 this afternoon again about where we stand with the COVID-19 pandemic and really the theme of today's town hall is in a lot of ways emerging from this pandemic. We have a number of guests that will be part of this discussion who I'll introduce in a moment but wanted to start with having Dr. Steven Leffler join me here on the screen and I see Dr. Leffler is with us. Hello Dr. Leffler. Dr. Leffler and I have talked at many times about the pandemic since March of 2020 and I think our conversations actually got going in February private conversations but we've had many public conversations and we generally like to look at the numbers to try to convey a sense of where we are and let's start with that again here. Dr. Leffler of course is the president and chief operating officer of UVM Medical Center and which has played such a large role in in the region's response to COVID since this began and this is a dashboard image that we have looked at many times since over time it really conveys well what is going on and I think the trend there is pretty unmistakable that since early April we have been on a steady downward decline in the number of new infections that we are seeing in Chittenden County. This slide is from yesterday I can tell you that today's had me another day of only three cases in the entire Chittenden County so we're down to a seven-day average of today of 5.1. This is down from I think our peak day there at the beginning of April was 106. Dr. Leffler this is very good news isn't it? Extremely positive. I mean this shows the good work of Vermonters and it shows the amazing power of the vaccines so Vermont did a good job through the entire pandemic thanks to I've said this many times coordination of our state leaders, our city leaders, our health department, our providers and our and Vermonters all basically got on the same page and so that kept a lot of Vermonters safe during the pandemic and really you start to see in the spring as as vaccine becomes available and Vermonters are getting vaccinated at a really good rate the virus really starts to drop off so very positive and very encouraging. On Thursday for the first day since November the Medical Center had no patients with COVID in the hospital that last of her Thursday, Friday and Saturday we had three days with no patients we have one patient today but we're in great shape for COVID and so I can't wait to get back to zero hopefully soon but good news. This image also from the graph from the dashboard shows it's pretty interesting image to kind of toggle between between those infections that we're just looking at and hospitalizations these are I believe these are hospitalizations for these are statewide hospitalizations so this is showing just 11 in the entire state one in the entire state in the ICU as of yesterday and the I think the interesting thing if you could just toggle back for a moment Samantha to the last one is you can if you're looking here you can see there's a little bit of a spike in April but not much of one whereas on the infections you know April is the throughout is when we had the highest recorded number of new infections in the whole pandemic certainly higher than February whereas on the hospitalizations you see a different story where the peak really was back in February and we more or less been on pretty much a decline since then and that is also really a function of the vaccines as I see it Dr. Leffler right it's we know that the vaccines keep people out of the hospital. So if you look at COVID it impacts typically older people and people with a lot of other health problems the worst they're the ones who end up in the hospital most often in ICUs and Vermont vaccinated the older population first they vaccinated nursing home residents and older Vermonters and so you can clearly see that they stopped getting infections and stopped requiring hospitalization and whilst younger Vermonters were still catching COVID at a high rate in April because they hadn't had their turn to be vaccinated yet they were not getting a sick they were not ending up in the hospital at the same rate somewhere but not at the same rate and we're not ending up in our ICUs at the same rate now that we're getting our younger Vermonters vaccinated as well that's why you're seeing such amazing numbers like three cases in all of Chinden County. We will wrap up this data discussion shortly and we really want to get quickly to your questions and introduce our other guests but just on the let's go back to this we've shown you what the history has been this is a little bit of a look into the future and is a reason why we have some confidence that these very encouraging trends are going to continue for at least the the near future which is this is the readings that we are getting at our wastewater plants which are something of a leading indicator of where the infections and the hospitalizations are going in that this is we pick up signs of COVID in the wastewater very early and you can see that all signs and all three of our plants continue to appoint downward quite steeply and what's as usually it's Brian Lowe who points us out on our presentations but this is on a logarithmic scale so this is exponential decline that has been happening in the amount of COVID in the in the wastewater since since April and it does we have no sense that that is stopping it looks like it is going to continue to go down we hope to basically zero the final thing we want graph we want to point out here is just where we you know one of the main drivers of these positive trends which are the vaccination rates Vermont is leading the nation by by many measures in terms of how the access to vaccines a number of people getting vaccinated Chittenden County is basically leading Vermont in on that front and you can see here by age group the percentage of people that at least have one dose which is this is a you know not often disgusting but the first dose is the most important dose so we want you to get the second dose too but the first dose is very significant that this shows that really but for the 18 to 29 age band 80% or more of the other age bands or 16 17 year olds have just recently become eligible they're only at 72% but we're doing really well and all these other age bands anything else you know and this really bodes well for where we're headed it hasn't stopped yet I mean when you look at you we are continue to have very substantial new people coming in every day and we're changing our vaccination strategies to make it even easier for every people who have not been vaccinated yet to access it and we were trying to make it essentially spontaneous we're going to have sites at North Beach and Church Street later this week where people will be able to just spontaneously go in and get vaccinated with the J&J one-shot vaccine if they have not already any any reflections on this Dr. Loeffler goodness said it better I mean this number this graph makes me so happy I mean when you look at these numbers over 90% of our older Romaners chose to be vaccinated they're safe now their risk of infection is less than one in 2000 the risk of getting very sick and ending up in the hospital is maybe one in 15 or 20,000 or lower and it's so encouraging to see you know all the way down to our 30 year olds are getting vaccinated at a very high rate now we have to figure out how to get out there get our 18 to 29 year olds to understand this they still could get sick from this they still can end up in the hospital and it's really important to have them get vaccinated so I love the outreach programs single dose makes a lot of sense and this is great news. Sorry Samantha I do want to just for the one one area of continuing concern that a lot of people are working very hard on and we are making progress on but we aren't where we want to get to at this moment is in the right side of this graph which shows that there continue to be substantial disparities by race in in the percentage of Vermonters vaccinated I believe that is a statewide figure there with about 53% of black or African American Vermonters having received a vaccine versus you know almost 70% for the the white population or 68%. I think these are the statewide figures I think we are doing a little bit better in Chippin County where there have been a lot of very proactive efforts made to try to close that gap but the gap still exists and is going to continue to be a focus or will continue to be BIPOC clinics on Saturdays throughout the next couple of months into July I believe for BIPOC Chippin County residents or BIPOC Vermonters to to get vaccinated and there are other strategies continuing as well so with that and happy to answer more questions on that and that's what we're trying to get too quickly I think these this format works best when we are taking people's questions I'd like to invite now three guests to turn on the cameras and join the conversation we have Tracy Schamburger who is the director of public relations and business development at Agewell Erin I'm sorry if I don't get this pronunciation quite right Erin. Erin Relke from the director of care and service coordination also at Agewell and David Reveal the communications director at AARP Agewell and AARP are great partners to the city and the community in many areas and have really stepped up substantially during this during this emergency and in a variety of ways helped ensure that we were doing right by older Chittenden County residents and Burlingtonians during this during this this entire incredible more than year-long emergency so Erin, Dave, Tracy welcome. Thanks for how good to be here. So is there you know Tracy do you want to say a little bit just about I just think it's such a remarkable story what you've done to help get vaccines and other services to homebound seniors during this emergency how is that going right now? Thank you Mayor Weinberger it's a pleasure to be here we appreciate your including us as we continue to serve older Vermonters I think I'm probably going to have Erin talk a little bit about the process if in fact people have questions about the process but from our perspective it's gone incredibly smoothly um we have received as you can imagine largely in part to being able to be included in forums such as this people know that the age well helpline is a tremendous resource to them and you do not have to be 60 years old to call the helpline so although age well primarily serves older Vermonters and those Vermonters with a disability under the age of 60 we are also wanting very much to make sure that we're reaching out to families that we serve caregivers and people in the community that just have questions so the process has been incredibly smooth largely in part to our incredible staff who have worked with many of our community partners to make sure that when people call whether they're homebound or they have concerns about transportation or they have concerns about the vaccine or getting registered particularly people that are not online so for those of people who call in and I always like to say call our helpline and I I have to say it because I feel like for those people that are on the line our helpline number is 1-800-642-5119 and we always like to say there's no wrong door just call if you have a question about yourself or someone that you are caring for and we can help you with vaccination registration, transportation, getting a volunteer, lots of things so from the perspective about how it's rolled out in terms of I think it's gone really well. People have specific questions I know Erin's really well versed on on maybe some new process and procedures and how we get particularly homebound older Vermonters vaccinated. Great thank you Tracy. Erin did you want to share a little bit more on that or sorry yeah I can I can just share briefly I agree with Tracy I think it's gone remarkably well. I think we've seen a very large number and you showed the statistics so our numbers reflect that too you know huge proportion of older Vermonters especially in Chittenden County have been able to receive the vaccine. It's really I think slowed down for us in terms of calls on the helpline related to vaccinations because of that high percentage which is great. Our care and service coordinators are reaching out to clients ongoing individually as well. We have a large team of community health workers and the care and service coordinators in Chittenden County who are in touch with some of our more vulnerable older adults in this area. So in terms of you know process as Tracy said you know our helpline is still available for those who you know may have been having difficulty accessing a vaccine and might need help you know navigating transportation or just redirection to the the state number to register for an in-home vaccine if that's needed but they're always available to answer any questions about the process as well. Great so let's you know for you know for another 45 minutes here if people if there's interest we can can answer questions and people I see have started to find the Q&A function which we will try to work our way through and be answer all the questions that pop up there and we got three there so we'll get to that in a sec. I just the yeah Samantha is helping us pull off this presentation I just want to are we also monitoring comments on Facebook live Samantha are people is that another way that people can get their questions asked or we are monitoring on Facebook live and for folks who are using the phone we do have a good number of people that join the call by phone if you do have a computer you can also email your question to mayor at Burlington Vermont or Burlington VT.gov and we can get your question that way as well. Excellent so a couple of so you know I know really maybe a real purpose of today's discussion is everyone there are a lot of questions out there about the changing guidance the public health guidance that is coming along with this progress and I think we all have questions about what does this mean for us personally how are we supposed to act do we kind of got used to masking and social distancing over the last 15 months you know now there's been an evolution on some of this guidance if we could go back to that first slide Samantha that we kind of glazed over and maybe Dr. LaFleur will turn it over you to kind of interpret some of this in a second this is we wanted to just kind of deconstruct the new guidance from the CDC and from the state about masking and then we can talk a little bit about how there is some a difference at the local level but let's start by talking about the yeah the the statewide and federal guidance so the CDC and the Department of Health have ended the mask mandate for vaccinating people in Vermont and the mask mandate replay remains in place for those unvaccinated. In Burlington the mask mandate stays in effect in the city in city buildings and retail stores until the city council revisits this decision on June 7th is the plan and let's just to get away from just the focus on retail stores which is what really the city council was debating last night the the state guidance keeps the mask mandate for child care and school settings public transport healthcare settings and long-term care facilities and then it also gives businesses and of course individual households the ability to set their their own standards. What this slide doesn't get into but maybe you could help me with this Dr. LaFleur is you know their their the state guidance also makes it clear for everyone whether vaccinated or unvaccinated they ease the rules in terms of being outdoors and have basically said unless you are going to be in I believe my interpret understanding is unless you're in you know extended close contact with someone else and you are unvaccinated you know when you're outdoors you do not need to have your mask on. Anything you want to add to that guidance clarify Dr. LaFleur and what can you share about why these the state and the federal governments have taken these steps? A couple comments yes so the first off is you know we haven't had a pandemic for 100 years and there's been intense research during this pandemic and the CDC keeps following the science and changing their guidelines based on the information that becomes available and just like as we're going into the pandemic it took a little bit time to sort out using masks to how they helped us whether inside you know outside was safe we've been saying that basically you and I have some being outside was safe from way back in the beginning because there was some science to support that. So now we know with absolute certainty that vaccines protect people vaccines are extremely efficacious preventing you from getting very sick from COVID and ending up in the hospital and the CDC guidance and the state's guidance now reflects that if you're vaccinated your risk of getting sick or infecting someone else is extremely low. So the science is very clear just like as we went into the pandemic if you remember different places were putting mask mandates in at different times and there was some you know how it got operationalized across the country both on an individual household level and in cities towns and states buried a little bit based on the comfort of people and how they could put it in place I think we're going through the same thing now on the wind out so it doesn't surprise me at all that different groups of people or even individuals would make different decisions in the short term about how long we should continue to wear masks. We do know that not everyone can be vaccinated we do know that some people have allergies to the vaccine or have other health illnesses that prevent that and so the guidance for healthcare settings long-term care facilities is really to protect those vulnerable homeowners who can't be vaccinated or the vaccine doesn't work as well because they maybe they are immunosuppressed or something like that and so I do think for some time now we will see that in settings where we know vulnerable monitors are think hospitals and potentially nursing homes and places like that masks are probably around for a little longer and I think our cities towns and individual households will not all on the exact same time make decisions around masks but it'll be coming to all of us in the near future with with a such great uptake of vaccine in Vermont. The science is there to show that it's safe the numbers that we're seeing in this theory now we're safe and then we'll all get to the right balance soon is my opinion. Great so I just want to point out that so I do want to I see a couple questions in the chat and we have both a chat and a Q&A going here and I see in both that there is questions about you know the the Burlington guidance and we'll speak to that in a sec before doing that I do just want you know this outdoor the safety in the outdoors is really something that I hope is really clear to everyone now just how safe outdoor activities are as we start off this Burlington summer there unlike last year there are going to be lots of opportunities again to enjoy the waterfront in the downtown and really you know the great public spaces outdoor spaces around the city we are going to have jazz fest again June 4th through the 13th the waterfront is going to start having events again the there will be mobile place making kits is one of our kind of reopening efforts we're going to just have that are going to kind of be fun tools for different neighborhoods to have to get people together again outdoors and I what I think was a little bit less clear as you know Dr. Leffler pointed out we've been learning more and more about this virus throughout and you know even as recently as last fall into the winter there continued to be concerns that maybe large groups of unvaccinated people outdoors presented some kind of significant transmission risk it's it's really become clear at this point that almost no transmission happens outdoors there the estimates that I've seen recently might be that you know even though the CDC said that there might be you know they one point put out a statement a while back saying the risk of getting infected was no more than 10% the risk of the indoors you know when you're outdoors well the recent science and this has been suggesting that there's really like maybe 0.1% of the the risk or certainly below 1% is the risk so outdoor settings really are quite safe that's why after we have whether it's protests or other you know large outdoor galleries over the last year we have not seen an uptick so I really hope people will fully enjoy the outdoors this summer I know you know between the high vaccination rates and being outdoors there is a is you know I really hope people will be coming out and enjoying this do you have how do you Tracy Dave is that your what you are talking to your members about as well I know we're we're all about encouraging folks to get out and enjoy the great outdoors now that things have lifted most of our members I mean we have as you may know close to 120,000 members around Vermont and of course many of them have been very concerned and even been locked up for for months and months so yeah we we sure hope folks would get out and engage in the community and and and certainly we're we have a number of ways they could get involved in volunteering or activities to to indulge in so we yeah we're we're very much pleased to see things trending out and emerging from what's been a difficult year great I think we would echo exactly what Dave said you know we've really just followed the guidance of the CDC and the Vermont Department of Health and we've aligned the services that we offer to older Vermonters with that guidance we follow you know Dr. Lefler Dr. Levine you know people that are advising us as to how much or how little to turn this bigot and I think we've been conservative but it's it's been worth it's been worth it to do it that way great okay so let's dig in a little bit to this issue of the week I know there's you know we had this debate at the city council last night and I've seen a fair amount you know I know there's some media around this and some social media discussion you know last night I had recommended the administration team had recommended that we follow the guidance you know follow basically do the same thing at the local level where we have had a mask mandate um for since uh for almost a year since I almost exactly a year um I I and my team kind of recommended that we make the adjustment to that policy that the that the state and federal governments have made that CDC has made and that Governor Scott and Dr. Levine put forth that would say for vaccinated people um you are no longer required to wear a mask when you are in in retail areas or in in public buildings and the council after a short discussion um decided you know really not to decide on this issue for three weeks they they tabled they postponed the action until until June 7th and the reason and you know and I I see one of the one of the people in the in the chat has said you know what's wrong with that if that can yeah vaccination rates are getting higher and that's great but if there's a chance to um stop even one infection what's the harm in waiting and you know the and and there's a similar sentiment expressed somewhere else and and I get that and and I certainly I certainly understand why at individual levels and even um business organization levels people might continue to have a more uh require more masking you know kind of a more more requirements um for some time now the question is you know that we had to face is you know as the government should we continue to essentially you know compel people to to wear masks in these settings and we did feel as I think the state and federal government and their and making their decisions that there were some real trade-offs public health trade-offs um to be considered here um and this is you know not not totally intuitive it does I think I understand why some people think you know more masks is better and certainly I have been as I think Dr. Leffler wrote a test we have the city of Berlin has been we put our mask mandate in place very early the city of Berlin actually went out and bought denim so that we could fabricate masks early in the pandemic before the before the CDC even endorsed this as a strategy because we knew this was going to be a critical effort so uh we didn't we don't take lightly at all um put relaxing standards so why why did we think we should relax the standards well uh first of all um the um there is I think a value and consistency between different levels of government and we are concerned about um some confusion and forcing businesses to requiring business businesses to enforce when other levels of government um have a different are saying something different it's it's definitely I think a challenging place to to put shopkeepers in Burlington in to to continue to require that a maybe more compelling to me point I think one that was really you know I think people should grapple with is that there is actually public health value in Lyft in having different rules for vaccinated people versus unvaccinated people in and this is what the CDC has a brief saying this and I love Dr. Lefler's thoughts on this in a moment I don't know if it's something you really grapple with Dr. Lefler the CDC has a brief saying this and then there's a UCLA study that says different rules for vaccinated and unvaccinated people actually becomes a motivating factor for a significant percentage of the people who still have not chosen to get the vaccine um if they know that they are going to by when following the rules have greater freedoms if they get vaccinated that that actually is compelling to about half the people who are still unvaccinated in one form or another we haven't seen pulling on exactly the Burlington mask mandate I'm not suggesting that but that is a general principle a lot of the unvaccinated people um uh would see you know it may be if something that makes them actually accelerate or choose to get vaccinated when otherwise they might not and that you know since really that is one of our most important remaining public health tasks anything that pushes in that direction I think uh I think is um it shouldn't be ignored and I did kind of feel like that didn't get enough uh discussion in air time in the council discussion last night um finally uh and I'll and then I really would love to hear Dr. Lefler weigh in on this I think we have a kind of long term or medium to long term public trust issue at stake here and that we have really asked people to upend their lives do a lot of extraordinary things over the last years and by and large people have done it here in Vermont because they have trusted that they were being asked to do reasonable things if we are no longer asking them people to do a reasonable thing because the risks that we are exposing them to um by you know are vanishingly small but we continue to put these rules in place I am worried about sort of you know loss of confidence in in kind of what we're what we're in and sort of trust that we're only asking people to do to make these sacrifices when it's really we're going to get real benefit from it so those were the main reasons for me uh and why I came down the way I did any thoughts on that Dr. Lefler. I mean um so once again I think the science at this point supports the CDC's recommendation that we can stop wearing masks that's the science but there's a huge social component to this I mean Americans for monitors have been wearing masks now for a long time people are anxious and I do think the social component of when we decide to release some restrictions um it is a more local decision that is why the CDC and the governor did allow a little bit of leniency here um I do think you raised a good issue that um we do want to make sure that people um understand the full benefit of vaccination we were able to have a gathering at my house this last weekend and everybody in the house was vaccinated and that was such a great feeling we were together we could hug we could have a meal together everyone here was vaccinating that was really an amazingly great feeling and I'm hoping that everyone on this call that has a member of their family who hasn't gotten vaccinated yet please put a little personal pressure on them what I do know is the way out of this is to get all the Vermonters vaccinated and I also think that these um slight inconsistencies we see in decisions about when to have places or businesses not wear masks is very short term at this point um and I'm very confident that we will all be um not wearing masks in vermont in the in the near near future so um I think like I said I think it's a social issue at this point and it's people getting comfortable with getting trying to get back to normal but it's been a long time you know uh we I mean I know many people including me I haven't been in a restaurant for a long time did a meal we're starting to do that again um getting together in large groups um someone told me just yesterday they were in a group of 100 people outside it was a weird feeling like wow I haven't done that in a long time so um I'm not surprised that different individuals families or cities make different decisions I am a big believer in being as consistent as we can but I think we just have to give people a little time here to adjust to um getting back to the things that we love to do and we said that many times I remember in January we talked the very first time people got vaccinated and I said you know this is our path out you know by summer we could really have everyone together and not wearing masks all the time and we're there I mean it's really fantastic amazing news it's amazing science that we can get vaccinated so quickly it's amazing good work on Vermont to be at the highest in the country for being vaccinated and uh we'll get everyone where we need to be really soon. Tracy do you want to kind of weigh in on this in any way or share your your advice for people who are feeling anxious um about getting back to normal and you know not just speaking about the you don't have to weigh in on the Burlington mass mandate exactly but what what you I hear that a lot too about anxiety about kind of restarting activities uh what what is your advice to the population you're working with? Well it's it's a bit of a double-edged sword I mean we want everybody to get vaccinated but if we look at the Vermont Department of Health statistics the age group that we serve is doing incredibly well um you know when we pull up the data I mean you know over 90% of people yeah we want to get to a hundred of course we want to get to a hundred and we are working hard at age well to make sure that we're reaching our clients their families their caregivers people in the community to spread the word I do think there's an opportunity uh still as you mentioned Mayor Weinberger with reaching out to more diverse populations um in particular you know as we see and we we look at age people and still the numbers are good I mean 80% is pretty good but I agree with Dr. Leffler a little personal push um we'll go a long way um but we want to make sure you know our our clients people that have really been uh sheltering at home for a long time the most vulnerable population of older adults wants to get back out and they want to see each other they're lonely they feel socially isolated and so the sooner that everybody gets vaccinated the better um so um you know we are working hard to make sure we're spreading that message and we will continue to do that um until we see that number at a at a hundred that'll make us really happy awesome um so I'm going to try to answer some of the turn to some of the other excuse me questions in the chat and um I don't know Smith if it's possible for you to pull up our full dashboard to as we uh a couple of the questions that I've come in I think we could answer in part through the dashboard while you're doing that let me answer Mark's question old friend Mark good to see you thanks for tuning in um he asked what is the strategy for the city of Burlington this just fully open up city offices again and um you know we are which you know is something we're great question we you know we have had definitely had impacted city buildings from very early on in the pandemic to this day city hall is largely closed you should be able to at this point all city services one way or another should be available to you although perhaps in you know not always in like the traditional way of just being able to walk right into a physical space and immediately um uh uh get you know you know get into the city records or what have you there definitely areas that need to be done by appointment and um that aren't a constrained manner we are trying to roll out over the course of June and July you will see any um city buildings and services that are not fully open will will be restored we see a a significant moment at the beginning of June and then um hopefully basically something close to normal operations full normal operations by July when the governor has projected that all COVID restrictions are are going to be um lifted um one just thing people you know that's a little bit slowing that is a little bit of an issue in uh city hall is we have tried to use this hiatus to get done a bunch of capital work within city hall that they needed to get done and and you know so we're kind of doing that there's a bunch of work that is just being finished up now and that should be out done by June 1st and that will help us get reopened there as well um the uh you know he asks all Mark's question is also asking for about city policy after June 7th I think you might be you know I do think that city council will take up again some of the masking rules in businesses at June 7th and there's a good chance that they will be altered at that time but there's no no nothing certain about that so great thanks Samantha for bringing this up on the I think can you get us to some of the there's a page that shows the vaccination by age group and the sort of trend lines on that because Barbara has asked why what's happening with the 18 to 30 year olds and why um um why are why are under 18 year olds actually doing better if you go to the uh COVID-19 impacts explore I think you click on that it'll bring this up um and if you scroll down uh you have vaccines in chimican let's see what comes up here um so there you go that's what I was looking for if you can try to hone in on that image on the right you can really this is kind of a cool image that shows through um I think this is about this is uh this will be updated again to today or tomorrow I think it's it comes out weekly but you can see the number if you can make a little larger Samantha that image that shows yeah that one um that uh basically you can see that there we go that um all the upward trend of all the younger age groups is continuing to go um you know pretty steeply in the right direction the the second one from the bottom is um I think the 18 that you know I guess what I'm trying to say to Barbara is don't lose hope yet people in these younger age categories are still getting vaccinated at a fairly brisk clip um I think 16 and 17 year olds may have had some advantages just because uh you know you also have parents still involved there looking to get people signed up quickly I know some schools also um and have had some school clinics so there were some advantages the 16 to 17 year olds and this is um and you know this isn't the numbers there from back in March you have to kind of move across the street to get the most recent ones so uh I am hopeful that we will still fairly quickly see those 18 to 34 year old numbers go higher um Barbara further asks is the city encouraging UVM to require vaccinations in order to register for summer school or the fall semester I know many universities including UVM are considering um requirements for the fall and uh in fact I think Middlebury has announced that they will require it there's been some legal reasons and reasons not to require it up until now I think maybe even more important some behavioral reasons not to require it up until now in that some people respond better you know when it's a voluntarily uh choice as opposed to a requirement uh I do think there's a good chance uh you know I think in a range of areas I won't say exactly what's going to happen at UVM but I think you're going to see a lot more employer and institution requirements start to go into place later on um if the if and when we really see vaccinations taper off um uh kind of permanently and there's no you know hope of people getting there voluntarily I think you'll see some changes there does that make sense to you Dr. Leffler as a policy that you kind of encourage people to do it voluntarily first before you put requirements in place absolutely I mean the first thing to remember is the vaccine it's proven safe you know hundreds of millions of doses have been given but it still is under emergency order and so it's hard to require things that haven't had full FDA approval yet and so you got to be a little cautious about that um and I do think um for different places once again in the hospital there are people in the hospital who are very sick who can't be vaccinated or who have issues so I think we'll likely be masking for a while even though the hospital is about 90 plus vaccinated for our staff um for other public institutions there's a balance and I think some of things we're talking about you know making it um better to be vaccinated not having to wear a mask and having some opportunities to do things we one of the ways we get some of the people who are reluctant to do it I also think that um and I think I really commend you for some of the efforts now I think our 18 to 30 year olds oftentimes they're busy they have a lot going on so bringing the vaccine to them making it easy making getting them Johnson and Johnson where they're at North Beach downtown Church Street things like that for single dose vaccine that's how we'll get big numbers of those people vaccinated um a lot of them have young families and are working hard and so I think that um if they have easy access to the vaccine they can get it when it's really convenient for them that's how we'll drive those numbers up 16 and 17 year olds are still at home their parents drive them to the vaccine site or you know put some rules and regs around it but our young adults oftentimes as I remember are very busy with little kids at home and quite busy so let's get ways to get them vaccinated let's not be mad at them let's get it how we can figure out how to get them vaccinated so we're doing exactly exactly that um yep and I think it's awesome we uh after we've been in conversation for you know sometime with the state about this it became clear that there was going to be a moment um where the back you know we were going to go from this sort of vaccine scarcity situation to one where there's really quite a bit of vaccine around and um and we're going to need to kind of shift gears to really improving access and so you there will be um we actually have some posts up on social media right now that both at North Beach and um on Church Street at the latter part of this week I believe on both Thursday and Friday and I don't know if we can confirm that Smith I don't have that quite committed to memory but um Thursday and Friday there will be walk up spontaneous vaccination clinics uh resources literally on Church Street and at North Beach these will be the Johnson and Johnson one and done um uh vaccine that requires you know conservatively less coordination you don't have to worry about scheduling a second appointment and coming back you just you are fully vaccinated once you get two weeks beyond that initial injection and so look for that and uh and tell friends about it if uh they're planning on being in Burlington um at the end of this week and um you know I think other communities are I know the state's looking at opportunities like this statewide it's a real shift in the vaccine vaccination plan that you'll see more about in the weeks ahead um there was another question in the chat about interesting question you know basically it's this was uh um the question is is from Facebook is our testing down and that causes lower positives or is there really less virus in the community um and I don't know if it's worth trying to pull it back up but I think we do have on the dashboard um an image that shows week by week the number of people getting tested and and we are certainly not at the peak we were um earlier in the um in the pandemic when you know uh there was a lot where there's a lot of where people haven't been vaccinated yet where there was a mandate in place that when you come back from uh from being out of state you have to get tested uh after quarantining for seven days when um you know just when the box it in strategy was sort of at its peak um we definitely uh saw more tests but we we continue to have daily uh testing resources available by the you know thousands of tests are available every day here in Chittenden County there continues to be this facility on Pine Street that you can just walk into um and this uh thanks Smith this shows that we continue to have so there's been a little bit of an erosion since the peak back in in March but you can see there that on average there continue to be something like five thousand people a day tested is that a statewide average or uh is that um on the left there can you just sorry now scroll back up just a little bit Smith so those are those I guess I can't quite tell if that's just Chittenden County or if that's uh full statewide numbers but I think the trends have been fairly consistent um that uh we um have pretty you know a lot of people getting tested so well there may be a kind of a little bit of a function of less people getting tested so less we're finding less of them um there's definitely been a drop in the actual amount of virus circulating as well and so I'll just I'll just add that we know there's less virus in Vermont your wastewater data shows that our ERs show that our hospitals show that so there is some less testing because less people are being exposed I mean three months ago if your neighbor had COVID or you and you walk by them you go out and get a test that's not happening as much now but we have good strong data that shows in the state of Vermont right now there's much less COVID than there was here in February like I said by the things like by impaired data wastewater treatment our ER patient cases how many people are getting tested by their doctors for symptoms how many people are in our hospitals so um I do just want to circle back uh people on zoom can can see this but for people calling in or on facebook um Samantha hunted down the um the uh information about the north beach vaccination clinic will be on thursday um of this week from one to five p.m at the pavilion there on north beach and friday from 12 to 2 30 p.m and church street will have a saturday clinic um on um may 22nd from 6 to 10 p.m in front of city hall in the lower block on church street um I think we have time for maybe one last question and and it's a good one and then we'll just go to the panelists for final thoughts glenn mccray asks is a zero is I think I said we're hoping to see the wastewater go to zero um is zero rate of virus really a realistic possibility or do we expect to see it in the wastewater and occasional positive tests as we go forward um so we did actually at one of the plants um have our first non-detect since uh back in I think October um where like literally it's gotten the wastewater RNA tends to be sort of a lagging indicator it stays there for a long time even after people are contagious so um it's notable that we had uh non-detect but then the next one after that um we detected it again at very low level so I think you're quite right that it we probably won't literally see zero very very often for a while and even when we do um I don't think anyone thinks COVID well it may not be that COVID entirely goes away this may be something like the flu that we are dealing with in some way um going forward I don't think we really know there I don't know I don't think we want to speculate too much on it um uh but uh the so you know good point I think we are and we'll we'll we'll see where that goes I do want to make sure there's time um to uh go around um the to each uh each of our panelists to share some final thoughts so uh you know Dave we haven't gotten to hear from you too much uh what are your thoughts as we go through this emerging period well I guess you know consistent with what you've been saying it's um to the extent we can get more and more Vermonters vaccinated um better off we're gonna be probably uh that's a good reason why the testing numbers are down it's because more and more of us are vaccinated and don't need to get tests but um we're really thrilled and proud of what the state's done so far um as as AARP um you know tries to reach out to our members with a message we of course have to be careful about telling people what to do medically but we are trying to put the information out there and put the resources out there and um get folks um directed to the state health department because that's really the primary source of information at least statewide um on what's going on and um if people want ways to um you know virtually engage with the community or educationally AARP has a number of things from birding things to gardening to volunteer activities fraud and scam preventions live trivia you name it um lots of ways for folks to stay plugged in with others if they're feeling isolated um we're at AARP.org slash VT and um so anyway we uh as I said before we encourage folks to get out engage be with the family be with the community and um encourage others to get the shot. Great thank you Dave um uh Aaron go to you. Oh yeah I just wanted to reflect on um I think a comment that um Dr. Leffler was making about you know just the relief and being able to spend time with family members and um and be physically close to people and I think um you know so many of our older adults um in our community have been you know socially isolated even prior to the pandemic and this has really caused an even deeper level of social isolation that you know can have so many negative health effects and it's so clear that you know continuing vaccinations is is the clear path to reducing that and allowing us to be more connected and I think um you know we're just continuing to promote that and to help break down any barriers that that folks are still experiencing with um getting a vaccination which I again I think as we've seen has been really um positive and successful but um you know if there are any any concerns um how to get a vaccine or um or you know any any of those barriers like accessing transportation or in-home vaccinations that there are you know so many resources out there to help and we're just um really encouraging everyone who can be vaccinated to be vaccinated so awesome. Tracy anything to add to that? I think Aaron did a very a great job you know and the other thing I want to say is it may not be necessarily even vaccines if people are experiencing social isolation which we know many of them are we still want people to call even if it doesn't have anything to do with the vaccine um and we may be able to get a volunteer to help you or or um you know introduce you to a program um or something you know we work with AARP we promote their programs there's all sorts of things that we can recommend to help people as things start to open up um so even if you're at home we can have a volunteer come and visit you at home so thank you very much for including us today we appreciate it. No I really appreciate Tracy uh all three of you Dave Tracy Aaron thanks for for being part of this and more so thank you for the incredible services that you've provided the community during this remarkably challenging period. Dr. Leffler um this is uh I'm not ready to say this is our last time where we're going to talk about this but I you know it is too soon to say that but um it's uh it's such a different place than we've been at other times we've talked uh any closing thoughts from you about emerging from this period? I'm so proud of Vermont and Vermonters from the first day of this pandemic all Vermonters got behind the efforts to keep each other and our neighbors safe we have one of the lowest death rates in the country and I don't minimize that people in Vermont did die from this virus but the good work of Vermonters kept so many of us safe we kept we maintained hospital capacity throughout the entire pandemic which wasn't the same in every state um when vaccines came in general Vermonters signed up and gotten vaccinated the best in the country and I know we'll get our 18 to 30 year olds vaccinated because we're doing the right steps to help them and so um it was a hard 15 months but we're coming off the other side there's so much to be thankful for so much to be optimistic about and so I want to thank everyone that's listening and I want to you know also say I can't wait to see you walking on church street and I can't wait to see all the things like the fireworks and all the things that we really love about Vermont are mostly going to be back this summer so uh I can't wait well that's uh well well said Dr. Leffler I'm really looking forward to to all of those events as well and I hope people you know I hope you will feel that the mayor has invited everyone on all the panelists and everyone listening to this to come down and be part of Jazz Fest be part of um Juneteenth which um is going to be a first of its type um in Burlington City hosted um really major celebration for the for the first time uh here this year and and later in the summer we will have Festival of Fools and uh you know and and more so I do hope that um people will consider joining us uh this is not uh this is not the end there are people who still are at risk anyone who has not been vaccinated yet I hope you do leave today um if you were listening to this discussion um a little bit more inclined to go do that and maybe join us at one of these pop-up sites happening in the in the days ahead um we have one final uh question that I think is a really good question for the future that is goes beyond just the remaining weeks of this pandemic um the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance is with us and asks um you know said can can I discuss some of the new mitigation strategies that the city will be taking given the disparities produced by systemic racism and laid bare by COVID-19 across all social determinants and um that that is something I very much believe in and and that the city the city actually formally declared racism a public health emergency a year ago that emergency does not end will will not end with the end of this pandemic I think state government may be on the verge of taking a similar step uh it is COVID has opened our eyes I think collectively to uh how different people's health uh outcomes are as a result of their race to just an unacceptable degree um here in America it just really belies the ideals of equal opportunity and uh for for all that we see these kind of disparities that there are the causes are multiple that as the question suggests do span across all social determinants of health which aren't just about healthcare it isn't just about access to medicine we have issues there as Dr. Leffler is quite eloquent on but we also have issues that drive health outcomes disparities within housing with an economic opportunity with educate with an education in child care and uh you know we are we are out of time for this town hall but it will be the product of many future public discussions and town halls and a summit um this summer uh the mayor's housing summit this summer is going to focus on decreasing um the disparities in black home ownership as one of the interventions among many that uh we need to do going forward so I hope one we this has been such a devastating uh 15 months it has has been such so disruptive there has been so much loss of life and loss of uh and economic losses as well over the last 15 months we have also grown and learned things uh as a community that can I think give some meaning long term to um to the lives that were lost almost in some ways and can give some meaning to this purpose that we can bring about change if we kind of hold on to the power of collective action that um uh Vermonters did so well um with during during this period if we if we are able to tackle these uh remaining major social challenges ahead with that same kind of energy and focus uh the long-term effects of this pandemic could be uh could really save many lives and it's certainly something that I intend to be very focused on um in uh in the years ahead so on that note I would like to to close this out and say thank you all it was great to have a large number of you with us across the three different platforms today uh if you haven't gotten enough of these discussions uh I believe Dr. Lefler is joining me again for tomorrow's briefing at two o'clock where we'll talk more about COVID and and um I also will be having a coffee tomorrow morning at eight in the morning uh by zoom where we're going to be focused on the on the budget and you're invited to join join us there go to the mayor's uh facebook page or web page for more information on those events thanks everyone we hope to see you again soon uh take care everyone