 Good morning, everyone. As is the case on most Tuesdays, Governor Scott is currently on a COVID-19 call with fellow governors and White House officials, but he'll be joining us shortly. I'm Mike Smith, Secretary of the Agency of Human Services, and I'll start off with an update on our progress with vaccination and as well as remind everyone of the numerous opportunities to get a year shot throughout the state. Governor Pichek will present our weekly modeling followed by Dr. Levine with a health update. And then Governor Scott will join us and provide an update from his meeting and offer additional remarks. First, beginning this Thursday, I want to announce that we are removing the residency requirement for vaccination. This means that anyone age 12 and older who lives in Vermont or is visiting Vermont can get vaccinated in this state. You do not have to be a part-time resident. As you know, we opened registration for youth age 12 to 15 last Thursday. As of this morning, more than 9,000 12 to 15 year olds have made appointments. We are making good progress with this age group, but I will continue to urge young people to sign up. I also want to remind everyone that consent is needed from a parent or guardian. You can sign up online at healthfermont.gov slash my vaccine, or you can call 855-722-7878 to make an appointment. There will be doses available for walk-ins at most locations. However, if you are age 12 to 17, you are only able to walk in with a parent or guardian or with a signed paper consent form and a filled-in pre-vaccination checklist. If a child forgets their form, in many schools, the schools will reach out by telephone to obtain consent from the parent or guardian. Let's move on to the convenient opportunities to get vaccinated this week. If we can go to the first slide, you can see the pop-up vaccination clinics. Yesterday we started the Wyndham County barnstorming event. Today in Wyndham County, we'll be vaccinating at the Wind Hall Fire Station and the London Dairy Ambulance Service. Tomorrow we'll be in Deerfield, at the Deerfield Ambulance and Thursday at Searsburg Town Offices. Also on Thursday, you can get your vaccine at North Beach in Burlington. No appointment is necessary. This Friday you can get your shot at Lancaster, New Hampshire Fairgrounds by appointment or walk-in. There will be an opportunity at Church Street in partnership with the City of Burlington on May 22nd. You can see the dates and locations on this slide. If you can go to the next slide, this is Emergency Medical Services Week as Governor Scott proclaimed. This week is an annual recognition to thank the 2,800 men and women who make up Vermont's EMS system for their dedication and commitment. They play a critical role as first responders in our community every day and their response during this pandemic has been remarkable. For example, when we asked EMS to mobilize and vaccinate homebound Vermonters, they were excited and ready. When we asked them to facilitate mobile clinics, they did so with flawless execution. They also assisted with other community-based vaccine and COVID-19 testing initiatives. And now during EMS Week, they are opening their doors to the public, creating a festive environment and allowing people to walk in and get vaccinated. I cannot express enough our gratitude to the fine group of men and women. They have been an exceptional partner throughout the very difficult and exhausting year. All I can say is this, thank you. And the way we can thank them, all of us, is to show our and to show our appreciation and support is to attend one of their clinics as we can get vaccinated. It may be fun. As a reminder, there are 31 EMS clinics locations this week. And they all are walk-in only. And if you can see, if you go through the various slides here from the week, the 33 are listed here. You can also go onto the website at healthvermont.gov slash myvaccine to look for the locations, times, and other opportunities to make appointments or walk-ins. But as I've said, I've listed it on the screen here for websites that you can go to to get more information about vaccines. Turning to school-based clinics, we started them yesterday. And more than 100 clinics are scheduled. 66 of them are in schools. As a reminder, families and children in this age group will be eligible to go to any site across the state that offers the Pfizer vaccine. And all sites will be open to the public. Parents and family members who are unvaccinated are welcome to get vaccinated right along with your child. You can find a list of school-based clinics and register at healthvermont.gov slash myvaccine. You can also register at Kenny's, Walgreens, and CVS websites. And the first wave of vaccine clinics for restaurant, hospitality, and tourism workers has been completed. We do have an event scheduled at Sugarbush in Warren today. We are in the process of organizing the next wave in this sector along with vaccine clinics for worksites and at parks, including Vermont State Parks. To see all dates, times, and locations for these hospitality worker vaccine clinics, please visit accd.vermont.gov slash vaccine or healthvermont.gov slash myvaccine. Although we are still operating larger vaccine clinics through our health care partners and the Vermont National Guard, we are also transitioning to more localized and smaller settings in order to bring vaccine to Vermonters where they live and work. Even though these may be smaller events, it is still important to the overall effort to vaccinate as many Vermonters as possible. I urge Vermonters to take advantage of these efforts and as we strive to increase our nation as we strive to increase our nation-leading vaccination effort. In terms of overall progress, we are closing in on that 400,000 number. As of yesterday, 393,700 people have been vaccinated against COVID-19. 97,700 have received their first dose of the vaccine. 296,000 have received their first and last doses. For those that follow it, I have three numbers here that you can write down. Eligible Vermonters for vaccine, those are Vermonters 12 and above with at least one dose. We're at 73.8% of that population. For Vermonters 18 with at least one dose, and I use that because President Biden uses that measure, Vermonters 18 plus with at least one dose, we're at 78.1%. And all Vermonters, those that are eligible and those that aren't eligible, all Vermonters with at least one dose, we are at 65.2%. For those who have yet to be vaccinated, particularly those between the ages of 12 and 29, we have your vaccine ready and waiting for you. Please come and get vaccinated. The time is now. I will end there. Thank you once again for getting your shot, Vermon. I'll turn it over to Commissioner Pichek for our weekly modeling update and then Dr. Levine for the medical update. Thank you very much, Secretary Smith, and good morning, everyone. Today's report is rather straightforward, containing plenty of good news as our trends continue to be favorable and our future remains optimistic. Vermont's high vaccination rates continue to lead to favorable trends in cases, hospitalizations, and fatalities. This week, Vermont is reporting 358 new COVID-19 cases, about 30 fewer than last week. And our seven-day average fell 24% this week and is down an impressive 75% since April 1st. Vermont also has fewer active COVID-19 cases than at any point during the last six months, with fewer cases circulating and with vaccination rates pushing higher, our communities are getting safer by the day. For example, there are currently no active outbreaks in any long-term care facility in Vermont. The first time this has occurred since we started reporting active long-term care facility outbreaks last November. Taking a closer look at case demographic data, we can see that each of the age bands continues to see their cases decrease as their vaccination rates push higher. However, note that still the case rates remain higher in the age bands that have the lower vaccination rates. Again, a good reason for everyone, including that age group that Secretary Smith just referred to, to step up and get vaccinated. Looking at our case forecast, we see that our seven-day trend continues to closely track the April 26th forecast and that our updated modeling anticipates that these favorable case trends will continue into the foreseeable future. But again, we can make sure that these case rates drop more quickly if we continue to step up and get vaccinated at the rates that we have been. The hospitalization rate in Vermont continues to drop to the lowest level in the past six months. Our hospitalization rate has declined by over 19% this week and has fallen 34% over the last two weeks. And Vermont continues to have the lowest number of individuals who are currently hospitalized on a per capita basis in the country. And most importantly, we forecast that these favorable trends will continue for the foreseeable future. Similarly, Vermont's COVID-19 fatality rate remains low, and we continue to forecast that May will have the fewest COVID-19 fatalities in the last six months. The willingness of Vermonters to step up and get vaccinated is why we're seeing such favorable trends. And for the second week in a row, Vermont continues to lead four important CDC vaccination metrics. Total dose is administered, the percent of our population with at least one dose, and the percent of those 65 and older who have started and also who have completed vaccination. Although the rate of new Vermonters starting vaccination has fallen this week, we continue to have the highest rate in the country and well above the national average, with thousands of new Vermonters starting the vaccination progress on a daily basis. And as Secretary Smith just mentioned, under our Vermont Forward Plan, you can see our vaccination rate continues to surpass the previous goals we had set out today, standing at 65.2% of Vermonters who have received at least one dose. Looking at the region, we see that for the sixth straight week, conditions are improving around us in the northeast. Cases this week totaled just over 28,000, the lowest weekly total in over seven months, and representing an 8,800 case decrease compared to last week. And again, over the last five weeks, cases in the region have fallen 70%. Hospitalization rates are also down across the region, as are fatalities. And probably most importantly, the northeast is leading the nation in the uptake of the vaccine, with all six of the New England states in the top 10 on the percent of their population having started vaccination. This means that we expect these favorable trends to continue, and our regional forecast anticipates that cases will fall in the next six weeks to the lowest levels that we have experienced during the pandemic, continuing to paint a very optimistic picture for the northeast and for Vermont. Now, at this time, I would like to turn it over to Dr. Levine. Thank you, Commissioner Pichek. I'll begin with my usual data overview. Daily cases ranging from the 20s to the 60s in recent days, in the 30s yesterday, percent positivity, 1.2%. For the first time in a long time, we are under 10 hospitalizations at nine, with one in the ICU. Unfortunately, there have been two additional deaths, I believe bringing the total for the month to five. But the one data point that we care about the most is the vaccination rate, because this alone is what impacts all of the others right now, and points to why we are doing so well on all of the other metrics. There's a small technical issue with updating the online vaccine dashboard that should be resolved soon. But as you heard, our rates are not only good, they are leading the nation, and they continue to improve. It's important to remember that with so many Vermonters vaccinated already, the percent of increases on any given day may appear to be slowing, but that's just a relative perception resulting from the successes we've so far achieved. Each and every newly vaccinated person is an additional step toward the pandemic finish line. As the saying goes, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, and thanks to each of you, we are almost there. The work is not over, but we really need to take a moment to celebrate how far we've come together. It's because of Vermonters' willingness to protect themselves and one another, because of the hard work of everyone involved in the pandemic response, and because of so many partners and providers who've done everything from outreach to actually hosting clinics. You've already heard about EMS Week, but since we at the Health Department work to support our emergency medical service agencies year round, I would like to add my own and our own profound thanks to each of them for their role as a public health force throughout the pandemic and every day. To name just a few of their critical accomplishments, EMS has developed a non-emergency transportation network to help COVID positive and suspected positive patients reach testing and medical appointments. Staffed COVID testing sites conducted emergency respirator fit testing for skilled nursing facilities, created in-home or on-site testing capability to work with outbreak prevention and response, developed in-home vaccination capabilities to reach homebound Vermonters with nearly 4,500 vaccinated. And of course, they've taken on a huge and significant role in all vaccination efforts, from giving shots to people in skilled nursing facilities, state vaccination clinics, correctional facilities, schools and group living settings, and through drive-in and mobile clinics. That includes reaching more rural areas where people might have a harder time accessing the vaccine. For all of these reasons, and for what EMS does in their everyday role to care for us, I hope you'll join me in saying thank you. And if you haven't yet been vaccinated, that you'll stop into one of the many clinic sites EMS is hosting around the state. You can get more information on our website, healthvermont.gov, slash my vaccine. I'd like to remind those who have not yet gotten vaccinated that even if you're not that concerned about protecting yourself, your decision to get vaccinated can still make a big difference for those around you, especially for children who can't yet get vaccinated. As I said, the more people who are vaccinated, the fewer chances the virus has to move on to the next person. And if the virus does come into Vermont, even if it's a variant, our high vaccination rates create a wall of immunity. This stops it from spreading further. Less transmission between people means less chance for new mutations and new variants. The vaccine works plain and simple. Vaccination equals protection. It protects against the variants we've seen. Data shows vaccinated people are unlikely to spread the virus. We have great vaccination rates here in Vermont and we're going to keep doing even better. This is why we can ease up on masks and distancing for fully vaccinated people and why the Vermont Forward Plan makes sense and is even possible. Now, there are many who are completely comfortable with the new mask policy and say, what took you and the CDC so long? But at the same time, I know for a number of you, the changes will take some adjustment. And I witnessed myself over the weekend, both people masked and unmasked in indoor and outdoor settings. I also know there are businesses that continue to have people wear a mask in their establishments until all of their employees can get fully vaccinated. That's totally fine and I applaud their concern for the health of their staff. That is why you should continue to keep a mask with you when you're out and about. To respect the policies of businesses and the setting you might find yourself in, whether you plan to be there or not. And again, please don't judge. None of us can know anyone's unique situation. Maybe there's a staffer who goes home to people who can't be vaccinated or who might be immunocompromised. Patience and understanding is what's required during this transitional time. It's also okay for fully vaccinated people to be thoughtful about their decisions and observe how others behave before changing their own behaviors. Wanting to protect yourself and others has been so ingrained in us now, I can certainly understand. It is only natural to have some anxiety about this as well. What about the pandemic hasn't given us some shared anxiety? But know that when you're ready, you can have confidence in the vaccine's protection. Even if you unknowingly encounter an unvaccinated person, the vaccine is highly protective against all of the most serious outcomes. And if you're not yet vaccinated or are just waiting for your full vaccination day to arrive, please keep up masking and distancing so you don't put others at risk. We know Vermonters will make the right choices to bring us all out of this pandemic together safely. Don't see the governor yet on the scene, but shouldn't be too long, but we'll start with the questions. Yep, the governor will be a few more minutes, so for the reporters on the line, if we get to you and you need to get another question for the governor, just let me know when you come back to you after he arrives. But first up, we'll start with Calvin Cutler, WCAX. Thank you. I think I'll wait for the governor for my questions. Okay. Steve Longchamp? Well, I might as well ask one of the doctors since he's right there. This is EMS week. A lot of the there's a problem with finding volunteers. Most of them are volunteer agencies in the state is along with getting that vaccine. It's probably a good time if you can to volunteer, maybe. So a good time for recruitment is what you're saying. Yeah. Yes. So obviously, if someone has an interest, they're going to have plenty of people around the state to talk to, not having to seek them out very aggressively, because they're there waiting to talk with them as well as vaccinate them. But I think what you're referring to is nationwide, not just in Vermont, but especially in rural America, volunteerism in general is suffering. EMS being one of those areas, but it also expands to things like volunteer fire departments and other entities. So step up if you have an interest and want to share in some of the work that they do because it's such good work. It's very rewarding. I've talked to people all the time about this and it would be gratifying not only to the EMS workforce to have you join them, but to yourself. Any other question? I guess we'll let as well we were talking about this earlier. Of those who have have passed away in the last month or two, what's the age range? What's that profile look like? Yes, so I'm not noticing anybody in the below 60 age range or below 65. By and large, it's still 65 and older. Occasionally in the 6570s, sometimes still in the 90s. So it really spans that entire older Vermonter spectrum. The vast majority are non-vaccinated, but there have been a couple that are either partially or fully vaccinated. Stuart Lentmener, NBC 5. Thanks, Jason. Yes, if I could, if I could circle back when the governor's here. Tim McQuiston, Vermont Business Magazine. Thank you, Jason. I have a question for Commissioner Harrington about the an employment insurance situation and do you feel that you have the fraud situation in hand now and when do you expect to go reopen the online system? Thanks and appreciate the question. In general, the fraud situation is under control in that when we took the online application down, our numbers dropped significantly of claims being filed. I don't think fraud is going away. They're just looking for other opportunities to get into systems across the country. So specifically for us, our claims went from thousands a day. I think the most recent number I saw for like yesterday alone was only 64 claims. On Saturday, it was eight claims. So again, that's really good for us in terms of volume and help provide our staff with some cover so that they can look a little more deeply into those claims. I think the question about whether when we will put it back online is really more about when we can do so and not see that volume pick up again. We haven't received any complaints with people needing to call our call center to have their claim filed and have an agent walk through the claim with them. In some cases, it actually provides additional support and guidance to them because they can ask questions as they go through the application. But I think from that perspective, when we are comfortable that the different safeguards and identity checks and cross matches can be put into the application to prevent fraudsters from beating the system is when we'll look to put it back online. As I said from the beginning, I think the hardest part, though, is a lot of these fraudsters have a lot of different data points on people. So even the best systems can be fooled when you have all the credentials of an actual human being. So again, we're still working through it and we're adding some additional features to our application. But again, we also don't want to make it so hard with so many multi-factor authentication and other measures that make it impossible for people to actually apply or so difficult they don't want to apply. So right now, the safest option and the easiest option for people is simply to call our call center and submit an application and they've been doing so since we took it offline. Any idea what, how much money has been lost just here in Vermont? I know the federal government is getting hammered on this, but any any idea what the cost of Vermont has been or when you might have that number? Yeah, so again, when you say like cost of Vermont, I think that's hard because we're in most cases talking predominantly about federal funds. There are some initial funds that come out of the trust fund. So certainly we're wanting to be very mindful of those. The problem is the system certainly identifies overpayments and we can put people in overpayments, we can stop claims for fraud and look individually to see what's been paid out. But the system as a whole does not aggregate overpayments and does not aggregate overpayments that are related to fraud. It's just not a piece of functionality that's in the system. But again, part of the issue too is it really all depends on when we catch the fraud. How do you monetize fraud that was stopped? But if I had to guess again, and this is purely a guess just based on volume and what I'm seeing from other states, we're probably in the hundreds of thousands. I'm sure by the end, probably over a million. But again, that's really just based on a guess of what we see for volume, what we're seeing other states. And we have, Vermont has actually fared much better than most states because of our size. So we're actually able to review each claim in person and have someone put eyes on each initial claim. Not most states don't have the ability to do that given the volume. So we've definitely fared much better, but certainly it's out there and we know as we're catching it what has potentially gone out the door. It looks like the UI trust fund is being replenished quite nicely. Is that because you're catching the fraud or because the economy is bouncing back, would you say? Yeah, so there are two parts to the trust funds. Obviously what people, employers are paying into the fund and what's going out in payments. So you'll see on recent reports of trust fund balances that there's been an increase over the past few weeks to the trust fund. That's predominantly related to the fact that employers contribute on a quarterly basis. And we just wrapped up the first quarter of the calendar year, which is also our highest contribution quarter because employers pay taxes on the first $14,000 in wages per employee. So again, it just ends up being more of a seasonal aspect to not necessarily an indication of any one thing. Okay, all right, great. Thank you very much. Absolutely. Lisa, the AP. Thanks. This is a question for Dr. Levine or Secretary Smith. I'm wondering how many vaccines doses per month is requesting this week and how that compares to the previous week? Yes, we have those numbers for you. Hang on one second. Lisa, it'll all depend on our allocation and we don't get our allocation until sometime today. The governor will have some information when he comes on our allocation for this week, but we are requesting additional allocation from the pool. And remember, there's a federal pool now where if they have extra, that you can request allocation from that. We are requesting 2,340 first doses of Pfizer from that pool. We're also requesting 1,000 of Johnson & Johnson from that pool. We'll know more about our allocation in a little while in terms of what our weekly allocation are consistent and regular allocation is of Moderna, Pfizer, and Johnson & Johnson. But above and beyond that, that's what we're ordering right now from the pool. Okay, and how does that compare to previous week? Last week, we couldn't order Johnson & Johnson. Previous week, we ordered roughly around 4,000 of Pfizer for the expanding group of 12 to 15. And that's from the pool again. We took all our allocation from our regular allocation as we have in weeks. I will say this. We are going to probably start reducing our size of allocation of Moderna at some point, primarily because not of efficacy reasons. It's highly effective and highly desirable. But it doesn't have the range of groups that we can use it on. For example, we can't use it on 12 to 15. We can't use it on 15 to 18. So it's a range of what we can use Moderna on is shrinking as we get more and more Vermonters vaccinated. Plus we are moving away, as I said, from those high capacity vaccination sites to more bringing vaccine to people. And as you know, Johnson & Johnson is a viable alternative for that sort of one day, one shot, and done sort of alternative. So that's where we are right now. I would say that you'll probably see us start to reduce our Moderna allocation request more than our weekly allocation from the federal pool in Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson, and I think that will continue. Okay, thanks. And then you mentioned earlier that I think 9,000 people, 12 to 18 years old, have made appointments. Do you know what percentage of the population that is? Yeah, that's 9,000 of the 12 to 15 year olds have made appointments. We have 27,000 that we're estimating in that age group. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Mike Donahue, the islander. Thanks, Jason. I may have one question for Governor Scott, but I also have one for Dr. Levine. Well, the governor just walked in the room and said, you want to wait while you give his remarks right now and then we come right back to you. Okay, fine. Good morning, everyone. I just cut off the phone with fellow governors, a CDC director, Dr. Walensky, White House officials and others, and here's what we heard. Dr. Walensky talked a lot about the confidence in vaccines. She said, and I quote, there's an overwhelming amount of data. That shows how effective they are, and that's why fully vaccinated people can safely participate in activities without masking. She made clear this was a decision driven by the science, and this is real world data on effectiveness, including against variants here in the U.S. She also reiterated the data shows vaccinated people are highly protected and are far less likely to spread the virus. We also heard our latest allocations for next week, which is the same as we received last week with no increase or decrease and no J&J, but we can and will request more from the federal pool again, which will include a request for 1,000 doses of J&J. Next, as Secretary Smith discussed, this is EMS week. We've relied on our EMS professionals and volunteers across the state to lead the country in vaccinations. Their commitment to our communities and willingness to serve embody the best of Vermont, and I join all Vermonters in extending my appreciation for their many contributions. And they continue to go above and beyond as they run vaccination clinics all across Vermont. So one of the best ways you can thank them is to get your vaccine. Now I know most are still adjusting to the changes we made to our masking and distancing requirements for vaccinated Vermonters on Friday, which followed guidance from the CDC. And I want to remind everyone it's okay. Just like it took some time to get used to wearing masks after asking Vermonters to do so over a year ago, it's natural that for some the adjustment back to normal won't happen overnight. But just remember, the science based CDC guidance was issued for the entire country, whether you're the lowest vaccinated state or the highest like us here in Vermont. Because as they said, not only are you at very little risk of getting COVID to fully vaccinated, you have a low risk of spreading it as well. In fact, over the weekend, Dr. Fauci said, even in the unlikely event that you still, that you test positive after being vaccinated, it's still unlikely you transmitted to someone else. My point is because of our vaccination rate and other factors, no state in the country is in a better and safer position than Vermont to begin transitioning back to normal. In fact, if Vermont was its own country, we'd have one of the highest vaccination rates in the entire world. But we can and need to do better. And we're going to do everything, continue to do everything we can to make it as easy and convenient as possible for people to get their shots. Dr. Lean said on Friday, if you haven't been vaccinated yet, we've got your dose waiting for you. And if you need just one more reason to get your vaccine tomorrow marks the 14th month since our first loss to COVID. So as we do on the 19th of every month, flags will fly at half staff to honor the 254 of our monitors who we've lost during the pandemic. And I'm sure they wish they had the opportunity you have today to get vaccinated and protect yourself. So with that, we'll get back to your questions. And we'll go back to Mike, because we cut him off and then we'll go to serve him on a Q nose. We'll go back to Calvin and Stuart and then ham and then we'll continue the normal queue. So Mike, you might have hit star six again, because I think they needed you up. You're good now. Yeah. Okay. First, I'll go with Dr. Levine. Dr. We get an update on the AstraZeneca study in Vermont. The shots have not been approved yet. I believe there's like 300 Vermonters were part of the experiment out of something like 3000 people applying. And I spoke to one of the Vermonters in the trial experiment who got his two shots in December. But I think there's still a cloud over everything is to it hasn't been approved in Vermont or really the United States has been in other countries. What's the message to these Vermonters that were part of that experiment to what can you tell them today and and should they go get one of the approved vaccines or should should they get the experiment? I mean, is their assumed health is still paramount in these cases? Just wondering what you can tell these Vermonters. Thank you. First, I want to tell them thank you because of the fact that they chose to volunteer for an early vaccine trial and enhance our knowledge about vaccine performance, both efficacy and safety. Second, I want to inform them that as they probably are aware, they can communicate with those who ran the trial at the University of Vermont if they have any specific questions. Third, we have worked very closely with those investigators and they are representative of investigators all around the country because indeed Vermont wasn't the only site. It was one of the sites and we've been of the opinion that if they got full vaccination with AstraZeneca, there is no need for them to seek another vaccine. Doesn't mean they can't if they don't want to. But at the same time, I don't believe that the investigators in the study are recommending to them specifically to get a vaccine if they were in the vaccine arm of the study. It is concerning, of course, because the full EUA process hasn't been gone through yet in the United States, though this vaccine has been approved in numerous other countries in the world. So people are confident in its ability to protect them and I'll just leave it at that, but they should work closely with the study investigators who enrolled them in the first place for any specific questions they have. Thank you. And Governor, Vermont has had a third fatal crack here involving a young teen driver in recent months and state police still continue to hide the names of these teen drivers and passengers killed and everything. F107, which would increase the age of youthful offenders up to age 20 and protect them from having their names released. Even though the names are in the obituaries, the deaths are because they're public and names are spray painted on the roads at the crack sites of these dead people. I'm just wondering if you've got any thoughts. F107, the bill is briefed your death and you've got to sign it or veto it or do something. Do you have any initial thoughts on that, Elia? Yeah, I inquired about that bill this morning. I don't, I haven't looked at it myself. I know we received it and I believe that I have until Thursday to make a decision. Unfortunately, I'd hope that they would have cleared that up and we go back to the way that we had previously been transparent with the media on this but it appears they might have gone in the other direction. So all's I can say is I'm going to take a look at it. I haven't reflected on it and I haven't counseled with anyone else in the cabinet yet either. So we'll, time will tell. You'll know by Friday though. Okay. I mean, there is one provision in there that is interesting that it basically leaves it up to every police department to decide whether they're going to give out names or not. So as was pointed out in the debate in the house, among other police departments that give out names and Northfield PD could not give out the names or any two neighboring departments could all be in contrast. So it seems like this is a recipe for disaster for inconsistency. Yeah, I am aware as well that the VPA has requested that I veto it. I did take a quick look to see and it appears to have had overwhelming support in the at least in the house and I'm not sure about the Senate. I don't think there was a I think it was a voice vote in the in the Senate. But again, I'll reflect on that and probably make a decision. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Governor. So, you know, you kind of touched upon it in your opening remarks, but you know, we've seen a number of many businesses and some municipalities that are choosing to keep the mask mandate in effect. So I guess, you know, I'm just wondering, you know, what are your thoughts on it? I mean, are people not trusting the science or people just hesitant? I mean, what what is what what are you seeing here? Yeah, you know, it's it is interesting and I remember how difficult it was for people to mask up when we did this a year ago. So I'm not surprised that it takes a little time. It gets takes a little time to get used to this new environment. I just want to remind everyone first of all, we still have a masking policy. So if you're unvaccinated, if you're not fully vaccinated, you still have to wear a mask. So that's still in place. We have allowed municipalities to determine on their own whether they want to continue or do whatever they want to with this with this policy. And and we've allowed businesses as well to make these decisions. You know, I think it's it's interesting because I've heard a lot about we followed the science and the data from day one and it's served us well here in Vermont, being the lowest in the country on many different fronts. So we decided to continue it hit us by surprise. Admittedly, I said that on on on Friday, but but this is what they determined was the best approach from the CDC and the health care experts and the scientists said it's safe. So we're going to continue to follow of their guidance. And in reflection, it seems as though most most people, most everyone across Vermont has has believed in the science until it conflicts with their fear or the ideology or their politics. And then they don't believe the science. But we, our team is going to continue to believe in the science and the data. And then I guess my second question might be for Secretary Smith. Commissioner P check slides, it appeared that the number of people who are signing up or seeking out the vaccine is kind of dipped down a little bit. I'm wondering if, you know, either the state is seeing any wastage or spoilage of doses, either state clinics or federal pharmacy partners as well. Calvin, I haven't I haven't heard of a tremendous amount of dosage that is, as you say, wasted. We do, you know, we will do we will use vaccine in other clinics because we can at various times. But if you think through the question a little bit, there's only it's only natural that some will start occurring because you may have two people left, for example, at a walk in clinic and you have to open up another vial in order to do that. So, you know, if you think through that, there is some logic to the question that we will see an increase in our wasted doses. But at the same time, it's imperative that we get more Vermonters vaccinated. You know, we are number one in the nation. We shouldn't be happy with that. We should continue to strive to get as many that people vaccinated as possible. And as you bring the vaccine to people, you don't know what who's going to show up and who isn't going to show up. So I think, you know, it we are going to have to prepare ourselves for some wasted. But I just want to dispel the notion that, you know, if if you prepare for 140 show up, that doesn't mean that there's 60 wasted vials or dosages of it means we can use it someplace else, which we do. It's when you open the vial is the situation that you have to be careful about. Thank you. Good morning. Question about the Canadian border. Again, I've mentioned that you would have mentioned something. But do you expect that the border shutdown will be extended? It's due to expire Friday, as you know. And what what does that mean for us for the summer tourism economy ahead? You know, interestingly enough, yesterday I had a conference with New England Governors and the Eastern premiers. We spoke about the border. I think all of us were joined together and advocating for when it's safe to open up the border. Now Canada is a little bit behind us in in terms of the vaccination rate. But they're starting to catch up, although a couple of the premiers I we spoke with had said that they're having difficulty getting the vaccine. So we'll just have to I expect that it will be continued. The border will be closed again probably for extended for another month, but I don't have any insight knowledge of that just based on what I heard from them. And again, I want to reiterate that there I believe they're still close between provinces as well. I will note we were all somewhat we were talking about our our own experiences within our states and how well the Northeast is doing in general. And we were giving statistics per state. And then when the the premier of Prince Edward Island told us about their experience, they have fewer than 200 cases and zero deaths. So they've done extremely well. But they're having difficulty in opening back up because they haven't received the vaccine. So they're hesitant to open up their border to allow. They've done so well with the last 14 months to allow tourism back into to their province. So this is I think we have all have a common interest. We all want to see the border open back up. But this won't be forced and it will be in when both sides of the US and Canada can agree that it's safe to do so. What does that mean, though, for our summer tourism economy? Well, I still believe that before the summer is over that that it will be open back up. And I'm hopeful that it'll be by mid summer. But again, I have no inside knowledge as to to when that will be. It will be difficult, especially for the northern parts part of the state. But as we saw last year, interestingly enough, I think there's pent up demand. People from other parts of the US will want to come to Vermont. So I I believe tourism will do well in Vermont. We're going to be we've advocated for more tourism dollars to to be able to to advertise the fact that we're open ready for business and we'll do all we can to make sure all the businesses are prepared. So I still believe we'll have a decent year, but it'll be a spectacular year if if the border is open back up before the end of the summer. May I ask you that the what seems like the final week of the session? The budget conferee seemed very close last night and they want to keep $150 million payment to make a dent in the pension underfunding problem. As you know, they've pushed benefits changes off until next year. Is that grounds for a budget veto? Are there other lines in the sand? I know you've been talking with leadership. No, we've been working together and I've been speaking to leadership myself about that very provision. I'm not opposed to having a reserve the $150 million reserve for the pension to buy down the the pensions is fine, but it has to come with structural changes. And that's what's something that will happen next year. But if they want to reserve that I have had advocated that it come out of the surplus money for this year, but they want to build it into the base into the general fund again. I believe there's enough money to go around so that we can all be satisfied. I have concerns about some of the ARPA funding, but we are making great progress in that regard. And if we continue to make the progress that we've been seeing over the last two or three days last week, then we might have something that that I could accept, but time will tell. A lot can happen in the next 24 hours. Thanks very much. Ann Davis of Vermont Journal. Governor, this is a question for Governor Scott. There's been quite some stuff and there's some information in the press recently about Republicans, non-Trump Republicans across the United States, but mostly in, you know, formally strong political positions who have talked about starting a third party if the Republican Party of the current Republican Party continues to follow so closely along with Donald Trump. I'm curious what you think of that and what do you think of that idea? You've been one of the strongest, most, most syphilis, well, maybe most syphilis is strong, but strongest anti-Trump governors in the United States. So I'm curious whether you think about this. Would you be interested in it? Do you think it's a good idea? Well, I would much rather see those who are disenfranchised, myself included and many other. I would say there's a few other governors throughout the country and leaders to advocate and continue to stand up against what I see as problematic for the party and to again try to agree on the principles that brought us to the party to begin with and advocate, continue to advocate for them. I believe that would make the party stronger, but again, we'll have to see how far this ideology goes and I've said it before. The litmus test of being a supporter of the former president is, you know, a bit of a non-starter from my perspective, but having said that, I've never been asked from the Republican Governors Association about my allegiance or lack of allegiance to the former president. That just has not been an issue and it has not been an issue with my fellow Republican Governors. So I still have hope that we can pull this together. Thank you. Derek, seven days. Hi there. First, following up on the question about municipalities and mask mandates, Governor, I'm wondering if it's your position that municipalities should continue to have this authority to enact mask mandates as they see fit indefinitely or if you think that authority will end either when you overseen your executive order or other ones? Well, if I would have to look at that technically and legally, I think I believe it will end as soon as the emergency order is lifted and we remove that provision from the emergency order, but I'll have to check with our general counsel on that to be sure. But that would be my choice, my prerogative. And then we obviously have moved to Step 3 of the Vermont Forward Plan earlier than initially anticipated. If this current pace continues, will you be moving to the final step ahead of that July 4th date? It all really depends. Everything that we've done, all our steps have been reliant on our vaccination rate. And if we can continue to get more vaccines in the arms of Vermonters, then we can we can see a time when we will move that date up. So regardless, I believe it's still the 4th of July. So in a matter of five to six weeks, all of the restrictions will be lifted. But we can make significant progress in vaccination, even though we lead the country in vaccinations, we shouldn't rest on our laurels. We should continue to advocate and to protect yourself and to protect others in the fall and the winter when the coronavirus comes back, because it is not going to leave us. We're going to have to deal with this in years to come. So this will just put us in a much stronger position than any other state as far as I'm concerned. If I could just follow up on that, that last step on July 4th doesn't have a vaccination rate band attached to it. There's an metric attached to that. Is there something in your mind, a sort of a threshold that you would like to see cross before we take that final step? Yes, there is. And we've been talking about that with the team and hopefully I'll be able to publicly talk about that by next week, by Tuesday, and let you know what I think our goal should be. I've had one in mind ever since we developed the Vermont Forward Plan, but I would like to communicate that with Vermonters, so we know what we're striving for, which I think will be achievable. Great. Thank you. Tom Davis, Compass Vermont. Thanks, Jason. Governor, I see that yesterday was the deadline for the first round of submission RFPs from the Communications Union District regarding getting funding for extension of the broadband in those communities that have CUDs. And the second round's coming up. The question I have for you is, has the legislature or the Department of Public Services done anything in terms of a grand master plan that goes beyond this portion of attending to the needs of the CUDs? Well, that's part of the struggle. I think we're all experiencing the legislature, the House and the Senate have separate different views on that. I think they're coming to some resolution on that. We have our views as well, and we'll just have to see where we end up. I've been focusing the last week or so on making sure that we have enough money set aside, put into the ARPA funding, so that we can make a dent in our broadband situation. So I'm still hopeful that we'll have a broader perspective, a broader plan from the legislature built into the budget that will show the intent of what buckets we put the ARPA funding into. And I'm, again, from what I've seen over the last week, we've made significant strides in that regard as well. And it seems as though the legislature will be putting intent language in the bill to, so that we know where we're going to spend this money in the future. The communities would really like to know whether or not, of course, A, if there's going to be enough funding, and B, where they sit on the list of when they might see some activity, this first round says that the money used to be implemented between May 17th and July 15th. Is there any way, just like you put together with your administration plan to manage COVID all the way through, that the legislature could be impressed upon the importance of having a bigger vision, that the entire communities of the state could be in understand? Yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head. I think that we need a plan. That's what I've been asking for. I've communicated my vision, and I think it's time for the legislature to advocate for their vision. Again, we all agree that we want to put resources into broadband. It's just a question of how much, and I'm hoping that we will commit to at least the $250 million, even though there is talk in Washington that there could be more money, but let's deal with what we know today, and to make sure that we put some parameters around the money we have today. Then we can deal with if there's another bill and there's more money, we can shift things around accordingly after the fact, but I think it's tremendously important for us to be able to communicate to, for monitors, what we're going to do with this money. It's transparent, transformative, and we'll transition the state in the future. But still, again, I'm hopeful, and we've seen great progress with the conferees to put this intent language in the bill so that we can see where we're going to go in the future. Okay. I appreciate your time. Have a good day. Greg Lamarrow, the County Courier. Thank you, Jason. Good afternoon, Governor. To pick up for a couple questions to go, we're about six weeks away from July 4th. That happens to be the same amount of time it takes for the Moderna vaccine, get both doses, get your two weeks. It also means we're only about a week left to get Pfizer in order to meet our July 4th goal of being fully vaccinated at a certain level. It doesn't sound like we're really getting all that many Johnson and Johnson vaccines, which would be kind of that last-ditch effort to increase that percentage of fully vaccinated by July 4th. I was going to ask, you know, what your metric is. Obviously, you kind of don't want to share that, and it seems like maybe it's a moving metric, and we're just trying to see how many we can get. But I'm wondering what sort of incentive is there for people to try to get vaccinated in the next handful of weeks if, you know, other than purely being vaccinated, if they're not going to be fully vaccinated by July 4th anyway? Yeah, you know, in my opening remarks, I talked about the 254 Vermonters will honor tomorrow by lowering the flag due to the loss of life due to COVID. I think that should be incentive enough from my standpoint if you want to protect yourself. There comes a point when it's self-responsibility. You know, we've had close to 400,000 people, Vermonters, having been vaccinated thus far, and it didn't take an incentive to do what they'd done, and that was to do the right thing for themselves and others. So this won't end regardless of whether the restrictions are lifted by the 4th of July, which I have said I believe we will. But beyond that, we're still going to be vaccinating Vermonters. For those who are sitting on the fence who can see the benefits of doing so to protect yourself and others, then you should do that. Those who are fully vaccinated don't really have anything to worry about. They don't have to physically distance. They don't have to wear masks. They can go into places without worrying. So peace of mind, I think would lead me to want to get my vaccine. Now, if they want to take that responsibility themselves, and that's just something we'll have to live with. We're not going to mandate this. So again, we've done pretty well. When I look at, I think President Biden has set a goal of 70 percent by the 4th of July, and that's of those 18 and over. Now, we've already pretty much hit 70 percent of the whole population. So we'll exceed, far exceed, his goal. So at that point, it'll be safe for those who've been vaccinated. And I think that those who aren't vaccinated will have to deal with that on their own. Thank you. I've got a quick follow up. I've been hearing from people who are playing in July 4th events. They want to know, when you say reopening by July 4th, that's on a Sunday. Are you thinking being able to take effect Friday for the July 4th weekend? Or are you kind of hard set on a Sunday reopening? No, I'm not set on that. The 4th of July was a target that I picked out a number of months ago. But I would be more than happy if we can hit the target that I have in mind and we can agree on if we could open up a couple weeks early. That would be fine with me. That would be a good problem to have. Okay. And lastly, Governor, last week we had a local teacher arrested for sexually assaulting a student. In the affidavit, there were multiple indicators that at least two school employees may have suspected something was going on with this teacher and the victim. I'm wondering, is the State Department of Education looking into this, investigating it at all on their end or purely law enforcement? I have no idea at this point. I think it's criminal investigation and there may be a ripple effect or repercussions as a result of the criminal investigation. But I don't know that at this point in time. Possibly Secretary French might know. Secretary French? Yeah, thank you, Governor. Yeah, I won't comment on the specific case, but I agree the Governor's observation that often criminal investigations do have a ripple effect in other areas, and certainly the agency will be a tendency of education, will be a kind of penny implication relative to individuals who call the Educator License. Does in just more broadly then, I know you can't speak specifically on this, more broadly, does the Department of Ed typically look into something like this on their own? Yeah, we would respond often to any kind of media reporting of the situation that we feel might have implications of relative to our regulations, so it's not uncommon for us to do so. Thank you. Thank you for your time, Governor. Thank you. Erin Tanko, VT Digger. The department said yesterday that it is aware of issues claims of having entering work search information or entering exemptions. What is the cause of these issues and when can Vermonters expect them to be resolved? Commissioner Harrington, are you on? I am, Governor, and happy to answer that. So the department put out some information yesterday and shared also with claimants that, you know, we became aware on Sunday that there were a couple issues. Part of it is that the way our mainframe and systems are designed, work search was a standard practice prior to the pandemic. There's a lot of exemptions and considerations now. So sometimes there's subpopulations in the group that are marked, whether they have a return to work date or they fall into a specific category. We found that there was a handful of claimants in regular unemployment insurance who were not being presented with the work search screen, probably because they fell into one of these subcategories in the mainframe and it just wasn't caught in the initial coding. We did and were aware on Sunday. We also were prepared because we knew just maybe based on prior experience that things tend to not always go off without a hitch. So we did have teams on standby both over the weekend and early Monday as we saw some of these issues pop up. So some of them were corrected first thing Monday morning. I think some others may have been corrected as late as today because they had to process overnight. We found that there were some people who had come into the PUA program maybe through a side door early on in the pandemic. So they didn't complete the full initial application as it was originally presented where they could self-select whether they were an independent contractor or self-employed. So we still process and move them over to PUA but on their actual base application that marker wasn't selected because they came in maybe through our call center or maybe through an early form of the application. And so we had set up the system so that independent contractors and self-employed individuals would bypass the work search requirement. But obviously there was this subset of that population as well where their application just hadn't been marked early on because they came in through an alternate means. And so we were able to correct that as well. So I believe most of the issues have been resolved. Most were done yesterday. Some may linger till today or tomorrow but everybody should be able to still file their weekly claim this week and get paid out. So I don't expect any long-term situation or delay in people receiving their benefits. And like I mentioned this wasn't completely unforeseen. We expected that there may be problems restarting a very complex process like work search where there's a lot of questions and scenarios and circumstances. And we did have teams ready to go just for that specific reason. Are you concerned at all or is there any evidence that the work search requirements and just the paperwork hassle is going to discourage people from continuing on unemployment benefits even though they would qualify to receive them? Well I would point out there that actually the work search is a qualifier for receiving benefits. So this is not necessarily something new to unemployment insurance. We're actually moving back to a more traditional form of unemployment insurance which does require people to look for work and conduct work searches. We've simply modified the process to allow for COVID specific circumstances that would maybe exempt somebody from conducting a work search. To the work search question it is relatively easy. There's not a whole lot of paperwork that it takes. They do have to conduct outreach to employers who are hiring and have job availability. And they have to submit either a resume or an application or something that shows intent for applying for the job and interest in the job. And then they simply have to report the contact information they made, the date they made it, who they spoke with on their weekly application. So again not a lot of documentation but it is one more step in the process as we return to a more normal structure for unemployment benefits. All right I also have a question. It's going to be for Smith or Levine. You know we reported today that there are zero active outbreaks in long-term care facilities. Does the state have any plans to kind of loosen rules and restrictions of those facilities even further? Whether that's you know loosening visitor policy even more or you know kind of freeing staff from these rounds of testing that from what I understand is still being conducted? So that's really gratifying data regarding the long-term cares and we expect that obviously to continue which would be great. Some of the abilities we have are constrained by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid. So we have to follow them. It has to do with the certification of those facilities and they have to be in compliance with CMS regulations. So we can only go so far. The good news is sometimes the policies are tied to the amount of virus activity in a specific area and our case counts continue to go down. So when you look at the metrics whether it be percent of new cases in a given timeframe or percent positivity those will look very favorable so that the facilities will be able to take advantage of the most if you will relaxed of those guidelines. Yeah I think that's about it thank you. I have a few viewers who are fully vaccinated and immunocompromised reach out to me and asked if they should consider trying to get tested for antibody levels to make sure that their vaccine worked for them. I guess are concerned that their body may have not been able to mount a strong immune response but they would like to ease up on some of the restrictions that they put on their own lives like masking considering they are fully vaccinated. So is that something they should consider getting or something they even can get to get some peace of mind. Yeah thanks for that question. That has been a subject of discussion both nationally and within the state. As you know from time to time I have convened a special test work group that I have within the Department of Health and the University of Vermont spanning the medical community the public health community the laboratory community and who are evaluating these all the time. This was the topic of our discussion two Fridays ago because we've received some of the same requests that you receive from your viewer. The bottom line is I would like them to stay tuned and be patient but don't think that their patients has to run for the next 12 months. We expect certainly before the end of the year and hopefully much sooner they will be testing that's more quantitative and specific to the question they're asking which is how good has the vaccine been for them and their immune response. Right now there are more qualitative tests which really aren't going to be good enough to answer their question with assuredness and I wouldn't want them to just get a test result saying yes antibodies were found making them feel comfortable but not actually knowing for real if they have as good a response as possible. So we expect that sometime over the next several months certainly not beyond the year that we'll have testing that would be appropriate to the question they've asked. So I know that's challenging for them because it certainly can't allow their behaviors to try to be predictable in a way based on their body's immune response but that is the state of where we are now. Is this something that you would consider enlisting the UVM learner college of medicines help on? I know when I spoke with them last year I believe researchers there had been able to test for specific antibody levels not just whether someone had them or didn't have them but the actual levels that they had them at. Yeah no part of my group a significant part of it is from the UVM learner college of medicine both the division of infectious diseases and the department of laboratory medicine and the in the pathology department. So people who are actually dealing with these questions all the time from patients and people who are dealing with the actual test platforms that the college and its medical center apply to this concept so they're all involved already. All that needs to be done is have a commercially available test that has the reliability and validity that's required to answer the questions you've asked. Just to confirm for people who are listening so the quantitative versus qualitative is that thing that I brought up where it's how many antibodies you have versus whether you have them or don't have them. Yes and the strength of the antibody response not just having the antibody but having a strong response. This is for the governor I know that you've been asked a few questions about the July 4th date and we're going to be hearing more about that but I'm still unclear what has prevented you from setting that benchmark. What you know didn't we know or are we learning or what are the discussions going on to help you make that decision and why wasn't that included in the original Vermont forward plan? Well we had set the benchmarks the ranges in terms of when we go to the next level and then where we thought we would be at the end but we didn't send that benchmark. From my standpoint it might have been just a bit of an oversight on my part not not seeing that I just assumed that we would be at a certain level. So we're we're still contemplating that right now we're just focusing on trying to get more vaccinations performed and we're looking at the age categories. I'm still concerned about the 18 to 29 year olds that was as you remember that was April 19th I believe that we opened up that age group and we're only at about I think 50% at this point in time and as you look at it as compared to the other age groups we opened up the 16 to 17 year olds just two days before and we're at 60% with them. In the 12 to 15 year olds we had over 7,000 in the first day so I know that's dropped off since then but again it was an encouraging sign and we're hoping these these lower age groups will increase as time goes on so that's what we're focusing on trying to use different strategies making sure that we get to everyone that is willing and wants to be vaccinated the opportunity to do so but I believe we're at that point now now we're just having to seek them out and make it as easy as as possible. Right but that still doesn't make sense to me it was why you wanted it seems like if we were trying to encourage these folks we would have that number on the July 4th and say hey if you want to open up we need 80 or 85 percent of all of you and it just doesn't add up I don't understand why you wouldn't have set that goal back when you issued the plan or even you know last week or today. Yeah well again we are contemplating that as we speak I think you can expect to see the goal in the next week. All right here's a question for Secretary Smith. UBM Health Network yesterday put out a press release and said that they were profitable in the most recent quarter but that was largely due to the state and federal assistance they received and I'm just wondering what can you say about Vermont's hospital system I mean before COVID about half of the hospitals were losing money do you have concerns what can you share with us as far as how you're hoping things look moving forward as far as profitability in the hospital system. Yeah we're gonna we're gonna still monitor how that looks Howard I you know obviously our main focus was when we shut down the healthcare system in terms of you know elective surgeries and other things that we really didn't want the healthcare system to fail so we invest a lot of money into the healthcare system as you just you just talked about now it's time to see how the healthcare system is faring as we come out of this out of the pandemic and how we look at it as we move forward. I don't think I've come to any conclusions yet in terms of where they are and how they're doing it does have to sugar out the federal and state money does have to sugar out and they do have to we do have to see how they're moving forward on this I would say stay tuned we're watching it we understand you know that this may you know the the aspect of UVM MC having or the healthcare network having a having a good quarter based upon federal and state money is not it's not necessarily good news we really have got to see how they do on standing on their own I think it's a little too early to tell right at the moment. Are you concerned that there's not another big pot of money out there to bail out organizations? Yeah I you know I'm I don't know if the word is concerned that there's not another pot of money I'm concerned to make sure that they are fiscally stable as they move forward there's a variety of ways to do that other than a big pot of money to to to stabilize that I don't think you can continue on an ongoing basis to have a stabilization fund that keeps providing money along the way on a on a in a longevity sort of way on a longer basis because it's just that's not sustainable either so we just got to look at making sure that hospitals are sustainable on their own right without federal or state money. All right thank you both thanks. 7 Bates, local 22, local 44. 7 Bates. Hi can you hear me? We can. Sorry about that yes question for Governor Scott the Senate passed S15 the universal mail-in voting bill for general elections. I know you've spoken in support of this in the past but just wondering if this is a bill that you will be signing and how important of a move it is for Vermont given a time when other states are taking steps to restrict voting access? Well again I have said that I supported this measure we'll see what the bill actually says I haven't I haven't read it myself at this point after it passed but I have no no doubt that if everything is correct that that I'll be signing it in terms of you know how that compares other states every state has to do what they think is right for them I think we proved in the last election that that this was worthwhile I think it actually benefited everyone in some respects and certainly Republicans I think there were more elected last last general election than the one before so I think that getting more people out to vote making it as easy as possible for them to do so to exercise this right was was something that was beneficial to Vermont but I can't speak to why other states are doing what they do but but I feel secure with what we're doing in Vermont I would like to see it expanded to other areas local elections I mean we we talk a lot about getting more participation in voting but we seem to be focused on just the general election which is typically where we have the most participation I'm as concerned about some of the local elections that that have are struggling to get enough voters to the ballot box so I hope they continue to move in this direction with local elections as well and then just a quick question as well I've seen that 11 states have made it permanent that you know the to-go alcoholic beverages that we saw instituted at the beginning of the pandemic they're permanent in a lot of states Florida and Georgia I saw do you have any thoughts on this is that something that should be made permanent in Vermont we've been advocating my administration has been advocating for making this an ongoing effort and continuing with that to go structure but but I'm not sure the legislature totally agrees so we'll see what they do it's a measure that's being considered at this point in time and I don't know where we're at with that but it's embedded in one of the one of the liquor lottery bills all right thank you Governor Joseph Gresser not as bad as mine hello governor um I have a question from a reader who works for the state an outside job where she um is never closer than six feet from any of the people she's working with and she is curious as to whether she and her co-workers will be required to continue to wear masks indefinitely we are you know contemplating all those questions as we speak certainly when the restrictions are lifted after the 4th of July or or before this will just be guidance on our part now I know this is a state employee so that we'll have we'll have guidance as well for them but but I don't believe there's anything in place at this point in time maybe if secretary young is on maybe she could tell us where we're at with that but but again I know we're we're considering uh we have uh nothing formal in place at this point in time in terms of additional guidance we put out yesterday that it affected yesterday um the state would be uh upon the first guidance which again means wearing a mask if you're not vaccinated distancing if you're not vaccinated uh and of course the hygiene requirement hey joe is this person vaccinated or not well vaccinated so I mean I would again we'll uh we'll be contemplating this but uh but I see no reason why anyone would have to wear a mask if they're vaccinated Avery Cowell WCAX Governor I asked you a few weeks ago about her few restrictions on bars and restaurants I'm wondering if you've given any more thought to setting a deadline so when those will be loosened and thought maybe that could be an incentive for younger people to get the vaccine yeah well I'm hoping that it's still an incentive because we're still watching that 18 to 29 age grouping that's at as I said is about 50 percent right now we'd like to see that higher and get to where we are with other age groups as well before we open up the bars restaurants and social clubs so we're still contemplating this again suffices to say that by the 4th of July or before when we lift all restrictions this won't be an issue but but we'd like to open up the you know remove the restriction on hours as soon as possible but I'd like to see the numbers increase on the 18 to 29 category before we do so thank you by page governor uh state line reports that nationwide police departments are victims of cyber attacks where the crooks threaten to release vital information unless the police pay up has that happened that we know in Vermont that we had any cyber attacks on Vermont law enforcement I don't know I think you're referring to what's termed ransomware and I'm not familiar with whether any have been or not I know if you were to talk with our secretary of ADS John Quinn he would tell you that we're constantly under attack that's why we put protections in place and and my myself would would say that anyone who has been attacked and has been hacked that they not given to those ransomware types of provisions because that only encourages people to continue to use this method to to acquire money so I don't know I could ask our agency of digital services if he's aware but I don't know at this point in time whether any of our law enforcement friends have have seen any of this in their in their communities okay thank you also in July if I understand correctly the voucher program for hotels for the homeless ends uh do we know what will be taking its place and how will what will the homeless uh what would the options be um I'll let Secretary Secretary Smith answer that but uh but again that's part of what we've been trying to advocate for over the last week or two uh you know in the ARPA funding we had put a significant amount of money 250 million towards towards housing and a major piece of that at least the 100 million was for the homeless population to put them in permanent housing so that we didn't have to use general fund dollars in the future over the last 14 months or so we've spent upwards to over 70 million dollars for for this reason alone so and that's through FEMA we were able to utilize that but we're not going to have FEMA in the future to to satisfy the needs and demand that's out there so the answer is permanent housing and that's why we're fighting so hard to keep keep that money in the housing bucket for ARPA. Secretary Smith. Guy that's a timely question because we are in the legislature right now and the legislature has been working with us as well as housing advocates to um uh how do we sort of wind down a program that's unsustainable as the governor said we're on a trajectory this year to spend about 78 million dollars a lot of its FEMA money but we were on a trajectory if we continue this program to spend 106 million dollars um a year so what do we do um the the the issue that we we're talking about is exactly what the governor had said we need permanent housing in the governor's recommend on the ARPA funding there was 90 90 million dollars in in what is called homelessness housing rapid housing to build for homeless and moderate to low income uh for monitors also transitioning to a larger uh shelter capacity about 12 million dollars into that in this transition year and we think it's going to be a year to transition because you can't bring all of that um housing stock up in in a total in one year there's going to be a transition year we have um estimated that we'd use funder about 36 million dollars in federal funding to do a transition and that transition means that those that meet certain criteria we're putting criteria back into the program both income criteria and other criteria into the program once you put those uh uh once you put those rules back into the program there are going to be some that are not eligible for the hotel motel program in fact about a third will be eligible for this program going forward so that 36 million is in the transition year from um this year to the permanent housing aspects that we're trying to do through the governor's recommend the the one thing that we are doing is we're building capacity so in shelter capacity so I think we'll have shelter capacity also some of um some of the uh individuals probably won't meet the income uh the income uh criteria that we're going to put in place the last thing we're doing is helping them uh with stipends to help them get deposits for rent for example for deposits for electricity for apartments we have a thing called e-wrap which is a a subsidy for housing and we've got substantial increases in that e-wrap for for housing as we for rental assistance as we move forward we have also the capacity um many of these people had housing before the pandemic hit and as you know as we sort of restricted in the early parts of the pandemic they were living with relatives or friends um households sort of constricted now as we open up and more and more people get vaccinated they may have opportunities to be housed with relatives or friends we're helping them actually obtain those opportunities so we think we have a good plan the advocates think we have a good plan moving forward and the legislature thinks we have a good plan but it is it is um it is pivotal pivotal that we really um concentrate on making sure that we um pivot this plan to a really um sustainable permanent housing which the governor has funded in his plan and I think it's important as we move forward that's got to be critical is permanent housing for these individuals thank you yes this is also a question for secretary smith you said today that the residency requirement to get a vaccine would be lifted this week wasn't that already lifted earlier this month when you said out of state workers could get vaccinated should you clarify that no we had um we had not had unrestricted use of that people being able to be vaccinated we had people that had that could be vaccinated that worked in vermont we had people that intended to stay in vermont for a certain time we had part-time residents that were but this is this is unrestricted if if you want a vaccine and you happen to be in vermont you can get a vaccine okay thank you daily express yeah good afternoon uh governor you've probably heard enough questions on uh emergency orders so i'm going to switch up bases and this might be a question that commissioner herrington can respond to um last year the parents were given the option of enrolling their students to full in-person learning uh or hybrid system or remote learning up in orleans county uh the parents who chose remote learning had to keep their children involved in that program through the entire school year for those parents who are drawing on employment if they go through a job search in good faith is there any provisions that allow them to do the job search but not have to accept the job until the school year ends so they can continue uh to take care of their care commissioner herrington thank you thank you governor um the so the way the work search is designed is the provisions for the work search come out of the original act 91 uh statue which really says you have to fall into one of these categories um one to have expanded eligibility into ui but to um you know for for our standpoint a way to exempt people from completing needing to complete the work search so if if a parent is home because the school is impacted by COVID-19 uh whether there is an outbreak uh or if they do remote learning either in in totality or on a hybrid model and they're staying home uh for their kids uh during the time in which the school is doing remote work uh then they only need to look for work um if they if there are other parts um of that time when they aren't uh out of work due to that COVID circumstance so again if they are um they're out of work uh because they have two days a week they're home with their child um doing remote learning but employed the rest of the week um then they don't have to do uh the work search if they're out of work completely um and only two of those days are covered because of their child is doing remote learning um then the they do need to look for work for those other um other hours of the week um to the point about whether or not someone chooses to remove their child from school in you know completely for the season or for the for the school year um to do homeschooling um you know that that is a with a personal choice of that individual the way we interpret uh those circumstances or have interpreted those circumstances is that those individuals um if they want to continue to collect unemployment benefits um because of that that choice then they would need to look for work if they're if they voluntarily um uh chose to provide working at home uh for their child would there be any uh I was just going to point out that all of these provisions also are only in place during um the traditional school year and that is not necessarily uh different under COVID um you know there are times when the school is on recess or summer break um and so in those circumstances um you know the the individual uh the question really becomes what would you do traditionally during the time when the school was on summer break uh and um would you be employed during that time um and what has if anything what has changed um out of the normal uh summer schedule okay and is there any uh provision if there's uh a medical reason to keep your child at home and homescreen for remote learning yeah so again um there is and that really speaks back to um whether or not um the individual who's receiving unemployment is out of work because they themselves um have either contracted COVID-19 and need to quarantine or were exposed and need to quarantine or if they they have a medical condition um that temporarily is removing them from the workplace likewise um if they are caring for a loved one you know whether if the child or another family member um and they are temporarily displaced I think the the hard part and the challenge for folks will be um you know those really have to be temporary circumstances um and as more people are vaccinated um you know it will it will turn into whether or not someone is eligible um because they are temporarily out of work or they have a long-term circumstance in which case um there may be another benefit out there that is more appropriate under under those conditions okay great thank you very much for your response and thank you governor all right well thank you very much for tuning in and we'll see you again on friday