 Good morning everyone. Two weeks ago we opened vaccinations to those 70 and older and yesterday the 65 plus population. As of close of business yesterday, 18,600 had signed up. As we've said after completing this age ban, we'll next start vaccinating people with certain high risk conditions because they're at higher risk if they contract COVID. Our strategy from the start has been to protect those at most at risk and to preserve life. We know age is the number one risk factor and we're already seeing the positive impacts of our strategy amongst our elderly population. With Johnston Johnson receiving approval over the weekend on top of increased supply from Moderna and Pfizer, we'll be able to scale up and move quicker to get more people vaccinated, which brings me to today's announcements. First, this coming Monday, March 8th, we'll open phase five to Vermonters with certain high risk conditions because this is a larger population than most of the age bands. We're going to split it into two two components. So starting Monday, phase five A will open to those with certain high risk conditions over the age of 55. One week later, March 15th, those 16 and older with these same conditions will be eligible. Dr. Levine will go over the which conditions are included and Secretary Smith will go into much more detail, but we're doing it in two phases because even amongst high risk conditions, age is still a big factor. So I want to emphasize and we should recognize what a major milestone this is. And by March 15th, all those over the age of 16 who are at the highest risk of severe illness and death, whether due to age or health condition, will be able to sign up for their vaccine. It was March 13th of last year when I declared the state of emergency. And now almost one year later, all the most vulnerable will be eligible for these incredibly effective vaccines. While I know we still have a way to go, we should think about how remarkable this achievement really is and appreciate the innovation that got us here as we look forward to getting back to normal. Next, because of increased supply through Johnson and Johnson and the federal pharmacy program with Walgreens, we're also able to expand vaccinations for two other systems as well. As we discussed on Friday, our kids are not doing well. And there have been serious public health impacts due to the limitations of hybrid and remote learning. We know getting our kids back in school for in-person instruction five days a week is essential. So with these new developments in our vaccine supply, beginning next week, we'll begin vaccination of school staff as well as child care and early education providers. This includes giving them the option of the single dose Johnson and Johnson vaccine or the two dose vaccines through our partnership with Walgreens. There will also be an expansion of phase one A, which will expand eligibility in our public safety system. It's important to know that the J&J vaccine is proven to be very effective. And with a single shot, it offers logistical benefits as well. And I believe this will prove to be a valuable tool for many. Again, Secretary Smith will go into further detail, but these changes are focused on getting and keeping the public safety and education systems fully operational with an emphasis on the well-being of our kids. These are important steps forward. And with more supply for monitors can be optimistic that we're on pace to be in a very good place by late spring or early summer. I'll be stepping away now to join our weekly meeting with the White House, but I'll be back following Secretary Smith, Dr. Levine, and our modeling presentation from Commissioner Pichek to provide any updates from that call. And with that, I'll turn it over to Secretary Smith to go over further details. Thank you, Governor. Good morning. As you've heard me say before, our strategy is directed by the data and science and grounded in a commitment to first protect the most vulnerable and preserve life, which will allow us to get back to a some sense of normal a lot faster. That's what we've focused on with today's announcement. And here's what we're going to talk about. First, I will provide you with an update of how many people 65 and older have made appointments. I'll also remind folks of various ways you can make an appointment. Next, I'll provide an overall update on our vaccination program and its progress. Then I'll provide an update on our ongoing efforts to build capacity to vaccinate even more Vermonters, including the new participation by the Vermont National Guard in our vaccination program. And lastly, I will outline new vaccination efforts that will occur on or around March 8, which starts next week. So let's get started. As many of you saw in the news this weekend, Johnson and Johnson's one dose vaccine was approved for use by the FDA. In addition to being a single dose, it does not have special storage requirements, so it will be a great option for us to reach more Vermonters. I'll talk more about that in just a moment. Yesterday, we opened registration for those 65 years old and older. And as the governor had mentioned, we had more than 18,000 people register in the first day. As of 9 a.m. this morning, over 20,000, 20,200 people have made appointments. And as a reminder, the total population of this newly eligible 65 to 69 year old group is approximately 42,000. We expect that we will complete this age group relatively quickly to create an account. If you already haven't done so, go on and create an account and make an appointment. Go to healthvermont.gov slash my vaccine. Overall, we've achieved an important milestone over the weekend. Today, 106,300 people have been vaccinated against COVID-19. Think about it. It's over 100,000 Vermonters have been vaccinated. 47,900 have received their first dose of vaccine. 48,400 have received their first and last doses. And we've finalized the call center structure to enable homebound individuals for those that we haven't reached yet to request vaccine appointments starting this Friday, March 5th. If you are homebound and have not been contacted, please call the vaccine call center at 855-722-7878 on Friday. Next, I want to discuss our continuing efforts to expand vaccine capacity. We expect significant increases in vaccine throughout the month of March. We anticipate receiving over 20,000 first doses this week with deliveries expected throughout this week. Right now, we have the capacity to deliver those doses each week. By March 15th, we will increase our capacity to administer 25,000 first doses of vaccine per week. And by month's end, we will increase our capacity to administer 35,000 first doses of vaccine per week. We will continue to adjust capacity in proportion to our vaccine allocation from the federal government. Starting tomorrow, we'll use the Vermont National Guard to help us get Vermonters vaccinated as quickly as possible. They will administer vaccines in South Burlington at the Double Tree Hotel. And starting next week, their efforts will expand to Berry and Springfield. We'll register Vermonters for appointments at these new sites through the same website and call center we use for the state-supported vaccination sites. We also plan to activate an even larger contingent of the National Guard on March 15th to provide more vaccination opportunities as the supply increases later this month. In addition, Walmart will start vaccinations this week at its six stores in Vermont. This is important, so I want to highlight this. You must register for these appointments through the state website, healthvermont.gov slash my vaccine. You should not call the stores directly. I also want to note that Kenny Drugs, who is partnering with the state's vaccination program, will conduct a large vaccination event for eligible Vermonters at Spalding High School on Sunday, March 7th. That's at Spalding High School on Sunday, March 7th. Approximately 1,100 first doses of vaccine are anticipated to be available at the event. Finally, Walgreens will continue to offer vaccinations through the federal program, the federal program they participate in. You could, you can choose to make an appointment with Walgreens or Kenny Drugs directly if that is more convenient for you. I want Vermonters to know this. We have plenty of slots available to vaccinate eligible Vermonters and more coming online as our supplies increase. You can make appointments at healthvermont.gov slash my vaccine. You should not make multiple appointments. There's no need to do this since we have a good system in place that will get you vaccinated fairly quickly. Making multiple appointments just prevents someone else from reserving a spot. As the governor mentioned, we're going to be announcing three new vaccination efforts. Next, I'll turn my attention to those additional vaccination efforts. We are mobilizing beginning the week of March 8th. First, we will open registration for phase five Vermonters age 16 to 64 with high risk conditions. As you'll remember, we've had this phase plan from the outset as part of our age band age grouping strategy. Phase five is a large group of approximately 75,000 Vermonters in order to manage this group and get them vaccinated as quickly and as efficiently as possible. Phase five will be divided into two segments. Phase five A, those 55 years old and above with high risk conditions, and phase five B, those 16 to 54 with high risk conditions. For phase five A, registration will begin on Monday, March 8th at 8.15 a.m. For phase B, registration will begin Monday, March 15th at 8.15 a.m. A list of eligible high risk conditions is available at healthvermont.gov slash my vaccine and Dr. Levine will review them in just a few moments. Our goal is to make the registration process as easy and inclusive as possible, but this is a complex undertaking. First, people with high risk conditions can check the list of conditions on the health department website to see if they are eligible. Family members, caregivers, and case managers can also check for the list for others in their care. You will make an appointment in our system in the same way Vermonters have done by age grouping. You do not need to contact your health care provider to get documentation of the condition. When the group becomes eligible and you are ready to make an appointment, you will be asked some questions. First, you will say that you have one of the health conditions that makes you eligible for a vaccine. This will serve as self-certification. We trust you to work with us and help make sure that these Vermonters at highest risk due to their medical condition are protected. When making your appointment, you will also be asked to provide information for a health care provider that you see for your condition if you have one. But if you do not have a health care provider, you will still get the vaccine. The health department may use the information you have provided to confirm your eligibility either through medical records or by contacting your provider. We may also reach out to people who do not have a provider to offer a connection to care. The next thing I want to announce, to support getting our kids back into school five days a week, we will deploy vaccines for child care providers and teachers and school staff starting next week. As you heard the governor and mental health commissioner Sarah Squirrel and Secretary French say last week, our kids are not okay. This is not anybody's fault. It is however the unfortunate fact that part-time in-person instruction and remote learning is not meeting their needs. To that end we will leverage our new supply of vaccines and the expanded federal pharmacy program to support accomplishing the goal that we know educators and Vermonters share. Specifically beginning next week we will begin to offer teachers and school staff and child care providers the option of receiving single dose Johnson and Johnson vaccine at clinics in their district. EMS, Department of Health staff, Vermont National Guard and school nurses will be on site at vaccination clinics, school districts or in smaller schools to assist with this effort. Because this vaccine needs less special handling than others, Johnson and Johnson is the ideal candidate for this type of on-site vaccination approach. On Friday we will have details on how to schedule a vaccine for both teachers and school staff and child care providers who wish to make an appointment at the school designated vaccine sites. In addition, appointments at Walgreens in the coming weeks will be available for these eligible employees for the two-dose Pfizer and Moderna vaccine. A list of eligible employees will be given to Walgreens to ensure that the system is not abused. Specific instructions on timing and how to enroll with Walgreens will be provided directly to teachers and school staff and child care providers as appointments become available. This special program for educators and child care providers is distinct in design and separate from our primary vaccination program, which is age grouping. It will look different and operate differently. As I'll explain in a moment, our age grouping approach will continue throughout the end of the pandemic and it will be expanded as our allotments from the federal government increase. Because of how we are vaccinating, more at a localized level is anticipated that this will take us into the first weeks of April to complete vaccination of teachers and school staff and child care providers. I ask that these individuals be patient because it is a newly developed program. We will go forward deliberately and cautiously and then ramp it up fairly quickly. And of course, all of this is dependent upon ongoing supply from the federal government. Lastly, on or about March 8th, we will expand the definition of first responders to include police staff such as sergeants, lieutenants, and others, 911 call takers who are needed to direct emergency personnel to emergencies, and staff who work in correctional facilities that house detainees or incarcerated individuals. For those folks working in state correctional facilities, we will offer the single dose Johnson and Johnson vaccine on site or the option of the double dose visor or Moderna vaccine through Walgreens. As with teachers and school staff and child care providers, a list of eligible staff members will be given to Walgreens. More information will be available about first responders next week. Just wrapping up, looking ahead, all of this means will ensure more Vermonters are eligible more quickly and vaccinated at a faster pace. We expect that we'll be able to move to appointments for those age 60 and older later this month with older Vermonters with other Vermonters eligible in the weeks thereafter. Well, we can offer you a prediction now regarding when all Vermonters over 16 will be eligible as the supplies increase. We will see eligibility expand in the months ahead. Of course, as more doses become available, we will vaccinate Vermonters as quickly as possible. And we believe our approach will prove to be one of the fastest and most effective in the country. You know, there is now clear light at the end of the pandemic tunnel. I can't tell you how proud I am of all of you, how you hung in there during the dark days and how you are abiding by the safeguards we need to continue as we move forward towards ending this pandemic. I want to thank you for everything that you've done. I'll now turn it over to Dr. Levine for a health update. Good morning. We're reporting 70 cases today and unfortunately one additional death. There are 23 people in the hospital with COVID-19, including seven in the ICU. These numbers are quite low in comparison to where we've been over the last several weeks. Our positivity rate over a seven-day period remains quite low as well at 1.5%. Last week, I shared some information about testing at Bromley and Stratton ski areas. We now have some data from one more weekend of testing. As I noted before, this is a limited snapshot as testing was offered to anyone who wanted it, whether they were employees, skiers, or even local residents. Of 264 people tested at both areas, from Vermont and from out of state, there were a total of eight positives, four of which are being confirmed through PCR testing still. The first weekend we reported earlier, we tested 227 people with just a few positives. Despite its limited nature, my takeaway from this data is not so much what we found, but what we didn't find. This testing did not show high rates of COVID-19 being brought into the state. We were glad to see people interested in getting tested, helping us get a glimpse into what may be happening at these seasonal areas. We again thank Bromley and Stratton Mountain Urgent Care for working with us in these efforts. The ski area testing is now complete, but we still have regular testing available in Stratton and on the weekend in Manchester. They have been glad to see the increased numbers in Bennington County leveling off. There are really now only three hospitalized patients at Southwest Vermont Medical Center. Despite our cases easing their way down, we continue to monitor situations on our college campuses as well, where we did expect to see more cases in the spring semester initially. At some campuses such as Norwich University, we're definitely starting to see improvement with no new cases in almost a week. At UVM, where cases have occurred regularly since the start of this semester, recent testing has shown a decrease in new case rates. Our teams are working to provide guidance to their health officials and students, especially those who require quarantine or are involved in sports. We support their efforts to test more aggressively to catch the virus before it can spread further with a twice weekly student testing schedule. The administration has increased the severity of sanctions, developed outdoor settings where students can escape the isolation of their rooms, created ample quarantine housing, and a positive result is that most of their athletic teams are able to engage in competitions. Commissioner Pechak will show you some of the data indicating a decline in cases overall in the state at our campuses. As you know, we continue to monitor spread in Franklin County, which is beginning to show signs of leveling off. And we have added tests in northern Franklin County the first two weeks of March, thanks to Mrs. Goy Valley Rescue. Tests are free and there is no registration. You can find all the information on our website healthvermont.gov slash testing in addition to testing available throughout the state. Testing still remains a critical tool to slowing the spread of COVID-19 and I strongly recommend Vermonters take advantage of it if they feel they have a need to get tested for any reason. Especially with the threat of more transmissible variants of the virus, I will emphasize once again that the month of March will be a key time in our race to keep those variants at bay while we vaccinate as many people as we can. Even though we are all more than ready for this pandemic to end, we cannot afford to lose the gains we've made against the virus. We can all do our part by getting tested and of course keeping up with all the usual prevention protocols, including wearing a mask, keeping our distance and avoiding crowds. Now I'd like to add a little more detail to Secretary Smith's preview of Vermonters with high-risk health conditions who will soon be eligible for vaccination. We announced the conditions here before but have since refined the list to provide more clarity on what qualifies as a qualifying condition. You can find on our website at healthvermont.gov slash COVID-19 vaccine this list but I'll now share it with you here. Current cancer, chronic kidney disease, COPD which includes emphysema and chronic bronchitis, heart disease which includes heart attack, heart failure, congestive heart failure, coronary artery disease which is angina, acute and chronic ischemic heart disease, cardiomyopathies and pulmonary hypertension. Note this list does not include high blood pressure. Immunocompromised states meaning a weakened immune system due to solid organ transplant, blood or bone marrow transplant, immune deficiencies or other causes or HIV with a low CD4 cell count or not on HIV treatment or prolonged use of corticosteroids or other immune suppressing drugs, severe obesity which means a body mass index of 40 or larger, pregnancy, sickle cell disease, type 2 diabetes. The newest additions are type 1 diabetes and disabilities including chromosomal disorders such as Down syndrome, intellectual disabilities meaning a lower IQ, disabilities that compromise lung function such as neurologic and muscular conditions like muscular dystrophy, spina bifida and multiple sclerosis for some examples. Now as you heard you do not need to connect with your health care provider to get documentation of these conditions to receive the vaccine. We're glad to be that much closer to protecting these vermoners who as the data shows are at higher risk for severe illness and death from COVID-19. Finally of course the biggest news on the vaccination front is the FDA's authorization of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine for emergency use and the recommendation by the CDC's advisory committee on immunization practices with doses already going out for delivery as we speak. This third vaccine will be a game changer so that more of us can get vaccinated more quickly our pathway out of this pandemic. This vaccine is different from the mRNA vaccines we've been using. It uses an adenovirus vector that cannot replicate in the human body and it uses this vector to deliver instructions to make the spike protein of the SARS-CoV-2 virus to which our body then mounts its defenses and makes antibodies. The phase 3 study that allowed this vaccine to achieve emergency use authorization enrolled 44,000 participants was conducted on three continents and during a time of high COVID-19 incidents while viral variants were emerging unlike the previous vaccine trials. The Johnson and Johnson vaccine is rated as highly effective at preventing serious illness as are the two vaccines we already have. Data for this vaccine showed a 72% efficacy rate in the U.S. study population against moderate illness and was especially protective against severe COVID-19 with an 85% efficacy rate and was 100% effective against hospitalization and death. This was irrespective of variants especially the South African one. This is the protection that matters most. There were similar performance regardless of age, sex, race, or comorbidities. It's a single shot that can be kept in normal refrigeration which makes it easier to distribute and administer and it has noticeably milder side effects according to the FDA report. It honestly amazes me to think back a year ago when there were so many unknowns about this new coronavirus. Just one year later we are able to use long research technologies to develop three effective vaccines. We are now in a good position to move quickly to protect our communities and get back to life once more. Now, we cannot directly compare the performance of this vaccine with the mRNA vaccines due to different study protocols, different timing during the pandemic. Nonetheless, the bottom line summary is that this vaccine will be a valuable addition to our vaccine supply and it is as effective as its predecessors in preventing severe illness and death. It is easily storable and safe and convenient with its single dosage labeling and it is available now when we hope an even greater supply by the end of this month. And the goal is for Vermonters to get vaccinated as quickly as possible and I encourage you to take whichever vaccine is available to you and not get caught up in a numbers comparison game. These are all effective and safe vaccines. I'll now turn it over to Commissioner Petschek for his model. Thank you very much Dr. Levine and good morning everyone. While the decline of cases regionally and nationally has come to a halt this week, Vermont continued its slow and steady improvement in all of the key metrics with fewer cases this week among our most vulnerable and overall fewer individuals in the hospital and fewer deaths in February than the previous two months. There are still many reasons for optimism when we look at our own data but as we've heard today we must remain vigilant over the next few months as we bridge into warmer weather and further vaccination progress. After six straight weeks of falling case counts, the national seven-day average stalled this week with cases being relatively flat. And while we'll need probably another week's worth of data to know exactly if this is a temporary slowdown or if in fact cases have stalled, we do see that the numbers have started to bend back down over the last couple of days and all of the major national models that are out there continue to forecast cases decreasing in the weeks ahead. The other national trend lines are moving in the right direction with the decrease in hospitalizations continuing for a seventh straight week now down 60 percent since January and thankfully the U.S. death rate is continuing its declining trend with the seven-day average falling 19 percent over the past two weeks. The Northeast also saw its cases stall and increase over the past week with the region reporting just under 83,000 new cases and 8 percent increase week over week. Vermont and New Hampshire were the only two jurisdictions in the region that saw their weekly case numbers improve but again like the rest of the country the region continued to see improvements in its positivity rate, its hospitalization rate and its fatality rate all good signs. And also like the national models the regional forecast still anticipates declining cases over the next few weeks but we will need to continue to watch these numbers closely and watch the regional data closely over the next week to again see if the cases are moving in the right direction. Now turning to Vermont's data we can see that there was broad improvement in our metrics throughout the month of February. Our cases decreased by about 20 percent but our most important metrics hospitalizations and deaths decreased considerably over this period of time and just as important the percentage of Vermonters who are now fully vaccinated have tripled. Our seven-day case average continues to trend in the right direction with Vermont reporting 694 cases this week 35 case decrease from the previous week and most importantly we continue to see cases among our most vulnerable continue to decrease. We continue to see this population who is now our most vaccinated population continue to fall more quickly than the broader population with this age group falling 77 percent in terms of new cases over the last six weeks. Further the number of active outbreaks in long-term care facilities has decreased down to just two and with fewer cases among our most vulnerable we are starting to see fewer deaths month over month as well and even the fatalities that were seen more recently it's important to remember that many of them were infected weeks ago when the case counts were much higher and the vaccination percentages were much lower so we do anticipate that deaths will continue to fall into the month of March since we have many fewer vulnerable Vermonters contracting the virus. Looking across Vermont only two counties stand out from the crowd as Dr. LeVeed mentioned Bennington and Franklin counties continue to have higher active case counts than the rest of the states but both are showing improvement as of recent. Regarding higher education this was in fact the best week of the spring semester with only 39 cases being reported and this is out of nearly 21,000 tests that were conducted this past week which is the greatest number of tests administered on campus since the higher education restart began last fall. This brings the semester case total to 456 cases in Vermont. Regarding hospitalizations we continue to see our numbers drop in the seven-day average falling rapidly for general hospital beds the ICU numbers are coming down a little more slowly as this is tends to be a lagging indicator but we do anticipate fewer admissions into the hospital in the weeks ahead as we are seeing fewer cases again amongst our most vulnerable. Turning to the Vermont forecast with the continued gradual decline in cases that we continue to see in Vermont our forecast is more optimistic with cases expected to fall throughout March and into April but of course we must keep a few things in mind these forecasted improvements are certainly not guaranteed and with the high active case count in Vermont and new variants circulating throughout our region these trends can quickly reverse ultimately it's our own behavior over the next six weeks that will determine the outcome so please do remain vigilant and continue to follow the public health guidelines as we get closer to the finish line. Looking at Vermont's vaccination progress we can see the total number of Vermonters who have received at least one dose of the vaccine continues to climb but as importantly as Secretary Smith mentioned the number of vaccines administered on a daily basis continues to increase as well now steadily surpassing more than 2,000 doses administered a day on a seven-day average for the first time since the vaccination program began and this places Vermont second in the northeast and 11th nationally in terms of doses administered so that's first and second doses combined and when you look at where we rank for the population that is fully vaccinated Vermont continues to rank ninth nationally with a little more than nine percent of Vermonters now fully vaccinated and with that I think we'll open it up to questions and I'll turn the moderator over to Mike Smith. Okay Rebecca we're ready. We'll start with Calvin. Thanks Secretary Smith. So I'm just wondering how many doses of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine are we going to get and by opening up the age or opening up vaccines to child care and teachers I'm wondering how that isn't going to set back the vaccination process for Vermonters with the underlying conditions. Well we have estimated and obviously we've used all the calculations that we have we haven't diverted any of the main vaccine supply for those what I would call our traditional age banding groups including high risk in that. What we've used is new availability of vaccine we've had 5400 doses that just came in of Johnson and Johnson we hope that supply continues as it moves down obviously that's an easier dose to administer. We hope to have the teachers done teachers and child care providers and staff school staff done by the first week of April using that method and also using the federal pharmacy method method that isn't in our regular allocation that we have so we really haven't touched the allocation that is dedicated to all the age banding and instead used extra supply that we're receiving in order to do this other segment. I imagine there might be some frontline workers in grocery stores or other parts of the economy that might be kind of frustrated with this news I guess what would your message be to them? Well the our goal in the beginning was to protect life and we're still doing that in terms of how we've done the age banding and we'll start turning back to 60 and above towards the end of the month as well before the end of the month as well. We'll get to those age band age bands as we move down and we'll get to them fairly quickly but at the same time I think you heard last week our kids are not doing well. I mean that's our future and our kids are not doing well so we have to address that and get get our schools back into five days a week. I think everybody in this state wants that. They want the kids the kids want it. They want to get back to school in five days a week. The teachers want it. The parents want it and I think that's what the important part and we have we have done this one program without abandoning our age banding as we've moved forward so I would say to those we're looking out for the welfare of those kids as we as we move through both the age banding and this sort of special program. If I just one last clarifying question home child care providers are their husbands or spouses or wives family members will they be eligible as well? No only the child care provider will be eligible. One of the questions we have with the Johnson and Johnson vaccine as it came out how is that going to be dispersed? Is that being sent to because of the storage capacity for the thing? Is that going to be sent to the more rural locations or places where they don't have the capacity to hold the other vaccines and are you worried that people won't come back for the second dose on the first two? Let me start off with that and then I'll ask Dr. Levine to tackle the worried about the second dose aspect of it. Our first allocations in the month of March for the Johnson and Johnson will be as I mentioned to Calvin will be dedicated to the the teachers, the school employees and child care providers that will be dedicated going to that. After that we'll look at the way that we administer it going forward but right now for the short term that's where our dosages are going for Johnson and Johnson. In terms of the second dose Dr. Levine could you address that? I'll just expand on what the secretary just said first. There are all kinds of suggestions being made about Johnson and Johnson not necessarily policy from government officials but suggestions because of its ease of administration. Some of that involves as you said the rural areas but I mean we're a pretty rural state so it's kind of hard to say that one part of the state would benefit more than another from getting that vaccine for its population. Others have said that there are populations that are less likely to be compliant with a second dose. Populations that have been raised in that vein are the homeless population and I apologize to college students but there they have been named in that as well. So you know my sense is most states are going to take the vaccine and integrate it into its general vaccination program so that we can get as many people vaccinated as quickly as possible and I truly think that having it done in an integrated way can be fine. It doesn't have to select a place or a population necessarily. With regard to the second dose from the Pfizer and the Moderna you know I'm not sure you know anybody is going to be a hundred percent compliant with anything we do in health care so there's always going to be people that drop off and don't show back up for their second dose but I think most people understand and the data is beginning to help us reveal that you really do gain a much bigger boost in your immune response if you get that second dose and why have invested all your time and energy in getting the first dose if you're not going to follow through and really optimally protect yourself from the virus. Obviously people who may have had a severe reaction to the first dose that's a different story but they are infinitesimally small number of people in our state right now. And since you're right there with the other two the second dose is a is a plus two weeks time frame for determining that you're fully protected. Are you looking at four weeks after the single dose or two weeks or how's that? Yeah so so the data from the study trials did actually look at two weeks and at four weeks and the kind of data that I cited before with the really remarkable efficacy was really at the four-week point. It was on the way at the two-week point but it was much better at the four-week point. So I would suggest people consider themselves most optimally protected at the four-week point and not make assumptions at the two-week point. Thank you. Good morning. I'm already hearing from grocery store workers or family members with grocery store workers and their family who think they deserve the same consideration as school teachers and child care workers for this vaccination. What is your take Dr. Levine on the relative risks for that group? Well if you mean are they at extraordinarily high risk of a bad outcome from COVID generally we have not seen that or found that. They can they still do work in an environment where there can be physical distancing. There is supposed to be and there generally has been good adherence to masking and the facilities are generally large enough so that being in a crowded part is not much of an issue. So I do empathize. I was once a grocery store worker long, long ago and the reality is the public is there at all times. I understand that but that doesn't mean that your risk is heightened at all times and we're just not seeing that you know certainly not in our statistics with regards to who's had the worst outcomes in Vermont from COVID-19. So I do have empathy but at the same time I do think that the age banding approach will get them vaccinated far more quickly than they might imagine because as we already talked we're talking the early part of April at the latest to finish all of the things you've heard about today and then we're going to anticipate more Johnson and Johnson coming in and we hope when the governor returns he'll have some good news on that regard continuing increased allocations on the Pfizer and the Moderna so that the next sets of age bands will go much more briskly just as these most recent ones are going. Okay if I could hold off on my second question for when the governor's back. Good morning. Yeah good morning. My question is going to go to Dr. Levine. The question I brought up back in December right now the many members of the homeless population are being sheltered. We know who they are, we know where they are. When we get into the warm of months they might start to disperse. Would you have that consideration including homeless people to get the Johnson and Johnson vaccine as it's becoming more available? Yeah and this is Mike Smith. I'll take that question. We are looking at this you know where do we deploy the Johnson and Johnson after the teachers, the school staff and child care and that is I think Dr. Levine brought that up just a little while ago. That is one of the populations that would be a prime sort of candidate for where we deploy it later. We should be through all of the things that I discussed today as Dr. Levine said by the beginning of April so you know as we sort of look at the next population especially for Johnson and Johnson who will it be. I think you'll see that that will be one of the candidates for that particular vaccine. Okay thank you. And now I'll turn it over to Governor Scott. Thank you Secretary Smith. I just got off the phone with fellow governors in the White House for our weekly meeting and we heard some encouraging news as well as some realistic news. First we heard that Pfizer and Moderna allocations will increase next week to 15.2 million up from 14.5 million to the states. That will be a 700,000 increase which will mean 700 for Vermont, an increase of 700 for Vermont. That means for just these two vaccines Vermont will receive at least 15,000 for the next three weeks. That's the minimum 15,000. The federal pharmacy program will also see a slight increase 300,000 from 2.1 million to 2.4 million which will be 300 an increase of 300 doses for Vermont. By the end of March they expect to deliver 17 to 18 million weekly and that's not including Johnson and Johnson so that's up from the 15 million that we're receiving next week. In terms of Johnson and Johnson Vermont already has its first round of J&J in hand. We believe that it's a little bit different from what they are saying so we're trying to clarify that by the calculations given. They said that they were going to be delivering about 2.9 million I believe and I have that somewhere else but which would equate to about 3,000 doses for Vermont but we believe we have in hand and we'll clarify this. We believe we have about 5,000 in hand right now so there's something wrong with the numbers there. Again the the realistic sobering news is there won't be they said there will not be a distribution of Johnson and Johnson next week and they're not guaranteeing anything in the third week although there may be a smaller amount but they said by the end of March we should be getting four to six thousand doses every single week and then in April they believe we'll be getting receiving five to six thousand weekly. So again the first in March it's going to be limited but we already have some in hand so we'll be able to start with what we spoke about earlier next week but the following week could be challenging so we'll have to see what that does with us. We also heard that Johnson and Johnson and Merck a major pharma company are teaming up for production of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine which would be helpful and I think that's where we're going to see vastly increased supplies in the near future. So with that we'll get back to questions. All right I'm going to circle back to Stuart who has a second question for Governor Scott. Yeah good morning. Thanks Governor. On an unrelated on a town meeting question if I could a couple of dozen towns are voting on hosting cannabis businesses including I think your hometown of Berlin. How do you come down on that question? You mean in terms of how I voted or? Well if you're willing to share yes. Yeah I'm I will see what happens with the number of communities that that are voting today. I'd be happy to tell you how I voted on that next week or at least after today but I certainly don't want to skew anything or anybody's opinion one way or the other on my vote on that particular issue. So I'll get back to you on that but but again it should be interesting. I don't know how to gauge the reaction throughout Vermont and it'll be interesting to see. All right thank you. Good morning. We heard from a local woman who made two appointments for a vaccine to the Department of Health website and then made another through the link to Walgreens. She's not receiving confirmation and she's been monitoring her spam folder. Is this sort of happening with any frequency? I'm just maybe I can understand the question and then turn over to Secretary Smith or so we all understand the question. Has she made three appointments for herself or is it? Yes yes and she's not getting the confirmation. Secretary Smith. Yeah Lisa this is the first that I've heard of it in terms of not getting confirmation from the website from the Department of Health. I know that you do get a confirmation. It says AHS confirmation on it. If you look at that it won't it comes in as AHS confirmation Agency of Human Service confirmation but let me reach out to you after this if the list if your reader has if you have the permission of your reader we'd like to sort of intervene and help out. The other thing is call the vaccine call center at 855-722-7878 and they can probably help her but we have not heard that. In fact you know from from experience I have seen the actual confirmation and how that works and we have not seen that as an issue yet. Thank you I will pass that information on to her but don't go away. I have another quick question for you as well. Sure. Will school districts staff who are not front facing receive vaccines as well so people who work in the central office for example? Depends on where they are. If their central office is not in the school then the answer is no. If their central office is in the school then the answer is yes. There are some school districts that have their central office outside of the school. Okay thank you and may I ask a question of Secretary Curley? Sure. Of course. Okay. Would businesses with no employees be eligible for funds from the legislature's newest COVID release package? I'm thinking of a local theater group that has a mortgage and has a building but has no employees. Just as a reminder Lisa and Secretary Curley I think that's just past the house. It has not been considered by the Senate at this point. They haven't even taken it up so there could be some changes along the way. Okay. Yeah and I apologize I don't I don't know the answer to your specific question because things are changing daily so I don't know how it landed when it just passed the house. I'll check back next week. Thank you all very much. They're off this week Lisa as well so there won't be any action taken on that until next week so that'll be the first we hear back from them. Okay thank you. Can you hear me? We can. I'm wondering what you can tell us about aid to Vermont small businesses that is going to come out of the federal stimulus package. Again that hasn't completely passed at this point in time. Still being considered by the Senate correct? The federal stimulus package is the one you're talking about right now. Yep it is that one. I know it's still in the house it hasn't gone before the Senate yet but I'm just wondering what you do know. I just yeah I don't know if Lindsay knows anything about this or Julie? Oh Suzanne. But I would just be cautious yeah I'd be cautious about that at this point in time because we don't know what's going to come out in the very end. The question was Secretary Curley or Secretary Young about business opportunities within the economic relief or the stimulus bill that's coming out of the congress or could potentially coming out of the congress that hasn't been passed by the the Senate at this point? Just for small business. About opportunity I'm sorry I still don't understand you're asking about what opportunities are in the in the bill. For small business. Right now as it stands for small business. Yeah again there's a variety of different carve-outs for different sectors. What I don't know is how it would relate to a certain size of a business. Again it's too soon to tell on this so I can look into that and see if I can give you a better answer on that. The other thing you know again there's a specific set aside for restaurants and shuttered venues but again I don't know what the criteria is in terms of how big or how small they are. I'm not sure if I got that right. If I if I could go back to Lisa Lumet her question I just want to I just want to answer the version that the House passed that she was talking about of the bill for helping those businesses in Vermont that haven't been helped yet. To answer her question the answer is yes. They do not need employees to qualify so if the bill were to pass the Senate in the same form then the example that you put forward is potentially how would that that business would be eligible to qualify even though they have no employee. I just want to clarify one thing again I think I believe we're talking about two separate bills. There's a COVID relief bill in the in the state legislature in Vermont legislature right now that has not passed it's passed the House and is now going before the Senate. The same holds true though for the the Congress it's passed the House it's now going before the Senate and it still has a ways to go and I don't know what's going to be included in the final version of either so it's the same they're two separate bills though. Yeah I was asking about the federal one. Okay so the question before with Lisa Loomis was a different question. Yep I'm all set thank you. Clear as mud right. Thank you Rebecca. Good afternoon Governor. I want to just quickly circle back to your question about cannabis being on the ballot today. Governor you let everybody know publicly as soon as you voted for president who you voted for when you left the polls but now you don't want to release how you voted today. Why the change? Yeah it was if you remember Greg and I'm sure you're on top of this but that was like at four o'clock five o'clock in the afternoon almost to the end when the polls were going to close and so it's a different situation now or midday a lot of people haven't even voted yet so I just again you know I have I don't mind sharing the information but I don't want to do it soon before people have the majority of people have a chance to vote and again just not to influence one way or the other so same holds true here. Would you let you know short time now you know five to six o'clock maybe just broadcast time? I'll let you know next the next press conference. Okay moving on Governor your administration has said for months that the rollout of the dispersion of vaccines was based on data and a mortality rate but at the same time you insisted that it was very infrequent that COVID spread within the school system. Now as you move the back back teachers and children it seems to some that you're ignoring the mortality rate of the 50 to 64 year old age group. Yeah well again let's go let's go back first of all we said the death rate as well as hospitalizations so we have that data that shows anyone 65 and over 90 percent of those have been 65 and over the deaths as well as hospitalizations in a large category so then we're moving right now to those with certain health conditions so once we take care of that we feel as though we're taking care of the most vulnerable in that that respect and I've said for quite some time we've been willing to look at a different approach and as I said our kids are not okay and we need to do all we can to get them back into in-person instruction. One of the challenges one of the large obstacles in the way is to make sure that we're vaccinating those in the education system so we're looking that this is a system because we know it's important for the health of our kids to get them back into school. Now again this is for staff within the education system not for the kids there's no vaccine at this point approved for anyone in one case I think it's 16 and over the others 18 and over but suffice it to say the students are not going to be vaccinated in this round but we think it's that important and we need to do all we can from our standpoint to to get through that that hurdle and we'll have many hurdles to come in terms of trying to get them back into in-person instruction but this was a major hurdle and and we feel that it was necessary but we wanted to take care of the most vulnerable first which we've committed to. I've heard concerns from members of the public that you know for one thing for one person I've talked to yesterday they're 64 years old they can't get in with the age banding until they turn 65 in August which presumably they'd probably be in before that but they kind of felt like a move to vaccinate those in the school system is kind of an indicator to the strength of the teachers union is there actual data to show that that's not the case? Well we we've brought the data to you in the last at least the last press conference from our commissioner of mental health as well as pediatricians along the way that say our kids are impacted and it's all related the pandemic because they're they're not getting that interaction the social interaction that they need in order to be healthy so again we're trying to do what we can to overcome that and we think this is the best route forward. Now I'm sensitive to the fact that we need to make sure we go back in some form to age banding that's my approach but we're going to be talking about different different approaches as we move forward we'll get through those with those health conditions certain health conditions we believe by the end of March or somewhere in that range and then we'll move back and do something different and maybe be able to go on a parallel path with our age banding approach but but again we look at we took care of we feel the vast majority of those who are impacted in terms of death and in terms of hospitalization by doing those 65 and over as well as those with certain health conditions. Thank you and one other real quick follow-up is this going to include non-school staff such as basketball and hockey coaches or that is it completely constricted to school staff? Anyone within the footprint of the school building the system? So teachers like coaches and stuff aren't going to call well? No they will qualify if they're yeah let me be be clear coaches if they're in the system they're part of the staff within the education system and if they're on the premises in the in the school itself then they will be they will be vaccinated as well. Okay thank you Governor thank you for your time. Quick clarifying question before I get to my main one will school staff independent and private schools be eligible for the vaccine? I believe so yes and I'm getting nods of yes. Okay the education community I'm sure will welcome this news but a lot of principals and superintendents have made it clear that the impediment to a return to full in-person has as much to do with the guidance as anything specifically distancing guidelines will the agency be announcing any revisions to those guidelines to reduce barriers to full in-person instruction? Well again this is a huge hurdle that we're getting beyond at this point in time and this is what we heard loud and clear and we want to be able to work together in order to accomplish the goal and I think if we can all now at this point in time agree to the goal we can get through the other hurdles that aren't as big as this one and I know that the physical distancing is an issue in fact on the call I was just on and we heard from the CDC and others the experts on the call with the White House and they talked about the six foot distancing for instance and they said really important that you get across to those in the educational community that wearing continuing to wear masks is important it's essential and and and the reason they put the six foot distance for those located in high transmission areas and they were they were emphatic about that the the guidance was for a six foot distance for those located in high transmission areas and and it was to preclude when someone wasn't wearing their masks from becoming infected so they said others get creative we're still this is guidance only but get creative move furniture out try to do everything you can to maintain that six foot distance if that can't be accomplished find other ways and they and they mentioned I wrote a couple things down because I think they're going to be under CDC guidance that they're going to be releasing but they said if you can't accomplish that between students do all you can to to do that if it's if it's achievable but if you can't make sure there's six foot distance between the students and teachers that's number one number two they said open windows indoors get the air circulating utilize fans as well to keep the air circulating so the creativity is something that they they again talked about and we'll hear more about this from the CDC I believe in the coming days but but again we look forward the secretary of french and his team will be working with stakeholders to get through the other hurdles we know that they're they're not there for every single school but but we are cognizant of the fact that we have other work to do and and again if if we're all on the same page we all want the same thing for our kids then we can work through anything that's achievable we can work through these if we have the right if we have the right approach thank you hi i have a quick clarifying question does the news you just got about the from the federal government about likely no new johnson and johnson's shots for the next couple of weeks change anything in your teacher vaccination plan it may have a bit of a wrinkle i would admit we haven't talked about this obviously i just found out about this about 20 minutes ago so secretary smith and and commissioner levine had no knowledge of this fact which is unfortunate that we're not going to have some sort of consistent supply for the first couple of weeks anyhow but again we believe we have more than they think we have in in hand right now and as far as i'm concerned once they're in the safe so to speak we should be able to utilize them at our disposal which is about half or double what they what they said they were going to distribute in the first week so we'll work those details out find out what we have available but secretary smith you have any thoughts about that yeah in football terms we'll we'll call an audible here um and what we'll do is um we'll use what we have in storage i will get us through a first couple of weeks um that we have in storage we'll probably use anything that we can recapture from the long-term care uh federal program and use some of that as well but the governor did say some good news is that the federal pharmacy program isn't being reduced it's being actually increased and we're relying partly on the federal pharmacy program as well so i i think there may be some minor wrinkles and we'll have to call some audibles but as you remember what i said was we were going to start this program deliberately slowly and then ramp up and it seems like the schedule that the feds are putting forward is coinciding with what we uh what we anticipated in terms of our rollout here okay great i did have a couple other johnson johnson related questions i've gotten from viewers will people get to choose which vaccine they receive um i feel that several encourage from people who for whatever reason don't want johnson and johnson's shots you mentioned that teachers would have the option of choosing will everyone else again we are going to consider all those factors in the future once we understand the supply we're going to get through this system the education system next and then we're going to contemplate all of that we would like people to have a choice at least to not get there to a vaccination site or to an appointment and not know what they're going to get and i think that that's important for us to do so i'm about choice so we will work our way towards giving them the opportunity to to know what they're going to get when they get there but at this point in time those johnson johnson vaccines are not going to be in the those with underlying conditions for instance so we are reserving those johnson johnson for the education system at this point and my last question might help you some of the concerns about the johnson and johnson shop for folk did it protect against those um the people who got sick during the study from having those long hauler symptoms mr levine and that might be better for dr levine that's a great question to ask and we don't have any data on that at this point in time um you know most people use the definition of long hauler three or four months after your illness uh and this these eua's these emergency use authorizations generally come after two months of follow-up so we're going to need to wait a lot longer to see the impact on that it would be nice because the reality is if you're having less symptomatic illness from any vaccine uh we would hope you would have a very very minimal risk of having a long hauler syndrome which is now called p a s c uh post-acute uh symptoms from coronavirus for what that's worth i can't answer your question yet we need to see follow-up data from the studies okay thank you um hi everybody only talk about the j and j vet vaccine it's almost as though you're worried people aren't going to want it because its efficacy is what 72 as opposed to 95 percent have you run into that yet and is there any concern that uh people will not want it and it could go wanting people won't take it yeah i don't i don't know is we have any fear of people not wanting it it's just that we don't know uh we haven't uh we just got it into uh into vermont we're going to uh start to offering it next week i think we'll know more after the first week what the acceptance rate is i can only talk for myself if i if i had a choice i think i would take the johnson and johnson um because this one shot uh gives me a greater flexibility two weeks three weeks whatever later i'm able to mobilize so that that would be my preference but everyone has different reasons and we'll learn a little bit more next week michael avine and the only thing to add to that if this were the first vaccine that came out and we didn't yet have the other two everyone would have said wow this is incredible stuff uh because you don't see that kind of data in most vaccine trials so the 72 percent rate then the 95 percent and 100 percent you don't see that um and that's really remarkable so unlike the governor you know if it was available to me i would take it right now not a problem the other reality is and this is the nuance uh when they defined moderate disease in the study trial for the johnson and johnson that's much more equivalent to what in the other two vaccine trials were regarded as more mild symptoms uh so again definitions matter outcome measures matter and that's why it's so challenging to do uh apples to apples comparison here because it really isn't possible but uh i think you've heard probably abundant uh people in public health and on the national scene who have really tried to make special efforts because we all know people are going to look at numbers and we have to just make sure they look at the numbers in as informed a way as possible um okay great a real other quick question um at the rate we're going how i i know this question has been answered in the past but i don't know if it's been answered recently when would you expect given the pace of vaccinations and the growing pace of vaccinations you will have everybody who wants to be vaccinated vaccinated um i believe that date will be sometime in july uh mid summer by the time at the rate we're going and we see the increases but a lot of it does depend on johnson and johnson and so forth i will go back let me go back to the johnson johnson for a minute um it could be the other way around uh wilson it there could be those uh that want the johnson johnson uh exceed the supply that we have there may be more demand than supply so i'm fearful of that uh is equal i'm equally fearful of that as i am about uh those the acceptance i think i think there's quite a few people who i've spoken with uh who are in the same camp uh that i am that i they would take it they would take it tomorrow if it was available to them uh but but in terms of you know i'm i'm speculating in terms of the amount of supply we're going to be receiving but i would say you know mid july early august okay um okay great thanks very much it was all works we can just barely i'm sorry can you hear me yes we can oh sorry about that um so my uh first quick question is um i i recall a figure of 30 000 that's kind of uh school staff and child care workers is that still kind of roughly the figure we're thinking about when we talk about those eligible employees i'm going to ask secretary smith i believe it's more than that secretary smith well we're estimating uh just north of 35 000 okay and so with the 75 000 um in the high-risk categories we're thinking a little over 100 000 people in total are in this next phase of vaccination yes um and by the time we get done in march we'll have about one-third of vermont done um and i wanted to double back to you know the goal of full in-person instruction which obviously vaccinating school staff is a part of um i've i've gotten a lot of questions from school employees about where um students who have opted into all remote all remote instructions fit into this um is there an expectation that school districts will continue offering that or is there an expectation that those children should be asked to come back to school um a lot of those uh families have opted into this because you know they have someone in their family who is high-risk etc so i'm just wondering what the thinking is on that population which is pretty significant i think it's about 15 percent of students yeah that's one of the questions we uh we need to answer in the next um week or so and it's on on the table and we will probably we'll in all likelihood be reaching out to see what the you know teachers uh principals superintendents and and those families think about this uh with the with the vaccines coming becoming available for staff whether that changes their perspective so uh we'll uh we'll be able to give more information in the week ahead okay that's all for me thank you i may just go back um secretary french is there anything you want to add to that no i think um you know your point governor we we have to iterate our way through this and certainly the priority now in vaccination is going to be uh a major goal and uh we'll remove more of the obstacles i think to making more progress more in person but we'll be trying to understand what's going on what um what the interest level and capacity of the district to move forward in the coming weeks thank you all right that's all thank you hi governor i have a couple of uh questions one on uh those under 16 and um uh explaining why they aren't included i think i know the answer this question but in a lot of these uh health conditions uh people can be more vulnerable when they're younger than than older and i know there's a lot of concern out there from parents of course about kids with chronic conditions or chromosomal um yeah they they just haven't haven't gone through the trials yet um the fda uh and the manufacturers haven't finished their trials i'm sure that they're continuing with those i i believe that that will be the next step and we may see that sometime in the fall uh in terms of uh vaccinating a younger population but they just haven't completed their trials at this point uh that that's what i figured and i was just wondering what you what you would tell to those say to those parents probably this the same same thing that i just told you we just don't know uh at this point and uh and just make sure that everyone is continues to wear a mask uh tries to keep their distance all the things we've been telling people to do over the last year will still be important as we move our way through this the the mask is going to the mask wearing will be uh continuing especially in the schools through as we continue through the vaccination process uh that's what i i anticipated the answer to be uh as far as the the federal funding is concerned philosophically uh governor sununu your colleague in new hampshire basically said uh we don't want that money or people or the federal government shouldn't give the states and the municipalities that money if they haven't had their their budgets in order anyway and i was wondering what your your thought was on that as long as there's flexibility uh within the appropriation um we certainly could use it i would advocate as i did in our budget this uh this go around that i presented to the legislature that we uh if there is flexibility uh we use it for one time expenses uh to to give us the the best return uh investing in areas that we know that we need to continue to work on whether it be broadband or whether it be uh whetherization or whether it be anything to to give us the highest return uh and to provide for a better future for us and a much more affordable future so again i'm we will we're not going to turn it away uh if it's offered and we just hope that there's enough flexibility in there uh for us to use it to our advantage all right great thank you um hello if uh all goes as well as you hope out of the vaccine is complete by some time in july do you have any sense of what that would mean in terms of you know a change in life um as compared to the present time especially given the fact that until um trials for younger people are concerned there will be some kind of reservoir of covid uh among you know uh teenagers at least um around the state so i mean will we still be wearing masks and um staying six feet apart or will something else be the normal i would say that we'll be continue to be very very cautious and careful uh we'll continue to monitor this it really does depend on how many people receive the vaccine and again we're not on an island we do enjoy a hospitality sector that welcomes people from other states and other regions into vermont so it's not all about vermonters so we're still going to have to be very very careful and as you mentioned this won't include at least in the the near future those under the age of 18 or 16 until the trials are complete and there's or there's a vaccination uh that uh is uh suitable for that population so so again i i just and maybe dr levine i'm not trying to put a damper on anything um but uh when we get through the vaccination process the vaccine or the the virus doesn't disappear you know it's still going to be with us it's still going to be here just like the flu is uh now it just won't be uh as uh as acute as it is today or you know as life threatening as it has been over the last year but um but it's not going away uh because it it can't be eliminated just like any other virus i might ask commissioner levine to weigh in too can't disagree with anything that i've just heard um lots of us in public health are talking about the fall towards the winter for uh when perhaps masking won't be as mandatory in activity i would dare say though that you're talking about july um we may find that that's a time when outdoor masking is not necessary because we know the ability to transmit the virus outdoors is so low compared to crowded indoor settings um not promising that just saying that you know in terms of some tangible change that you might actually see the um lots of forces working together here we have the natural immunity rate that people are getting from getting covid those who are unfortunate enough to have that we have the vaccine mediated immunity that we hope high percentages of hormoners will have we have these variant strains that really aren't making a big fuss right now except we think about them all the time and talk about them all the time and we need to see exactly where that goes in this country specifically and how it might be impacted by travel etc um and we need to basically just see how all of the data that we look at every week here looks but there's no reason to think that we'll be in the same place over the summer that we are in today or even the same place in the fall that we are in today so i would certainly invite the optimistic look you would like to have we just can't tell you the pace of how that will move and exactly what will happen because as the governor said the virus doesn't just disappear some people are talking about seasonality to the virus and is that why we saw this dramatic drop-off in cases here and around the world but we all also know that seasonality wasn't really an issue before we had three surges all in different seasons so i'm not sure that part makes as much sense i do think that human behaviors are everything and i think that's probably accounting for the most dramatic part of what we saw in the data so we'll just have to see joe i have another question or from a reader which is probably for dr levin if he thinks it's proper to answer it even this reader asked whether one of the three vaccines is better than the other for a person who like himself has multiple sclerosis ah i've never been given the option about answering a questionary for about i'll answer that one the um the problem with the vaccine trials is there a vaccine versus a placebo for each vaccine we don't have any head-to-head trials that look at one vaccine versus another to know how it might do in different populations etc multiple sclerosis is clearly a chronic condition it does elevate one's risk of having a more severe part of covet both due to the disease and sometimes due to the immunosuppressing drugs that can be used to treat the disease um none of the three trials to my awareness would have enough people with that disease or what the drugs used to treat that disease to help this person make a real evidence-based decision so i would just go with the fact that all of the trials show that if you had comorbidities which means other conditions that made you at higher risk uh you seem to do uh well with the vaccine not any worse than somebody who was completely healthy and got the vaccine so i would just take the one that they can take and be protected very much for agreeing to answer the question your time up yes hello go ahead i i'd like to uh do one more follow just to make sure our clarification on the coach's question there's a lot of folks who coach and spend many hours a week uh with various school teams during this season and they're indoors but they aren't employed as staff or faculty at those schools i just wanted to clarify whether or not they would be eligible for a vaccination under the teacher program i i believe yes uh is the answer that uh it's just whether they're paid for um by the community but but they're in the school they're in they're interacting with kids so that's part of the system okay thank you one other question that just a notice from some conversations that i've had with other pharmacies who are in the federal program that would like to be providing uh obviously vaccinations to vermont including shawls and hana birds and price chopper could you give us a or secretary smith give us a little bit more information uh for instance i heard a couple of them saying that they were waiting for a timeline or approval from the state of vermont but i still understood it really to be uh the federal government's decision when they would participate in our state yeah i let secretary smith answer that but but keep in mind those who are in the system at this point in time have uh contracted with the federal government and we we're going to be looking for opportunities as we increase the supply we're going to need all of those pharmacies to help us with the vaccination process secretary smith thanks for the thanks for the question as you noticed i mentioned wall um walmart will be adding six stores to the um to our sort of distribution of vaccine as we move forward um they will be part of the federal pharmacy program and we'll allocate uh based on the federal pharmacy program we're also looking at hana birds and others casco for example as as we move forward one of the things that we want to make sure is that they're integrating with our system and uh walmart has been a fantastic partner kenny drugs has been a fantastic partner in terms of integrating their systems into ours walmart in particular you don't go to walmart you go to our system in order to get your appointment and secondly um you get your appointment over multiple weeks in in these systems we're looking at how we integrate these systems and bringing them on one at a time i know that hana furred uh we're fairly close in discussions with i think we have had discussions with casco uh as we move forward so i think what you'll see in the next few weeks is more and more of these um uh these pharmacies coming uh these pharmacies or pharmacies within like a hana furred or or even perhaps a shaws i haven't heard if we've been in discussions with shaws coming online as we move forward thanks one quick follow-up on that one one uh former participant was right age and i wondered if they uh if that gets them in a position where they're able to come back more quickly as a participant or a day for one that didn't integrate as well with vermont system yeah i mean i i think right aid is cvs is that correct i i think so but um i think cvs owns right aid if i'm incorrect i apologize but i think i'm making a leap of judgment here that that's cvs cvs was in our long-term uh care program as you know we started out vaccinating long-term care with the federal pharmacy program we had kenny's we had cvs and we had wall greens um we're still in discussion i mean we have recaptured some of the some of the left over doses from the long-term care um long-term care program from cvs as we have with wall greens but um we are still in discussions with cvs right thanks very much can i just add to the can i just add to the confusion um commissioner p check has said it was right aid and cvs uh that cvs bought some of right aid um some of their stores but not all of them so there are just a few maybe five or six in vermont that are still right aid so just add to the confusion go ahead i'm sorry yep yep right thank you uh probably for secretary smith um wondering about the the school-based johnson and johnson clinics um when will you be able to announce a schedule of those clinics and how are you organizing those and by that i mean sort of on the micro and macro level uh first what schools will be going first and then would it be your plan to vaccinate an entire staff in one clinic or would you be looking to do with just a portion or percentage at a time yeah with the johnson and johnson it would be our our intent to vaccinate all staff at the uh at the clinic so let me sort of outline how this is going to work for the bigger sort of districts and for those that have big districts within sort of a geographical area will probably use what what we would call a vaccination clinic and probably run by the national guard that we would bring multiple schools into that vaccination clinic for others that are more rural perhaps and other areas we would do a district approach and in that approach we would probably use the health department we will use the health department personnel that had originally set up the points of distribution in the original sort of i know it's only weeks ago it sounds like years ago now but in the original sort of vaccination program and and we've spread that program out to more and more health care providers and so we would use the health care personnel the health department personnel to set up those district wide and include school nurses as well for individual schools which are small schools perhaps in the most role of areas we will send um ems along with the school nurse and other personnel into the actual school to do the vaccination that's how we plan on doing this in the next month and will the schedule be available say before the eligibility opens up for teachers i guess i'm just wondering from a practical standpoint a teacher who may have an opportunity to book at wall greens through the special sign up i think you alluded to earlier or to wait for a clinic that might be coming to their school or district how how are they to sort of lay their options yeah the here's how it's going to work we'll start releasing where we're going to go here in the next they will be contacted the school will be contacted we'll set up a time for the clinic at the same time we'll set up an alternative for wall greens during that time they're not going to be sort of set up separately it's going to be all together as they're being set up so that it's all coordinated and we can get the list of wall greens of that particular school or that school district or that area in which we're vaccinating i would say in the next week uh we will have that list available um we will see how the sign up goes in various uh places which i'll talk about on friday i'll give you um how registration is going to be happening on friday i will also uh then set up the schedule once we have registration set up the schedule beyond that okay and then one final question probably for commissioner levine um uh does johnson and johnson vaccination get treated any differently in terms of the um relaxed uh travel and social gathering um guidance uh do you wait two weeks after the johnson vaccination or four weeks before you're given the green light of the state or to to mingle with another household so there should be no uh difference with regard to the guidance whichever vaccine you received since it is a one dose it would be two weeks after that dose though as i said in my earlier comments you'll be far more protected uh by the four week mark thank you everyone so we've been getting several questions from for monitors who've gotten vaccines at three different lawgreens locations um they were given the Pfizer shot and then we're told for their second shot it will be scheduled four weeks down into the three when the patients brought that up if the print is concerned they were told about how it's being done is that advisable from the health department's perspective is that something you all heard about being done i know there's one that's three weeks and one that's four weeks but uh dr levine in the best of all worlds it'd be best if you do the three week one of three weeks and the four week one of four weeks but the messaging really all along has been that's a rough idea you know might fall on a day of the week somebody can't be there might fall on a weekend when they're not around or what have you so the reality is um you want people to come close we've uh decided within the health department that there's really a window of about two weeks on either side that would actually be effective the cdc recently came out and said if you go as long as six weeks with the for the second dose that's okay they wouldn't recommend any longer than six weeks so again i don't want to sound imprecise and say that you know that that um if you missed by the day you would do better or do worse but the reality is the trials were set up with those parameters so those are the ones we should follow but the precision with which you get at that exact day there is a window of opportunity and if somebody was going to go one week longer on the vaccine that uh required a three week interval and they went four weeks i really don't think that would have any significant impact based on um what we know this far so the student will agree to be following the cdc recommendations as a rule as you mentioned kind of just a general guideline well i think i it's not the cdc recommendations it's actually the manufacturer recommendations and the stipulation with which the vaccines were released for emergency use authorization but i did say that if for some reason a person waited as long as six weeks that's within the parameters that the cdc says would be okay but i wouldn't necessarily want everyone to err on that side of the equation they should be closer to the three and four week mark okay thank you well i guess my first question is why why were new report inmates vaccinated before the corrections officers and now that the that inmates are being vaccinated will doc consider allowing vital outside services like prison ministries and alcohol synonymous to visit in person yeah i think the confusion lies and we've used the age banding approach in vermont and that included the offender population so if they were 75 and over 70 and over now 65 and over they were included in that as were the staff but however staff isn't typically over 65 so they're all included so it's going to take a while before the entire population is vaccinated but you know again just like the rest of us there everyone's just going to have to wait their turn so it was it was not based on inmate or guard status it was completely on age you're saying that's right but i will say the the public safety um the what we're doing an expansion of one a phase one a in public safety will include the correctional officers okay excuse me how about the how about the allowing outside services to come in now that now that inmates are being vaccinated but but they aren't you know that's it's the vast population if you look at the population it's only the you know 65 and over so we're still going to have to we'll consider that as we move forward but again it's about having everyone vaccinated before we introduce anyone from the outside coming in the reason we're doing the correctional officers is that is the only port of entry for the virus right now is staff so that's the only way it can come in to the facility so if we can you know establish a perimeter so to speak and defend that perimeter then we should be able to keep everyone safe okay my second question is uh i've just been told by a church leader that his church distributed food boxes in february but has been excluded for march because one of our congressional leaders doesn't want churches distributing these food boxes is this anything that you have heard about your perhaps mike smith have heard about and uh if so what what's your reaction i i have not heard about this but uh secretary smith may have i believe you're talking about guy and i don't know but i i believe you're talking about the farm to families program and what we had found is that the distribution the contractor the federal contractor had basically not provided enough money into the contract to have an adequate distribution system within the state they got the they got the food to the state they did rely on um those sort of religious organizations to help distribute that but from what i heard those organizations were overwhelmed and what we did is we did step in as a state provided money in order to go back to the system that was originally done and was successful and that's going through the local food banks for distribution and from what i understand that system is starting to work much much better than the system that was in place so what i'm hearing on the ground is that the the church thing was was going great was all volunteer uh and they're sort of wondering hey we were doing a great job what's what's up with that is there any chance that they can be worked back into that system well what i was hearing on the ground is just the the opposite that the uh system was overwhelmed it wasn't being distributed the way that it should be and it wasn't to be distributed as fast as it should be how we can integrate those volunteers i'm willing i'm all ears um if we've got volunteers that are eager to help with distribution i'm certainly all ears on that okay thank you okay thank you very much and we'll uh we'll be back with you on friday thanks