't find staff and that's actually suppressing their economic activity but in general during the pandemic has Vermont lost more hospitality businesses than it does regularly I know it's a fluid industry and businesses come and go I'm talking about ins and restaurants and attractions but do you expect more than the usual rate of closures and attrition this year for these usually small businesses um thank you for the question I I honestly don't have a an answer on it I hope that we're not going to see more than usual I know it's been a really tough year I've heard from many owners of hospitality businesses that they are struggling to define workers but as the governor mentioned we're seeing the number of people on our unemployment come down but we we've had a long-standing challenge with our demographics in terms of our aging population so the crisis has exacerbated our struggle in that area and we do worry about people who may have worked in that industry who were at or close to retirement age or really didn't necessarily need to have a job for a variety of reasons but but like to have a job who may have decided to step out of the workforce so that's a bit alarming to all of us as well but we can see how it can happen so it's hard to really you know tell at this point whether we're going to see more more hospitality businesses leave or or you know not be able to stay open going forward we're going to keep a close eye on that we are tourism commissioner talks regularly with with the sector and we're going to try to keep a pulse on what's going on and we're going to try to find creative ways to help them get their workforce find the workforce and it's a long-term proposition but we're all in it together and hopefully hopefully positive things will happen great thank you I just have one more quick question you guys have given us a projection of continued very very low cases in August what about after August what about the fall is there any way of knowing what's going to happen or anything's going to change in Vermont in the fall you know we've talked about this a bit and Dr. Levine might be able to expand upon it but my feeling is we're going to see as we move inside we're going to see maybe an uptick in cases but those who are vaccinated will be protected from that and I don't expect we'll see anything near what we have in the past but I just think from a natural evolution that we'll see more cases much like the flu season where there's increased cases as we get to certain periods of the time of year so I would expect that to happen as well Dr. Levine do you expect any restrictions and that's what I would agree with that you know it it that's why we're really trying to encourage anyone who's unvaccinated to really make it a priority be prepared for the fall which you know here we are we're just about in July but if you think about it it's a six to eight week process to be fully vaccinated so this is not too late this is perfect timing and we encourage that much of the answer to your question really relates to the status of the virus in general in the country and in the world so when you're talking about making projections for three or four months ahead of time it's really challenging because what's going to happen with the Delta variant in the United States it's starting to play out now but we have to wait and see how it fully plays out we have much of the world that still has very low vaccination rates and the Delta variant you'll recall came from India and they had a major major crisis in India with the virus will another part of the world have that crisis so will things simmer down it's very hard to really predict all of those events and they play into the answer you're asking for but you know with regard to restrictions in Vermont again with a very highly vaccinated population we should not need to have restrictions on anything that anything close to what we were doing throughout managing the pandemic to date all right thank you so much and if I could just I just want to go back to your previous questions one I just want to highlight the fact that I think we would see more businesses particularly in the hospitality sector that would be closed today if not for all of the work that the Secretary Curley and her team performed over the last number of months advocating for more corona virus relief funds going to the business community and as well Senator Leahy, Senator Sanders, Congressman Welch advocating for more dollars from the federal government to supplement the income loss of these businesses I think we would see a very very stark difference had it not been for that and those efforts so again we I just want to make sure that we remember that this all worked because of all those efforts in terms of those who are displaced if they don't get vaccinated I just want to remind everyone we there's a lot of opportunity in Vermont in terms of employment I think I saw a figure of for every one person unemployed there are five jobs available so you shouldn't be unemployed for very long if you choose not to work for a company that mandates vaccinations Hi thank you Guy Page, Vermont Daily Chronicle Governor Commissioner Levine said today anyone who's not vaccinated is filled with and that relatively few Vermonters are vaccine resistant I personally know dozens maybe even hundreds of vaccine quote-unquote vaccine resistant Vermonters who are concerned about long-term health risks of vaccination and are pursuing other means of protection so I'm wondering if an addition to vaccination would you or Commissioner Levine also publicly advocate for non-vaccine therapies such as ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine? That's probably above my pay grade at this point I know vaccines work I've had one I was vaccinating myself I don't know if you were a guy or not but but I go to where the numbers are the data in the science shows me that vaccines are effective they're safe and and we've seen how we benefited in this state as a result so I'll keep going back to that but I'll let Dr. Levine weigh in on the other Thanks governor with regard to the first part the we're not just saying there aren't that many Vermonters who are totally resistant to getting the vaccine we're using some national survey data we're using some New York Times data to try to put that together as best we can but it does seem like Vermont in stark comparison to many other states does have a much lower percentage of people who would fall in the vaccine skeptic vaccine resistant category doesn't mean they don't exist perhaps the circles you're in you know more of them than the average Vermonter might know but either way statistically speaking across the state it's certainly not the big portion of the 90 to 100,000 we were talking about earlier with regard to these therapies these drugs are used both in therapy meaning treatment for someone who chose to be unvaccinated got became a case versus trying to prevent becoming a case at all I don't really want to comment on hydroxychloroquine at all because I think that has been really discarded and that the risk-benefit ratio is markedly in favor of risk not benefit with regard to Iver Mectin I do believe that there is some data out there the problem is most of the data out there is an anecdotal or comes from smaller studies when you start looking at some of the clinical trials that have been performed it doesn't fair as well and specifically in the situation of prevention as opposed to treatment it's certainly not been embraced by most of the treatment community though there are notable exceptions that are very prominent on the internet but from the evidence-based medicine scientific community it has not fared as well especially in the area of prevention if I were a Vermonter who was trying to weigh the potential risks and benefits of getting a vaccine versus taking a drug that frankly a drug that hasn't had a lot of utility and human treatments in the past in a very select way it has I would choose the vaccine because we now have much more than we ever get from clinical trials of drugs we have millions and millions of people experience and we know that the benefit risk ratio is way weighted towards benefit thank you hi can you hear me we can I have a question for secretary Smith and this is about the lawsuit the legal a lawsuit legal aid says that the rule change for the housing the GA housing program isn't legally valid and didn't go through the correct legislative approval process they also say that the definition the administration's definition of what qualifies as a disability is too restrictive I just wanted to get your response to those arguments obviously we disagree with legal aids interpretation of the process we think we as I mentioned that we went through the proper process we'll deal with that in court with legal aid as we move forward and as I mentioned before the disability definition has been expanded from the pre-pandemic the old rules to the new rules that we put together and again I want to remind people this wasn't sort of brainstormed in a room with just a few people you know we put together a working group that had legal aid in a local housing authority state leaders and worked with the legislature and this work group to pass this compromise legal aid also says that there was no notice notice went out of April 30th so we'll we'll we'll defend ourselves in the in the in court we think we're on solid ground as we move forward and and by the way we do have appeal processes in place once notification went out there were appeal processes that were put into place and secondly there are still appeal processes if you feel that you have been disadvantaged there is an appeal process in this and so I think you know the bottom line is we'll we'll see legal aid in court they also mentioned that FEMA would likely continue to reimburse for this program if it was to continue at the current capacity I was just wondering what is the breakdown of FEMA funding versus state funding for the program up until this point it's you know throughout the pandemic yeah the vast majority is FEMA funded a vast majority maybe almost completely FEMA funded it would be if it continued you know we would try to do FEMA funding up until the point uh that FEMA funding went away but I would argue um FEMA funding isn't going to last forever thank you Chris Roy you court daily express couldn't get out from you I'm sorry I got no questions thank you thanks Chris Andrew McGregor Caledonian record thank you and Michael Dordy Montdigger Andrew I think I saw your uh Mike come off from you so we can try you again we'll try last call for Michael Dordy from Digger going once going twice thank you all very much and we'll see you again next week