 Good morning everyone and happy New Year's Eve. As we look ahead to next week with kids returning to school, we have Secretary French here with us remotely to give our education update. We know teachers, administrators, parents, and kids are probably feeling some mixed emotions right now looking at next week's return. So we wanted to remind folks of the protocols of our guidance this morning because they did change just a bit from Thanksgiving. As well, we wanted to look ahead a few months at our longer term recovery. Most schools had already closed for the holidays last week when we announced the update to use sports and social gathering guidance. These changes will have a few impacts on our schools. First, winter sports, winter sports teams may begin practicing as long as they follow the guidance. And as I've said, we'll continue to watch the data with hopes of getting games restarted just as soon as possible. Next, as we discussed last week, schools do not have to include a question on their daily health checker about multi-household gatherings. These changes were supported by what we've seen in our schools of violence testing and what we've heard from schools after Thanksgiving. I would, however, remind everyone that we all have a responsibility to keep our schools safe, which means following quarantine guidance for travel and staying home when you're not feeling well or have been in contact with someone who has COVID. Our proven health and safety measures remain in place at our schools. And as we announced before Thanksgiving, our regular testing of school employees continues. Every week, staff at about a quarter of our schools have their opportunity to get tested for the coronavirus, which means almost every staff member can get tested each month. And we've been doing this since mid-November. Since this testing program launched, we found a positivity rate of under 0.26%. Let me say that again, 0.26%. For comparison, the general population is about 10 times that rate, 2 to 2.5% in the same time period. This tells us a few things. First, the risk of transmission is lower in our schools than in the general community. And that's a good thing. It also shows dedication from school employees to follow the guidance in order to keep each other safe and their students learning in school, which I really appreciate. And it indicates that while we've seen some cases associated with schools, there has been very little transmission within the buildings. While there are school-based cases and situations, they are the exception and not the rule. And they're not driving our outbreaks. Again, I believe this is because teachers, administrators, parents, and kids have all done a great job following the rules in creating a safe school environment. I want to thank you for your efforts. It's made a huge impact for our kids, and we're so very grateful. Looking ahead, we know we need to have a plan in place to address other needs kids might have as a result of this pandemic and the disruption it may have had on their learning and development over the past 10 months. Secretary of French will go into more detail shortly, but we're working on how we can best measure the impacts once students are back in person full-time. While we don't have a specific date for when that will be, we hope it will be very soon, so we're preparing now. The Agency of Education will be working with districts and local leaders in the coming weeks, making sure they have the resources and plans in place so we can hit the ground running. Finally, I thought I should note that this is our 100th media briefing since I declared the state of emergency. I want to first thank all the members of the media who have been covering them, asking critical questions, and helping to inform Vermonters. And I want to thank all those who tune in to help understand what you can do to keep yourselves safe, as well as your neighbors. It's your efforts that got us to where we are today, still the lowest in the nation in many categories. As well with the upcoming holiday, I hope you celebrate the end of 2020 safely and responsibly, and adhere to our health guidance. I know this has been an incredibly difficult year full of so many challenges, and many are looking forward to putting all of that behind us. As we move forward into the new year, let's remember the 136 Vermonters who lost their lives through this pandemic, and keep in mind that that number likely would have been much higher if not for our collective action to step up. But let's also understand the risks that remain, and as this continues to attack our long-term care facilities, it's important that we stay vigilant. So as you celebrate, please remember to make the right choices to protect your families, loved ones, and neighbors. I'm so grateful to all Vermonters for all you've done as we move through this pandemic, and we'll get through this in the new year together. So with that, I'll now turn it over to Secretary French. Thank you, Governor. Good morning. Certainly good news that our case counts for the virus have leveled off a bit. We're hopeful this trend will continue in the coming weeks and through mid-January, when we'll have a full understanding or more full understanding of the patterns and the data as a result of the December holiday period. We have consistently heard from our medical experts, including Vermont's pediatrician community, that the conditions in Vermont have been very conducive for in-person instruction. In addition to the educational reasons for making in-person instruction a priority, we have heard from our medical experts that in-person instruction is essential for the overall well-being of our children. Our goal therefore remains to provide as much in-person as possible as the conditions allow the qualifier being as the conditions will allow. This means we need to have an accurate understanding of our current conditions so we can project how those conditions might change in the coming weeks and months. In terms of our current conditions, Vermont's conditions for in-person were positive before the holiday period and it appears that they will remain so afterwards. This becomes apparent when comparing Vermont to other states in the region. I was struck by Commissioner Pichek's data on Tuesday that compared the COVID-19 cases among the northern New England states. Vermont, for example, has had 7,000 cases since March. New Hampshire has had the same number of cases in just the last two weeks and Maine unfortunately has had about 8,000 cases in the last three weeks. We're also seeing confirmation of our conditions and the surveillance testing data from the schools, which the best of my knowledge is the only statewide surveillance testing program in the country focused on school staff. We've been testing 25 percent of our schools each week during the month of December. We're still seeing about a 40 percent participation rate in school staff, which means about 6,000 staff are being tested each week, but the data do provide a sense of statewide conditions since we include schools from all parts of the state in each week's testing cohort. It is interesting to note that through the month of December, the state level testing positivity rate for Vermont has hovered around 2 percent. And again, here too, we compare very favorably to our neighboring states where New Hampshire has a positivity rate about 10 percent and Maine about 7 percent. Our surveillance testing positivity rate for school staff is not only lower than our overall state positivity rate, but it also has been declining during December. When we tested all schools in mid-November, the positivity rate was 0.26 percent. Since then, each week of our testing, the positivity rate has dropped and most recently was 0.04 percent the week of the 13th of December, which is the last week we have data from the surveillance testing. So as we are contemplating our next steps in education, it's important to acknowledge that Vermont's conditions for the virus are substantially better than our neighboring states and are some of the best in the country. This can certainly change if we're not vigilant, but this conclusion is the starting point as we contemplate our next steps. This reminds me of where we were in the summer when we were starting the planning process for reopening our schools. As we heard from Dr. Fauci and others, where you start on the curve is an important consideration in your decision making. Many states this summer were not necessarily in the best position to reopen our schools, but Vermont was. And our school staff worked incredibly hard to implement the necessary mitigation strategies to ensure the safety of our schools. The success of their efforts has been apparent in the epidemiological data which shows very limited transmission of the virus in our schools. Now that we are contemplating shifting into the recovery phase of our work in education, it's important to acknowledge that Vermont is again starting from a position of advantage. It is important, of course, that we remain vigilant, so we will continue the surveillance testing in January because it's an important tool for us to monitor conditions. But with the major holidays behind us in the advent of vaccines, we can look forward to conditions improving in the coming months. When students return from the holiday vacations, many schools will be returning to some form of hybrid learning. Some schools, in anticipation of worsening health conditions from holidays and the related impact on staff availability, decided to implement remote learning. Other schools have planned to implement more in person if the conditions permitted. As we shift into what will be the recovery phase, it will be important that all schools prioritize increasing the amount of in-person instruction. Our recovery work in education will be predicated on the restoration of in-person instruction, in-person routines, and in-person relationships. At the state level, we will continue to provide an assessment of the health conditions through an analysis of our surveillance testing information and other data, and we will make adjustments to our guidance in response to changing conditions as necessary. At the local level, school leaders and school boards should focus their decision making on managing the complex logistics of their operations. Staff availability, for example, will remain a concern in the coming months, but the assessment of local and regional health conditions will remain a state responsibility. To date, we've used the term mitigation to describe the steps we have taken to prevent the virus from entering our schools and stopping it spread when it does. We will need to continue to focus on safe operations, but as we enter the recovery phase, mitigation will take on new meaning. From a public health perspective, successful mitigation is defined by to what extent we're able to limit the spread of the virus in our schools. From an educational perspective, however, successful mitigation will be determined by to what extent we limit the impact of the pandemic on the healthy development and educational progress of each of our students. Vermont must be as successful in our educational mitigation as we have been in our health mitigation. The good news is, Vermont's in a great position to start this work now. Our conditions are arguably the best to do so, and we cannot afford to wait until the emergency is over to begin. That concludes my update. I'll now turn it over to Secretary Smith. Thank you, Secretary French. Just wanted to give you some update of the vaccination program and some updates on some other things as well. Nearly 14,000 Vermonters have been vaccinated. As of last night, 21% of phase 1A has been vaccinated and 2% of the overall eligible population here in Vermont has been vaccinated. Starting next week, we'll begin updating our external vaccination dashboards on Tuesdays and Fridays. And then the following week, Monday through Friday, daily, Monday through Friday. I want to turn to the amount of vaccines coming in to the state from the federal government. It is hoped that vaccination pace will accelerate over the next few weeks. However, I'm concerned because our federal vaccine allotments have been cut from what we were expecting to what we are receiving next week. Next week, we'll receive 3,900 doses of the Pfizer. That's down from 5,850 the previous week and 3,900 of Moderna, down from 4,000 the previous week. This 7,800 total dosage weekly total is instead of the approximately 11,000 doses we expected can eventually have an impact on our overall vaccination timeline. We are reaching out to the federal government to see how these allocations can be increased to the 11,700 of doses or more of a week. As of today, residents at 21 of the 37 skilled nursing facilities have received their first dose of the vaccine. As I mentioned previously, all skilled nursing facilities should receive their first dose by January 8 and their second dose by the end of January. As I also mentioned on Tuesday, we are currently working with pharmacies and the federal government to accelerate the first dose vaccination at other long-term care facilities such as residential care and assisted living facilities. Yesterday, I want to give you an update of a situation in Bennington. Yesterday afternoon, the Vermont Veterans Home in Bennington received test results of six of their staff that were positive. Not long after, our VDH, the Department of Health Rapid Response Team was on the phone with the facility. There will be a facility-wide PCR test taken today at the facility and then continued twice a week PCR testing for the near future. In addition, the scheduled vaccination clinics for that facility for Sunday will continue. This is developing, but I did want to give you an update on this event. As I mentioned on Tuesday, after phase 1A, we're planning that vaccinations will be prioritized and given based on age because the older you are, the more vulnerable you are to COVID-19. And it meets with our prime objective, protecting lives. In addition, it's the easiest way to administer and the easiest for Vermonters to understand. There will be age bans established when you will be eligible to be vaccinated. For example, 75 plus will be the first to get vaccinated after the completion of 1A, then 70 and over and then 65 and older and so on and so forth. Underlying conditions will be a priority no matter what the age and those conditions will be actually they have to be well-defined and we are working on that right now. We recognize that some individuals may have suffered from health inequities. Our implementation planning will seek to mitigate these inequities. We also realize that what may come from the national or state advisory panels may be different than what we're planning to do, but their recommendations are advisory and, of course, we will look at their recommendations, but our overarching priority is this, saving lives. Every night when I read the positives and see the number of deaths, I must admit that those deaths have a profound impact on me as it should with everyone that's listening or hearing this broadcast. These Vermonters, mostly older, who are the people we need to do everything that we can to protect. So again, what we are trying to do is to design a system that's easily implemented, easily understood, and prioritize our fundamental goal, protecting lives. Definitions such as essential worker or frontline workers often cause confusion, unnecessary divisiveness, and doesn't put enough emphasis on our primary goal of saving lives. I'll turn it over to Dr. Levine now. Thank you, Secretary Smith. In light of the abbreviated conference today, I'm going to keep my comments brief and I won't repeat anything that you just heard. In terms of some data, though, very quickly, today we're reporting 130 new cases and two deaths. That is a spike after having a daily average for a week or so of 82 cases and a one-day total the day before of 69 cases. This brings our total number of cases throughout the pandemic to 7,412, and unfortunately our total deaths to 136. The total number of active cases in long-term care facilities at this time is 539. There are currently 25 patients in the hospital with COVID-7 in an ICU environment, and our percent positivity rate is 2.7 percent. As I've stated on many occasions, numbers do fluctuate all the time, and one day does not make a trend. As I've been reporting for some time now, during this surge that the region and country have been going through, we've seen cases associated with a wide range of settings, long-term care and health facilities, businesses, workplaces, private events, gatherings, and in K-12 schools as well. But as you just heard from the Governor and Secretary French, cases in schools have been the exception, not the rule, and these are not driving outbreaks. Our effort to test teachers and staff over the past month and a half has quantified the extraordinarily low infection rate among them, and our experience this year has shown that the risk of transmission within schools is indeed very low. I want to personally thank our teachers, administrators, and all other school staff for being so invested in the safety of the school environment. We sincerely appreciate your efforts and your commitment to our children. So we have reached the end almost of 2020. All acknowledge it's been a difficult year to say the least, one that many are eager to put behind. We've lost loved ones, been apart from people we care about. Some have lost jobs, faced financial worries, and been in a nearly constant state of stress as our lives were turned upside down. But we've also come a long way. We've celebrated our healthcare heroes and others on the front lines. We've been able to carefully open schools and businesses. We've adjusted to this new normal of mask wearing and keeping our distance. We've embraced the outdoors and gotten more creative to stay connected and plan activities safely. As individuals, communities, and as a state, we've learned again that we have the strength to persevere. As we know, the turn of the calendar page doesn't necessarily mean immediate change, but as a symbol, I believe we can look forward to 2021 with optimism. It will take a while for all of us to get the COVID-19 vaccine, but knowing that almost 14,000 Vermonters have been vaccinated so far, we can feel change coming. Hospitals are continuing to schedule clinics for healthcare workers, and the timeline for all the long-term cares continues to be accelerated. We may even know some of the people vaccinated already, whether they're relatives in long-term care facilities or healthcare workers who have their photos on social media. Each person who's vaccinated moves us a little closer towards life as it once was. And in the meantime, I hope the new year gives us all the boost we need right now to give us the inspiration to keep up everything we've been doing to prevent the spread of COVID so that 2021 can fulfill some of our hopes. Now, normally, you might be thinking about New Year's resolutions, although in public health, we prefer building sustainable, healthy habits. But this isn't a normal year, so I just want to say, if you are setting any goals, please think about how you can take care of your own mental health and those around you. I'd like to bring back a few points from the day that Mental Health Commissioner Sarah Squirrel was here to help guide us into 2021. Stay socially connected. Create daily routines and schedules. Exercise, eat healthy, get enough sleep. Reach out for support, whether you are struggling with anxiety, depression, or just need to talk to someone. If you have children, talk with them, ask them about their concerns, and listen to them. Engage with your community in any ways that are possible and safe. Helping others can actually counteract stress. Finally, since it is New Year's Eve, I hope that if you do celebrate, you find ways to do so safely, either with people you live with or with one other trusted household. And if you do gather, please get tested seven days afterward. We could not have made it this far without your help and sacrifice. I wish you all a healthy, happy, and safe New Year. Thank you, Dr. Lean. We'll open up to questions at this point. Thank you, Governor. As Secretary Smith mentioned, we're not getting as many vaccines as we'd hoped. It appears that the pharmaceutical companies did their job. I mean, where's the log jam? What's holding it up? Yeah, good question. And we're looking into why this is the case. We hope that this is temporary, that we will be able to scale back up because we're ready to provide for the vaccinations, but we need the supply. And it seems as though there's a pent-up demand for it as well. So we want to take advantage of the situation while we have it. But our hands are somewhat tied. The federal government is determining through the providers, the manufacturers, as to who gets what. And we're just trying to look into it now. Anything, Secretary Smith, you can add to that? This is at the federal level, and we're really trying to understand what is going on. You can't have a program where there's no predictability and what you're getting, and then you get cut from one week to the next. You need that predictability in order to sustain the program in the way that you want to sustain. So we are looking to our federal partners and saying what is going on here and what is precipitating these wild swings that you can't plan when you have this sort of wild swing. And at the level we have, it's going to have an impact on us down the road, the way that they've cut these allocations. So I think Calvin, to answer your question, we've got to figure out what is going on at the federal level. So far, have they communicated with the few guys of what's happening? We haven't got a clear understanding why we're having this situation happening. You know that some administrators at the federal level have apologized. I've seen that in the news that there are hiccups at the federal level. But we've got to get beyond apologies now. We just we've got to get the vaccine here in the state. Governor, I guess I'll ask the political question. But with the wrangling that's gone on in Congress over the extent, you know, whether $600 or $2,000 on the personal reimbursements for COVID, a reaction to that, I mean, the fighting and using that as more or less a political football. And then, of course, on the other side of things, we waited so long to sign the bill to help out our unemployed. It cost them a week of unemployment benefits. Yeah, I'll answer the last part first. We don't believe that the length of time it took to sign the bill has had an effect on the unemployment, the amount of weeks that you'll be able to receive. And I'll ask Commissioner Harrington to substantiate that further. But the rest, you know, it really is unfortunate. And what we're seeing on the federal level, I'm thankful the bill gets signed. I'm thankful the $600 is being sent out immediately. But now we're seeing the political gamemanship that is being played in Washington on both sides. And but that doesn't mean, you know, we'll have a new Congress soon. The President-elect will be sworn in. I'm sure there will be more packages in the future in terms of economic relief for the states and for individuals. So this isn't over. This chapter may be over, but we have a long ways to go. And I know that in talking with Senator Sanders, Senator Leahy and Congressman Welch, that they are going to do whatever they can for future economic relief for, again, the states. So I look forward to that. This will get us through the next few weeks. And it's welcomed in many respects, and we'll just have to go from there. They'll do what they normally do, and we'll see what happens in the end. And very quickly, we're three weeks away from a new administration. Has that administration reached out to you here in the state? Because obviously we are the lowest incident. We've done a good job here. And they're talking national policy. And we've always talked about, you know, it's better to be right than to be like everybody else. So I haven't heard anything directly individually to the states at this point in time. But but I'm sure that we'll have some dialogue along the way. They have their hands full right now, understandably, but look forward to talking with them. Thank you. All right, focus question. We'll come back to you. I don't want to cut folks off, but please help us out. Erin B. T. Digger. Hi, can you hear me? We can. Hello. Some of the reader feedbacks that we've gotten about the latest vaccine prioritization has been asking whether people with chronic conditions have enough research done about exactly what conditions put people at additional risk of COVID. You know, there's been a lot of debate about, you know, do do people with asthma get prioritized over people who are, you know, have a history of cancer far in their past. How how exactly are you making these decisions about what product conditions qualify? And is there going to be prioritization within that group of product conditions? Yeah, I think as Secretary Smith just just mentioned, we have to get clear, more descriptive in terms of what that means. Have a chronic condition because number of people have chronic conditions that don't necessarily mean that that becoming COVID positive would necessarily affect them in ways that would affect others. But I'll let Dr. Levine answer the rest of that. Thank you, Governor. The issue of chronic conditions is really an important one because where you set the bar in those chronic conditions can open up the floodgates literally and have most Vermonters eligible to get the vaccine first versus having them more stringent. We don't want to make cavalier and quick decisions. We want to make this very much evidence-based. The CDC has already published some of those chronic conditions. Our advisory panel that is submitting a report to me will further hone those and will work with the medical community as well. But to give you an example, obesity itself does allow people to get COVID more easily. Hypertension has been associated with getting COVID more easily. Neither of those necessarily mean your outcome from having COVID will be worse. But if you have very severe obesity with a very large BMI, that can actually predispose you to a worse outcome. So it's that kind of decision making that we'll be making to take some conditions that are relatively common but don't necessarily markedly increase your risk of a poor outcome with COVID versus those that do. Erin, you mentioned asthma. And as it turns out, asthma is not one of the conditions in the lungs that actually leads to a worse outcome with COVID. However, having emphysema, also called COPD, does. So we will be pretty precise about those conditions. But you can be sure that conditions that are serious like COPD, like heart disease, like chronic kidney disease and having a transplant and being on immunosuppressive therapies will be on the list because there'll be very little question about those. Good morning, Governor. Good morning, Governor. I was going to pass on the question this morning. I guess I can't thank my question. So I'll go ahead with it. I'm under the understanding that CARES Act money must be spent by the end of business day-to-day. And the only fund that it can be put into is the Unemployment Trust Fund. Is that correct? And how much money are we talking that's gone unspent today? Yeah. Well, that was the case, Greg, before the this latest package was passed. And in there was a provision for more flexibility. In fact, they gave another year for that money to be spent. So we were very vigilant, diligent in terms of making sure that we spent all the money that we received because we were following the guidelines. And in the end, we did have a bit of money left over. So we will wait and determine what the best approach is for that. It's about $30 million at this point. So we'll let this sugar off for a bit and determine where best to ask the legislature to work with us to appropriate that money. So again, we don't have the deadline at this point in time, nor does any other state right now. Thank you, Governor. I'll talk to you next year. Thank you. Thanks, Rebecca. For Secretary Smith, thanks for the quick follow-up by your office from Tuesday concerning the no-show by the pharmacy, the group that had signed up and were waiting for vaccines. I think we thought that was all. So for today, is this wondering, for some unknown reason, the state of Toronto's, again, to hide another significant outbreak from the public this time at the Bennington Police Department just before Christmas, there have been six positive tests for Bennington police employees, including the chief, who talked freely about it. You've got me thinking, how many Vermont police departments have been given the vaccine shots so far? Have the state police had their shots, the sheriff's departments? And where do Vermont fire departments stand in line since they're often called on to respond to emergencies or to assist rescue squads by lifting journeys with patients and other things? Yeah, I can only, I'll speak broadly, but I'll let Secretary Smith answer more specifically. But EMS has been included in 1A. So that, there are many, I think, 37% of those in EMS have been given the vaccines. So we have a ways to go, and certainly with the fewer amounts of vaccines we're receiving, it's going to take a little bit more time to inoculate to all of them at this point. So I'm going to let Secretary Smithy answer the rest of that. Mike, the governor did a pretty good job in answering that. In 1A, the priorities, as you know, are healthcare workers, particularly those who are patient-facing that can save lives, particularly of those that are older, that are most vulnerable to the virus. EMS is in that group 1A. Police departments are not in 1A. Fire departments, unless their EMS are not in 1A. So, so far we've vaccinated 992, which is about 35% or 37% of the EMS personnel here in the state. So that's, that's who we've vaccinated in sort of the emergency response area. So when, when can the police expect the sheriff's local and state police, I mean, I don't know, Commissioner Chirling has any thoughts on getting his eyes protected, but. Right now, Mike, what we're doing is vaccinating by age bands. So if, other than the 1A that we talked about, we're vaccinating by age bands. And after 1A, after this initial 1A, which are healthcare workers because they could expose those vulnerable Vermonters, vulnerable Vermonters through long-term care facilities, EMS, home health, those sort of personnel. But as I said, after we, after we move to finish 1A, which is supposed, which will be in January, if our dosage keeps to where we need it, which will be in January, we'll move to this other vaccination program. And that will be age-based. That's the Associated Press, and then we're going to move to Lisa. No, I just wanted to add. Hi, thank you. Sorry, just a moment, Lisa. I just wanted to add two things. Number one, that some of the people in the category that we were just talking about, will by virtue of age or by medical condition, qualify, obviously, to get earlier vaccine. We're still working with our advisory committee as well. And I just wanted to more directly respond to Mike's introductory comment about lack of transparency. Again, we are protecting personal health information that can be readily identifiable when we don't release numbers or a setting. And most people, I think in Vermont, understand that very clearly. And God forbid if we announced that there was an outbreak in the Bennington Police Department and someone needed to dial 911 and they said, I'm not going to do that, that would be the worst possible outcome. Because it is not the entire Bennington Police Department that is now forbidden from being at the work site. And I'm sure the rest of them are all using the appropriate precautions that we all use. So I would never want that kind of outcome to occur as a byproduct of getting people's radar up about certain number of cases in a certain setting, no matter what that setting be around the state. Thank you. Just one more thing. We are going to get a little bit more prescriptive about what it means in terms of the EMS and those who come to the scene of an accident first and have to give emergency first aid and so forth. So we are going to get a little bit more descriptive on that. So we may see some within the police force, for example, that may be maybe able to get vaccinated. Thank you for your vision. Sure. Thank you. This is for the governor or secretary Smith. Do you think states are getting enough financial and technical support from the federal government for administering vaccine? Well, again, in the new package, I believe that we are, but we certainly could use more of the vaccine itself. So I'm more concerned about the supply of the vaccine than I am about the the amount of money to deliver the vaccine. Secretary Smith. Lisa, my my response would be just get us the vaccine and we'll get it into people's arms. The Congress has been very generous in both providing money for vaccination as well as contact tracing as well as testing. So we don't have any issues in terms of what Congress has done in terms of providing us money. I think where our issues are is just get us the dosages that we need. Okay. Thank you. Hi. Good morning. And I have no questions today. Thank you. Thank you, Chris. Eric, the time's our guess. Yes, Governor, the Northfield Select Board has asked you to speak to the Washington County State Attorney about his handling of cases involving the police chief. Is that something you plan to do? Well, again, I I haven't seen the letter myself. I know that we received it through the media in the beginning, but maybe we've seen that we've got received it at this point in time. But I'll reflect on on the letter. I have a great deal of respect and faith in the state's attorney in Washington County. It's someone I actually appointed. And but I believe that, you know, he's offered from what I understand from what I've read that he's offered to speak to the Select Board on his decision, either in private, in executive session or in public. So I'll let him work that out. But if he, you know, we'll again watch this situation. But but I think so far the Washington County State's Attorney has done a pretty good job. Okay, thank you. Hello and happy new year. I'm asking about the Vermont Veterans Home outbreak. Is there any understanding of what what might have caused the outbreak or what kind of exposure might have led to the outbreak? And can you tell me a little more about exactly what the rapid response team is doing in terms of responding to the outbreak? Yeah, first of all, just just remember we learned about this last night. So to do any contact tracing is going to take a little bit of time. I'm sure they're working on that as we speak. So we don't have any information about that. But Secretary Smith can let you know what the rapid response team is doing today and what we'll be doing over the next few days. Thanks, Greg. We learned about, I think the home learned about this around four o'clock yesterday afternoon at 5.30 or thereabouts, the rapid response team was on the phone with the Veterans Home. What they do is go over protocol, talk about what needs to happen in terms of continuing business, PPE, do you need PPE needs? All those, do you have staffing needs? They go over all of that. They make sure the needs are met first. Then they talk about how do you operate in a potential COVID environment. And again, I use the word potential because today we have scheduled tests this morning actually, test at that facility, facility-wide testing. So they will talk about that testing. There were questions last night like, should we stop the vaccination program on Saturday? And the answer is no. So the rapid response team A will make sure that the facility has all the needs that it needs and in terms of staffing, in terms of PPE, it will go over the procedures that have to sort of be in place in terms of keeping residents and staff safe in that facility. It will organize testing, which it has done. It will talk about testing in the future, which it has done because there's going to be twice a week PCR testing. And I suspect more rapid testing as well on a daily basis there. And then it answers any questions that the facility may have. So those are some of the things. Dr. Levine, have I hit everything or do you want to add? You're good. I have one more thing to say. Okay. And I'll let Dr. Levine just add some things to that, Greg. Okay, thank you. Yeah, I just wanted to respond to your other part of your question about do we know what caused that? So obviously that's going to be part of what we do when we interview all of the cases and do the contact tracing. But I have to tell you that very frequently you cannot actually find the cause. But at risk of sounding like a broken record, this is a very important point to make because we're not engaged in a finger-pointing exercise or a blaming or shaming game here. The reality is, as we've talked about earlier, Bennington is currently a little more of a hotspot in the state of Vermont. And because of that, it's more likely that people will pick up the virus, even those who are really honestly trying to keep themselves and their loved ones very safe. And as I showed in an example a number of weeks ago, because people may be more likely to pick up the virus because there's more prevalence in that county right now, one of those people may actually work in a long-term care facility. And the virus comes in at a time when they're not symptomatic and are feeling well, totally unintentionally. And this is how these things develop. And that's why our major goal all along obviously is saving lives. But ahead of that, keeping our case counts low enough so that it's less likely for a Vermont or to come into contact with someone who is actually harboring the virus. Thank you. Okay. This is not yet on the Department of Public Health website. I don't know if there was a glitch there or if it simply hadn't gotten there, or if there was any question to answer there. But that's it. Again, we just learned about this last night. So it might not be on the website at this point, but it probably will be today or tonight. Okay. Thank you very much. I have you in the queue for a second. Yeah. That's possible. Yes. Thank you. John, VPR. Thank you and happy new year, Governor and your team, and thanks for doing these 100 times. My question is about the town of Stamford. Your thoughts on their resistance to your state of emergency and COVID safety precautions. They're claiming it's unconstitutional. Do you see any argument there? What do you do about a community that just says we're not going to follow this? Well, again, this is the select board that took an action. I think they voted three to two and it's still unclear as to me as to whether that's they're suing me in the state or their vote was to not adhere to the health emergency. But we feel we're on very solid ground constitutionally on this issue. We've been talking about this for quite some time, so an entity doesn't get to opt out. They're all part of Vermont, and this has the effect of law. So we feel we're on very solid ground in this issue. I think the I heard this morning that the Attorney General had weighed in and sent a letter, I believe, to the town. But again, we our general counsel feels we have nothing to be concerned about. But I do hope the folks in Stamford, the residents, continue to adhere to the guidance, protect themselves, protect their families. I mean, we just have a little ways to go. Reliefs on the way. And I know this is frustrating. I understand we're all frustrated. We want this to be over. But by just declaring it over doesn't make it so. We still have an emergency on our hands and we're still seeing people dying. So we have to pay attention. Thank you very much. Joe, the Barton Chronicle. This is another question about the effect of certain pre-existing conditions on priorities. I received a message from one of our readers that included an article suggesting that people with Down syndrome are much more susceptible to having bad outcomes from COVID. Is this something that is on your radar? And do you expect that to factor into your decision about who gets priority for vaccinations? Yeah, again, I'll let Dr. Levine answer this. But but we're looking to the advisory committee for some guidance. We're looking Dr. Levine is is engaging with others throughout the Department of Health, as well as his his counterparts and trying to determine what, you know, who would be part of this grouping. And and it's important we want to be very clear about this so that there's no no question and that we are prioritizing who the most vulnerable are within this category. So thanks for bringing that to our attention. I am aware of the risk with Downs. It's it's not across the board every patient with Downs. Unfortunately, it's not listed by the CDC and their list of conditions. I will say, though, that just to educate a little bit about Down syndrome, there's a significant proportion of patients with Down syndrome that do have congenital cardiac issues. And so that would probably be sufficient to move them into that priority group. There are others with Down syndrome who unfortunately have a heightened risk of certain types of cancer that might move them higher on the list. So even if the syndrome itself isn't listed as one of the priority conditions, and I'm not saying it isn't yet because we're still putting that together, there may be aspects of the condition in an individual with Down syndrome that put them on that list. Happen to you or to all of you. Thank you. Governor, the Vermont State Employees Association newsletter recently claimed your administration is working with a consultant associated with the Pew Charitable Trust to develop a plan for a defined contribution state employee pension plan moving away from the current defined benefit. Is this true? And if so, should we expect a proposal soon? Well, again, I know we have engaged with Pew. We've talked with the legislature about this in the last session as well. I might ask Secretary Young if she has any updates on that. I mean, I'm not saying we're working with them on a specific plan, but we've asked for a stress test and as far as I know, they were working on that. Is that correct, Secretary Young? Governor, that is correct. The Pew is doing a stress test on our pensions. It is something they have done in their work as a nonprofit charitable trust for many states. They do have the ability to do a stress test that's going to test our pension strength in the current economic conditions of the COVID pandemic. So I don't, we did not ask for any recommendations for a change in plan and I can share with you the letters that we wrote to them that specifically said that was not our intent. So we are waiting for the results of the stress test which we would expect to get within the next week or two, I believe. Thank you. Dr. Levine, I'm wondering if you've heard much about this new variant of the coronavirus that's allegedly coming from the UK and has now been seen this week in Colorado. Have you been briefed at all on this or no much about it? Yes, thanks for that question. On a normal press conference day, I would have included it in my opening comments, but I kind of figured we'd get a question about it. So the big news in the last 24 hours is, of course, cases both in Colorado and California for this new strain, which has a variety of different numbers and letters it's going by. The one I've been using is B117. What that basically means, it has mutations. So in its genetic coding, there's a variety of mutations, a number of which are to that antigen that we call the spike protein that the vaccines are made against, etc. And I guess the high points about it, just to be concise, are the number one it is in this country and in a large number of other countries already reporting it. If you recall how coronavirus emerged in our country, there were cases here, cases there, and all of a sudden we had a whole bunch of cases. I would not be surprised if that's how this evolves as well. And that brings me to point two, which is why I wouldn't be surprised, is that it's more transmissible than the former coronavirus, the one that we've been living with without the mutations. So it's estimated to be anywhere between 1.4 and 1.7 times more transmissible. What that means practically speaking is one person can give it to more people than the older version of the coronavirus, which by the way isn't going anywhere, that's still here obviously. So that has implications for numbers of cases that people might see in various places in the country. Number three, it's not going to produce a different clinical syndrome, still going to have the traditional kinds of symptoms we expect in the type of course we see with coronavirus. Number four, all indications are currently that the vaccines that have been developed thus far will still be effective against this new mutant strain. So that's good news at this point in time. If I could say the bad news would be number one, that because it's more transmissible, it will probably mean that the vaccination rate that will really help us combat COVID will need to be even higher than was previously thought, which is okay. I mean, that's just part of the way things are. And that I think we'll see a lot more sequencing of viruses at the level of the Centers for Disease Control in this country, something that hasn't been done with as much vigor as other places in the world, I think will happen even more here now. I think that's probably enough, unless you had any other specific question about it. Yeah, I think that's a lot of good info there. Thank you for that and happy New Year. Thank you. Hi Governor, we've been getting obviously a lot of calls and small businesses are very thankful that the PPP, the federal grant, is not going to be taxable, but they've received a lot of local companies who receive state grants, which are pretty substantial. Do you know if that is going to be taxable income in their 2020 return? I don't, Tim, but be happy to take a look. I don't know if there's anyone, Commissioner Bolio is not on the line. We'll be happy to get back to you on that. I'm sorry. Sorry, it's Lindsay Curley. Oh, hi Lindsay. Yes, the grants that small businesses receive through ACPB or the Department of Taxes, those are taxable in their 2020 income. Okay, that's great. They have a few hours, I'm sorry, go ahead. Yeah, it's revenue replacement, so since it's revenue, it is taxable. Okay, yeah, people have a few hours anyway to make some of that. Sorry, thank you very much, happy New Year. You bet. Hi, can you hear me? I can. Oh, great. I wanted to thank Rebecca for moving me up in the queue. Just don't cash that check until Monday, Rebecca. I had a question for Dr. Levine, if I may. Dr. Levine, the CDC has said that the percentage of respiratory specimens that are testing positive for flu at clinical labs is about one-tenth of one percent, and they've noticed this like worldwide. What happened to, you know, flu A, flu B? We had, what, was 200 cases or something of H1N1 last year. I mean, could, do we know what happened to the flu or why it's not showing up or why it's not being counted? Yeah, that's a really good question. And the hypothesis which began, you know, in the flu season for Australia, which was, you know, months ago, is that all of the behavior changes we've had to prevent the transmission of this respiratory virus, coronavirus, is showing some impact on transmission of the flu virus as well, which is a totally different virus. I don't know if that explains the whole picture, and I'd also be a little cautious because we are just getting into January now. And, you know, in Vermont, we know that the flu season, you know, may start October, November, but it can clearly go all the way through to May. So I don't want to just sort of say check mark success, we're done. But it really does look like we are only still having sporadic cases even in Vermont, never mind around the rest of the country. And maybe it's because of our behavior change. And that was probably the last thing I should have added to the list of things I spoke to Lisa about with the new mutant strain of coronavirus. Not only do we want to get the vaccination rate up really high, we have to even redouble our efforts to practice physical distancing, avoiding crowds and wearing masks, because this virus is even more transmissible than the former coronavirus. Thanks. From what I've read, it's a minor attribute that they would think that the flu would be much higher even with the precautionary measures we've been taking for COVID. I agree. That's why I'm... Yeah, I think there's got to be other explanations. I'm just not sure we're aware of what they are yet. Great, thank you. Hi. On Tuesday, you said we had 32,000 vaccines allocated. Does that mean we have all of those in the state now? And if we do, why haven't we given out those shots yet? That means that we don't have those in this all of them in the state. That's what the federal government is allocated for us. And when we do get them into the state cat, what we do is get them out as quickly as possible. Some of those are the allocation for the long-term care facilities. Some of those are the allocations for the 14 hospitals. That's why I sort of prefaced my remarks on the reduction of our allocation because, frankly, at the allocation levels we have right now, it's going to be hard to keep up in a matter of weeks. It's going to be hard to keep up with our vaccination schedule given what is coming in. So you're going to see, like I said, the number that I said today, 14,000 Vermonters have been vaccinated. That has a potential of accelerating fairly fast here. Thank you. I'll take another question later if we end up having time. And Wallace Allen, VP Digger. Hi. This is more of a sort of a philosophical question because it's the end of the year and we're going into a new year. And I'm just sort of wondering what your thoughts are, Governor Scott, on the way the state has been changed by the events of 2020, whether it's not in the ordinary ways that it changes every year, but sort of permanently by some of the events that have happened this year. Yeah. That's a fairly deep philosophical question that probably isn't easily answered in a few sentences, but let me give it a try. You know, through every event, every emergency that we've seen over history, there are, you know, an effect, a cause and effect. And I believe that we'll remember some of the lessons learned from this event in the years to come and typically not that many years. My hope is that we'll learn some of these lessons so that we don't resort back to where we were before. I think individually, every single one of us has found maybe a new appreciation for what we've lost. And that could be maybe a loved one, but it could be just some of the things that we enjoy doing that we can't do today. And I think we took a lot of that for granted previous to this, and it's made me reflect on, you know, some of the freedoms that we had before that we haven't been able to take advantage of now, the places we typically go, the things we enjoy doing, we haven't been able to do. But at the same time, I think that for those who have kids in school, for instance, I think it's forced us to come together, get be part of their education. And that could be both a positive and a negative, seeing just how challenging it is for some of our teachers and as well for the students during this environment. And there are so many, you know, there's so many other things that I think, again, the family units are sticking together more, but not seeing a loved one in a long term care facility for all of these months not being able to connect with them. I think that that's one thing lost that I think that we maybe took for granted before, but hopefully when we come out of this, that we'll take more time, more time for family, more time for friends, and those simple things in life that we haven't been able to do for the last nine, nine and a half months. I will say the one. Go ahead. The way that the state does, the way that you guys do things, the way the state operates to some of the. That's not as philosophical. That's more nuts and bolts. I would say, you know, the remote remote work has been, you know, beneficial. I think we've learned to adapt to this new normal in a short period of time. And I think it has had some, you know, negative, but a lot of positive as well. And I think we'll we'll in the future be doing more remote continuing along this approach, which has allowed more flexibility for our state employees. And and and we'll see, you know, again, we're not going to go to the extreme that we've seen over the last few months, it's going to be good to get back to normal and more of an office setting. But for many, this provides flexibility. And and and I think that it actually helps with the workload and and does things a little bit different. And and I think that we've been we can benefit from that. Thank you. I'd like to take another question at the end if there's time. Okay. Avery WCAX. Governor, we're hearing from some health care workers that they had no communication about when and where they're supposed to get a vaccine. These health care workers are outpatient. So we've heard from some dental workers about it. And what it how is it exactly at the state letting group one a know about when they when they'll get vaccinated? And was our communication systems ready for the rollout? I'm going to look for Dr. Levine first, I think. So we have a variety of ways of communicating this. And basically have worked very closely with the hospitals have met with them several times. We have things called Hans, which are health alert notifications, which go out to the entire clinical community and create an awareness about who's included in this group of one a and a prioritization scheme within that group. So the promise was never made that the first week's allocation, everybody would get what they needed. And I think that's been the ongoing issue because obviously we have to a portion percentages of the vaccine to all of the hospitals across the state, as well as the portion that's going to long term care. And that has to be taken into account. And then when allocations as you've heard from Secretary Smith decrease on a progressive weekly basis, less people can get the vaccine in that immediate two to three week time period. Doesn't mean they won't all get it through the month of January. It just means that perhaps some of the expectations were a little higher. And some of those expectations were based on more robust amounts of vaccine coming in. Secretary, I think I'm not sure if he wants to say something or not. We've been in constant communications actually at 7 30 this morning, Dr. Levine and I were meeting with the hospital association to make sure that there is distribution and talking with them. It was a two way sort of conversation making sure that there are things that they're seeing that we're not aware of and things that we're seeing that they may not be aware of. But that kind of communication is ongoing on a constant basis and making sure that there's equitable distribution, not only within the hospital walls, but outside the hospital walls. And if you look at the EMS sort of uptake, that's that gives us some indication of making sure that vaccination is vaccines are going out outside the walls. But there's more to do. And in January, there's a lot more to do as we get this one a health care workers vaccinated. Thank you. So I said they have a second question for eight more minutes. But once we hit 12 30, we'll have to wrap up. I'm going to start with Greg from the Bennington banner. Thank you, Rebecca. I think this is for Dr. Levine. This is more of a question about sort of the overall Bennington County situation. We have 159 cases in the past 14 days. We've got employees testing positive at the police department and that's a veteran's home. So are you concerned that this is turning into a community spread situation here in Bennington County? And what's the information from contact tracing? Can you share about the way you understand how the virus is spreading here and if there are places people should avoid or things other than the protocol we've been hammering home all along, people should follow up. Yeah, all very good questions. So as you know, we did have one outbreak we reported in Bennington County. And that one has involved the police. Secondary outbreaks from that occur. It's usually one individual who may live in the same household as someone, one individual who may be at a work site with someone, something of that sort. So nothing that turns into itself a large production. The numbers of cases associated with the Bennington outbreak are not increasing rapidly and markedly. So I think we're seeing more cases in the community as opposed to ones that are specifically identified as having an epidemiologic linkage to that particular outbreak, but more to come on that front. What we traditionally see in these kinds of situations, though, is that there are sites throughout the county that we'll find a case in. And if they happen to be a work site or a school or a healthcare related facility or a long term care facility, we pay special attention, obviously, but we don't see a lot of those turning into multiple case exercises. It's too early for me to say anything more about the veterans home, because as you heard, we're literally 16 hours into our knowledge of this and gathering all the appropriate data. But I certainly wouldn't tell people to avoid going out of their house or going to a specific location. And I would definitely reinforce what you just said, which is taking all of the usual precautions every time you go out. Okay, thank you. And thanks for the opportunity to ask the second question. Greg, I just want to just follow up as well, because I want to send this word of caution out. There has been some contact tracing done in Bennington County where there have been multiple family get togethers. And I just think and we have seen sort of cases develop out of those multiple family get togethers. This is important because we saw what happened in Halloween. We saw what happened elsewhere. And I just want to just take this time to caution people about the multiple family get togethers. And just to be very, very careful, especially as we run into tonight and into tomorrow. Hi, Dr. Levine, a reader who's over 70, but not a 1a or 1b. Otherwise, you got a notice from this pharmacy to get on their vaccination list. He's wondering, well, I thought there wasn't a list and what should he do? Are the pharmacies sort of operating outside of the BDH on that? So let me take it one point at a time. Let's get 1b out of our vocabulary. We're going to get through 1a and then we're going to have priority groups. You've already heard about some of the age banding. So somebody 70 is certainly in a high priority group. Maybe they'll come after someone who's 75, but that's literally they're very high on that prioritization scheme. Secondly, this may be a little bit of a rogue pharmacy I'm hearing because most of the time I'm hearing from both physicians' offices and pharmacies and hospitals, we're getting too many calls. People want to be on the list and we don't have a list. And that should be the message right now. So if that pharmacy that he's involved with is being proactive and signing him up so he has an appointment for the hypothetical date that he might fall into line and the vaccine may be in the pharmacies hands, that would be great. But right now people should just respect the process and understand that we will have registration schemes set up for wherever people are going to go so that it'll be a smooth process. This is very interesting to hear though. Thanks for clueing us in. If I could just add, if that is a request or for someone to come in for a flu vaccine, we are still advocating for people to get their flu shots. So those are still available for 70 years old or any age at this point. Yeah, that was a COVID vaccine. Well, you could put that plug in, Tim, you know, for flu. Okay, I will. Thank you. Thanks for back. Thanks. And I had a second unrelated question, but I guess I need to follow up on the first question that I asked was all due respect to the Health Commissioner's theory about what he thinks about. Here we go. Remoders have repeatedly called, emailed and checked to say they want to know about hotspots. So they want to make informed decisions about their health and that comes from having relevant information. So I question whether if somebody doesn't want to call the Bennington B.D. due to COVID with the state police and the shared reviews to assist somebody calling 911, I really doubt it. So I and I just thought one of the texts I got just said the UBM Medical Center is giving vaccines to all employees, including work from home office workers. And the reader is wondering, how do they get to move ahead in the line? Yeah, I was responding to emergency, unsimely death accidents. Mike, if I could just answer that, and maybe I'll have Mike Smith follow up, but we have been made aware that that isn't what we had in mind. And we want to make sure that they prioritize and get to the frontline workers and not the back of the house management and so forth. So we I think I believe that Secretary Smith had a conversation with them this morning. I think it's more clear with the CEOs of the hospitals that that's what we want to have happen. Everyone needs to prioritize here and make sure that we're getting vaccines to those who who are in contact with the highest risks, the older Vermonters to prevent death. That's what we're trying to do is make sure that we prevent deaths at this point. We're prioritizing that. So anyone who has has a public facing with those folks that are at the highest risks of death, we want to make sure they get vaccinated. Secretary Smith, anything? Yeah, no, that certainly makes sense. I was just wondering. Well, and I'm not, yeah, I'm not debating whether it's happening or not because we heard some of the same things, but we want to make sure that they understood that's not what we had in mind. Okay. All right. Okay. Thank you very much. And again, I hope everyone has a very, very safe New Year's weekend and we'll see you next week on Tuesday. Thank you.