 Hello team, I'm Colonel Pat Miller, Commander of the 88th Air Base Wing and installation commander for Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. During this town hall we'd like to give you an update on where we are with respect to our current fight against COVID. Earlier today I transitioned the installation to health protection condition Bravo and over the course of this town hall we'll talk about why, give you some information and data on what it looks like in our local area, talk about our services and how that may adjust, what you're gonna see across the installation, do a little bit of a deep dive into telework because that's a question that is on everybody's mind and then kind of wrap things up and tell you where we're going. Before we get there though I'd ask you just kind of indulge me for a second and reflect back to two years ago. Two years ago today the city of Dayton experienced the tragedy of the Dayton nightclub shooting where nine individuals lost their lives and 17 plus were injured in just 32 seconds. So I asked you just kind of pause, reflect, think back to that night where you were at, the emotions that were going on, think about those nine lives lost, those injured. Also think about those brave officers and bystanders that ran to the fight that stepped up to the challenge that ended this tragedy in 32 seconds instead of a minute, two minutes, 10 minutes. Thank those brave individuals that stepped up and then thank all those brave individuals that stepped up afterwards to help answer the question why and what's next? How do we help? How do we grow? How do we learn? How do we get better? How do we stay Dayton strong? That was a tough experience. And so I just asked you pause with me for a few seconds and reflect back on that night those heroes and those we've lost. Thanks. I appreciate you spending that brief bit of time for me. We can't forget those moments. We can't forget the strength that we build out of those moments as we come together and face challenges just like we're facing today with the current surge in the COVID virus and specifically this Delta variant. As I had mentioned earlier today, I transitioned the installation to HP Con Bravo health protection condition Bravo. And what I did not do is declare a new public health emergency. Those are two separate things that we're going to break apart and explain why we went to HP Con Bravo but did not declare a public health emergency again. In doing so, you're going to see some familiar faces. You're going to see myself and then Colonel Christian Lyons, our medical group commander who's going to talk about what we're seeing in this surge and what our medical services are doing to help protect the team. Then you're going to see a new face. You're going to see Colonel Serena Morris. Colonel Morris is our new mission support group commander. She replaced Colonel Paul Berger and she's going to talk about some of the impacts or what you'll see around the installation with some of those support services that you use each and every day. Following Colonel Morris, Mr. Greg Lyingang, the vice director for the 88th Air Base Wing, is going to talk a little bit about telework and what that looks like and some of the flexibilities we have in today's environment, especially when we don't have that public health emergency which allows supervisors to direct individuals to telework. And so we'll spend a brief bit of time talking about telework in the current environment. And then I'll come back on and wrap things up. But before we get to Colonel Lyons, I want to talk about the decision to transition the installation to Health Protection Condition Bravo. If you recall last week, we added in the masks, whether you're vaccinated or unvaccinated. That was kind of that first step to ramp up protection measures for individuals across the installation. And lots of folks, especially the vaccinated folks asked, hey, why? Why do I, as a vaccinated individual, have to wear a mask in this current environment? And that's mainly to do with the Delta variant. Data has proven and shown that the Delta variant is actually transmissible by members that are vaccinated. That was not the case. Science did not show that with other variants, but the Delta variant has been more aggressive, more highly transmissible. We are also starting to see breakthrough cases where vaccinated individuals are testing positive for COVID. And so for those two reasons, the small number of breakthrough cases, and when I say small number, what we're seeing is roughly an 83% effectiveness of the COVID vaccine against the Delta variant. And so we're seeing some small cases, breakthrough cases. The plus side is those vaccinated folks that have that breakthrough case. We're not seeing hospitalizations and we're seeing mild symptoms. So we're seeing the vaccination is working, even with that Delta variant, but we are getting some breakthrough cases. And because of those breakthrough cases, and the science showing that the Delta variant is transmissible by vaccinated individuals, the Department of Defense, the CDC recommended and the Department of Defense pushed out guidance to require masks for all individuals when you're indoors. So that's the why behind the masks. But as we continued to watch the COVID cases increase across the nation, across the state, and locally, those were the triggers that drove us to implementing Health Protection Condition Bravo today. Some of those triggers, some of those data sources that we used out there. One, the Center for Disease Control has a COVID data tracker. It's a great resource. If you just Google CDC COVID data tracker, you'll be able to get this. And you will see an overall map of the United States. And that map is going to show you areas that are red, and that red indicates high community transmission, areas that are orange, which indicates substantial community transmission, yellow for moderate and blue for low. And so when you look at that map, what has been amazing to me over the course of the last week or so, since I found that resource was the progression of red coming up the United States, working closer and closer to where we are. And so on last week, late last week, whenever I rolled out the mask mandate for right Patterson Air Force Base, that's because our surrounding communities were showing substantial kind of that second highest level of community transmission. When I came back to work on Monday and pulled up that resource again, three of our four surrounding counties were red, high community transmission. And so that got the team going full bore saying, Hey, it's time, it's time for us to make the switch to protect the team to protect the mission to protect you. And so we made the decision earlier today to roll the base into health protection condition Bravo. I will tell you what we're seeing both in our own tracking on installation as we're doing our testing. And as we're seeing reporting folks coming in and reporting COVID positives, and we work through contract they contact tracing, we are seeing the same signs that our community seeing the state seeing, and the nation seeing we are seeing an increase in cases over the course of the last several weeks. There was a point in time where we were down to one to two cases a week. Now we're getting back into that threshold of three to six cases a day. And it just is exponentially growing each and every day. And so we want to get ahead of that. And so that's what the transition for health health protection, Bravo does for us is helps us put extra precautions in place to protect the team and protect the mission. So why not a public health emergency? When I look at whether to declare a public health emergency or not, I wanted to look at our capability and capacity to deal with this COVID pandemic. We have learned a ton over the course of the last 18 months. And when you look back, and you realize we went to Bravo and Charlie early on in the process, and we issued that public health emergency declaration, we didn't have the testing capability that we have today. We didn't have the treatment capability that we had today that we have today, we didn't have a vaccination back then or a vaccine back then to be able to strengthen our armor in this fight. And our hospital capacity was diminishing by the day. Whenever I look at us today, there is a lot of testing capability and capacity, not just in the installation, but in the surrounding communities. We have the ability to treat we've learned a lot more about this virus. We have the ability to prevent as we work through our proven mitigating measures of wearing a mask, of practicing good hygiene, of maintaining six foot of physical distancing around folks, of staying home if you're not feeling well, and then getting tested if you're showing those symptoms. So those mitigating measures we've learned a lot from. We've got the vaccine that's out available here within our from our medical center, and other vaccine options that are available in the local community. The vaccination age has dropped from, you know, that 16 year old to now that 12 year old knob. So we continue to evolve and be able to arm up more of our population. And our hospital capacity both on base as well as in the surrounding community is great. What I will caution you, though, is hospitalizations are a lagging indicator, meaning that typically whenever you see a hospitalization, it's several weeks after folks have been have contracted COVID. And so we are seeing the surge now we want to get ahead of this so that hospitalizations and hospital capacities do not become an issue. Again, why are we doing health protection condition Bravo, but not the public health emergency. And so hopefully that gives you a little bit of perspective or insight into my thinking as the installation commander, as it's my responsibility to make sure that we operate, sustain, protect and defend this installation, and the things that we're doing to keep you in the forefront as we as we roll through this. And so as we as we move on with this health protection condition Bravo, what you're probably asking yourself is how does this impact me? What changes under health protection condition Bravo? Well, there's a couple things. One, we're going to continue to keep wearing a mask. That mandate came out last week. And so whether you're vaccinated or unvaccinated, mask wear still required indoors. And there's some exceptions that are out there and those were advertised last week. If you need to go back and see that note, or I'm sure they're going to be published here as part of the chat box, or you can go to our right Patterson Air Force based public site, click on the top right to the coronavirus, you know, the coronavirus box, and it will take you to our COVID page that has all of our latest and greatest information. And so we're going to keep wearing masks on gathering guidance and occupancy and those types of things. HP Con Bravo does drive us down to no more than 50% of folks in the workspace. Now that is going to be up to mission owners. So the target is no more than 50%. But there are some mission sets that we cannot do in a telework capacity. Think about our defenders at the gates. Think about our emergency room technicians. Think about those controllers in the tower running the airfield. Think about folks that work in classified spaces or emergency responders such as our firefighters. Think about folks that do lab work and research and development and his very hands on. There are jobs that are not conducive to telework. And so we are not going to get to 50% in the workplace in those in those areas, though, we need to make sure we're emphasizing the six foot physical distancing, the mask wear, the good hygiene, staying home when you're sick, all of those proven mitigating measures. But as a basic bar, it's 50% occupancy in the workplace. The next piece you're going to see is in gatherings. Think retirement ceremonies, farewells, commander calls, those types of big events where you're pulling people together for a gathering, as well as some of your larger meetings in conference rooms and those types of spaces. Large gatherings cannot exceed 50 people. So we've dropped the cap to large gatherings back down to 50 people. And so you think about this 50 50 rule, right? 50% occupancy, nothing larger than 50. And so the way I would break that down to you, if you've got a room that is designed for 20 people, the 50% occupancy is going to be your rule that you follow. That means that no more than 10 people should be in that room. And it's also based off of physical distancing. You need to make sure that you have six foot of physical distancing between those 10 people. Now, let's say you've got a room that holds 200 people. Well, that's where your 50, your cap of 50 people in that room come into play. All right. And so that's the difference between 50% occupancy or no more than 50 for large gatherings. So those are some changes that are out there. The last piece, or the piece that I will tell you does not change is outdoor activities. We are not changing gathering guidance for outdoor activities. So there's no restrictions on that. All we ask you to do is maintain that physical distancing. And so I guess I need to correct myself. I say there's no restrictions. You still need to maintain that six foot of physical distancing in those outdoor activities. And I would ask you and encourage you not to kind of congregate or aggregate together in groups or clumps. You need to maintain that physical distancing. And if it's an area where there are larger crowds, whether you're vaccinated or unvaccinated, you probably want to wear a mask. And so that's how we're approaching outdoor activities. So there's a difference between outdoor and indoor activities. The other thing that we're not changing and we're leaving up to mission owners is leave and travel. So there's no restrictions on leave and travel at this time. Again, we're not declaring a public health emergency. We believe we have the right tools in place, but we are transitioning to health protection condition Bravo to increase our protection and our mitigating measures. And so when you what I would ask is as you think through your travel, whether that's leave or TDY for official work travel, be smart about it. If you look at them, if you follow the news and see some of the areas, we know that places like Florida and Texas and Missouri are hot spots right now. And so you may want to can reconsider travel to Florida, Texas or Missouri or any of those other areas on that CDC tracker that you're seeing that are extremely hot spots extreme hot spots. And so think through that. And then if you decide to go, make sure you're having that conversation with your supervisor on your return trip to see if maybe telework is the right thing for you at least for a couple days to make sure that no symptoms pop up as you return and jump back into the mission set wherever you work. And so I've walked through a couple of those things kind of highlighted where we're at with HPCon Bravo and why we made that transition, why we did not implement a public health emergency and how that impacts you. So I'm going to step away and turn the floor over to Colonel Lyons who's going to walk you through a little bit more of the details, the why, what we're seeing, give you some more solid numbers and then talk about our medical services and how the team is ready to equip you better in this fight that we're in. Thank you very much Colonel Miller. Good afternoon everyone. I want to highlight some key data points to you and reinforce a little bit of the why that Colonel Miller talked about. So you may hear a couple of redundancies in my talk but I want to again highlight a few key items for you. So the CDC updated masking guidance last week that recommended everyone, whether they're vaccinated or not, wear a mask indoors in places where the coronavirus is spreading widely. The medical experts support that masking up is essential to combat this highly contagious Delta variant that is now so prevalent in our communities and across our nation. Therefore the DOD has updated mask guidelines for all DOD personnel, service members, federal employees, on-site contractors and visitors, regardless of the vaccination status to wear a mask while indoors on the installation and other facilities controlled by the DOD, when the local areas community transmission risk is classified as substantial or high. So in our surrounding communities, the transmission risk has been graded as high, the highest transmissibility rating for green Miami and Montgomery counties and substantial for Clark and Warren counties. Therefore we're going to continue to urge you to take the protective measures and the measured steps to wear a mask indoors, maintain six feet of physical distancing between people, practice good hand hygiene, optimize telework and stay home if you're not feeling well and to get tested. Our COVID screening line is open and you can schedule a COVID test by calling 257 SHOT that's SHOT and select option two. Additionally, if you're not vaccinated, please remain educated and up to date on various vaccine options. Vaccines have proven to work. Over 99% of deaths and 97% of hospitalizations are among the unvaccinated population. To schedule your COVID vaccine, please also call our 257 SHOT line and select option one. The Delta variant is now trending upwards of 90% of the cause of new cases in many areas. Those who are most susceptible are those who are unvaccinated. According to our local infectious disease partners, they are seeing that greater than 95% of their hospitalized COVID-19 patients are unvaccinated. So that's what's happening here as well in our local area. Yet there's increasing evidence that the Delta variant may spread more easily from vaccinated people than earlier variants, which this highlights again the need to wear a mask as well as to follow those other physical protective measures that are listed for you. Reviewing our last 122 COVID positive cases and that's from the 1st of June until present, 25 of those individuals were fully vaccinated. So here, locally at the installation based on the folks that we've tested, roughly about 20% of our latest COVID positives have been vaccinated. But of those, none have been hospitalized or have exhibited severe illness at this point. Now, we have seen some of our base personnel who are fully vaccinated and yet who are perhaps dismissing or downplaying COVID-like symptoms such as fever and chills, cough, shortness of breath, fatigue, muscle or body aches, headache, new loss of taste or smell, sore throat, congestion or runny nose, nausea or vomiting or diarrhea. Considering that breakthrough infections for fully vaccinated folks are possible. We encourage people to get tested if you are exhibiting symptoms, especially if you have had close contact to a positive or suspected COVID-19 case. It's better to be safe and prevent the spread of the infection, even if you are vaccinated. Now, I do want to highlight some items for you about when to isolate and when to quarantine. For vaccinated personnel, fully vaccinated individuals who have been exposed to COVID-19, but are not experiencing symptoms, you do not need the quarantine. If you start though to experience symptoms, then you should get a COVID-19 test and isolate until those results are received. For unvaccinated personnel, unvaccinated individuals who've been exposed to COVID-19, but are not experiencing symptoms, should still quarantine. If you start to experience symptoms, then you should get a COVID-19 test and isolate again and quarantine yourself until those results are received. Again, we know that those who are fully vaccinated have a strong protective effect against all forms of the COVID virus, including the Delta variant, especially against developing more severe forms of a COVID-19 infection. So I want to reiterate, yet again, if you feel sick, please stay at home and schedule an appointment to be tested at our COVID screening team line, which is adjacent to our medical center, by calling 257-SHOT and select option 2. Or schedule an appointment with your primary care provider if you feel like you need to see a member of our health care team. We are open for business and we are here to serve you. Fortunately, if you're vaccinated and have symptoms, yes you have to isolate and get a test, but if you have a negative COVID test with decreased symptoms, then you can return back to work. Also, I'd like to encourage you to please sign up for the TRICARE online portal, which will enable you access almost instantaneously to those test results once they are completed by our lab so you can see what your result is as soon as it's ready. You can access it even easy from your smartphone. So please sign up for the TRICARE online portal. It's your tool to help you to have best access to that information and give you a peace of mind. Now, I'd like to talk to you for a moment about the potential for a COVID-19 booster shot. For those who have been vaccinated, as it has driven many questions to our base and to our medical center, companies like Pfizer have reportedly started working on a booster for the COVID-19 vaccine. However, the FDA, the CDC and the National Institutes of Health maintain that there's not enough evidence, yes, that we need to go ahead with boosters. Our national health experts all support that the current vaccines available offer excellent protection against COVID-19 infections and the severity of those infections. Now, time evolution of the virus and greater evidence might support the need for a booster in the future, but currently, you can feel protected, and I encourage you not to be complacent, but you can feel protected about your protection and feel protected against the virus and its current variants if you have completed the vaccination series of one of the approved COVID-19 vaccines. That allows me to reiterate as well, the best protection that you have against the COVID-19 infection, including the Delta variant, is to become vaccinated. Our medical center stands ready to provide you with the Pfizer vaccine series, which is currently the form of the vaccine that we're providing, and you can schedule your vaccine appointment again by calling 257-SHOT and select option one. Thank you very much for your time this afternoon. With that, I will turn over to Karol Morse, the MSG commander. Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Serena Morse, and I recently took command of the Mission Support Group here, and I'm super excited to be a part of Team Right Pat and the greater Dayton area. There are lots of questions on how HPCom Bravo will affect support services provided by the MSG. At this time, we are not closing or further limiting any of our services. ID cards will still be issued, gates will remain open, speeders will still get ticketed, TMO will process your household good pickups and deliveries, food will still be served, and holes in one will still be made. Well, maybe not the holes in one. They're probably not happening now. What you will see is an increased precaution measures and enforcement of those measures in our facilities. Mask our mandatory in all our customer service areas, and we ask our patrons physically distance themselves from one another while waiting to be served. We will have sanitation stations available for use, and please continue to practice good hand hygiene, safety for you, your family, and our colleagues. Our childcare facilities continue to be mandated mask areas for all those two and over. You may have seen over the past few weeks we've had several positive cases in our CDCs. When we experience positive cases, we work closely with public health for guidance and contract tracing. Additionally, we immediately notify parents of children in affected rooms, publish this information on social media for further outreach within the community, deep clean the room, and the entire facility out of an abundance and caution, and isolate any affected staff members. Rest assured, the health and safety of your children and our staff members are top priority for us. As mentioned, the gates will continue to operate under normal conditions, and will adjust based on the needs and throughput over the next several weeks. And what we do continue to ask for our supporting mission partners is that we will continue to use our entry authorization liaisons or eagles to continue to expedite the personnel through the gates. And while the transmission rate of infection is low for this interaction, out of an abundance of caution, and the peace of mind of many, we will be returning to the contactless scanning of our ID cards, meaning personnel will present their ID cards to the gate entry controller like this, so they can scan the back and once you hear it beep, turn it around to the front so they can get a good look at your face and the picture on your ID and once verified, they will allow you to proceed. We will also continue to execute the Air Force Physical Fitness Assessments. We recommend to the mass extent possible these assessments be accomplished outdoors where transmission risk is reduced. Since we started testing about about a month ago, just over a thousand tests have been executed without incident, so we believe that this is this process is going well. Talking about Physical Fitness, we are monitoring the situation closely with regards to the this year's Air Force Marathon. We are discussing with public health and the local government along with other race directors in our local area on how they are looking to proceed. Today we are still planning to execute the race both in person and virtually. However, please continue the Air Force continue to monitor the Air Force Marathon web page and Facebook page for more up-to-date information. Last but surely not least, we are still committed to staying socially connected while physically distant. As Colonel Miller mentioned, outdoor interactions and activities are still a go and so the party at the pond as I like to call it or officially the block party is still on for Thursday the 12th of August from five to seven. So we ask that everyone come out and just really continue to stay connected with our friends and our neighbors. Thank you again for your time and attention. I'm excited to be a part of the team and I look forward to working and serving many of you over the next several years. Thank you. Next following me will be Mr. Liongang, the Air Base Wing Vice Director. Thank you, Colonel Morris. So good afternoon. I'd like to just talk a little bit today about telework and what HPCon Bravo means for telework policy. So as we were planning for this afternoon and the the reinstatement of HPCon Bravo, we kind of uncovered some confusion over telework and I want to clarify that a little bit. So HPCon Bravo today relative to telework looks a little bit different than HPCon Bravo previously. And that's because, as Colonel Miller stated, when we were previously under HPCon Bravo, we were also under a local public health emergency and a continuity of operations plan. And it was the public health emergency and the COOP that actually gave supervisors the authority to direct people to telework. And as Colonel Miller stated, now as we enter back into HPCon Bravo, the Wing Commander has not, at least yet, declared a local public health emergency and implementation of the COOP. And so that means that today, under HPCon Bravo, supervisors do not have the authority to direct employees to telework. And so, as you heard previously with HPCon Bravo, you've got that 50% capacity or 50 person limit. And supervisors might be asking themselves, well, how am I going to reach that overarching goal if I can't direct my employees to telework? And that's some of the questions that we've been asked. And so I would encourage all of you to understand the unique telework guidance that your organization has and to use the existing flexibilities that you have to reach those broad, overarching HPCon Bravo manning goals for your office. In general, you're going to have the flexibility you need with regular telework and situational or ad hoc telework to reach those staffing goals for your office to maintain that physical distance. And as we've been leading up to today also, our Public Affairs Office has received multiple questions from folks asking why doesn't the wing implement a base-wide standard telework policy? And I think that's a really great question that I want to address this afternoon as well. So Wright-Patterson obviously is a very large installation and there are actually almost a hundred individual organizations that call Wright-Patterson home. Each of those organizations have their own unique telework policies and procedures. Not all of those organizations are DOD organizations. We have multiple federal agencies represented here on the installation and certainly multiple services, multiple MAGCOMs, each again with their own unique telework policies. And so that makes it really, really not practical for the wing to direct a standard overarching telework policy for the installation. The best approach is to establish those overarching staffing goals and that's what the HPCon level does. And then we have to allow individual commanders and directors who understand their missions to do what they need to do relative to telework to achieve those staffing goals where possible. And as Colonel Miller mentioned, it is not always possible depending on the mission for employees to all telework. We have a lot of folks here on the installation whose work requires them to be physically present and commanders and directors need to have the flexibility to manage those missions and to be successful with those missions. Now that said, I do want to point out that during the height of COVID when we were largely experiencing maximum telework in many of our organizations, many organizations were successful. They were able to transition to a telework or virtual environment. And many organizations actually found that in some ways employee productivity improved and mission resiliency was actually positively impacted. And so disruption always allows us new opportunities. And so I would want to encourage everyone to look at this time of disruption and recognize the opportunity that it provides us to think about work differently and where telework is possible how might telework be optimized here at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. That's a challenge we all have and that's a very important thing that we need to address to get after critical topics like employee retention, employee satisfaction and as I said before mission effectiveness and mission resiliency. And as you look at telework understand that it is so important for you to work with your human resource representatives and ensure that you have the appropriate telework agreements documented and in place. Even when we were under the previous public health emergency and coop it was a requirement that every teleworking employee have a telework agreement in place. And that requirement still exists today. So I want to encourage supervisors please ensure that you're working with your employees to get those telework agreements in place. Many organizations require that the employee and the supervisor both take a training class prior to entering into a telework agreement and that the telework agreement be documented in writing. So understand those requirements for your organization now is the time to make sure you've got all of all of that document documentation in place to avoid misunderstandings. And finally again just please consult with your supervisors if you have any individual questions. Supervisors consult with your HR professionals if you're not sure about your telework requirements in your individual organization. And I want to thank you for your time this afternoon. And with that I will turn it back over to Colonel Miller. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Lange and teammates. Can't emphasize enough the power of telework not just to provide the extra protection health and safety for our teams but also to ensure effective mission execution. We've seen over the course of the last 18 months how powerful telework can be and we know that we can still get the mission done while protecting our teammates. And so continue to navigate telework understand what it is and like Mr. Lange said that's really a conversation between a teammate and their supervisor and a focus on what jobs are compatible for telework and what situations make sense for the individuals to be able to do that telework. Do they have the right capability to get out there and do that from another location. So I appreciate you spending a few minutes walking through the nuances between this HB Con Bravo and the last time we were in HB Con Bravo and charting a path for our team to try and optimize telework to get to that 50 percent in the work centers. One area I want to touch on before we move to questions because there has been a lot of questions on this specific one is the president's executive order that he rolled out with last week and just for a refresher for those that aren't familiar with it last week President Biden asked the Department of Defense to consider making the COVID vaccination mandatory as part of our requirements for military members and so in other words we've got a litany of vaccinations that we as military members have to get in adding the COVID vaccine to that so making it mandatory for military members. The president also directed that all federal employees across the board all federal employees uniformed and non-uniformed wearing as well as across the other agencies in the federal government that they sign a form a testing to whether they have received the COVID vaccine or not and if you recall we were not able to ask if somebody has been vaccinated or not some policy guidance came out last week that allows commanders to ask military members now if they've been vaccinated and then in the case of our non-uniformed teammates or civilians if there is causably that somebody is not vaccinated but is not going on not wearing a mask in some venues where they're supposed to to be able to ask that question for those non-uniformed teammates. So there was a little bit of progression in policy last week on that and then the president said hey we're going to do 100 percent a testation or confirmation where you sign a form saying hey I'm vaccinated or not and then for those federal teammates that have not been vaccinated to submit to testing routine testing once or twice a week and so that was the president's announcement last week what I will tell you is how does that change anything today nothing yet okay and so what what happens is the president rolls out the executive order and then the department of defense and specifically one of the offices in the department of defense is looking through how do we execute the president's guidance and so it's sitting up amongst the personnel and readiness folks at the office of secretary of defense level trying to figure out how to turn this into execution rules once those are established they will roll to the different services the department of air force will evaluate and analyze the secretary of defense's guidance on how to implement the president's order add some additional execution guidance and then it will roll out to installations so as of right now we have not moved on mandating vaccines for military members collecting attestation forms or confirmation forms on whether you've been vaccinated or not or rolling out that recurring testing for unvaccinated folks so we're just standing fast or awaiting higher headquarters guidance and then once we get that guidance we will share with you how we plan on implementing that here at Wright Patterson Air Force Base and so I just wanted to address that up front so we we've covered the fact that we moved to health protection condition Bravo we've covered the fact that we are not under a public health emergency talked about why for both of those Colonel Lyons walked through some statistics showing in more depth why we made this decision Colonel Morris walked through the services and how that's changing what you can see out there but with any battle or any war that we're in what's our exit strategy and so what's our exit strategy to get us out of health protection condition Bravo what can you do on the front lines in the fight that we are in today and believe me this is a prolonged war against COVID a lot longer than we want it to be we thought we were doing well and lowered kind of some of our shields as we transition to health protection condition Bravo but a new battle was in play with this Delta variant and so we need to start arming up again and that's what we're doing with HPCon Bravo and so our exit strategy to get back out of health protection condition Bravo one follow those fundamental mitigating measures wear that mask good hygiene physical distancing optimize telework stay home if you're feeling ill get tested if you're showing symptoms right basic blocking and tackling in this fight against COVID the next thing arm up literally arm up if you are not vaccinated get vaccinated or at least strongly consider it stay educated data has shown that the vaccine is the greatest weapon we have in this war and so whether you're getting Pfizer, Moderna Johnson and Johnson arm up take a look at that I know Beth and I we made the tough decision to have our 13 year old son Adam start the vaccination process we rumbled with it just like many of you are rumbling with it yourselves but we decided this is the right thing for our son as he's getting ready to start 8th grade here in a few weeks and I know he won't be fully vaccinated by that first day of school but that first shot strengthens our armor up a little bit and then he'll get that second shot and a couple weeks later he will be fully armed and ready to go and so we're excited to see the flexibility and freedom that this gives him as he maneuvers through his next school year the other thing I would ask you is be smart off base the rules off base are different than on base all right and so in this exit strategy as you navigate the local community or you travel and do all those types of things fall back on those basic mitigating measures stay physically distance wear your mask in areas where there's crowds and those types of things and even though there's not mandates out there just be smart protect yourself protect your families protect your teammates protect these missions here across this installation and then the last thing I would tell you is this month as part of Air Force material commands connect program they roll out a different topic every month and this month is all about wellness the last way we get through this thing is focusing on our wellness and wellness for airmen for our Air Force teammates for all of you can really be broken down into four domains your physical your mental your social and your spiritual and so make sure you're investing in those four domains focusing on your in on your wellness taking care of each other thinking about the things that you can control and not focusing on the things that you can't control when you focus on those things you can't control it drives frustration stress irritation all of those other things if you want to hear more about that Chief Shaffer the 88th airbase Wing Command Chief and I sat down and had a conversation it's part of a series called Let's Get It Right it was posted to our 88th Airbase Wing Facebook site on the first of August check that out and hear our views on wellness but more importantly talk to each other and figure out what's missing in your life how can you support each other how can you be there for each other the wingman concept should be more than just a concept it should be a way of life we need to look out for each other especially in these stressful turbulent times that we're in right now we are all in this together with that I'm just going to pause here and see if we have any questions sir we do have a couple of questions sir okay sir can you please explain why personnel who have been tested positive for COVID-19 are not given the opportunity to test for antibodies before being pressured into getting the vaccination all right I'm going to turn that over to our 88th medical group commander Colonel Lyons thank you sir very much thanks very much for the for the great question we have indeed received questions regarding COVID-infected personnel who have recovered if we can consider them as being protected and or if we have an antibody test that can confirm that I have antibodies and therefore maybe I don't need to be vaccinated so I want to share with you directly from our infectious disease staff none of the commercially available antibody ass assays are FDA approved at this time to assess protective immunity against SARS-CoV-2 that's the the COVID-19 virus the infectious disease society of America and the CDC do not recommend baseline serology or antibody testing for the purpose of vaccine decision making and there is emerging data that the immune response after natural infection may not be as robust against variants of concerns such as Delta as compared with vaccine induced responses so in summary a positive antibody test does not equate to protection data supports that individuals with a prior infection will have better protection against COVID-19 after being vaccinated thank you thanks current alliance hey sir we have a couple questions on occupancy for events okay can you tell us if we can still submit occupancy waivers for conference rooms workspaces to lessen the six foot physical distancing requirement will waivers be considered or are they required where the request is for no physical distancing for work areas and the same question for if there's three foot of distancing okay I appreciate that question because you know one of those key changes as we navigate to HP ConBravo affects occupancy and I know there are events on the calendar I know there's retirement ceremonies out there I know there's changes of command out there there's picnics there's all kinds of gatherings that are coming down the road here and so this sudden change to HP ConBravo impacts you and I know there's some anxiety that is associated with that and so the exception to policy process is still in place I will tell you as we see these increase in transmission though we're going to provide extra scrutiny on those and so in HP ConAlpha where the community transmission rate was lower we could look at that and be a little bit more forgiving and so a transition from six foot to three foot I don't think that's going to get approved everyone is unique and we will take a look at it on the surface for the event and the mitigating measures that you put into play but when we look at this high rate of community transmission and a basic principle of six foot of physical distancing whenever you violate that unless there is a lot of other mitigating measures in place we may not be able to get to that point and so what I would tell you is take a look at the gathering guidance that went out it will be posted to our coronavirus site on that right path right Patterson Air Force Base public site when you go to that COVID link we'll post that new gathering guidance out there but again it's 50 percent of a room occupancy no greater than 50 people in that room focused on that physical distancing and so maybe you look at your 50 percent but if you can't get that physical distancing then you need to reduce even more from that 50 percent so follow those basic principles know that you can still submit exceptions to policy out there we will take a hard look at those but it's going to be a harder look right now because the transmission rate is pretty rapid with this Delta variant so sir just a kind of a follow-up on that question if folks have already submitted their exception to policy are those on hold are they going to still be continue to be processed so what I would ask you is if you've submitted an exception to policy whenever we were in health protection condition alpha and your event has not occurred yet link up with our public health team to take a look to relook at that event the situation has changed we have seen as you heard from the numbers have drastically increased over the past week to two weeks it has been ridiculous as a matter of fact the CDC had said in an article earlier today that the last week last two weeks in July the Delta variant accounted for 93% of all COVID all new COVID cases out there so it's coming hard it's coming fast on the CDC COVID tracker you can see the red continuing to creep forward we saw the shift just over the weekend and so the situation has changed from whenever that ETP first came up and got approved if you have an ETP working through the system now we are going to look at it with HBCon Bravo in mind and so you may want to pull that back and relook at that to make sure you got the appropriate mitigating measures in there otherwise it may be at risk of disapproval sir we have one final question if there is no restriction on outdoor gatherings as long as social distancing can be maintained can we have less than six feet of distancing at an outdoor event if face coverings are warm and so I appreciate that because that's a consideration of mitigating measures you're saying hey I've got an outdoor event and we've seen transmission rates in outdoor events are extremely low so it's a low risk area which is why we have not changed our gathering guides for outdoor events but we have that basic principle of six foot of physical distancing and so I think that is a strong consideration if everybody is required to wear a mask and I would say it's probably a non-eating event because whenever you move down the mask if you are sitting closer than six feet mask comes down and you're eating that's a chance to transmit that virus so I would have to look at the parameters around it but I would say if it was a non-eating event everybody's wearing mask outdoors we would consider that exception to policy but we'd have to have the full details to make that decision final question sir okay hey thank you team thanks I know this one has been longer than our previous ones because we have we've had a lot of information that we wanted to share with you today this transition back to bravo is not something we wanted to do but in order to protect the team to protect the missions this is something we need to do and so like I said earlier today we made that official transition to health protection condition bravo we did not declare a public health emergency we believe we had the right mitigating measures out there and the right capability and capacity to deal with this new surge of cases but we need your help we need you to do what you need to do to strongly consider and go ahead and get vaccinated to do all the basic blocking and tackling for our mitigating measures to look out for each other take care of each other and let us know where you need your support or where you need our support the one thing I would say as we sign off you know I talk about COVID like we're in a war right we're in this big fight against COVID-19 and we have we've seen these little mini battles that we've been fighting along the way and the Delta variant is one but I don't I don't say that flippantly and I know war is a serious thing which kind of brings me to this weekend this weekend Saturday the 7th of August is actually Purple Heart Day and so I just want to put that on your radar and think through those folks who have made sacrifices on the battlefield shed blood for our nation have been injured in in in war that have been recognized with the Purple Heart that you know we've had over 2 million individuals recognized with the Purple Heart since 1932 that's when that Purple Heart was re-established and so you know just within this past year since I've been here I had the privilege to see a Purple Heart presentation for Chief Mass Sergeant in our medical group and know that the toll that an individual takes and the Purple Heart is just an acknowledgement to their service and sacrifice but it doesn't make up for what they give their country and so keep those folks who have been recognized with the Purple Heart in mind pause and think about them on Saturday the 7th of August which is National Purple Heart Day I just ask you that you join me in that and then the other thing just know that this is real the 88th Air Base Wing right now has a teammate that has been hospitalized for COVID-19 and so we just want him and his family to know that we are thinking about him he continues to fight the good fight each and every day but when you look at the progression of things and think about the seriousness of this we have one of our own teammates that is hospitalized on a ventilator doing everything he can to keep pressing forward and we're here to support you and your family as you're in this fight and to know you're in our thoughts and prayers team I appreciate all that you're doing I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to serve you each and every day I appreciate my teammates that spent some time with you today to bring you up to speed on where we're at and better educate you on what we're seeing and how we need to move forward I definitely thank the public affairs team that continues to put these things on and support us so that we can maintain transparency to get good comms and information out to you and I appreciate our sign language team who is always the hardest working team in the room as we do one of these things and so thank you very much for all that you do for us until we chat again stay safe keep looking out for each other and have a good one