 Good morning everyone. Governor Scott is currently on the Tuesday 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 the vaccination program as well as provide more information about summer camp testing after that. And then Sarah Squirrel, Commissioner of the Department of Mental Health will provide us with information on ongoing mental health impacts, the state's commitment to helping kids and the value of after-school and summer programs and helping them rebuild connections and start healing. Commissioner 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. Last Friday the governor laid out a challenge to Vermonters. If 80% of eligible Vermonters, those 12 years of age and above are vaccinated with at least one dose before July 4th, he would lift the remaining COVID-19 restrictions that day. Otherwise the restrictions would remain in place until July 4th and would then be lifted. We reported that according to the CDC, Vermont vaccinated 74.9% of the eligible population and we needed just under 28,000 additional eligible Vermonters to be vaccinated to hit the 80% mark. The CDC numbers of total vaccinated Vermonters over the weekend showed tremendous progress towards that goal. But after a few days with these very high numbers, we questioned whether we had made that much progress. Notably, the CDC reported on Monday that we were at 78.9% of the eligible population having been vaccinated with at least one dose. Although the CDC regularly reconciles data and disregards any duplicate records, we decided to proactively reach out to the CDC to ensure the accuracy of the CDC vaccination numbers. This review in collaboration with the CDC did find duplicate reporting in one batch of Veteran Affairs numbers reported late last week and in a limited number of independent pharmacies reported from April 6th through May 22nd. We confirmed this late yesterday. We have corrected our reporting and asked the CDC to remove the duplicates. We have also updated our tracking and with these corrections in place, the percentage of eligible Vermonters vaccinated currently stands at 76.9% with the remaining number of Vermonters needed to be vaccinated at 17,250 to reach the 80% mark. To be clear, the number removes those that had been duplicated, which was about 11,000 Vermonters and then added an additional vaccination vaccinations reported and completed since Friday, including yesterday's results of about 4700. In the future, the Vermont Department of Health will simply remove the Veteran Affairs numbers when reporting to the CDC because the CDC already has those numbers. And for the three pharmacies going forward, we have confirmed that only one of us will count them, not both of us. This will prevent this situation from happening in the future. We've had great success with our vaccination program, but we are being very careful not to overstate our progress until the state of Vermont and the CDC reconcile any duplicates in the reporting. We will be reporting our own reconciled numbers on a daily basis using corrected CDC data. Even with this adjustment, even with this adjustment, our goal from Friday has been reduced by approximately 10,000 Vermonters. This is exciting, but there is still much work to do and we need to continue reaching out to those Vermonters that have not been vaccinated. We need 17,250 more eligible Vermonters to step up and do their part to help us meet the 80% goal. Moving on, our efforts to bring vaccines into the communities where people live, play, and work are paying off. Over the weekend at our 30 EMS clinics, many Vermonters reported that they changed their mind and after their initial hesitation then chose to get vaccinated because it was available and easy for them. In addition, we have been successful at our school-based clinics through our healthcare providers, through the Vermont National Guard and Health Department clinics, and with our pharmacy partners providing vaccines to Vermonters. I'm happy to share that we have several more unique and fun vaccination events planned, including one at Thunder Road on May 30th and at many of our state parks on June 12th. These are walk-in events. We also are planning to bring vaccinations to mobile home parks across the state and a barnstorming event on Route 22A, including events at Higher Ground in South Burlington and the Jazz Fest in Burlington. I'll announce the details for these events as we finalize the plans and we continue to reach out to employers to host vaccine clinics at their work site. Again, we are starting with the largest employers first. We are working with 27 businesses across the state to host clinics, including the EDGE, National Life, Global Foundries, and Ethan Allen. Included in these efforts are restaurants, hospitality, and tourism workers. And we're planning the next wave for small business. That has already begun. If you are a large employer with 100 or more employees and a portion of your staff still unvaccinated, or if you have a large event coming up for your customers, please reach out. You can submit a request for consideration at accd.permont.gov slash event dash types and slash vaccine dash clinics. A lot of there on that on that web address. So let me just say it again, accd.vermont.gov slash event dash types, dash vaccine dash clinics. As I mentioned on Friday, we'll continue our walk-in strategy at all our locations. This means you can walk in, whether it is at a pharmacy, a healthcare provider clinic, or a school and get a shot. And we have started distributing vaccine to primary care physicians. This effort, as I said last week, will start with Moderna vaccines, but depending on allocation, we hope to expand it to Pfizer and Johnson and Johnson when sufficient supplies are available. We are also focused on a renewed effort to vaccinate the vulnerable population, including the homeless, those on probation and parole under DOC supervision. In fact, we're going to have pop-up clinics at some of the probation and parole sites, as well as those that initially declined in the incarcerated population. We're asking for a survey of those to find out what their concerns are, and we hope to address those concerns as we move forward. Moving on to our overall progress in Vermont, as of this morning, 423,510 people have been vaccinated with at least one dose against COVID-19. If you are keeping tabs from what I've usually talked about, as I mentioned, Vermonters that are 12 and above with at least one dose at 76.9 percent, and I mentioned that, that's the corrected number. Vermonters 18 plus with at least one dose. This is what the White House uses as sort of their measuring stick that they talked about with having 70 percent of people vaccinated by July 1. Vermonters 18 plus with at least one dose, we're at 79.4 percent, and all Vermonters with at least one dose, we're at, that's total population, those that are eligible and those that aren't eligible at 67.8 percent. I'll wrap it up by sharing a reminder that, as promised, our surveillance testing program for summer camps and summer programs is online and available today. This is available to eligible programs at no cost, though through it, you can establish a direct relationship through this program with CIC Health for surveillance testing of unvaccinated third to 12th grade campers and your unvaccinated staff. Eligible programs, schools, and camps can complete a form to sign up for the program. Hopefully you'll receive information directly about this opportunity, but if you didn't, the information in the form is available on the Health Department's website at healthvermont.gov slash COVID-19, then select your community. Vermont, thank you for getting your shot and doing your part to help us cross the finish line strong and meet our goal to vaccinate 80 percent of our population in this state. I'll now turn it over to Commissioner Squirrel. Thank you, Secretary Smith. Good morning, everyone. It's great to see you all. Thank you for listening in today. Over the past year, we have all been on quite a journey together. We feel the impact that COVID-19 has had on all of us. We feel hope as we look forward and simultaneously feel compelled to drape a protective and reassuring arm around our children and youth who have experienced uncertainty and change over the past year. As we move into recovery as a state, it is still an unprecedented moment in time. One of great optimism and pride as more Vermonters receive vaccinations, we sign our kids up for vaccinations, and we feel a regained sense of freedom and safety. We are also keenly aware of the long-term impacts the pandemic on our health and well-being. As children and youth return to more in-person activities, and as we as adults adjust to a new normal, we see more clearly the impact of the weight we have all been carrying and the increased mental health needs as a result. For example, we've recently seen an uptick in children and youth presenting in emergency departments for mental health needs, an increased demand for mental health services and supports for children and youth across the state. Now more than ever, as we move towards recovery as a state, we need to focus on our own recovery, our own health and wellness, and the health and wellness of our youngest Vermonters. The good news is that Vermont is well poised to meet those needs and to leverage the strengths and assets that we have as a state, whether that is our prestigious ranking as number one in the nation in access to mental health care, our robust and revered school-based mental health systems, and the leadership of the Agency of Education putting front and center the need to prioritize the social, emotional, mental health and well-being of students as they return to school. We all know that early childhood and adolescence is a critical time to lay the foundation for future success in school, relationships, and life. Vermont has a long history of taking care of our youngest citizens. It's what makes us the great state that we are. We should all feel a sense of relief in having navigated COVID to this point and take note of our own resilience and strength. We should keep in mind that children and youth are resilient. They have great capacity to adapt and change and to bounce back and thrive if we provide the right supports and protective factors around them, which is why the state is steadfastly committed to supporting our children and youth over the summer with increased access to summer recreational camps, programs, and enrichment opportunities. When we think about healthy development and buffering risk for children and youth, we think about promoting protective factors, social connections, concrete supports, building social and emotional competence. Summer is an opportunity for our children and youth to emerge from the pandemic and participate in safe and flexible programs designed to connect kids with other kids for outdoor adventures, games, and time to discover new interests. We know that one of the key components of resilience is connection. It's tough to bounce back after a major hardship if you think you have to do it all alone. Children and youth do best when they feel that they are an important part of something and when they feel a belonging to a larger community. Access to summer and community programs is key. Summer enrichment can also be a great place for children to acquire new skills, which can then lead to a sense of accomplishment and boost their self-esteem. Summer enrichment activities allow kids to be physically active, to socialize with other kids, to unplug from screens, and to challenge themselves in a supportive environment. While we often see these activities as just regular components of childhood and growing up, we are learning more and more that these are essential brain-building exercises that give our children and youth the best chance to thrive as adults. At the Governor's Youth Summit earlier this year, we heard directly from children and youth from across Vermont. They told us what they need. They want to focus on socializing again. They miss that feeling of unity they get from riding bikes together, creating things, cooking, and hands-on summer activities. They want more time to play and to use their imagination. Believe it or not, they said they want to do away with their screens, to connect with their peers in ways that they haven't been able to. And they advocated for more support and tools for their mental health. They want to build tools for coping and for supporting one another, to connect, to build more kindness, more laughter, more joy, and more gratitude. These are their words. This is why Summer 2021 will be such an important time for Vermont's children and youth, to regain that sense of community and connection that they've been missing. Which is why Governor Scott, Senator Bernie Sanders, Vermont Afterschool, and the Agency of Education recently outlined a grant opportunity aimed at enhancing and expanding summertime enrichment opportunities for children and youth across the state. The response to this call to expand summer opportunities and programs has been incredible, and we are thrilled by the proposals from communities and summer programs to create more opportunities for our children and youth this summer. True to form, it is clear that we are all in this together when it comes to supporting Vermont's kids. The results of this recent grant opportunity through Vermont Afterschool will be announced in the next few days. This will increase summer programming, extending hours and weeks of supports, all aimed at ensuring that Vermont kids can re-engage in recreational interests, reconnect with their friends, and rebuild that sense of optimism and sense of connection. I would also encourage parents and caregivers to go to the Summermatters page on the Vermont Afterschool website, VermontAfterschool.org slash Summermatters. Here you can find information on summer camp and enrichment opportunities, and there's also a page for families with tips and resources on how to talk with your children and youth to prepare them for more social interaction, summer camps, and programs. The well-being of our children and youth across the state is an urgent and important priority and a benchmark for our recovery in Vermont. We know this, and these are the values that make Vermont great. We're rolling up our sleeves as a state, working collaboratively with both public and private partners to support our Vermont kids and provide them with enriching opportunities this summer so that they can thrive. Thank you very much for your time this morning, and now I'm going to turn it over to Commissioner Pichek for a modeling update. Thank you very much, Commissioner Squirrel, and good morning, everybody. I'm happy to report that for the seventh straight week in a row, our modeling report contains a lot of good news. In fact, across the board, Vermont's COVID-19 numbers are better now than at any point over the last six weeks, or six months rather. First and most fortunately, Vermont has gone over a week without someone dying of COVID-19 in our state, the first time this has happened in over 28 weeks. And we are one of the only states in the country that did not have a COVID-19 fatality this past week. Further, as Vermont's COVID-19 fatality rate remains low, and we continue to forecast that May will have the fewest COVID-19 fatalities in over six months. Vermont also remains the state with the fewest individuals currently hospitalized in the country on a per capita basis. This past week, our hospital rates continued to decline down over 20 percent over the last week, and down over 36 percent over the last 14 days. The average age of hospitalizations is also continuing to trend down, and hospitalizations continue to be at a six-month low, and we anticipate these numbers will continue to fall in the weeks ahead. We've also seen great improvement in our newly reported cases this week. We're reporting 219 new COVID-19 cases, 138 fewer this week when compared to last, with our seven-day case rate average falling 39 percent this week, and having fallen an impressive 85 percent since April 1st, bringing our seven-day average to its lowest point in the last six months. Further, we're generally seeing cases uniformly decrease across Vermont, with almost every county seeing their cases fall, and cases are also declining across all age groups. Further, the number of Vermonters who are currently infected with COVID-19 is also plummeting, down over 70 percent over the last seven weeks, and we are also at a six-month low on this metric, and we can continue to see how much safer our communities are as a result. For example, for the second week in a row, there are currently no active outbreaks in a long-term care facility in Vermont, and we haven't reported a case in a resident at a long-term care facility in over two weeks. Similarly, we are reporting 17 new COVID-19 cases in Vermont's K-12 schools, the lowest weekly total absent a school vacation that we have seen since before Thanksgiving of last year. We also saw college cases declining on campus as they headed toward the end of their semester, and now our college reporting will conclude. But we did want to briefly summarize the semester that they had. It was certainly challenging in many regards. They had 1,167 cases reported this semester. However, when you look at the amount of testing that was conducted, you see the positivity rate was still very low, and in fact the percent of college cases in the spring relative to Vermont's overall case count was lower compared to the cases that colleges experienced last fall in the cases that we saw in Vermont. So colleges and universities were able to keep classes open and students safe, and one of the main reasons they were able to do this was because of the tremendous amount of testing that they conducted. Over 370,000 tests conducted in the spring semester. In fact, if we were to look at that number and compare it to the amount of testing that was conducted across the country during that period, January 15th to May 17th, Vermont colleges and universities did more testing than five U.S. states during that period of time. So it shows you just how much testing occurred on campus and how important that was to keeping our campuses open and safe. So certainly a big thank you to everyone that was involved in the college reopening and keeping college students safe in Vermont. Taking a look at the Vermont case forecast, we continue to trend very closely to the April 26th projection with cases following a steady decline. Further, our most recent forecasts anticipate that cases will continue to fall and soon will get into the single digits on a regular basis. Turning to our vaccinations, even with the reconciliation that Secretary Smith mentioned, Vermont continues to lead the nation in many categories. One of the most important categories, of course, is the percent of our 65 and older who has vaccinated. Currently, 98 percent have started. Close to 90 percent have completed that vaccination. And you can see the impact in our case results. We only had eight cases this past week in people over 65 years old. So in that very high vaccinated age group, very few cases. And overall, we now estimate that 235 Vermont lives were saved to date because of the vaccine. And importantly, we continue to have one of the highest rates in the country regarding Vermonters continuing to initiate vaccination. And we are well above the national average, meaning the goal of hitting that 80 percent mark is within sight. And as Secretary Smith mentioned, you can see the progress we're making toward our 80 percent vaccination goal with 76.9 percent of eligible Vermonters having started vaccination, leaving only 17,250 Vermonters remaining until we do hit that goal, which does appear to be coming in the next week to 10 days. For the seventh straight week, we are continuing to see the virus in retreat across the northeast as well. Cases this week totaled just under 20,000 for the first time since last September, representing a decrease of 8,400 cases compared to last week. And over the last five weeks, the region has improved by 78 percent. Hospitalizations are also down in the region as our deaths. And New England continues to lead the nation in the uptake of the vaccine across the board with all six New England states in the top 10 in terms of the percent of their population having started vaccination. And another bit of good news, Quebec is also seeing considerable increase in their vaccination rates as of late with over 55 percent of its population having started vaccination as well. And because of these very high vaccination rates, we anticipate the favorable trends and the improvements that were seen across the region will continue for the foreseeable future. Now at this time, I would like to introduce Dr. Levine. Thank you. This morning, I'll be talking about transitions and some second dose issues and Memorial Day. But I wanted to pick up on the college theme for just a second because Tuesdays are the day that we have been consistently meeting as an apartment of health with all of our colleges weekly for way over a year now. And that's been such a successful collaboration in setting all of the important policies that the colleges have adhered to as well as their testing regimes, quarantine regimes, case identification, and most recently vaccination. And you saw the data. It's been a very successful experience for college in Vermont as successful as it can be during a pandemic. I know it wasn't the experience every student imagined they would have. Our cases have essentially been in the 20s per night, but last night we did see a single-digit night, nine cases. We'll hope that that begins a trend, but either way, we're still at a much lower level as you've seen. We've not had a death since May 16th. We've had 10 hospitalizations today, two in the ICU, a seven-day positivity rate of 1.2%. As you know, we've been most focused on vaccination rates because of its impact on all the other data, cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. Now, more than three-quarters of all eligible Vermonters, age 12 and above, have gotten at least one dose of vaccine. We continue to make truly amazing strides as a state, leading the country by our example. And we're quickly approaching that new 80% benchmark that will allow us to move ahead without the restrictions that we once needed to stay safe. I know that we all welcome this, being able to do all the things we love in a way that looks normal again, where we don't have to worry so much about things like masks and distancing. I also know that many of us need time to adjust our psyche and habits to this transition. A reflection of how deeply COVID-19 prevention and care practices have really become ingrained in our daily routines, acts that are what have made our ability to move out of the pandemic restrictions possible. But when the final lifting of these restrictions and recommendations do arrive, I encourage everyone to embrace them at whatever pace is comfortable for you. And I want to remind you why we are making it. We have such a strong layer of protection in Vermont through vaccination. It protects the nearly 430,000 people who receive their vaccine, and it makes it less likely for the virus to spread. That means it also protects people who are not vaccinated, including our kids who are under age 12 and can't get vaccinated right now. And as the data shows, younger children are less likely to spread the virus than older children and adults. So we expect to see less transmission among their own age groups. I don't have any new news to report to you regarding trials in the under-12, though Moderna is now reporting results in the 12 to 15-year age group that are as equally promising and positive as those reported by Pfizer. As we move towards that new normal, I know there will be plenty of questions. But even as we take these steps, I urge you to keep your mask with you. Maybe a business will still require them, or maybe it just will make someone else more comfortable. I'm particularly thinking about people who have a medical condition that means their immune system may not respond to the vaccine with the same vigor, or those who are still waiting for their two weeks to be up to receive the benefit of their second dose. While we navigate these changes, we'll need to make our own decisions about what's best for ourselves, our families, and those around us. Keep in mind that as we vaccinate more Vermonters each day, and we keep this virus at the low levels it's currently at, it does become less of a threat to us all. So keep up the good work. I mean, it matters. I thank all of you, especially young Vermonters, who have been taking advantage of some of our special vaccination opportunities, whether at North Beach, a racetrack, or your workplace. And keep helping us spread the word about these opportunities to anyone who's not yet vaccinated. Let me add one important message to those of you who have gotten vaccinated. If you do get a shot that requires two doses, meaning Pfizer or Moderna, make sure to come back for that second dose. It really is key to your health. Getting both doses gives you the highest level of protection from COVID-19. When we look at participants in the clinical trials who did not receive both doses, they really weren't followed for a very long period of time. So we really don't know for sure how well or how long one dose will protect you. I'm often asked about the need for and the timing of what are currently hypothetical booster doses. Those are still being studied, but far more important right now is maximizing your immunity today. Taking the full vaccine course offers better protection against variants of the virus. We know these are still circulating. We know that the vaccine is doing a great job with them, and we need to keep doing everything we can to keep them at bay. This means getting as many Vermonters fully vaccinated as we can. Fully vaccinated, of course, meaning it's been two weeks since your final dose. So if you don't already have an appointment or plans to walk in for that second dose, do it now. Make sure you're scheduling that final shot as much a priority as getting the first dose was. Obviously, if you want to finish a race, you don't stop halfway. So visit healthvermont.gov slash my vaccine to see the many easy and convenient options for getting your first or final vaccine dose. And if it's your second, be sure to bring your vaccination card with you when you go. Finally, this weekend is Memorial Day. Throughout this pandemic, I've usually shared guidance on what we shouldn't do for the holidays. Public health is often accused of being the wet blanket, finger wagger, having too much guidance, often tilted to the restrictive side. But this time I'd like to celebrate for a moment all the things we can do again, thanks to the vaccine for those who are fully vaccinated. You can resume activities that you did prior to the pandemic. You can get together with friends and family, most likely without masks and distancing if you're fully vaccinated. You can grill, swim, vote with your friends and family. You can go to a farmer's market, a concert, a car race, or a baseball game. You can travel without having to get tested or quarantined upon your return to Vermont. I'm not going to try to plan your entire social calendar, and I'll even skip our list of summer public health safety tips, just this once. But it's on our website if you can't wait. For now, let's just appreciate all we can do and how far we've come. And it looks like the governor has returned from his phone call. Thank you, Dr. Levine, and good morning, everyone. I am, as with every Tuesday, I just got off the phone with fellow governors, the CDC director, Dr. Walensky, White House officials, and others. And here's what we heard. Dr. Walensky emphasized that national numbers continue to move in the right direction in respect to vaccinations as well as cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. She again reiterated the effectiveness and safety of the vaccines for those ages 12 and over. And the federal government will continue helping us move forward on our vaccination efforts. Again, we heard we heard we'll remain steady in our allocation of Pfizer and Moderna. And again, we won't receive any J&J doses this weekend or this week. As I've said over the last few weeks, we can and will be able to meet our goal with these allocations and we continue ordering more through the federal pool system. They also reported there were only seven states who have asked for more through the federal pool and Vermont is amongst them. So we'll continue to ask for more doses as we see fit, especially with J&J, which they said there is some in the federal system. Next, as you heard from Secretary Smith and Commissioner Pichek, we're making good progress towards our goal of 80% of the 12 and over population, receiving at least one dose of the vaccine. Though, as they noted, we're not quite as close as we thought. But even with this change, the pace at which Vermonters are stepping up still shows exactly what we've seen throughout this pandemic and well before the Vermonters are willing to help their neighbors and do their part for the greater good. As we move towards our goal, there are a few things I wanted to talk about today. First, hitting 80% of the eligible population, which is over 70% of the total population, will be an incredible achievement and something we should all be proud of when we do indeed hit it. As I said on Friday, it means we can safely remove restrictions because the vaccine is doing its job and the virus has few avenues to spread. Think about it this way. We're heading toward a time when about three out of every four of Vermonters will be vaccinated, which significantly lowers the chance you'll encounter someone who is unvaccinated. The chance someone has COVID is getting lower every single day. Importantly, as the CDC has said, vaccinated people are not only protecting themselves, they also have a low risk of spreading it to others and our data clearly shows that as we not only see hospitalizations and deaths dropping, but also cases. In fact, we had nine cases yesterday and we have we have to look back to the latter part of October to see that happening previously. Recent cases have been largely concentrated in the 18 to 29 age band, which we know has had a much slower uptake of the vaccine. So hopefully that data alone motivates more in the age group to find a site and get your shot. Second, I want folks to know that when we do hit 80%, we're not going to be satisfied. While it will be safe to remove restrictions at that point, we're still going to push hard to get as many Vermonters vaccinated as possible because with all the infrastructure we have in place and knowing the fall and winter may bring more transmission amongst the unvaccinated, we want to get that unvaccinated number as low as we possibly can right now. So please, if you haven't gotten your shot yet, you can find a clinic today at help vermont.gov slash my vaccine. It's never been easier. You can help push us closer to full reopening. And you can help put us in a better position than any other state to see a long lasting impact from the vaccine. Before we move to questions, I wanted to note that I signed a proclamation today to make this day George Floyd Remembrance Day in Vermont. Mr. Floyd's death one year ago was a murder under the knee of a law enforcement officer who swore to keep us safe. His death was tragic and importantly sparked a national conversation about how to address racism, modernize law enforcement and more. I think it's important we reflect on what we saw with our own eyes on this anniversary and make sure we continue this work, which is why it was important to mark today with a proclamation. My thoughts are with his friends, family and our entire country today. With that, we'll now move back to questions or start questions, I guess. Thank you, Governor. So probably for Dr. Levine, you mentioned, you know, stressing that people need to show up for their second shots. How many people aren't showing up? So that's obviously an evolving number because you have a number of weeks, even if you don't time it exactly for the three week or the four week mark. The more recent numbers are anywhere from two to three percent to five percent. So not huge, but again still significant. And the goal is to obviously convert all of those to people who will find a convenient time and location, which should be very easy to get their shot. And I know that I asked last week, but just a quick clarification, too, when we hit that 80 percent threshold, you know, will the notification will come out in a tweet or an emergency press conference? I guess what will be that method of communication to people? You know, it depends on when it is, obviously, but hopefully we'll be able to have a quick press conference to mark the occasion and let everybody know that it happens. That's part of what we, I said on Friday that we were going to let people know on a daily basis to be transparent. And obviously the information or the data we were receiving wasn't quite correct. So we've rectified that, but we'll continue to provide this information every day. And so nobody will be surprised when we do hit it and we'll try and get together and have a press conference on that day. And then I guess just my last question. I think it's either Governor for you or for Commissioner Harrington about the new work search requirement and the data. So I was looking over some of the unemployment data and it appears that in the past two weeks the claimant date or initial claims has dropped from about 43,000 to 23,000 since the work search requirement was reinstated. I guess I'm just wondering, you know, how many people have entered the workforce versus just filing for UI? Yeah, that might be a better question for Commissioner Harrington. And again, you know, it's as we vaccinate more people as the case counts drop as we move into the summer and things are opening back up, we're going to see a natural progression to people getting back to work, which is great news for us. But Commissioner Harrington, anything you can add to that? Thank you, Governor. I would agree with what you said. For us and the numbers perspective, it's a little too early for us to tell, just based on the way the federal government and our team identify the unemployment rate. So, you know, the work search has only been a couple of weeks. I would say that it's probably a combination of two things. One is obviously people needing to look for work and returning to work. The other component in there is that we've been doing a lot of cleaning up and catching of initial claims fraud. So again, part of what you're probably seeing is a residual effect of taking the online application offline. And we saw those initial claims applications drop, you know, by almost 90 percent when we took that application offline. So what you're seeing now is kind of a waterfall effect or the downstream effect, which means we were able to stop so many claims from going into the system. It's also impacting what would be the number of continued claims, which we're seeing now. So I think it's a combination of both, but to the governor's point, you know, I would just reiterate that with restrictions easing, with employers wanting to expand and grow, you know, there's certainly a need out there for talent in the workforce. And with the work search coming back on, you know, we will see more and more people each week return to the workforce. I think as well with the hospitality sector being so dramatically affected, having more people traveling, we're seeing the numbers tick up a bit there. And typically around the Memorial Day, things start to open back up, whether it's restaurants and lodging and campgrounds, state parks have started to open back up as well. So it's a big weekend for us. Thank you. Steve? I know it's a bit early, but have you looked at the budget and do you see any problems or where are we at? You know, I haven't, and just so that everybody understands, I know when the budget or a piece of legislation passes in the legislature, they think it automatically just comes to my desk and is ready to be either signed or vetoed. But that's just not the case. We have a number of a piece of legislation that have not arrived. In fact, we have no bills awaiting my signature in my office at this point. So we expect there they're going to be at least a dozen in the next few days coming, but the budget will not be part of it. The budget will usually takes about a week or two, maybe more for legislative council, the legislature's council to take a look and make sure all the eyes are dotted, teased across and everything is working the way it should. So I haven't seen any issues with it. As I noted in my address, the legislature, I think they did some pretty good work. We were able to work together, come to a point where I think everyone can be satisfied with the outcome. So I was very, very appreciative of that. Good morning. Picking up on that, you were pretty effusive in your praise of legislative leadership and your farewell message. Any disappointments this year? What areas did we fall short? Act 250. Act 250 reform. But that didn't make it out of the gate. And that's something that we need to address. It's going to be a bottleneck. Has been a bottleneck and will continue to be a bottleneck unless we address this 50 year old law that needs to be updated. And so I'm hopeful we'll continue to have, I guess, conversations with leadership about this. And hopefully, Vermonters will have conversations with their legislators about this because it's important. I ask a political question. Would you like to see Senator Leahy run for reelection next year? Yes. Finally, that's a remarkable economy of words. Finally, I got an email this morning from a guy who has a lot of truck driving friends. And he said, he gets frustrated hearing you say how easy it is to get a vaccine. He said many of these guys don't have computers. They have company flip phones. Until you can just pull over, walk into a pharmacy, get a shot on demand, get back in your truck and drive away and continue with your work, they won't do it. What do you say to folks like that? Well, I think you can, in some cases. We are, you know, we have many walking clinics and I know it's difficult to figure out where they are. But if you will do our best to continue to try and communicate that. And many, I believe there are many of the pharmacies that have adopted this method of walk-in clinics. So give it a try. Give your pharmacy a call to see your regular pharmacy or one you're going to be driving by and see if they can. That would be the easiest thing to do, even with a flip phone. But the two just spontaneous walk-in, what's the best device there? Well, again, pay attention to the information we are giving you like today. I wasn't here for Secretary Smith's address. But he might have mentioned where you could walk in. Secretary Smith, is there anything you could add to that? Yes, Stuart. Any of the healthcare providers, that's many of the local hospitals, have walk-in capability through their vaccination clinics. We do have walk-in capabilities at all of our, all of our sort of pop-up clinics that we have now. And pharmacies do have walk-in capabilities throughout the state. I would just tell your friends just to walk in and ask. Chances are they're going to get an opportunity where they can get vaccinated. Certainly the clinics that we're having out there have this walking capability. And like I said, we had 30 of them last weekend, where you could simply walk in as you're going by. So I would ask your truck driving audience to just try it. Stop and try it and see what happens. And if not, just give our vaccine hotline a call and we'll try to arrange something for them. Thank you both. Stuart, maybe we'll challenge ourselves here a bit. On Friday, we'll try and come up with a list of those clinics, those, those pharmacies that have capacity, and then you, that you can walk in and we'll let you know. And maybe you can communicate that to the folks that read or listen to your programs. We'll do. Hi, thanks. This is a question for Secretary Smith. I'm wondering if you can give us an update on a land-srew place, the Woodside Youth Attention Center. Is with, are you still moving ahead with the plans for the privately run facility, smaller facility in Newbury? And hope to have that done by the end of the year. We're still moving forward with those plans. We're meeting with local officials as we, as we speak, making sure that we go through the various processes that we have to do at the local level. And that's where we are right now, making sure that we have all sort of the permitting in place and the various aspects of, of that facility, but making sure that we are meeting with locals and local officials. So I'll report on more progress on this in next week, as we move forward. But that's where we are right now, Lisa. Thanks. And then how many, is New Hampshire currently housing some Vermont youth? We have a contract with, yeah, we have a contract with New Hampshire. I don't believe, and I will double check on this, but I don't believe we have anybody in that facility right now. Okay. And, and if we were to have someone there, we have contracts with them. Are you, how confident are you that they'll be well cared for given the, the center in New Hampshire's under criminal investigation? Yeah, as you, as you mentioned, those, those allegations date back a few years ago. And we've been assured. And in our contract, we have certain provisions dealing with the safety of our youth that are placed in, in that facility. But right now, we use that facility very sparingly. I can think of only one right now that we've used it in terms of an in-state placement. We haven't used it one other time, I think, with somebody that was a fugitive in another state that was caught in this state and then placed in Sununu. But we use that very, very sparingly. Okay. All right. Thank you very much. Good afternoon, Governor. On the topic of the data not being 100% accurate as we work to approach an 80% vaccination rate for those that qualify. As you know, I was forced to be vaccinated early on as a, as a firefighter under the 1A program. And I recently logged into the health department's COVID-19 portal and discovered that my vaccine was never registered in that system. You know, I was one of thousands of 1A workers that were vaccinated early on and way before that portal was even stood up. I'm wondering how we know for sure that several thousand people may, I don't know, maybe 10,000 people are being counted towards 80% goal if the state system doesn't even know that we've been vaccinated. Yeah, we're receiving our data from the CDC. So they should have that. But Mr. Levine might be able to answer. I'm not sure what portal you're referring to, Greg, but we have an immunization registry that has the recording of all the immunizations that have occurred. Plus, we're using the CDC data. What I think you're saying, though, is that you're concerned we might be undercounting as opposed to overcounting and that we may have gotten there already. I don't think that's the issue. I do think that we can find your name in our registry. I'm quite confident. I'm referring to the portal where Vermonters go online to sign up for a vaccine or sign up for a COVID test. I'm also eligible to sign up for a vaccine, even though I've already been vaccinated. That part I don't understand. And if you would email me, I will have our data team look at that. But that is certainly not the portal where we use data to figure out how many Vermonters have been vaccinated. That is a registration portal, and that's its major purpose. So it would be on our immunization registry where we'd have your accurate data. Okay. And you think it's pretty likely that we're going to get 80% in the news for your governor, maybe by Memorial Day? Or what are your thoughts on that? I was surprised we were making so much progress last weekend. So I'm a little hesitant to make any guesses as to when we might hit this. But if you take the number of people over the last seven days, I think it's slightly between 2,500 and 3,000 per day. That may drop off a bit, especially with this weekend coming up. So I would guess it's going to be after Memorial Day, but probably the middle of the week sometime next week. But who knows? We might have some good days and all of the clinics and walk-ins that we have available may surprise all of us again. So we'll stay tuned on that. And hopefully, I would like to say that we would hit that mark, the 80% mark for Memorial Day. But I think it's likely a be-end next week. And lastly here, with the state reopening many aspects of state government, you know, it's been well over a year since the DNV in St. Albans has been open, which is certainly a strain to Franklin County after travel, you know, sometimes 45 minutes or an hour to get to the DNV. If the objective is to be working more remotely and in smaller numbers, I'm curious why the DNV wouldn't reopen the St. Albans office at least on a part-time basis in order to work in smaller numbers. And I'm wondering if you can elaborate on that and maybe give us a little update on when we might see that office open. Yeah, I'd like to be able to give you an update, but I wasn't aware that we weren't open part-time. So I'll have to look into it and get back to you. And I'll have somebody from Motor Vehicle or the agency transportation get in touch with you and maybe give you that information. But I wasn't aware that it was completely closed down. Okay. Appreciate it, Governor. And thank you for your time. This messenger, Cameron, St. Albans messenger. He's probably at the DNV. All right. We'll go to Lisa, the Valley Reporter. Good afternoon. My first question is for Secretary of French. Will the ALE consider lifting guidelines around social distancing at outdoor year-end celebrations that occur after statewide reopening takes place? I believe the current guidelines call for households to be seated six feet from each other in socially-distanced pods if they're under 10th. Yeah, thanks, Lisa. And Dr. Levine and I are having those conversations now, but we haven't made any final decision. But we're certainly very pleased with the progress for monitors and making sure that vaccination will be factoring that into our decision-making period in the next couple of days. Great. Thank you. And this question is for Dr. Levine. Has the state seen any post-vaccine cardiac complications in 12 to 15-year-olds? And has the state seen any cases where kids who had COVID had post-infection cardiac issues? Good. So just so the general audience understands, there have been reports of something called myocarditis, which is an inflammation of the heart. Most of these came from Europe, though there have been some in the United States, predominantly after receiving vaccine in the adolescent population. So far, the CDC has said that it is under review. They are actually reluctant to say that there's a true causal association. They have very few cases to work with, apparently. And it's unclear, but because they have been very deliberate in their approach and are doing an extensive review, it clearly doesn't sound like something that is something that they would want to immediately say something about to alert the population. It seems like it's quite unclear at this point in time. So that's really all I can offer on that, because it's such a small number of cases. With regard to just general cardiac issues after having COVID, I don't have a clear number for you on the pediatric population. It clearly is not being reported with a significant frequency, or we would really have put out an alert notification regarding it. Most of the pediatricians and colleges are all abiding by some protocols to make sure that athletes don't return to a previous level of training or competition after COVID without at least understanding that they need to have an assessment and make sure that there is no issue. But I don't believe we've really had much going on in Vermont with regard to post-COVID cardiac symptoms or conditions. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. Good afternoon. This question is also for Secretary of French, and I think it it might sort of repeat the question that Lisa just asked, but I was just wondering if with high school commitments around the corner, if you know, in order to head off any confusion about public and press access to commencement exercises, whether AOE has issued guidance to schools about graduation access, and so what is that guidance or if I understand correctly, it sounds like you're still in the, in the, from what Lisa asked, it sounds like you're still in the process of formulating that guidance? Can you clarify that for me a little bit? Yeah, sure. Well, we have published guidance on graduation. I think Lisa's question was more to what extent we would be modifying that guidance if a state of emergency were to expire, and that's what we're currently considering at this point, but we have published the guidance for graduation that's been out for several weeks. Okay. Is that available on the website? Absolutely. Yeah. Okay. And that includes media access as well as public and family access? They have to check about the media access, but certainly family and so forth access is the lineage of the guidance. Okay. Thank you very much. So, that's all my questions. Hi, Governor, I'm wondering, in light of your proclamation today about the killing of George Floyd and acknowledging issues around systemic racism, what are you planning on doing in the next year to address issues of systemic racism and inequality in Vermont? Do you have any priorities or specific things that you think the state needs to tackle and will be advocating and pushing for? Yeah, a lot of it, you know, surrounds education, talking about this, being more transparent, calling it out when we see it, and doing our best in the workplace as well as in the way we treat one another. We are fortunate to have a very qualified director now, Susanna Davis, and we are in constant communication with her. She's part of the cabinet. In fact, we talked about a few issues today, so we'll continue to try and do better. I think we all need to do better in this regard, but we've made some giant strides in Somerset, but we have a lot of strides left to go before we can say that we've moved the needle substantially. So, again, I think all of us need to work together, pull in the same direction in order to get to the goal of treating one another equitably. Well, could you offer a little more specific at the end, like what you talked about from trying strides that we could make? Like, what is one that you think we, you know, could be doing? Yeah, well, again, I think what we're doing in terms of training, in terms of law enforcement, is something that we're doing right now. With all the new provisions that we put into place, I think that that's one. It's not going to be overnight. It's going to take some time, but I feel good about where the approach we're taking and the direction we're moving in. So I would guess that's a pretty big one. Okay, thank you. And then just briefly, in the reopening, once we hit the 80% mark of vaccination, is that going to include people who are incarcerated? You know, I know there's been a number of restrictions on the operation of state prisons over the last year, including not visitation for family. And are those restrictions going to be listed as well once we hit 80%? I can let Secretary Smith answer that, but I think we will relax in some areas. But I know the CDC has put guidelines out in terms of certain situations and our offender population being one of them. So we will continue to pay attention to their guidance, but we certainly want to open back up in terms of programming and so forth. Secretary Smith? Yeah, Liam, I'm just going to reiterate what the governor said. We want to open back up across the board. We have to pay attention to the guidance that the CDC has outlined, but certainly vaccinations will play a large part in how we open up our correctional facilities. But the goal is to open them back up both to visitation, to volunteers, and other activities as we move forward. We are the first time, we don't have a facility that's in, well, the first time in a long time. We don't have a facility that's in total lockdown. We had, as of last night, we had zero inmates that had COVID-19. We have, I think, two in the workforce that do, but not associated with the facility or not in the facility. So I think we're on our way to really having an opportunity to open our facilities back up. We still have to get our inmate population a little bit more vaccinated than it is now. We have about 65 percent of the inmate population that's vaccinated. We really need to boost that up a little bit to where the general population is. And as I mentioned in my remarks, I think Commissioner Baker will team up with Commissioner Levine to see if we can convince some people to take a vaccination in that facility. But I, you know, our hope is to have it as open as possible in, you know, in the next few weeks to a month. So do you have, though, just briefly, like a specific metric that you're looking at when you would reopen it at the 80 percent, but inmate being vaccinated or what's the metric there? Yeah, we haven't put a metric on it yet, but I would like to see it mirror the general population. And again, making sure that we abide by the recommendations of the CDC in any sort of reopening. But I would like to see it mirror the population. The the employee population is about that about 80 percent. If I remember correctly, it would be nice if we could get the inmate population to that level as well. Thank you. Just to be clear, Liam, and I'm sure that's Secretary Smith has said this before, but about a third of the offender population has refused the vaccination. So it's not as though we haven't tried and we're going back at it as well, trying to educate and trying to counsel the offender population to get vaccinated, because it's important. Thank you. I have no questions today. Thanks very much. Thank you, Tom. Erin, VT Digger. I'm related to the work search requirements. The Department of Labor issued an update last Friday that said all issues relating and during work search information were resolved. But a handful of folks have reached out to VT Digger saying that they're still having issues filing their claim. And yesterday, the DOL issued another notice acknowledging that issues are still ongoing. Do you have any more details you can share on those issues? And how much longer will Vermonters have to wait before they're finally able to file? Commissioner Harrington. Sure. Yeah. Thank you, Governor. So the issue were the one piece, and I'm reluctant to call it an issue, because it's a known technical correction that has to take place. So right now, in my mind, there's no unknown issue or known issue that's preventing people from filing their claim. There was a group of early claimants who came in during the height of the pandemic. And we classified those claimants. We classify them in our system in A claimants, which means they can bypass the work search. It allowed them to file over the phone through our automated system early on in the pandemic when our phone lines were getting overrun with calls. Once we were able to get our call center up and running, we didn't need that designation anymore. So we stopped putting it in place. But there are some of those claimants who were still unemployed back then that still had an A classification. It's a technical correction that has to happen in the system to remove the A classification so that they don't automatically bypass the work search. We are asking those individuals to still conduct their work search contacts three a week. They're just not being asked to provide those when they file their weekly claim. So they can still file their claim. We're still processing those claims. We're still paying those claims. They're just not being asked to submit who did they contact as part of the work search and what was the job that you applied for so on and so forth. We still want them to be doing that work, but we're also not going to go back retroactively in time and make them report old weeks. So my understanding is from our technical team, we hope to have that corrected, but it's a mainframe technical issue. So from that perspective, it's kind of out of the hands of the general business and needing some additional technical resources to make that switch occur. But like I said, it's not preventing those folks from filing their claims. They just don't have to provide their work search when they do it. And it is a relatively small subset of the population, those folks that came in very early on in the pandemic. I mean, we aren't getting messages from claimants who are on their service or even longer without receiving benefits and others who are complaining about hours long wait times on the health line for assistance. Do you have a message for those people? So without getting into or looking at a specific claim, there are a number of reasons why we wouldn't be paying out a claim. And so it really, I can't say that all the reasons why a claim isn't getting paid are due to a technical issue. There are times where we come across something, you know, on an individual basis that does require us to submit a ticket for corrective action in the mainframe or with our vendor. But in general, there's no massive outage or group of people that can't file right now. It could also be that the way they completed their previous application, you know, caused the system to raise a red flag that caused further reviews. So there are a number of reasons why folks may still be allowed to file. And there are many times if someone is in filing status, they can still file their weekly claim. But if the claim is under review, then it wouldn't pay out until that review has taken place. So, you know, again, it's hard to talk in generality because it could be associated with a number of different things. The wait time, I would just, the only thing I would say to those folks is we are absolutely aware, and this has not changed since even before the pandemic, that Monday mornings and or Mondays are highest call days. And it seems that people are very interested in calling on Mondays, even though we told them please call on a different day. But our call center is quickly overloaded on that one day. Also, we also know that in the morning, people like to call as soon as the call center opens up. So when I look at volume across each day and each hour, each day of the week at 8 a.m., a number of people like to call right at 8 a.m. There was also, obviously, an influx about a week ago when we first had the work search issues that were corrected. So, you know, that also caused volume to go up. So what I'm not seeing though is necessarily a trend where, you know, people are needing to wait for an hour at a time at any time of the day when they call. Our average wait time across all our lines is actually less than 10 minutes, typically. But if everybody calls at 8 a.m. in the morning or if you call on a Monday, you are likely to get a high volume call time. And I would just encourage those folks to call back in the afternoon or call back on another day of the week. And it won't impact your claim. You can still file for that, for the previous week. But there are days and times of the week where we see a surge in call lines. Okay. Thank you. Hi. So a week or so ago, you indicated the state might ask for less of the Moderna shots because it doesn't have as broad of a use among the population right now as the other ones do. Given though the news that Moderna is now going to be applying for emergency use in kids soon, does that change the state strategy in terms of which doses you will speak out in the future? You know, I would say it may. But we do that on a week-to-week basis. So we have some time before that authorization actually happens. And then we'll reflect on that. It seems as though there's a lot of supply at this point in the system, particularly for Moderna. So we can make those choices every single week as we see fit. So if we see there's emergency authorization, we wouldn't want to stockpile a whole lot because it does have a shelf life. So we can't keep it forever. So we just have to manage the supply. And then would you be able to outline how many extra doses you will be asking for from the federal pool this week and what kinds they are? I don't have that information. I would assume that we'd be asking for more Johnson and Johnson because we haven't received any for a while. And that seems to be an area that we would be interested in. So that would just be me guessing at this point. I'm looking at Dr. Levine and Secretary Smith and neither of them have the any more information than that. But our team will take a look and address it. All right. Thank you. Good afternoon. I'm curious back going back to the correction system. Given that for a very long time, many of the facilities were in lockdown and noting the amount of stress that people who are not incarcerated have had during this time, do you feel confident that incarcerated people have been getting the kind of mental health treatment that they might need to cope with the increased pressure of being imprisoned in prison? Yeah. I have a lot of faith in Commissioner Baker, but maybe Secretary Smith can answer that. I'll turn also to Commissioner Squirrel if she wants to add to any of this. We have been concerned about that and we have done some outreach in terms of making sure that there are mental health services available to those that may need it in our correctional facilities. Joe, we are cognizant of what has happened over the last year in terms of the men and women in our facilities, both that we care for and those that work in our facilities, to make sure that we do have that outreach. I know that Commissioner Baker has reached out to Commissioner Squirrel on numerous occasions in coordinating sort of the mental health aspects of it. Commissioner Squirrel, do you have anything to add? Thank you for the question. Yes, absolutely. The Department of Mental Health and the Department of Corrections work side by side to ensure that individuals who are in the correctional facilities have access to mental health treatment and supports that includes assessment as well, given the extraordinary pressures that we have all been under. We also have a memorandum of understanding with the Department of Corrections that really facilitates collaboration, coordination, clinical review of specific cases as appropriate. It is certainly something that our teams work closely on together. And again, as we move forward, we are also very much looking forward to implementing some of the opportunities in justice reinvestment so that as individuals are actually transitioning out of our correctional facilities back to the community, we are improving care coordination, mental health supports, and substance use services for those individuals. Hi, Governor. I know that we all know that you and Secretary Smith and Dr. Levine have tried to lower the temperature on consternation as far as mask wearing, etc., has gone during the whole pandemic. And I'm wondering if you have any advice for businesses, restaurants, retailers going forward after you relax or get rid of the emergency order on, you know, some national retailers might still have masks, mandate some local retailers, etc., a mic. Any advice to them to, you know, maybe some of them who want to have their employees wear masks or require masks? But how do you see that playing out? You know, it'll be guidance at that point. And I think the, whether it's the restaurants or lodging or any business for that matter, they have to take the temperature, so to speak, of their customers and their workforce and do what's best for them. I think, you know, I have faith in their process as well, and they know their customers and employees better than we do. But we'll provide the guidance and they should do what they think is best for all involved. You know, I've noticed in other places in that country, there's still that, you know, consternation between having those confrontations and Vermont is, for the most extent, able to avoid that. So that's what I was wondering about. Yeah, I think the other thing I was wondering, go ahead. No, I think, you know, for the most part, I think for Monters and Vermont businesses have done extraordinarily well in trying to be cognizant that everyone has, there are many people who have different views, and they are very tolerant of that and making sure that they're protecting their employees and their customers along the way. But I think, for the most part, everyone's done an amazing job. The other thing I was wondering is, perhaps Commissioner Harrington would have an update on what's happened or what's happening with the coffee cup, Vermont bread situation, if anything, if there is any update, if he knows of anything going on there. You mean in terms of those, the employees who are affected? Willis. Yeah. Commissioner Harrington, anything new to report? Sure. Thank you, Governor. Yeah. Thank you, Governor. So there were obviously about 250 employees in total that were impacted. I think there were last minute, you know, last-ditch efforts to try to sell the company and salvage the company in those positions. I'm not aware that any of those have gone through yet. I think most people are aware it was reported in prior news stories about the fact that the company coffee cup paid out accrued leave and other benefits to impacted employees. And then when the receiver took over the company and the assets of the company, they actually clawed back some of those benefits that were paid out, like accrued leave, paid time off, so on. Severance. So I do know there is a pending suit that was filed. And the Department of Labor in conjunction with the Attorney General's office has signed on as a friend of that suit in terms of just generally supporting the efforts of coffee cup to get their employees the money that they are owed, you know, but that will remain to be seen as that suit travels through the court system. So we continue to provide rapid response services, unemployment insurance, informational services on how to file for unemployment, and then also re-employment services. And I believe we've had a number of impacted employees who have been able to quickly find other employment. I was given in a weekly report last week a success story where a maintenance employee of coffee cup was able to find re-employment relatively quickly with another local employer. So I'm hearing more and more of those stories, which is, which is always good news. I bet. Thank you very much, Commissioner. Thank you, Governor. Thank you. Governor, New Hampshire Public Radio says the deep old boat tabulator machines in Women, New Hampshire operated by LHS appear to have misread folds and mail ballots as actual boats and somehow taking about re-undered election day votes from each of the four Republicans, say representative Candidate, to an adding 100 for one of the Democrats, given that Vermont too uses LHS and deep old machines. And last year we used universal mail ballots for the first time. Would you recommend that our Secretary of State investigate whether Vermont had similar problems? And if the Secretary of State chooses not to, is that something you'd be inclined to investigate through other avenues? Yeah, I had not heard that piece of news from New Hampshire. I'm sure the Secretary of State has and might be something you might want to ask him. Obviously, we want to make sure the elections are secure. I think there was an audit done, which I believe came out 100%. So I have no reason to believe that there was any issues in Vermont, but probably a better question for him at this point. Thank you. Yes, Governor, I got a message from our reader this morning wanting to know why the threshold for reopening is 80% with one dose when we're told that everybody needs two doses and then two weeks after that to be fully vaccinated. Why wasn't that the threshold? Yeah, well, again, take a take a step back and see where we're at. We're, you know, we're one of the highest performing states in the country. And many, many, many other states are fully open at this point. And so we, we early on had decided what our threshold was going to be along the steps of Vermont forward plan, although we didn't identify the end. So we decided to, I decided that we needed a goal and we decided 80% single dose, at least commit to getting the vaccine was appropriate. And that equates to the 80% will equate to just over 70%, which was part of step three. There was a range of step three, I think was 60 to 70%. So that gets us clear from that standpoint. I feel good about the prospects of us reaching that goal within and, you know, in advance of what we had thought to begin with. So we should all think that that's again, something to be proud of here in the state of Vermont. So I'm, I think it's it was the right move to make, although admittedly last weekend when we started to see the the numbers increase that I thought we might be able to have gone to 85%. But I think we 80% is a goal at this point. And afterwards, again, I want to stress, we're not going to stop there. We're going to relax all the restrictions, lift the emergency order just as soon as possible. But we're still going to advocate for those who have not been vaccinated to get vaccinated. We still have a ways to go in that regard. And we're still going to do our part. Okay, thank you. Yeah, I think two questions. The first one is I haven't seen the most recent update guidelines that for you to go to summer camp, so they're going to be required to be vaccinated or will they be treated any differently than kids who have been vaccinated? Well, we will be providing, I believe, an update on Friday or soon on summer camps. But I don't know if there's anyone on who can answer that question. Secretary Moore, or maybe Dr. Levine. Secretary Moore, there is currently a summer camp guidance that also references the Vermont forward plan. So a bit of it depends on when we make that final step to stage four. But once we reach stage four, summer camps will also operate under that same CDC and state of Vermont guidance. Okay. My second question is, and this goes back to the issue of the numbers that you just discussed earlier. When you're looking at the number of people who have been vaccinated with at least one shot, originally it was only for Vermonters, but it expanded to include college students who live out of state, people who work in Vermont but live across the border. How do you account for that in your stats? Because you're comparing total number of vaccinated to the eligible population of Vermonters and definitely been not Vermonters. So are they counted in there as if they're part of the general population? Yeah, you can get to that number. Yeah, we do separate them out. It's just for monitors that we count towards the total population of Vermonters. Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon. This is likely for Dr. Levine. Seems like we're all interested in counting how many people have been vaccinated today. You spoke to this earlier in the conference, and I'm wondering about the possible undercounting of the vaccination base in Essex County. I received a lot of questions and comments from residents there who say a large number of residents work in New Hampshire. For instance, early priority groups like healthcare workers and teachers that were vaccinated at work or at pharmacies. How confident are you that those vaccinations are getting reported to you and are reflected in the dashboard that says Essex County is at 55% right now? So that's really two questions. One question is how confident are we about the data that we get regarding Vermonters vaccinated out of state? And we checked on this very early when we had the 1A group because we had a number of healthcare workers and workers in other essential sectors that were being vaccinated out of state where they worked. And that data does come back to the state of residents of the person, just like people who might come across the border to work in Vermont every day, but live in New Hampshire or New York state, their numbers go to their states. So we're very comfortable and confident with that. Second question is, unfortunately, we are comfortable with the 55 plus percent rate in Essex County being a real number. I will add that that has gone up. So the good news is it's not been a static number, it has gone up. It's just not at the level of the other counties at this point. But I don't think it's because of undercounting Essex County residents who cross the border to get their vaccine. Because even if that had a lag time, by now we would have known the majority of those. It's not a very long lag time for that data to catch up. Okay. Thank you very much. Mike Donahue, the Islander. Thank you. Governor, one quick thought as a follow-up to Stuart and his trucking friends might be a state set up vaccine shots when they're doing their truck inspections by DMV along the interstate rest areas. Seems like that's pretty easy access for the truckers whether stopped and or even set up a specific shot clinic for truckers only, even without DMV along maybe interstate 89 in Colchester, that pull up area and everything, but just a thought. Dr. Levine, Dr. Levine, can you please address the various deaths linked to COVID-19 vaccine shots in Vermont? And will Vermont be adding those death statistics to the state dashboard? I've checked and nobody recalls you disclosing or disgusting the Vermonters that had reactions and have died from their shots at the CDC reports. So your question has to do with people who've gotten the vaccine as Vermonters and had died and the death was related to getting the vaccine. Correct. The CDC website reports those by state notice Vermont's numbers are up there, but they haven't heard much talk about those deaths. Well, we get an advert, you know, we have the Vermont, the vaccine adverse events reporting system, which allows us to look at deaths and serious reactions that could be potentially related to getting the vaccine. I'm aware of only literally two serious events per vaccine platform that are reported within that system. I'm also aware of some deaths that were questioned, whether they could have been related to the vaccine or not. People who died within some timeframe of the vaccine, not hours I'm talking, but usually weeks. And then it's a challenge to figure out if that's a cause and effect issue or if there was another condition the person had that the vaccine was coincidence. So I'm not aware that we have a long list of people who have been linked to the vaccine in terms of death. Do you have a number you're dealing with? It's not my number. It's the CDC on their website has eight Vermonters being dead because of the vaccine shot. That is clearly not the data that we have for sure. Well, you may want to get your numbers updated. I mean, I assume the CDC will share who they are. I mean, they've got four women dead and four men dead if I read their website correctly. Yeah, let me let me look into that and come back with that on Friday because that's important if that's truly what they're listing. But we're pretty much in touch with the CDC all the time. And if there was something that was a real signal of an alarm like that, we would be aware. So let me get back to you on that because right now we don't we don't have that. That's more than 3%. That's more than 3% of the deaths in Vermont. And I would think that, you know, no surprise, you haven't mentioned that before, even one or two, whatever. But okay, my other question today, Governor, the state troopers and even some of the public are asking if there's any word on when the Department of Public Safety will allow troopers to resume full public patrols and enforcement. It appears that they tell me that they're what it is called, I guess level two, which restricts responses to public complaints and limits their traffic stops on the Vermont roads. And we've heard cases of troopers not assisting an officer on a stop on an interstate. Any ideas that troopers want to know are they waiting for the 80% or what's going to happen with the Department of Public Safety? Yeah, I'm not aware, Mike, we haven't had that conversation. But perhaps Commissioner Shirling could answer that. Yes, good afternoon, Governor. There aren't any substance of restrictions on enforcement and other activity at this point. We can take a little bit deeper dive, see if there's miscommunication somewhere, but we've been in a modified level two for some time with very little restriction. So what's modified level two mean as opposed to presumably level one means you're out there enforcing the no restriction? Essentially, following our universal guidance, primarily, there is a COVID manual that was developed early on the first of its kind in the country that's been mirrored by a number of agencies in order to protect both the public and staff. And that's what we're referring to relative to levels for those who are unfamiliar with that term. We anticipate that all of the the entire COVID manual will go back on a shelf in a not too distant future when we when we reach 80%. So okay, the restrictions will continue at least conceivably for another week or until the 4th of July when. Yeah, I want to be really good. I would not refer to them as restrictions. They are compliance efforts to ensure that our operations comply with the Vermont forward guidance. Semantics, sort of like your gag word, isn't that gag word? I think Rebecca just issued the gag order on Mike. Yeah, passing along a question from a colleague. She's working on a story about kids going to summer school this year and the benefits of going versus not going. Just curious from Governor Scott and then maybe Secretary French and Commissioner Swarl as well from a mental health standpoint, what would you tell a parent under these circumstances, you know, the benefits of going to summer school versus not going? I think the benefits of going to summer camp are tremendous and I would I would advocate. Obviously it's their choice, their kids. But from my standpoint, I would advocate for kids to go to send their kids to summer camp. They've been really restricted in so many ways over the last 14, 15 months. And now we have an opportunity for them to get out and enjoy the summer. And I think that this is again, unprecedented than the level of programs that are available and the money that has been put forth for summer programs. So take advantage of that. Maybe Commissioner Squirrel could add to that. Yes, thank you for that great question. Certainly as I've articulated, the importance of connection and community and re-engagement are absolutely critical for our youngest children and adolescents to recover, to thrive, and also to be prepared for re-entering school back in the fall. And for parents, I just want to know we've all had to readjust the pandemic. And now our children and youth also have to readjust to a more normal cadence of social interactions of their peers. Every child and youth is different. For some children and youth who are more prone to anxiety, they may struggle with re-entry and re-engaging. This is all normal and to be expected. And parents should have those conversations with their children to support them with empathy and validation. Structure routines and rituals are so critical, which is why engagement in these summer programs and opportunities are so important. And to really encourage your children and youth to get back to those social interactions. And I would just remind us, we heard from the youth directly. This is what they want. They want to reconnect with their peers. They want to reconnect with their communities as part of their own path to recovery. Thanks for the question. And it did have just a very quick follow-up on that. Is there any, I don't know who this would that be for, is there any info on the uptake of these programs so far, people registering? And then I saw there was a need for some staff this summer. Is there any update on that? And is there still a need for people to step up this summer and help out? I would say yes, without really looking into it any further than I have over the last couple of weeks. But the challenges in terms of staffing throughout all sectors is, again, challenging for all of us. So I would say yes, there's still a need. But why don't we update some of that on Friday and get you some more information on where we stand? Recent survey found that the lack of time is one of the main reasons that people still aren't getting vaccinated, even if they want to. And some states need to impact legislation requiring employers to provide leave for workers getting the vaccine. Is this something from on this scene as a barrier for this kind of last stretch of people who still need to get vaccinated to reach that 80-percent mark? I would say that, you know, it's probably going to be all of the above in terms of what is keeping people from being vaccinated. We heard earlier there was a truck driver that didn't have a computer and wasn't aware, you know, it was a time factor for him in looking for a walking clinic. So I have to assume that time is one factor for some who are working, and that's why we're trying to make it as easy as possible. Getting to some of the employers, getting to their work sites, and opening up more walk-in opportunities throughout the state. So we have, again, a ways to go, but we're going to continue to do everything we can to make it as easy as possible and be as accessible as possible. And so that we have, when you, you know, you see an opportunity before you that you'll take it and get vaccinated. Anything, Secretary Smith, would you like to add to that? Yeah, in my opening remarks, I had mentioned the fact that in these sort of pop-up clinics that we did over the weekend, many of the people that had gotten vaccinated said they would not have gotten vaccinated had it not been for the pop-up clinics. So as the Governor had mentioned, our sort of uniqueness in sort of bringing the clinics to those Vermonters is important, whether we do it at work sites, which I mentioned we have 27 that we're working on right now to bring to work sites, whether it's with the hospitality and tourism industry, which we've had one round. We're doing another round of vaccination clinics with them. Or it's this continuous EMS effort that we're doing throughout the state, and we'll continue to do throughout the state, whether it's at Jazz Fest or the special events, or whether it's just a pop-up at our local rescue and EMS facility. So I think it's important, and I really do think that other states are starting to look at us as how we bring this to rural communities throughout the state and making sure that we make access available for everyone. So yes, it does. But as the Governor said, convenience is one aspect of many, many reasons why people are talking about that haven't gotten vaccinated yet. We're trying to eliminate every barrier there is right now. Thank you. That's it. Okay. Well, thank you very much for tuning in, and we'll see you again on Friday.