 Good afternoon, everyone. Today we'll be giving our weekly modeling and data report and talk vaccines. As you know, Vermont continues to lead the nation in vaccinations, approaching 84% of our eligible population receiving one dose and about 75% who are fully vaccinated. As we said when we reached the 80% milestone and ended the state of emergency, we're not letting up. And what we're seeing across the country shows exactly why we can't. For the past several weeks, parts of the country with low vaccination rates have seen a dramatic increase in cases and hospitalizations. As you probably heard, this is being driven by the more transmissible delta variant. Fortunately, and this is important, the vaccines are proving effective against all variants we've encountered so far, including Delta. As the director of the CDC put it, this is becoming a pandemic of the unvaccinated. And on a much smaller scale that is bearing out here in Vermont as well. The data clearly shows the risk of becoming a case is significantly higher for unvaccinated adults versus vaccinated. And when you look at hospitalizations and deaths, the data is even more stark. Even though cases here in Vermont are slightly increasing, and I want to repeat slightly, we're still seeing very low hospitalization numbers and only one death in July. That's because we've done such a good job vaccinating our most vulnerable. Those with underlying health conditions and those above 60, which is now about 90%. While a lot of attention is paid to so-called breakthrough cases, the real message here is if you want to avoid getting or spreading COVID-19, and if you want to make sure you recover if you do contract it, we hope you'll get your vaccine today. We're at the very least talked to a trusted healthcare provider about it. The best tool we have to defeat the Delta variant is vaccination. Think about it for a second. About 16 months ago, many, many of us didn't believe that we'd have vaccines by now. Some speculated that it would take years and years before we had one that was effective. But with the incredible efforts of scientists, the administration, and the private sector, we have multiple highly effective and safe vaccines that can put this pandemic to an end. There are still about 90,000 Vermonters who are eligible who haven't gotten their shots. When you look at the age breakdown, although we're making gains, younger people still lag behind their parents and grandparents. For those over 30, well over 80% have received at least one dose. For Vermonters between 22 and 29, we're at 62%. For 18 to 21, we're at 50%. For 16 and 17 year olds, as you remember, we gave them a week or two heads up and a little bit of a head start because we wanted them to experience a more normal graduation. We lead the country with 71%. And for 12 to 15, we're also a national leader at 63%. But with school just five weeks away, now is the time for children who haven't been vaccinated to do so in order to be fully protected by the start of the school year. So whether you haven't gotten around to it yet, or you're a parent of a child getting ready for the start of classes, it's never too late to protect yourself and your loved ones. In a few minutes, Secretary Smith will go over all the places you can get your vaccine this week. But first, I'll turn it over to Commissioner P check for the data presentation. Thank you very much, Governor, and good afternoon, everyone. Reviewing recent COVID-19 data, we see again how interconnected our country is. About five weeks ago, COVID-19 cases started to rise in the United States. About four weeks ago, cases started to rise here in the Northeast. And then about three weeks ago, they started to rise here in Vermont, reminding us again that Vermont is not an island. But as the governor said, unlike many other parts of the country, Vermont's high vaccination rates have helped keep cases lower and have kept severe outcomes to a minimum. This week, we are reporting 171 new COVID-19 cases. Again, with most of those cases being among those not fully vaccinated. And regarding breakthrough cases, this week, we are sharing a new analysis on the screen. You can see Vermont's overall case rate. This takes our 14 day average and compares it to the Vermont population. On the next slide, you will again see Vermont's overall case rate. But you will also see the case rates for the fully vaccinated population represented by the blue line at the bottom. And those who are not fully vaccinated represented by the orange line on the top. A really big takeaway is how stable our case rates have been over the last four months among the fully vaccinated population. To illustrate this point, let's compare April 1st to this week. On April 1st, Vermont was seeing 2.6 breakthrough cases a day on average. And yesterday, that average was 5.3. However, back on April 1st, we only had 127,000 fully vaccinated Vermonters. And now that number stands at 420,000. So although the total number of breakthrough cases is higher today, we are actually seeing fewer breakthrough cases today relative to Vermont's fully vaccinated population. And comparing the highest vaccinated states to the least vaccinated states, we again see real life evidence of the effectiveness of the vaccines. We can see that cases are much lower in the higher vaccinated states. And most importantly, we see that vaccinations and particularly deaths are considerably lower. And when we add Vermont to this analysis, we see how much lower the nation's highest vaccinated state is. Vermont currently has the lowest hospitalization rate in the country, and was the only state to not report a fatality this week. And looking at the most recent forecast, we do expect cases to remain elevated compared to where they were in June. And we expect that to continue for the next number of weeks, again driven by the more transmissible Delta variant spreading among those who remain unvaccinated in Vermont. And it's important to keep in mind if someone decides not to be vaccinated, they are choosing not only to endanger themselves, but those who they live with, work with and socialize with, and ultimately are helping prolong the pandemic. But here in Vermont, we do continue to see progress. We had an additional 2,153 Vermonters starting vaccination this week, increasing the percentage of eligible Vermonters who have received at least one dose to a nation leading 83.6%. And again, Vermont continues to be the leader across the board when it comes to vaccination progress. We're also seeing some signs of hope across the country when it comes to vaccinations. The US average in terms of those starting vaccination crept up this week, driven largely by increases in states that are seeing the highest COVID case counts, and particularly Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana and Florida. And you can see on the chart that those who have initiated vaccination did creep up this week in those states. Again, some good news on the horizon. And finally, some other good news on the horizon. About six weeks ago, we talked about the increase in cases in the UK, driven by the Delta variant, and then how that Delta variant eventually took seed here in the United States and spread. But over the last six days, cases in the United Kingdom have continued to track down. Now it's too early to tell whether that is a trend, whether that's an anomaly in the data. But it's certainly the first positive sign that we've seen from the UK, giving some indication that over the next three, four, five weeks, cases in the United States potentially will come down as well since we are about four or five weeks behind the United Kingdom in terms of their case growth. So again, some potentially favorable news, and we'll keep a close eye on that over the next few weeks. And at this time, I'd like to turn it over to Secretary Smith. Thank you, Commissioner Pitchick. Good morning, everyone. As we're good afternoon, everyone. I'm so used to the 11 o'clock start. As mentioned earlier, we continue to maintain our number one position in the country in almost every vaccine category. As of this morning, we are approaching 84 percent, as you saw on the screen, 83.6 to be precise of eligible Vermonters. 12 years old and above have received at least one dose of the vaccine, and 74.7 percent of all eligible Vermonters are fully vaccinated. I want to thank Vermonters for stepping up to get vaccinated. If you haven't done so already, please get your shot. As Commissioner Pitchick has illustrated, COVID cases are rising, especially in specific regions of the country. First, I want to remind Vermonters of the various opportunities to get tested for COVID-19. And if you're traveling, especially to one of the spots that are seeing a spike in cases, you may wish to take the extra precaution and get tested upon your return to the state. This is especially important if you are unvaccinated. We still have a robust testing infrastructure offering testing at more than 23 locations throughout the state. And I urge Vermonters to take advantage of them. You can find the testing locations at the Health Department website at healthvermont.gov. Very soon, we will be transitioning to COVID resource centers that will offer both testing and vaccines. So we will continue to have plenty of testing opportunities. Now, let's move on to the many available opportunities to get vaccinated. You can still walk into pharmacies. Call your local pharmacist or visit a CVS, Hannaford Food and Drugs, Walmart, Walgreens, price choppers slash Market32, Rite Aid, Shaw's Supermarket, or Costco. The following clinics are on the same schedule as the previous weeks. University of Vermont Medical Center Pharmacy locations at the UVM MC main campus, Fannie Allen and South Prospect Street, as well as weekdays at the community health centers of Burlington and Northwestern Medical Center Urgent Care Clinic and Daily at the Southwestern Vermont Medical Center Express Care. Here's where you'll find 27 other pop-up clinics this week. Today, Johnson State Skate Park in Johnson, the Chester American Legion, the Jericho Market in Jericho. Tomorrow, July 28th, White River Junction District Office, that's the AHS District Office, Bliss Village Store in Delhi in Bradford, Vermont, Gifford Health Care in Randolph, Waterbury Ambulance in Waterbury Center, and the Berry, 1311 Berry Montpelier Road that's behind the Burger King in Berlin. On Thursday, July 29th, Northeastern Vermont Regional Hospital in St. John's Berry, Wilmington Flea Market on Route 9, White River Junction District Office, again, Johnson's Sterling Market on lower Main Street in Johnson and Waterbury's Farmer Market in the middle of Waterbury. On Friday, Coburn's General Store in South Stratford, the community covered in Rutland, the Glover Ambulance Bay in Glover, the Scutney Outdoor Club in West Windsor, the Hardwick Farmers Market that's on 140 Granite Street, the Vermont Distillers at Hogback Overlook in Marlboro, Buxton Store in Orwell, again, 1311 Berry Montpelier Road behind the Burger King in Berlin, and the Walden Fire Station on Route 12. The Saturday, July 31st, the Bellows Falls Old Homes Day in Bellows Falls, the Fire Department is putting that on, the Scutney Outdoor Club again in West Windsor, the Grand Isle Sheriff's Department, and that's right up on Isle Circle in Grand Isle, Stowe Community Church in Stowe at 137 Main Street, and on Sunday, August 1st, Thunder Road Speedway. Again, please take advantage of the many opportunities available to be vaccinated and to get tested for COVID-19. It has never been easier or more important. Thank you, all Vermonters, for doing your part to protect yourself, your loved ones, and your communities. I'll now turn it over to Dr. Levine for a health update. Thank you. As a country, we're in an unfortunate stage of the pandemic. After many months of decreasing coronavirus infections, hospitalizations, and deaths, we're seeing that trend reverse in other parts of the U.S. where vaccination rates are low. This, sadly, has left millions of people still vulnerable to the virus. In Vermont, however, the picture is still hopeful. We continue to see slightly higher numbers of cases, but importantly, our hospitalization and deaths remain very low, a sign that our high levels of vaccination are keeping Vermonters safe. But this evolving pandemic means a continuing focus on emerging questions, new studies, whether booster shots are coming, the effects of variants. It can seem like things are as complicated as they ever were. But we continue to follow the science we have and monitor new information as quickly as it comes out. So I'd like to emphasize what we do know. The best way to protect yourself right now is to get vaccinated. If you're vaccinated, you're highly protected against severe illness, hospitalization, and death, including from the Delta variant. Anyone who's not vaccinated is still vulnerable to experiencing the worst of COVID-19 and continues the potential to expose others to the virus, prolonging the pandemic for all. The main reason why we still struggle with the virus, even here in Vermont, is the cycle of increased transmission of virus among the unvaccinated population, which continues to lead to more opportunities for mutations and the production of more variant strains. That's evolution in real time occurring right before our eyes. I know there are people who may still have questions about the vaccine, who may have wanted to take more time before making the decision. So I want to emphasize again that we are here to help, along with your doctor, family, and friends. We want to make vaccination as easy as possible and for you to feel confident in your decision to protect yourself. But with more transmissible variants and cases rising, now's the time. People who are not vaccinated are the perfect hosts for the virus to set up shop, multiply, and mutate. I urge you to get your shot sooner, rather than later, and not become part of the pandemic of the unvaccinated. I've discussed here and it has been reported in the news, some people do become infected with COVID-19, even if they've been vaccinated, the so-called breakthrough cases. However, as I hope you observed on Commissioner Pichek's slides, there is not an epidemic of cases among people in Vermont who have been vaccinated. In addition, and this is very important for everyone to know, the data continues to show that people who have been vaccinated are far, far less likely to experience serious illness, hospitalization, or death if they do become infected. As we see nationally, the majority of severe outcomes are almost exclusively in the unvaccinated. Because obviously, after vaccination, your body has new defenses to fight that infection, and that's why you are so much more protected. If you've already had COVID, we still want you to get vaccinated. That's because we don't yet know how long you're protected from getting sick again after you've recovered from COVID. Studies have shown pretty conclusively that vaccination provides a strong boost in protection in people who have already recovered from an episode of COVID. You can get vaccinated as soon as you've completed the 10-day isolation period. If you received monoclonal antibodies, the CDC recommends waiting 90 days. A CDC advisory committee met last week and discussed guidance for people who have conditions that might impact their immune system. They are not currently recommending either an additional dose of vaccine or a booster dose for this population. But if the FDA provides an emergency use authorization for that, they will evaluate the data once again. I also want to remind people about testing. With positivity rates in the U.S. and around the world, literally all over the map, if you travel to places with a lot of virus circulating or spend time with people who do, you can consider getting tested. Being tested is the only way for you to know if you've been infected with the COVID-19 virus, and testing as well as common sense prevention efforts are recommended regardless of vaccination status. Testing locations throughout Vermont, as you've heard, can be found at healthvermont.gov slash COVID-19. So finally, to sum up, our fastest way out of the pandemic and to protecting everyone's health is to achieve the highest vaccination rate possible. If you are vaccinated, you took the single most important step to protecting yourself, the people around you, and your community. And I again thank you. And if you can be vaccinated, but you aren't yet, go to healthvermont.gov slash COVID-19, where we've made it as easy as possible for you to quickly find a place, including the places that were listed by the Secretary a moment ago, a place near you to get your shot. And I hope you'll do that today. Governor. Thank you, Dr. Levine. We'll now open it up to questions. Governor, on the number of states, well, I guess California and New York City, and now the VA are requiring vaccinations. Have you given any thought to that in Vermont for state employees? Yeah, not in Vermont. When you have a vaccination rate of about 84 percent in climbing, we're in a much better position than other states. So I don't think that's necessary at this point in time. Some outlets are reporting that the CDC later today is going to announce in places with high infection rates masking indoors, regardless of vaccination status. What do you make of that that depending news? And do you think Vermont would have to at some point have to do something similar? Yeah, I think the CDC is looking at their map and noticing the fact that there are many states that have very high incidence rates of new cases. Some of them are having significantly high hospitalization rates as well. And they're trying to look at the data they have, which I have not seen yet, but they've reported that there are some new pieces of data that they have just begun to look at, that knew even from last week that apparently are convincing them that there are places where their transmission rates are so high that they feel that returning to mitigation processes like masking would be helpful. So I can't really give you an opinion on that. I haven't really seen the data. All I can say is the fact that they're doing it in a way that recognizes there are places that have higher transmission versus lower transmission does make some public health sense, if you will. So I think that that's something reasonable in some of those states. I don't think to answer the last part of your question that Vermont would see much of an impact by what's going to come out because we're going to be considered one of the very low transmission states at this point in time. And it would again just be the travel guidance I kind of provided in my opening comments. People would naturally want to be more careful if they're traveling to a place that has higher levels of community transmission. They might also want to be tested when they return, even if they're feeling well, just because they've been to a place of higher level of transmission. What are your thoughts this week about masks indoors in schools? Mask indoors in schools? Well, certainly we're going to come up with a decision on that probably at this press conference next week. We're currently meeting on that right now as we speak. If the vaccination rate doesn't get appreciably better in some of the states where it's not that high, do you expect to see some of the restrictions return that the state had, including restrictions on people entering the state? I don't think that we've really have a situation like that at this point in time. I think we're then looking at our data like we always look at and we're basically seeing, as you saw on the graphics, where things are and they've been kind of stable. We had reported 11 cases yesterday. We have five to six people in the hospital at this time. Knock on wood. We've had no deaths really in the month of July, except one. So there's not a reason for us to take an alarmist kind of stance and make any major changes. Yeah, I think we just have to reflect on how far we've come in a year. Think back about a year ago, last summer. There were no fairs at that point in time. There's no gatherings of any substance. Restaurants were restricted, and people were staying home in a lot of respects. That's all changed. Everything's open. I mean, the Memorial County Fair opened up this past weekend. I had a lot of people attending. I was, I went to a number of parades this year. A lot of people there as well, no masks and people just enjoying being outside. And we had 11 cases yesterday, as Dr. Levine had said. We have five or six in the hospital as of today. So from the beginning, we wanted to make sure that our healthcare system was protected, that we didn't overwhelm the healthcare system. And we've done that, and it's very low and very low risk. So we've done a great job here in Vermont, and we should take advantage of that in a lot of respects. And the traffic count that I saw from last week, we're getting close to 2019 levels at this point. So again, we're almost back to normal. So over the course of the pandemic, we've had, I believe, five people hospitalized. And one death in that category. But you're asking the question that I'm asking real time now to get some of the very recent data about the people who were in the hospital most recently. Knowing that on any given day, we literally have either two or three or five or six people. So statistically speaking, it's going to be very hard to make a lot of conclusions from that. It sounds like there's going to be no change in guidance from on high from the administration. Should Vermonters be considering behavioral modifications in light of this light, but perceptible increase in cases here? Wouldn't you say from on high you're talking about the national? No, I'm talking about, it sounds like the governor in consultation with the U.S. no plans to reinstitute the mask mandate, for instance, or reinstitute travel restrictions. But are there things that Vermonters should be doing of their own volition in light of the fact that cases are up now and forecast to start going up? It looked like to more than 50 a day. You're anticipating by August. Sure. Much of it is the same kind of advice we've been giving all through the pandemic. We have a web page on our COVID website that is labeled how to protect yourself. And it gives some suggestions because you're right. We've not set any policies regarding any of this. Most people who are feeling that their immune system is not up to speed, whether they've had a history of cancer or under current treatment for cancer, or have some immune suppressing drugs that they take. We obviously tell them, both locally and nationally, that they should always be exercising more care because of the scientific data that indicates that they may not have the same response to a vaccine that a person with a more intact immune system has. And then we have people who are either unable to or have chosen not to be vaccinated. And there's advice on that page regarding the usual kinds of strategies they can take in terms of their personal hygiene, avoiding crowded situations, etc. Governor, your colleague, Governor Sununu, just signed a Medical Freedom from Immunization Bill the other day, declaring that it's your right not to get a vaccine. Would you sign such a bill here? Do we need such a bill there? If not, why not? I don't believe we need a bill of that for Vermont. We have 84% being vaccinated at this point in time. And again, it's still climbing. So when you think about that, we're in a much better position than in New Hampshire even, although they're not in the lower category. They're in the upper category amongst the Northeast States. So it may be a statement, but I don't think we need that incentive. I don't think it would work. And I just don't think that we need to have that. We've already allowed people to make their own decisions. We're just trying to educate and do the best we can to make it as easy as possible for them to get vaccinated. And they've taken advantage of that. So again, I think we have a little ways to go, but we keep chipping away at it every single week. So this isn't a Republican talking point, so to speak? From this Republican, no. Have you learned anything more about your request for Northern Governors meeting with Canada? Yes. We're still waiting. We brought it through the channels, so to speak, with the National Governance Association, because we wanted to give other Governors the opportunity to sign on and make sure that they could attend the meeting. So it's slowed a bit, but we're still waiting for other Governors to sign on to a letter requesting the meeting at this point. So we hope they will react to that quickly, and because there is a lot of interest from other Governors as well as we found out once we started talking about it. Proponents of a statewide paid family and medical leave program are going to be sort of relaunching their campaign to get some momentum behind that later this week. You had talked about the pandemic sort of thwarting your initial attempts to create the program, the voluntary program that you had called for. Where does that stand, and are you beginning to revisit? We are. We are looking at that as we speak. We're trying to, we want to put the RFP back out and see if we can move forward with that on the voluntary basis. And I know on a national scale the other package that the President and others, Senator Sanders, have been talking about, the $3.5 trillion package has paid family leave and that as well. So we'll see where that goes, but here in Vermont we want to continue to move forward on the voluntary plan. Is your RFP out yet? It is not yet, but we're putting it together. Governor, it looks like last week, last month the general fund was up quite a bit since the tune of $33 billion or so. What do you make of where we are, this economic moment? Well, it's good news, right? As opposed to what we thought was going to happen when the pandemic first reared its ugly head. And so with all the money that has been coming through the doors from the federal government, it's created a lot of economic activity. And we benefited from that substantially here in Vermont. Obviously the year's end will over $200 million in surplus. So again, good news. We'll have an emergency board meeting on Friday where we'll take a look and see where we're at and where we want to go in the future, whether we're going to upgrade that projection. But I just want to just put a tone of caution out there. I'm not sure how solid this foundation is, because a lot of it is based on an influx of federal money. So I just want to be at least keep our eyes wide open, not get too accustomed to this, because once the federal money starts flowing in, and it may not be right now, obviously we still have a lot of the arbor money coming in. I just want to be careful, that's all. But it's good news for Vermont. A question for Dr. Levine. We had some smoky skies out there yesterday and some poor air quality. Have you given any thought to how people dealing with long COVID might react to being outside all day in an area with poor air quality? I know it's not as cut and dry as some of the other long and hard issues, but did you give that any thought on what that person might be going through? Yeah, I didn't give a thought for that population specifically, more the population of people who have some chronic respiratory disease. So a bigger umbrella that would cover that population. I wish I could tell you we knew enough about long COVID that it would be easy to answer the question, because it's really something that's under real-time study right now. There are people whose manifestation of long COVID is shortness of breath. There are people whose manifestation of long COVID is poor exercise tolerance. But there are many others who are only talking about fatigue or a brain fog syndrome. Not that that's only, because those are terrible as much. But by the same token, we don't have good data that shows us the lungs of people with long COVID are actually damaged in some irreversible way with scarring and things of that sort. So I'd rather look at it just as a picture of people who might have a respiratory condition. In which case, those last couple days, the appearance of the sky was hazy. When you look on the weather service site, we were in that zone between yellow and red. Yellow being not as good as green, obviously, but you could do okay outside. Getting towards the red is more like being out in the West where the fires were actually occurring. So I was concerned at that point in time. Dr. Luby, I don't know if this is a question you could know the answer to, but the seven-day new case count for July of the July 27th of this year is higher than it was for the seven-day, the same period last year. And yet we have a 83% vaccination right now. We had a 0% vaccination rate then. Is the reason for that more to do with the fact that everybody is communing again in spaces or is it the Delta variant that's driving that? I would think it's a little more by the Delta variant. It's just a more transmissible virus. It's being talked about as 60% more transmissible than the one that came before it, which was the B117, which was more transmissible by 50% over the original one that we started with. So I think it's the transmission rates more than anything else. People are outside. There's nothing that would make me reverse the fact that scientifically we know way reduced chances of transmitting virus in an outdoor environment. And even though people have been in indoor environments, we're just not seeing that kind of spike in cases that would get us that concerned. Dr. Levine, and maybe Secretary Smith on this one, what are you seeing for data in terms of uptake of the vaccine among primary care providers? I know that was one of the big strategies that the state returned to. Yeah, so the number of primary care providers that are now fully enrolled and trained is very high in the states, not everybody, but it's certainly much higher. And I know that they're deploying a vaccine, but I think what we're seeing is that the population that would probably benefit the most from that site would be those who really wanted the comfort and safety of getting the vaccine in that setting and talking to the people they trusted the most in that setting. And based on the incremental increases in that percentage, now up to 83.6, but obviously before primary care was involved, it was at least a percentage lower, we're seeing increases. I just don't want you to think that they're dramatic increases. They're making a difference. It's part of a multi-prong strategy. That's why all the sites that were described are still going to be coming online because we'll get other Vermonters to stumble over the vaccine in those settings or to even plan to get the vaccine in those settings. But in the primary care setting, it's going to be incremental, but not huge jumps. But still an important part of the system. And that will continue on. Secretary, did you have anything to add? Are we getting any closer to enforcement action against Slate Ridge in the following? We're still monitoring the situation. Obviously they've taken a different approach, a approach that they have tried to take from the beginning and working through the court system in terms of zoning violations and so forth and other sanctions against the owner. So is it now just sort of been a... We're still monitoring, obviously. I want to keep everyone safe, but it seems to have subsided a bit at this point in time, but we're still paying attention. All right, I'll move to the phones now, starting with Eric and Nichols Frazier, the value reporter. We anticipate... You anticipate insurance companies charging higher premiums for folks who are unvaccinated like they do for other high-risk behaviors? I'm going to ask the expert to answer this one. Mr. Pichett. Thank you, Governor. So we don't... This question was asked a few months ago and we don't anticipate that being the case. I mean, obviously the case rates are up a bit, but hospitalization rates are still steady and they've been low. And with our high vaccination rate, it probably won't mean much in terms of an impact at this point. But we do have regulations that are in place and we're planning to extend them that requires commercial health insurers to cover the cost of treatment, preventative or inpatient or outpatient treatment. And the health insurers do have that budgeted in their projections for 2021 and 2022. So we don't anticipate that in Vermont. Okay, great. And is the agency of education asking school districts to prepare for both in-person and hybrid learning in the fall? Is Secretary French on the line? Yes, good afternoon, Governor. At this point, we're directing schools to prepare for full in-person instruction. We haven't given out any direction on doing both remote and in-person. Thank you. Michael Doherty, Vermont Digger. Hi, thank you. I'd like to ask why in the vaccination dashboard, as well as the numbers that we tend to be seeing at these press conferences, the focus remains the sort of top-line vaccination rates among the eligible population. When it seems as though given the risk that we talked about with the Delta variant that knowing the percentage of the total population that's out in public that hasn't been fully vaccinated seems to be more of the key number when we're thinking about the transmissibility here. What's the reason for kind of maintaining the top-line numbers, the way that they're being presented? I'll ask Commissioner Pichek to answer that. But maybe I'd ask a question back. Are you seeing a different metric being used across the country? We're just trying to be consistent with everyone else. Certainly, I think that what we've seen is that different numbers are reported in different situations. But certainly, as a pertain to the Delta variant, it seems that there's been more attention paid to the total number of people who might be in a given place that are not fully vaccinated given that that somewhat represents more of the risk. And I would also say specifically here in Vermont, given that the vaccination rate isn't consistent from county to county that there might be places here where the top-line number might be masking groups or geographic areas where potentially more than passes to people might be not actually fully vaccinated and therefore more susceptible. Commissioner Pichek. Yeah, thank you for the question. I think when you look at the percent of eligibility, it's really getting at the question of what's the willingness of your population to get vaccinated. So that continues to be a high interest to us here in Vermont and across the country. And obviously, the data shows that we have a very high willingness in Vermont for people to get vaccinated. In terms of showing the full population, we certainly do that every week. Our vaccine scorecard includes that 73.9% this week, 65.9% fully vaccinated. So we've used those numbers quite frequently. Those are the numbers that are often used for trying to determine herd immunity and those kind of thresholds. But again, we do report that every week. And it is certainly also an important number, not to say it's not an important number, but obviously if children cannot get the vaccine, if a large percentage of your population can't get the vaccine and you're trying to determine a willingness to get it, then obviously focusing on the eligible population makes more sense. Thank you. I had one other question that was wondering whether there's been any change in the amount of sequencing that we've been doing to detect the presence of specific variants, just given how quickly the Delta variant has become dominant and hearing now that there may be other variants on the way, has there been any change to the amount of sequencing that we've been doing of test samples on that? I'll let Dr. Levine answer that. But going back to the previous question, I was just thinking that if all states were to give their eligible population, we'd still be the leader in the country because of our demographics. As you probably are aware, Mike, we're the third oldest state in the country and it's very close between us, Hampshire and Maine. So that would even push us up the ladder a little bit further, I think, if everyone reported on the overall population. So I think we're still in great shape. Dr. Levine. And I'd echo that and some numbers are more helpful because they help you define your strategies about getting to the part of the population that's still not taken the vaccine but could have if they wanted to. So it's really important to us to be able to know what percentage of the population is in that group. With regard to whole genome sequencing, the way that gets done in the state of Vermont is three separate ways. One is through the CDC's 50-state approach which does a random sampling state to state. The second is through our partnership with the Broad Laboratory in Boston, who does a lot of the testing at our state COVID resource centers. And then the third way is through our own public health lab with the samples that might come their way. Now the public health lab does a select amount of sampling in the state often based on outbreak situations, often based on vulnerable populations. So those three separate pools. So the CDC pool is a very small number and it's less predictable in terms of when you'll know it but it's about every week we'll get some information from that. The Broad is a batch operation so it can literally go several weeks between times that they run their batch and the public health lab is usually much quicker although this is not a same-day test so it takes the number of days to probably a week to get a result and it can only go on the smaller number of samples without doing it that lab. So the strategy is still to sample as much as possible and with the number of cases we have in Vermont we can sample a higher percentage of them. I just can't give you results as quickly as I'd like to from any of those because of the fact that they're less predictable and don't come back with the same frequency. But we are seeing some more deltas in Vermont for sure. CDC looks at about 15 states and in the 15 states they've looked at which don't include Vermont but are scattered across the country, five of those states have rates of Delta greater than 50 percent. The remaining have rates somewhere higher than 10 and lower than 50 percent but it's usually still the leading variant in the states that they report from. B117 has gone down pretty significantly but it's still the second leading strain found and then things like South African and Brazil are now being found at much much lower levels nationwide. All right, thank you. Tim McQuiston for Vermont Business Magazine. Good afternoon Governor. I have an economic development question for you. When we talk to employers and development officials they talk about the usual impediments to economic development like broadband and housing and workforce but another thing that keeps coming up consistently now and more now is child care. You've talked in the past about holding preschool and the public school system. Unlike those infrastructure projects there's something that could be done relatively quickly, certainly quicker than some of these other problems. Is that something that they'd be willing to push the legislation to move through maybe even not only preschool but even preschool moving that into the public school system into the public school building something like that to take care of this or help take care of this problem? Well for a number of years as you know we've focused on the cradle to career concept and that is certainly something that will continue to work towards seeking help from the legislature and making that happen because as you said child care is an issue for many and we want to make sure that we provide that capacity because this is an influential time of the child's life as well as an impediment to many getting to work. So there's a lot of areas it's not just the physical infrastructure but it's workforce there as well. I mean we have challenges in every single sector as you well know Tim and child care providers are an example of another sector that is in demand as well. So we'll continue to provide any means we can to alleviate that situation and move again towards this cradle to career concept that I've spoken so much about over the last four to five years. Looking at the general fund revenue that just came out there seems to be plenty of money available to do something with the child care issue in relative to that. That's what I was thinking. Yeah well again there will be a number of areas that we want to invest the money we'll have our ideas on how that would be best spent and I'm sure the legislature has a few ideas of their own. So I don't think you'll see anything out of the ordinary from our standpoint as we present our budget in January same type of things that the same type of things that we've been promoting over the last four or five years but again cradle to career is something that we've spoken a lot about early care and learning in particular. Chris Roy, Newport Daily Express. Yeah if there's going to be any new mandates any changes as soon as head back to the classroom? Yeah Dr. Levine and Secretary French amongst others are talking about that as we speak. I would say next week hopefully and if not the week after we'll be able to provide more guidance but again the good news is they're going back to school in person full time. So that's the good news. We couldn't say that a year ago. Okay thank you Governor. Guy Page, Vermont Daily Chronicle. Hello Vibner. Yesterday we published the first person account about a state employee who underwent the mandatory equity and diversity training for state employees. He said the instructor refused to take any questions. The instructor saying that questions are self-serving. Said that being colorblind is racist and that the nuclear family was something quote pushed on us unquote by the white power structure. Also said he's been threatened now twice with job termination for questioning aspects of this instruction and says that a coming equity audit on state employees will feature a inclusion score that measures the employee level of belonging in the work environment. So hearing this and I'm sure you've you've heard about this you know of the last few months off and on. Do you support the idea of an equity audit of state employees and do you have any concerns about how this equity and diversity training is being carried out? First of all this is something new I have not heard about this and sounds like an HR issue that we'll have to maybe there's been some formal complaint by this one individual that they're working on but I have not heard about this in terms of equity training and I think it's important it's something that I think we all have to be aware of and sensitive to and we'll continue to provide that education for our employees. But if you sense that in the process of doing this there's perhaps some lines being crossed is that something that that your administration would take a look at and say is this being done right? Sure yeah I mean we can always improve and we want to first of all you know this isn't we want to educate people much like we have with the pandemic it's been about not forcing people but educating them so that they make the right decisions and we've been successful with the pandemic hopefully we'll be successful with the the racial equity training as well but we can always improve obviously. The part that it seems to me perhaps more forced than educational is the equity audit where this becomes essentially it sounds like part of an employee's performance review how well they score on their equity audit is were you aware of any of this and what's your kind of initial take on that? Yeah I am not aware of the equity audit but we'll take a look and see I just I'm just not aware of that. Okay thank you Kevin. Viora Engelsmith Vermont Digger Yeah this is the question for the health officials so we have about 90,000 folks who are not vaccinated yet and we talked a little bit about the fact that they're younger but I wonder of these this group like how many folks are refusing to get vaccinated versus sort of having an access issue and it's so sort of how does how do you get final sort of reaching as many people as possible are there any initiatives for specific groups so that you know we get to the the herd immunity that we're all kind of trying to get? That's Levine. I think I got most of what you are asking about it's really approaches to people who have still not got vaccinated but are eligible to get vaccinated so I've quoted before and I'll do it again we have a couple of pieces of survey data some from the Kaiser Family Foundation some from a New York Times article that covered all the states and really looked to try to categorize people who have not gotten vaccinated in various groupings the most resistant grouping were people who are very skeptical of vaccine or very mistrustful of government and needless to say that varied from state to state but in Vermont that was our smallest group well under five percent of people very challenging group to deal with one can only hope that efforts to be transparent like we are here and communicate broadly and engage with people would allow some of that skepticism to decrease and willingness to get vaccinated increase because they would gain trust in public officials and in their government the rest of the spectrum of people who hadn't gotten vaccinated were more in the group of either people who just hadn't put it in their priority list didn't feel that they could take time off from work or were concerned about getting side effects the day after the vaccine and missing some work or it just wasn't on their radar screen and efforts to help that group of people which was a little larger in Vermont but still relatively small since we're only dealing with now 16 percent of the eligible population that group has really been our strategy of trying to meet the Vermont or where they are and bring the vaccine to them make it so easy to stumble upon that if there's three friends that are walking to a beach together or to a fair or some other major event and two of them have been vaccinated and the third hasn't it's like well look there's a tent right there we're here now why don't you just do it it looks quick and easy so that kind of strategy which is very very important but the reality is we brought the vaccine to places where I don't think other states had even dreamed you could do that and now we're finding that some of them are trying to mirror what we've done here so the so-called barnstorming approach with trusted people in the state like public officials in each of those towns EMS has been very very effective in very rural parts of Vermont and will continue obviously the work sites some of them we asked them if we could come to some of the larger employers and we found conditions that would allow us to make that productive in terms of time of day or shift or what have you and asked them to ask us if there were places that we hadn't been to so that we could arrange to help their employees and most employers were eager to make sure their employees were helped so those kinds of strategies as well the bottom line was there's a category that hasn't been well talked about publicly besides people who are totally skeptical or are just what they call vaccine hesitant there are people who are now labeled vaccine apathy or apathetic meaning it's just not on the radar at all and they haven't really got a anything in the game for it like they're not so against it or anything it's just not a priority so we're really trying to reach that group of people with a lot more public education and making sure that they have complete access walk-in appointments no no scheduled appointments needed etc did you have anything you wanted to add you got it okay I'll set the order thank you Greg Lambrough the county courier good afternoon governor I think I wanted to follow up on that last question of the roughly 16 percent of the general public that is still accessible or still of age to be able to get the vaccine I'm wondering have there been any studies that to try to figure out the percent of that population that that has a legitimate medical concern and it can't be vaccinated versus those who just don't want to be versus those who you know it just hasn't been convenient yeah I'd say it's a mixture of all the above but I'm not sure if Tata Levine has any specifics on that but okay I'll let Dr. Levine Greg when you think about it there there are very few medical reasons that you can't get the COVID vaccine when there was only the messenger RNA vaccine available there are a select group of people with significant allergic reactions to some of the components but that's a very very small group and now we have a vaccine J&J that is a totally different platform and that same concern doesn't apply to that so medically speaking let's even say it was two percent it's going to be a very very small percent of all eligible people and not have a super high impact but it is unfortunate for those people and we need to make sure we work with them and have strategies that would allow them to get vaccinated some of that group of people who are advised by the physicians caring for them to not get vaccinated at a certain point in time because they were worried about interrupting treatment for conditions that required some heavy duty immune modulating medications but even in that group there's a point in time that they would reach where that wouldn't have been as big a concern so over the now seven months that we've been using vaccine seven and a half months really I would think that most of that group is now found at a moment in time where they could get vaccinated as well so pretty small is the answer appreciate that back to me governor if and when a booster becomes necessary to continue to battle this virus do you expect that a booster would be free for the general public? I would only be speculating but I would assume so and we'll just have to wait for the recommendations from the CDC and FDA on that and then take take it from there but I would assume that it would be thank you and just lastly governor I think you touched on it a little bit a few minutes ago can you give us a brief update on your work with the possibly trying to get the northern border reopened for vaccinated Canadians to travel to Vermont and I'm specifically wondering if your recent appointment to the council of governors has helped you be able to advocate for reopening the border? Yeah have not on that on that platform we haven't officially met at this point on the council of governors but through the national governor's association again we reached out reached out to governor Hutchinson and governor Murphy and asked them if we could do something through the NGA and they approved that or sending the letters out I believe out to other governors to sign on to so that we can get some others involved and have this meeting with the federal government on this because you know from my standpoint it just doesn't make any sense that the Canadian government has opened up their border and and so that allows Americans to go to Canada and when you compare the risk of the entire country versus the risk you know in terms of COVID to the risk of the the Canadian Canadians they're in they're in better shape than we are as a country certainly we have nothing to fear from them and in a lot of respects so it just doesn't make a lot of sense from my perspective and we should open up the border and allow travel and if they have to reciprocate in terms of the conditions they should just do so I know that there's certain conditions for Americans coming into to Canada and and then we allow them obviously to return through through our border so I just don't know what the problem is we're trying to solve here so we'll learn more once we have the meeting thank you Governor thank you for your time and thank you too Dr. Levine Tom Davis Compass Vermont Tom Davis we'll try Andrew McGregor Calvonian record yes thanks can you hear me we can excellent back to the question of school guidance you mentioned there was ongoing discussion over mask recommendation and other guidance in the works how specific do you expect that guidance to be in comparison to the guidance provided last school year and is it possible that students across the state could have substantially different experiences this fall depending on how aggressive some of the districts precisely get with safety measures well that's to be determined again they're in ongoing discussions we'll see what they come up with next week or the week after so we'll we'll determine at that point what type of guidance that we're going to give obviously our state is the school districts are locally controlled so it would be just that it would be guidance and then they would have to make their own decisions anything you want to add in terms of so without the state of emergency none of the binding guidance and the requirements that were issued last year obviously won't be in place you know one of the one of the criticisms that we've heard from school administrators was some of the ambiguity in that guidance is it going to be even more murky this fall and and so some schools may decide to hob their students and others may keep their cap curious closed and you'll really have kind of a hodgepodge of response depending on what local school boards might be inappropriate response yeah you said a lot there Andrew but I guess hodgepodge wasn't wasn't what I thought it was last year I thought we were fairly clear Dr. Levine just to parse that out a little Secretary French and I plan that the guidance will be clear and it won't be something that one school district could do one thing with and another could do another thing with based on their interpretation of it it would only be based on the decision making as the governor indicated made at the local level the guidance itself will will be will be clear for the state of Vermont thank you very much all right thanks very much for tuning in and we'll see you again next Tuesday