 Good morning everyone. I'm Mike Smith, Secretary of the Agency of Human Services. Governor Scott is currently on another call with fellow governors and White House officials. He'll be joining us shortly. I'll start off today with an update on our progress with our vaccination program and then hand it off to Commissioner Pichek for the weekly modeling update followed by Monica Hutt who is the Chief Prevention Officer to provide an update on summer programs, surveillance testing and then Dr. Levine will provide a health update. The good news is Vermont is leading the way nationally in many of the vaccine measures including remaining first in the country for vaccines administered per 100,000 people. As I mentioned before, we still have a lot of work to do. We are listening to what Vermonters have to say. Part of our effective vaccination strategy is to meet people in their communities and I encourage Vermonters to take advantage of the many convenient opportunities available to get vaccinated. For example, Northern Vermont University in Johnson is open for walk-ins until 2 p.m. today. Registration is now open for drive-throughs scheduled in Highgate on Airport Road at the AOT garage this Thursday, May 13th. Registration will open soon for the drive-through event at the Lancaster, New Hampshire fairgrounds on May 21st. There are mobile clinics, barnstorming as I call them, barnstorming events along Route 100 corridors this Saturday including Grandville Fire Station, Warren Municipal Building, Green Mountain Alliance Church in Duxbury, Waterbury, Ambulance Station, Stowe High School, North Hyde Park Fire Station, and Eden Town Office. Next up in Windham County on May 17th, Windham Town Offices will be at May 18th, the Windhall Fire Department, the London Dairy Ambulance Station, May 19th, Deerfield Valley Ambulance in Wilmington, and May 20th at the Sierbesburg Town Office. On May 21st, 22nd, and 23rd, emergency medical services and fire departments across Vermont will open their doors and host vaccination clinics. EMS Week is traditionally reserved to celebrate the 2,800 dedicated men and women who served Vermonters through the EMS system. The best way you can recognize the hard work and sacrifice they have done over the year is to become vaccinated, join them as our EMS partners offer vaccines at 30 sites throughout Vermont. I will share more details later this week about the actual locations. EMS events will be walk-in only, sign up online for other events at healthfermont.gov slash my vaccine, or you can call 855-722-7878 to make an appointment. There will be doses available for walk-ins at each location. In an update of this past weekend's vaccination efforts, we held events at the following location, and here are some of the results. In Castleton, we had 132 people get vaccinated at Northern Vermont University in Linden, it was 127. At the Tumbridge drive-through, it was 174 and Devils Bowl 35. Essex County Barnstorming, more than 170 people. Bear Ridge was 75, and this is interesting because they surveyed people attending and out of the 132 people saying they hadn't been vaccinated, 75 took the opportunity to be vaccinated at the Speedway. We want to really thank Bear Ridge for offering free admission for those that were vaccinated. The total for the weekend is 713 out of these particular events. In addition, we are still planning worksite visits and restaurant visits in the upcoming weeks to offer vaccine to employees. This is still in the planning stages. We are working with the City of Burlington on hosting events at Church Street and North Beach. In addition to all these efforts, we continue to hold clinics throughout the state, and our federal pharmacy partners are offering vaccine clinics as well, and they remained well attended. Go to healthvermont.gov.slashmyvaccine, or you can call 855-722-7878 to see a list of vaccine sites nearest you and to make an appointment. We hope to hear from the CDC this week regarding approval of the Pfizer vaccine for those aged 12 to 15. Following FDA's approval yesterday, the CDC's ACIP committee will meet Wednesday. Pending CDC's approval, we are tentative of planning to open registration immediately. In the decision, if the decision comes outside business hours, registration will open at 8.15 the next morning. Beginning May 17, school-based sites will be part of this effort, as well as our regular clinics. We have been communicating with school districts, and we are very appreciative of their support. As a reminder, families with children in this age group will be eligible to go to any site across the state that offers the Pfizer vaccine, and all sites will be open to the public. Clinics are in the process of being scheduled at more than 40 schools across the state. The schedule for school-based sites should be finalized in the next couple of days. Registration for school-based and community sites serving 12 to 15-year-olds will be online at healthvermont.gov.slashmyvaccine, or you can call, you can also register, at Kenny's and CVS websites. Instructions will be coming out from schools. In preparation of this new group, we are ordering four extra flats of 1,170 each for a total of 4,480 extra Pfizer doses today through the Federal Reallocation Program. This program gives us the opportunity to request vaccine above our weekly allocation. If approved, and we should know by the end of the week, the doses will arrive next week. Let's talk about overall progress. As of this morning, 377,800 people have been vaccinated against COVID-19. 104,600 have received their first dose of the vaccine, 273,200 have received their first and last doses. I'll wrap up by mentioning that we are starting to see fewer people in sort of the out days making vaccine appointments and more people utilizing the walk-in opportunities. This is one of those times when it doesn't matter how you go about getting vaccinated, it only matters that you choose to get your shot. It's convenient, easy, free, and it saves lives. Thank you. I'll turn it over to Commissioner Pichek for our weekly modeling update. Thank you very much, Secretary Smith, and good morning, everyone. Over this past week, the United States has crept closer to having 50 percent of our population with at least one dose, and consequently, the country is seeing vast improvement in cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. In Vermont, we are fortunately far ahead of the national average with over 60 percent of our population having received at least one dose, and as a result, we are seeing even better trends in our state. And for Vermont, it is so critical for everyone to step up and get vaccinated because we've done such a great job of keeping the virus at bay over the last 14 months that we have the second lowest cases per capita in the country. But as a result of that, we also have one of the more susceptible populations in terms of getting infected with COVID, at least at the time that the vaccine program was rolled out. But again, as Secretary Smith mentioned, Vermonters are stepping up. Looking at the scorecard, we are leading in four of the five most important CDC metrics this week that we have been tracking. We also estimate at this point that 190 Vermont lives have been saved by the vaccination program, showing really steady progress and really optimistic outlooks. Vermont has also seen steady and strong uptake among new individuals getting vaccinated. We continue to be far ahead of the national average on this important metric as we add thousands of new Vermonters each day to those who have started the vaccination progress. Looking at vaccination by age, we see that Vermont continues to be far ahead of the national average on vaccinating those 30 and older, and while we're closer to the national average on those 30 and younger. But we do want to acknowledge the improvement that we've seen in that 30 and under category. Last week, those age bands sat just below the national average, and this week they're sitting comfortably above the national average. So there's certainly more work to be done, but progress is being made. Looking at vaccination rates among Vermont's BIPOC community, we can also see that progress is being made here across Vermont and New England. Vermont, shown here in green, sits at near the top of all New England states and vaccinating people of color, and Vermont has made steady gains as the health department has implemented a variety of strategies to reach out to communities across Vermont. And to be clear, we still have work to be done to ensure equity, access, and trust in our vaccination program, but we are seeing tangible results. Today in this week, we've also met the bottom of the range for the June 1 goal of vaccinating at least 60% of our population. Per the CDC, we stand at 61.9% of Vermonters who have started the vaccination progress. So again, another sign that we're making steady progress on vaccination that we're even ahead of where we anticipated being, which was a rather ambitious goal. Vermont's high vaccination rates continue to lead to favorable case trends, hospitalization trends, and fatality rates in Vermont. This week, Vermont is reporting 390 new COVID-19 cases, 146 fewer than last week, and our seven-day average trended down 20%, and is down close to 70% over the last six weeks. And again, we're seeing these decreases while Vermont leads the nation in per capita testing over the last seven days. Looking at Vermont's age demographics, we can see that cases are again trending lower pretty much across the board with steep declines in those who are under 60 years old, and people in those age bands also seeing their vaccination rates climb as well. But note, as we just mentioned earlier, that cases continue to be higher in those age groups that are less vaccinated here in Vermont. In fact, they are almost four times higher in our least vaccinated age band compared to our most vaccinated age band, again illustrating how critical it is for everyone to get the vaccine's protection. Looking at cases across Vermont, we also see widespread improvement here with 12 of Vermont's 14 counties seeing a decrease, with a slight increase in Franklin and a little bit larger increase in Orleans, but across the board pretty steady results across Vermont. And we're also seeing improvement in northern New Hampshire in western Maine, where we had some concerns over the past few weeks as well. And taking a look at the previous forecast that we presented on April 27th, you can see that the new case growth in Vermont has been trending very closely to this forecast, and we anticipate based on updated modeling and the CDC ensemble model that we will continue to follow this trend as we move into the summer. But again, the more people that we vaccinate here in Vermont, the quicker we will see these trends drop and the more lives that we will save. With a steady decrease in new cases, Vermont continues to see a significant drop in the rate of hospitalization as well. Vermont hospitalization rates are down 17 percent over the last seven days and down 29 percent over the last 14 days. In fact, our hospitalization rate continues to be the lowest in the country on a per capita basis. And again, with vaccination rates rising among those age groups that are most vulnerable to hospitalizations, we anticipate the rate to continue to decline in the weeks ahead. The improved case rates and hospitalization trends have continued to impact our fatality rates favorably. Vermont has unfortunately seen two fatalities so far in May, but keep in mind that fatalities are happening with much less frequency now, and we should continue to see fewer fatalities in May compared to the last few months. And we continue to forecast that we'll see as few as five and as many as 15 deaths in the month of May. Now, while much of the news that we've talked about today in Vermont and New England is very favorable and very optimistic, we do want to highlight some ongoing challenges that are occurring in the state of Maine to again highlight the importance of Vermonters across all age bands and across all geographies to get vaccinated. Maine, like Vermont, has been a national leader in vaccine administration. In fact, they're first in the country in terms of the percent of their population that's fully vaccinated. And although their case rates are a little bit higher than Vermont, they have generally been trending down over the last five weeks. However, over that same period of time, Maine has seen a dramatic increase in the number of people that are requiring intensive care. In fact, just yesterday, while Vermont had two people in the ICU, Maine had 50. And Maine health officials are noting that the increase is being driven by unvaccinated individuals with a stark shift to younger patients even in their 20s requiring intensive care. So again, even with our strong uptakes here in Vermont, we remain vulnerable to this type of setback if we don't see high uptake among all age bands and among all geographies. Looking at the region for the fifth straight week in a row, cases in the Northeast are falling with cases in every Northeast state decreasing compared to last week. Cases this week totaled just under 37,000, a decrease of about 10,000 compared to last week representing a 22% decline. And again, over the last five weeks, cases in the region have fallen an impressive 60%. And the regional forecast anticipates that this trend will continue over the next six weeks into the summer. Hospitalization rates are also declining in the region down close to 19% over the past week with fewer fatalities as well. Again, all these trends certainly point to a bright summer ahead for Vermont and for New England. Now, at this time, I would like to introduce Chief Prevention Officer Monica Hutt. Good morning. Over the course of the pandemic, we've been acutely aware of the impact of isolation and the disruption of normal life on the health and well-being of Vermont's youth. In fact, Governor Scott, Deputy Secretary Boucher from the Agency of Education, Commissioner Squirrel from the Department of Mental Health, along with Holly Morehouse from Vermont After School, have emphasized the importance of this summer to Vermont's children and youth. As we move steadily towards normal, we've engaged schools, summer programs, summer camps in planning with us for a summer designed to re-engage Vermont's kids in recreation, enrichments, apprenticeships, internships, and even summer jobs. We know that school and summer programming, that third space outside of home and school, is a critical component in building protective factors for our kids as they connect, learn, and build strong relationships with trusted adults. After school and summer programming is actually a core prevention strategy. It supports Vermont families and offers learning enrichment, opportunities to explore interests, and a safe space for kids, ensuring Vermont's youth have the best possible chance to succeed. This summer in particular, we asked our summer programs to step up and partner with us to create more opportunities, more available slots, and to serve kids in more areas of the state. Secretary French spoke at the last press conference about the surveillance testing for students, third grade to twelfth grade, that would be piloted in schools this spring. In order to ensure that our summer day camps have the same opportunity for surveillance testing of unvaccinated campers, we've built a parallel testing system for those programs. Like the school programs, our testing programs for day camps will be voluntary, free to families into camps, and conducted with the consent of parents and guardians. Within the next two weeks, eligible camps will be able to register for the testing program using a simple online form and then connect directly with CIC Health for surveillance testing of campers. The recommended testing frequency will be determined by the Vermont Department of Health. Training to conduct the testing will be available directly through CIC Health at no cost to our eligible summer day camps and programs. More information will be coming shortly and will be shared directly with camps and programs. In addition to our summer health guidance, surveillance testing is yet another strategy in our toolkit to support summer programs as they step up to make sure that this summer matters for Vermont's kids. And now I will turn it over to Dr. Levine for a health update. Good morning. Our daily reported cases remain well below 100, was 52 reported today. I do need to note that Saturday's case count, which was originally reported on Sunday as six cases, has now been revised to 25. This was due to a reporting delay. I do hope and expect we eventually will have days with single-digit case counts, but we're not quite there yet. Our positivity rate remains very low at 1.1%, hospitalizations 14 with three in the ICU. Our epi teams are following just over 50 outbreaks, which is about half of what they were following two or three weeks ago. It's always good news to see less spread of COVID-19 and more signs that the variants of the virus are not having a huge impact in Vermont right now. But let me be clear, the virus is still here, the variants are still here, and tragically, still lead to loss as we note two additional deaths. This is why I will keep asking Vermonters to get vaccinated. Anyone who is not vaccinated is still vulnerable. But don't do it because I asked you to. Do it for yourself, do it for your loved ones. Do it so we can get back to doing what we love and enjoy everything that our communities have to offer. This leads me to the really great news we heard last evening. As you've heard, the FDA extended the emergency use authorization for the Pfizer vaccine to 12 to 15-year-olds. The FDA's action was informed by clinical trials that included 2,260 children ages 12 to 15 in the U.S., about half of whom got Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine. There were 18 cases of COVID-19 in the placebo group and significantly none in the vaccinated group, which leads to 100% efficacy. Side effects were about the same as those seen in People 16 and above. As you all know, the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices meets tomorrow and are expected to recommend the vaccine to the Centers for Disease Control, which will almost certainly approve its use that evening. After approval, instructions and guidance surrounding use will be released to the states. Vermont has been preparing for this. We'll be ready to offer vaccine to this age group almost immediately, certainly this week. We'll be providing plenty of information about this and all our vaccination opportunities over the next days. In the meantime, if you have a child in this group, start planning ahead by creating an account on our website, healthfromont.gov slash myvaccine. Or if you already have an account of your own, you can add your child as a dependent. Then you'll be ready to make your appointment when registration opens. Instead of leaving ourselves vulnerable, let's all commit to protecting ourselves so we can protect one another. There's been much discussion of the concept of community immunity. Even though the scientific community does not yet have a definitive percentage of the population vaccinated that we need to reach, but here in Vermont, as you've seen, we're doing extraordinarily well and are on track to do even better. And our region is also performing well, which should give us confidence that all our hard work to stop this virus will pay off. We continue to watch with great interest countries like the U.K. and Israel who have achieved vaccination rates and around the same age of our at same range as ours and continue to do very well with marked decreases in cases reported. We will keep working to make it as easy as possible for anyone not yet vaccinated to get the vaccine. And in the meantime, if you have questions, I do urge you to seek out trusted sources like your health care provider. These are the people you trust regularly with your health, and they are there to give you the information you need about safety, side effects, vaccine type and more. The same goes for parents of 16 and 17-year-olds who are already eligible for the vaccine, as well as for the 12 to 15-year-olds. Talk to your child's pediatrician. They are there for you and your child. And many of them are making appearances in your region of the state to emphasize the importance of vaccine for children in the age groups we've just discussed. And I hope you also consider the health department to be one of your trusted sources. Certainly, our survey data indicates that is so. Maybe it's me, though I won't flatter myself with that, but I hope you know you can turn to our website, get trusted and medically and scientifically credible information. Be sure to check our frequently asked questions. Because there is a lot of information out there, some good, some quite misleading. These conversations are the ones that will help you get the fact-based information you need to make an informed decision. And speaking of trusted health care professionals, many of us have marked the beginning of Nurses Week on Friday, so today I'd just like to especially call out National School Nurse Day, which is tomorrow. Our school nurses play an invaluable role in our COVID-19 work in schools. Responding to cases quickly, identifying who needs to quarantine, making sure everyone knows how to take care of their health, physically and emotionally and much more. These are the people who have been key to helping keep kids in school and minimize outbreaks where possible. We hope we can continue to use their skills and wisdom as we continue vaccinating more and more children in Vermont. As a doctor and a health commissioner, I know that everything you do regarding the pandemic response is in addition to your commitment to our children's overall health and education. So please know that I see you and I thank you for what you do for our kids every day. And I'd like to close with a reminder to everyone getting two doses of vaccine. Please be sure to bring your vaccination card to your second dose appointment. That makes it a lot easier to record your second dose and allow you to have a proof of vaccination to show should you need it. And for everyone who gets fully vaccinated, keep your card in a safe place. And when needed, show it with pride. It represents the important role you played in helping to end the pandemic. We'll start the question and answer period now. Thank you, Dr. Levine. So if Pfizer gets not just emergency use authorization, but eventually it gets full authorization, can schools require it like they do the measles or other shots? I believe the answer is yes. There should be no reason why that would be an exception to their protocols if that came to be. I guess you also mentioned trusted provider or trusted information out there. I mean, I guess I'm wondering, you know, at this point, is the state considering giving vaccines to primary care providers as well with earth pediatricians or doctors for adults too? Absolutely. In fact, I believe the 19th is the first day that there will be a select number of sites getting some Moderna vaccine to utilize for their populations. We have been having an ongoing and are continuing to enroll practices that might not already be enrolled in our immunization program. And so they will continue to be eligible to get vaccine as well. You know, you've heard about a whole bunch of opportunities that are available to Vermonters with regard to the sites that they might get vaccinated at, some of the more interesting sites, some of the more accessible sites, some of the mobility of vaccine bringing it to the population. We also do regard that primary care setting to be important. It's obviously not the place where you can do such a mass vaccination effort. But I know from fact that there are a number of adults that have been, I'll use the word holding out because they want to really have that interaction with their own physician. And they want to really use that office setting that they've gotten all their other vaccines in. So we're going to make sure that that yet is yet another option for everybody. Clarifying question, but I'll give it to the governor. No problem. Good morning. I just got off the phone with fellow governors Dr. Fauci, the CDC director Dr. Volensky, White House officials and others. And here's what we heard first that our Pfizer and Moderna doses will remain the same as last week. But there won't be any Johnson and Johnson allocation this week. Without Johnson and Johnson, there will be a slight decrease for Vermont of about 1200 doses. Now, we're on a good track with the supply we have. So while we always like more, this shouldn't set us back. Additionally, this is the first week of the new federal pool, the new system where states can order more than their maximum allocation. So I'd expect we'd take advantage of that this week. On the emergency authorization, the EUA that will open up Pfizer to those over the age of 12, they sounded optimistic that approval would be coming very, very soon. And that's about all I heard on the call at this point in time. Next, as you heard, our vaccination strategy continues to lead the nation, ranking first on percentage of the population who received at least one dose. Vermont should be proud of what we've accomplished, but we also understand there's still a lot more work to do. We're continuing to expand our efforts to bring vaccines to where people are so we can keep up this momentum. Our goal is to make the vaccine accessible enough that not receiving one will be an active choice. And we think this will help our numbers continue to improve, particularly in the 18 to 29 population, which has been underperforming over the past few weeks. So as Secretary Smith mentioned, we'll continue to expand walk-ins, drive-throughs, and bring vaccines to workplaces, events, and other gathering sites. And if anyone has any ideas, we're all open to any suggestions anyone might have. To that end, today we've hit the 60% vaccination target we set for June 1 as step three of the Vermont Forward Plan, which is over two weeks ahead of schedule. As we learned this morning, we also anticipate final approval of the Pfizer vaccine for the 12 to 15 year olds. And that could happen as soon as tomorrow, further expanding the percentage of our population we can reach. As you know, our Vermont Forward Plan is tied to vaccination rates. And given how effective we've been and our experience has proven that to be true. So we're considering accelerating our Vermont Forward timetable for step three, which we'll talk about on Friday. There's also a possibility we could accelerate the final step, now slated for July 4. But to do that, we need a lot more people vaccinated than are currently registered. We've said since the beginning that our plan can change depending on conditions, and it could have gone either way. But fortunately, we're in a very good place. And if, and only if, for a moment to step up and get vaccinated, we could get out of this sooner than we had thought and hoped for. But again, we'll have more information for you on Friday. So with that, we'll move back to questions. Thank you. Governor, this is probably just one last follow up for Dr. Levine. So potentially, when we open up this next age band for 12 to 15, is there going to be a specific carve out for kids with high risk conditions? Sort of like how in the previous age bands they went first. I'm just wondering if that's going to happen for this one. The short answer is yes. And we know how to identify that population and should be able to accommodate that. But you have to understand this is going to happen in such a compressed period of time. So it may not appear that anyone is being prioritized over anyone else, because we have a total number of people in that age range in the mid 20,000. It's not going to take a tremendous amount of time to schedule and get all of that done, especially with the variety of places people can go, from traditional sites to pharmacies to school sites, school based sites. So again, prioritization is a relative thing, only because it's going to happen quickly. I could just add to that, as we learned on the White House call, there is plenty of Pfizer in the system. So with the new federal pool, the new system, we could ask for more Pfizer. So we should be able to accomplish any requests in a short order. Yeah, with the go ahead on the 12 to 16 year olds, have we worked out how that's going to work? Can they go into the walk-in clinics? Do they still need their parents to be with them? How's that going to work out? The easiest way, Steve, is to register online and go through the various clinics that we have, whether it's school based or the community clinics that have Pfizer. That's the easiest way. You have a check off box there. There will be walk-in opportunities that you will have. It will be paper-based. You have to have a parent to sign off on that in a way that there is consent. I would like to encourage people to use the registration process. We'll have almost up to 40 schools that will be participating into this program, plus the other community sites that will be available. It's just easier, and also you can use some of our federal pharmacy partners in there. It's just really easy that way. So there is the possibility of having a form that they print off? That's right. Check and sign so the kid can go. Yeah, there will be a form. My thought was with these walk-in clinics at various venues, and a parent is going there with them anyway, that makes it... It does. Many of these just remember a lot of... Not all, but some of these are not Pfizer clinics. So you've got to search for Pfizer clinics as you... It's easier just to get on and register and search for the Pfizer clinics online. That's it for me. Thank you. Good morning. Maybe you said this, but how many 12 to 15-year-olds does Vermont have? Do you know? 27,000. That is good statistical recall. Governor, good morning. I understand you have... First of all, could you discuss the lawsuit yesterday challenging your authority over masks and social distancing? I know you all just put out a statement, but are you feeling any heat about this? Does that play into your thinking at all about perhaps accelerating the end of this? Yeah. First of all, I think everyone has to understand this is not a new lawsuit. This is something that happened a few weeks ago, maybe a few months ago. So this is just a continuance of that. But we feel secure in our position and don't fear in this lawsuit. So the Attorney General will represent us when and if, and we feel good in terms of our position. They object to any sort of requirement to get a vaccine at school or in the workplace. What do you say to that? Well, again, I think just look at the data and the science thus far. And you saw with the this morning, even with the number of vaccinations we have, leading those in the nation, our rate has reduced dramatically. The number of deaths has reduced dramatically. So I guess the data and science is what I would rely on to show that we're doing the right thing. We're not we're not mandating anything. It's your personal choice. But it's there and it's it's been we've been successful and and our numbers show it. Let me ask you one statehouse question. I understand you have the bill eliminating the statute of limitations for childhood physical abuse on your desk. What will you do? What are your feelings about signing that? I'll be signing it. I think we've had the review at this point. And it's just the the time for me. There's a number of other bills that are coming across my desk as well. But I'll be signing that one. All right. Thank you. Wilson. Hi, everybody. Stuart just preempted me. I was going to ask that question about the physical abuse. And I haven't had time to think up another one. But I was going to ask also what is the status? I don't know who would answer this. What is the status of the vaccine for under 12? It seems like that's not looking any time before the fall, is it? Yeah, I believe it's just going through the the trial. And from what we've heard, it will be sometime maybe September before that comes to be or if at all. But Dr. Levine can answer that further. We've all had the assumption it would be the fall. But I did see some recent news talking about something about July. I don't know if that's a preliminary report or or what. But we certainly know Pfizer is eager to to move on this. But the trial has to still run the amount of time it has to run. So we may learn a little in the summertime, but I doubt there'd be anything more substantial till the fall. So how vulnerable does the population as a whole remain as long as there's significant I don't know what the percentage of the population is under 12. But as long as that age group remains unvaccinated, those children could potentially carry and pass the virus to everyone, right? Potentially. Can we really get on until they're done too? Yeah, but potentially is the important word because when we watch how the virus has behaved throughout the time we've been familiar with it, that group of children who are in elementary school and below clearly are not the major vectors of virus. They're not getting the virus with the same frequency. They're not getting severe illness from the virus with the same frequency as adults. And it's one of the ways we kept talking about opening schools more and making sure we had our youngest kids in school was that they were not vectoring it to each other or to the adults in their world. So that's very important consideration. If you look at countries, again, like I said a little bit in my opening comments, like Israel, which is a little ahead of us in terms of in the 60s percent of people having at least one vaccine at the time, they have just had this precipitous drop off in their cases. And they haven't vaccinated anybody under age 16 in their country. So the UK has some similar data to share regarding that as well. So the strategy of rushing to a vaccine for everybody under 12 and making it seem like that's the last thing we have to do, we're going to have made such incredible progress up until that point that I wouldn't want people to think that this will never end unless we get to that point in time. We're going to have very, very substantial progress made even without attending to that group. And there'll be a lot of discussion, obviously, about that group because, again, just because a vaccine reaches emergency use authorization doesn't necessarily mean it will become the recommendation of the CDC and others. Or it may, but there'll be a lot of weighing in the balance of the potential need or not need for that to be done. Okay, I thank everyone. Please, Salinas, the Valley Reporter. Good morning. One of the slides in today's modeling deck shows an increase in the number of people who now say they're definitely not going to get the vaccine. So what do you attribute that increase? Mr. Peachette. At least it's a good question. So that's from the household census survey, the poll survey, I should say. And basically, it excludes people who have already gotten the vaccine. So when those answers or when those questions are being answered, it's only among people that remain unvaccinated. So as we vaccinate more and more people and the pool that remains is made up of a greater percentage of people who are hesitant or have questions about it, then those percentages are going to go up. So really, that's what it is, is that it represents, you know, the fact that we vaccinate so many people that the pool that remains has a higher percentage of hesitant people than it did before. Okay, so that makes great sense. And then another question about testing. We had a reader write in about his daughter was potentially exposed at school and he got her tested last Thursday in Waterbury. He got the results on Friday. He got his mother tested on Friday in Waterbury and her results had not come back by Monday morning. When he called to check on the status of it, as she needed the results to travel, he was told that the lab where those tests were sent didn't process on the weekend. Is this the case? Are there some Vermont tests not being processed on weekends? That is unfortunately is the case, but Secretary Smith can answer further. Yeah, Lisa, it depends on where it was sent. And if I can reach out to you, I would like to know a little bit more about this, just to make sure that I have enough information to sort of steer you right on this one. Yes, thank you. I will share. If you have Andrea reach out, I will share the contact information. Okay, thank you. And if I could, just one, thank you. And then just a final fast question for Commissioner Harrington. Are there any exemptions for people with disabilities in terms of the new job search requirement? Thanks, Lisa. Specifically for that question, it really depends on whether it's COVID specific and whether the disability is a diagnosis of a healthcare professional, where they're instructing the individual not to return to the workplace during a very distinct period of time specific to COVID-19. If someone has a long-term disability in traditional unemployment circumstances, they aren't necessarily eligible for unemployment because they can't return to work. But they may be able to access additional resources. Okay, I think I'm not quite understanding that. This is somebody with a traditional disability. Under the law, they have a standing disability that prevents them to return to work. So if they become disabled while they're employed and because of the disability, they are not able to return to employment. So they would be eligible for other benefits, either federally or under the state, but they wouldn't be eligible for unemployment insurance. So some of that, the tenant, the core tenant behind unemployment insurance is really are you able and available to accept work offered? So if the disability is preventing them from returning to work, then they potentially are not eligible, whether it's a temporary disability or a longer. Okay, got it. Thank you very much. That's all for me. Greg Lamerow, the County Courier. Thank you, Jason. Good morning, Governor. Still waiting for an answer on how many troopers on the roster, specifically the St. Albans Barracks are on leave or deployed, somehow not able to work on a day-to-day basis. Mr. Sherling, are you on? I am, Governor. Greg, I know our team is engaged with you on answering that question. Yeah, I still haven't heard an answer on my records request. And as you know, Commissioner, it's supposed to be fulfilled promptly. And I figured that since it was such a basic question, I'd probably hear, you know, it's not been, I guess, four days since I submitted it. As I indicated, I believe they're engaged with you on answering the question. Okay, well, I still haven't heard, but I will move on. Since I have you, Commissioner, on Friday, you declined to comment on the lack of transparency from VSP with several arrests, specifically regarding numerous felony charges that were never made public to the general public. Two luminous abuse charges, sexual assault, failures to report for sex offenders, multiple assaults. You asked that I email you that and you could address it. Still haven't heard. So I guess the overarching question here, now that you've seen that email, is this an isolated incident to the St. Albans Barracks and are these troopers that are derelict in their duty or is there some sort of overarching state policy that's keeping these things hidden from the public? Well, Greg, I don't want to sound argumentative, but the premise of both of your questions is flawed. We were engaged with you. I was engaged with you in an email chain immediately following the press conference on Friday. The team has researched the incidents that you asked about. There are nine that were found across 737 cases that occurred in March and April in the St. Albans Barracks where news releases were not issued in a timely fashion. So they're working to remedy that. I was under impression our PIO sent you that list about two hours ago. So you might want to check your email. And when the question was asked on Friday, I didn't decline to comment. I asked you to send me the information so I could comment. Yeah, okay. So I was asking for comment, but I guess, Governor, I've heard several times now that the SP is adequately staffed and that, you know, command staff is assuring everybody that they have the appropriate number of troopers. In a core affidavit that I acquired today, the SP incident on April 8th, the beginning paragraph, the trooper says that he began to shift at 6pm only to respond to an assault that was reported more than an hour and a half before that that troopers from the previous shift were unable to get to because they were already dealing with another case. I'm wondering, Governor, when you hear cases like this, does it make you question the honesty of command staff and the assertion that staffing levels are adequate? Because, quite frankly, from what I'm seeing, it seems kind of counterproductive and doesn't quite seem to match up with public records. Well, first of all, I have complete faith in the command staff. In terms of that one incident, this is the first I'm hearing of this, but I assume that does happen. If you have a situation that involves a number of troopers at one time, something's got to give. Now, I will also say that throughout, I've been saying, whether it's state government, whether it's with the VSP, whether it's in the trades, whether it's in education, throughout every single sector, we are being challenged as a state for our workforce. And that's due to declining numbers or demographics, something I've talked about for four years, and we have to attract more people to the state. So every single sector is impacted. And again, across the board, whether it's the hospitality sector, I'm sure you've been hearing from some of your businesses about the need for more employees, and it's no different in state government, and it's no different with our state police. We are challenged at this point. And I believe Mr. Sherling might have said something similar to that at the last press conference, but I'll let him speak for himself. But I seem to remember acknowledging that we have some challenges on our hands as well. Thank you, Governor. I've not used the term adequate, and I am not familiar with all the command steps discussions on this topic, but I have described as the Governor has that staffing is a challenge. I've also said that staffing is not at a crisis level, which seems to be the implication of the question here. It is not uncommon for events to have unfortunate delays in responses, sometimes an hour and a half or more depending on call volume. That is, in my 30 years doing this, it is something we see from time to time and accelerates at certain times of the year when the weather is good and other factors are in play. So that's not necessarily emblematic of a staffing issue, but I'll reiterate we do have staffing challenges across every sector, as the Governor indicated, in law enforcement in particular, in first response in general, both in fire departments, emergency medical services, and again in particular in law enforcement. We have concerns about ongoing recruitment, but we're not at a crisis level, and I'll reiterate what I said on Friday, does anyone out there listening who is looking for a career change and looking to serve their communities in a meaningful way, just about every law enforcement agency and many volunteer organizations across Vermont are actively seeking folks to fill those roles. So it's, you're considering DSP being at safe staffing levels, even when there are instances, albeit in your mind far too between where assaults can't be responded to for sometimes an hour or two? I'm not sure I'm following the entire premise of the question, so I would say this, that there are instances throughout Vermont in every first response organization where there are delays as a result of overwhelming call volumes. Same thing happens in our emergency rooms, unfortunately there are delays in getting people into treatment because, and those delays do not generally, or in my experience, just about never endanger anyone's welfare. There's only so much capacity in our emergency response systems, and sometimes that capacity reaches its zenith, and it takes a little bit of time to get to certain calls. That said, in my experience, it is very rare that an in-progress event doesn't get a response. Somebody breaks off of another call for service that they're on and gets a response. All right, we still have 17. Thank you, Governor. Thank you. We'll move to Joseph Gresser, the Barton Chronicle. Hello, Governor. Looking at the situation in Washington where the Republican Party seems about to remove Representative Cheney from the leadership based on her unwillingness to support the lie promulgated by Donald Trump, that he, in fact, won the election, and given the widespread attempts at limiting voting across the country and other measures taken to censure people who will not support that point of view, as well as the long-term unwillingness to recognize certain facts like climate change, are you uncomfortable remaining a member of the Republican Party and being associated with that? I know that you've explained your principles, and I think it's fair to say you've demonstrated your adherence to them in your political career, but it seems that you are very on a very different track from the party you belong to, and if you're not thinking of disassociating yourself, do you have ideas about how you can work to redirect the party you do belong to? Yeah, I will say that I think it's unfortunate, the tact that the House leadership has taken in this particular instance, Representative Cheney, is a very conservative leader amongst that the House of Representatives on the Republican side, and I think that that's something that makes her appealing to many, and the big tent that we talk about a lot within the party doesn't appear to exist if you don't swear allegiance to the former president, which again leaves a lot of people out, and maybe that's their tactic, but again for those of us that don't support the former president with this litmus test, it appears that there's a sign that is being placed in the window saying you need apply, and if you don't adhere to those values or that litmus test, in fact you are no longer welcome, and I think that that's really unfortunate, especially for Representative Liz Cheney and as well as others within the party, and I obviously don't support what they're doing, but there are a number of other factions around the country that who are Republicans that are speaking out, and I'm of that group and maybe a minority, but maybe there's more who are silent that have the same feelings, so again I don't think this is a step in the right direction for the House Republicans, but that's their prerogative, but I'm not seeing it on the Senate side, and I certainly don't see it amongst the Republican governors who I've been welcomed in and appreciated, and there's never been any mention from the Republican Governors Association about my support or lack of support for the former president. Yes, given that do you have any ideas of working with say other governors such as Governor Baker or Governor Hogan who might share your concerns to redirect the party, or is there a point at which you just feel you have to go your separate ways? Well again, I think you have mentioned two, at least two, and there are others who share the same viewpoint that I do. Governor Baker, Governor Hogan, Governor Hogan said over the weekend that he was disappointed as well, and but that's, you know, all we can do ourselves is continue to do what we've been doing, serve the people who elected us, and do it in a manner that is reputable and opening, open and welcoming. So I'll continue to be that type of Republican, and I will join others who feel the same way. John Dillon, Vermont Public Radio. Thank you. Governor, you talked a minute ago about maybe accelerating Vermont's reopening before July 4th, but only if and only Vermont or step up can we get out of this sooner. Have you thought about incentives for people to get vaccinated, financial incentives, I don't know cash payments? I heard about a brewery, you know, giving free beer, I don't know if that's the best idea, but for people coming in to get this, I just wondered if that's sort of part of the mix that you're thinking of as we go forward and really try to boost the rate beyond where we are now? Yeah, we're fairly, we're fortunate here in this state, as opposed to many others. I saw whether it was one county, I believe in Georgia, that has a 4% vaccination rate, and that's unheard of here in our state, which again, we're blessed with a lot of Vermonters who want to do the right thing and are doing it for the right reasons. It's not as though we haven't talked about spoken amongst our group about different incentives, but at this point in time, we haven't needed them again. I think the attitude of Vermonters is to do the right thing and do it for the right reasons, but I do appreciate all of the incentives that some are taking in terms of whether it's a maple creamy or giving away free whatever. I think I heard that Lyft and Uber, although we don't have many Lyft and Uber drivers in the state, but throughout the nation, they're giving free rides to anyone who wants to get to a vaccination site. But at this point, we are not considering as a state to provide for any cash incentives. It's not as though it's off the table, but it would be unfortunate, I think, to have to institute a program like that when we've had so many step up for the common good and do it already. And I think it sends the wrong message. So again, we'll continue to do what we can. But I would again, I thank those like Bear Ridge Speedway last weekend had given away free admission to a race if they got their their vaccination. And I anticipate that we'll hear more from business groups. And I've heard from different employers who have provided for incentives for their employees to get vaccinated. So so again, all this combined, I think is the right approach. But at this point in time, we're not considering doing anything at the state level. Thank you. And are you expecting a state of emergency to be extended then on Saturday? Yes, I think it expired. Yes. Yeah, we'll be quick. Quick question for Dr. Levine. There was a story in a new poem yesterday about this virus just becoming endemic in that human population, something that we just have to live with like like TB and other diseases that have been around forever. Is that sort of what you you're thinking will happen if you can put on the look into the crystal ball and that things like masking in some situations will still be needed because of the endemic nature of the disease? Thanks. Thanks for that question, John. And I think the governor and I want to join in congratulating you on your retirement and say job well done. With regard to your question, becoming endemic does not necessarily equate with having to constantly have mitigation procedures against the virus. It can become endemic and be still around affect people who are vaccinated, perhaps give mild illness, be part of the testing we do for respiratory illnesses in the winter, much like we test for the flu and other types of viruses. But that doesn't necessarily mean we all have to put masks on, stay six feet away, never go indoors again or anything of that sort. Because really, when you get to the level of vaccination that we're reaching for and heading in a great direction for, you do have a degree of suppression of the virus so that even though it is there, it's not going to be able to raise its head very often. It's not going to be constantly being transmitted from one person to another. It may show up in a case here, in a case there, but probably not turn into an outbreak amongst people. So that's what we'll be watching for very closely as we enter the fall and winter this year. But I really want to emphasize it doesn't mean a return to hardship, if you will, in behaviors that we thought we had gotten rid of and don't need to go back to. Great, thank you very much. Before we go on, I just wanted to reiterate what Dr. Levine had said and want to congratulate John on his retirement this week. I don't know if this is his last time calling into one of these media briefings or not, but John has spent 20 years at Vermont Public Radio and was in journalism years before that as well. He's held elected officials accountable, myself included. We may not have always agreed, but John was doing it in a fair and equitable way and very balanced and I appreciate that journalistic quality. So we want to wish you, John, all the best in a well-deserved retirement. I'm sure our paths will cross somewhere again, but I thank you for your service to Vermont over the many years. Well, thank you. I know Secretary Clinton has tried this retirement take a few times, so we'll see how it works out. That is true. Yeah. All right, thanks. Tim McQuiston, Vermont Business Magazine. And I'd add, Governor, that John is broken. I think the most significant energy-related issues to him is actually more than 30 years here in Vermont reporting. So congratulations, John, on that. I had a couple of legislative questions, Governor. Secretary Young sent a letter to the legislature. It seemed like the promising of veto, in your part, if the budget as is in the allocation of the ARPA funds goes forward. Is that any movement on that end? Yeah. I mean, they haven't, you know, in defense of the legislature of the house in particular, their budget actually went over to the Senate previous to ARPA. So they didn't have any time to really consider that. The Senate has done what they're going to do. And I, again, would reiterate what the letter had said. And from my standpoint, we agree on a lot of the provisions within the budget. There's not a lot in there that we have huge issues with. It's just where they're getting the money. As I've said many, many times, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. This billion dollars of flexible money that we're receiving. And by the way, we just received some of the guidelines yesterday from the Treasury, and we haven't had time to go through them. But I feel, I feel strongly that we can't squander this opportunity, that we need to utilize this to really transform Vermont in many ways that we've, we all have agreed with on, in terms of some of these monumental issues that plagued our state for decades, whether it's broadband or housing, climate change, water sewer, storm water, and so forth. This is money that we should utilize wisely, because we're not going to get this opportunity again, I don't believe. So it's not as though we disagree on a lot of the content. It's just where the money comes from. Because if we spend it on programmatic needs, we won't have it to transform Vermont in the way I envision it. And I'm still waiting to hear from them what their plan is for the entire billion dollars. And related to that, those big spending plans, the Senate unanimously passed just about an hour ago, the $150 million broadband bill H360. Does that meet, I know it's only about really half of what you're looking for, but does that meet, at this point, would meet your approval? Well, again, if they would give me some comfort that they know that it doesn't meet the entire goal, I mean, we need, I think we would all agree, that's not going to do it. We're going to need maybe twice that amount of money in order to solve the problem that, again, has plagued Vermont for decades. So I'm waiting for that overall plan, where we go from here, what they're envisioning for the future. Are they thinking that we'll add another $100 million to that afterwards? And where's all the money going to go? Because I don't want to wake up three or four years from now and look back and ask ourselves, where did all the money go? And we didn't accomplish what we'd hoped, because again, we have this once in a lifetime opportunity to do the right thing. So I'll continue to make the case, understanding that there will be compromise along the way. But I feel strongly about this issue. All right, great. Thank you, Governor. Yeah, WCIX. Hi, I know earlier you said you can order certain types of vaccines through the federal allocation program above what Vermont is allocated. Given that there is probably going to be a higher demand for the Pfizer shot as it becomes the only one that's eligible for the youngest age kids in the vaccine, could Vermont trade for certain types of the vaccine that would hit that adolescent group? So they take fewer Moderna shots in exchange for more Pfizer ones? We can ask for more of the Pfizer vaccine. And, you know, as we're seeing around the country, not every state is asking for any allocation on a weekly basis. That's what creates the federal pools. So we feel as though we're in a pretty good position to advocate for more of the Pfizer vaccine in its just by itself. And we'll be doing that this week. Secretary Smith, you want to add to that? Yeah, Cat, I had mentioned this in my opening remarks and maybe it may have gotten missed, but we are going to order four extras flats of 1,170 each for a total of 4,480 extra Pfizer today. That's that, as you mentioned, that's through the federal reallocation program. And this gives us an opportunity to request vaccine above and beyond what our normal weekly allocation is. And if approved, we should have it available next week for the extra Pfizer that we're going to need. As you pointed out, that Pfizer is going to be the only vaccine that we can use for that 12 to 15 year old age group. So we are ordering more Pfizer through this reallocation. We'll see whether the feds approve it or not in the next few days. Right. I did hear that. My question was more on the lines of could Vermont trade for certain types of vaccines? So is there a case that to be made that if Pfizer was the more useful vaccine at the current moment, given that it has a wider age range, could you say, can we have fewer Moderna shots and more Pfizer? We want all the vaccine that we possibly can get. I would rather go through the reallocation program than trade any vaccine up. Yeah, we do get more Pfizer now than we do Moderna. Okay, thank you that clarifies it. Thanks very much, Jason. My first question is regarding the 12 to 15 year olds getting ready to for vaccination. As we recall, Vermont led the country in terms of people who were willing and eager to be vaccinated. You have any data even anecdote if now that parents are involved in the process that there's that same eagerness for that age bracket to get a vaccination? Yeah, I don't know that we have any data on that at this point time. But maybe Dr. Levine has some thoughts. The only data we have is not for a month specific data. It's the Kaiser Foundation survey data that has been has been on the news a fair amount. But we don't have any specific Vermont data. We do know though that families respect their pediatricians very much. And traditionally in our vaccine for children program, there's significantly great uptake. So that bodes well from the get go, but can't give you specific survey data on this vaccine for this age group. Okay, thank you. Dr. Levine, while you're up there, received a call from a representative from the senior center in North Field. And they've opened up some new programs there like a spring training class to plan to do some lunches. There's a painting class. And most of these are indoors and they are wearing masks and following the proper protocol for the state. However, there's a little bit of confusion as to whether or not they can use air conditioners. Evidently they've gotten some information that when it gets hotter, they couldn't use air conditioners because if they didn't exchange the air properly, can you clarify that? I can't clarify that. Secretary Smith might be able to. I haven't heard that, Tom, but and I'm not going to be able to clarify that the podium, but let me look into it. I have not heard anything along that line. But let me just check for you and we'll get back to you. Okay, much appreciated. Thanks very much. Tom, I might be able to add just a little bit to that. It really does depend on the quality of the HVAC system, you know, the heating, ventilating and air conditioning system. You know, it's all about exchanging the air. So some are better than others. And so it depends on what they have, like some air conditioning units are just standalone and don't exchange the air and could be stifling in some respects and others just exchange a tremendous amount of air. So those would be suitable, I would think, but Secretary Smith will look into that. That makes sense. Okay, thanks, Senator. Michael Daugherty, Vermont Digger. Hi, thanks. I had one additional question about the use of ARPA money. The federal government's yesterday, I believe, released its preliminary guidance for use of ARPA money by states. I wonder, have you had a chance to review this and will this change your proposal for using the funds in any way? And if so, how? Yeah, again, we received that information yesterday. We had someone looking into it. In fact, spent a great deal of time last night into the early morning hours reviewing it, Doug Farnham. And his report back was that he didn't see that there was anything in our proposal that would prohibit spending in the areas that we had that we would have forwarded. But we'll learn more. I have another meeting on that this afternoon, so I'll learn more this afternoon. We're there in reviewing up there, and you read about, are you also looking at what the legislature has proposed and you hinted at that, figure into this as well? Yeah, I think what he had said, what Doug had said, was that it follows somewhat along the CRF proposals. So anything that qualified under the CARES Act might qualify here. So I don't know if there was any red flags there either. So it's just in terms of your vision and what you hope to accomplish. And I've been again consistent in my belief that we need to use this money wisely because we're not going to get it again. Thank you. Devon Bates, local 22, local 44. Yeah, quick question for Governor Scott. How does the 12 to 15 age group and their vaccination rate play into the acceleration of the Vermont forward plan? I know there's overall vaccination rate targets for everyone in Vermont, but do you have any sort of target you're thinking of for that particular age group in order to accelerate that plan? Or is that not as much of a factor here? Yeah, it's not. In fact, every single person that is vaccinated in that 12 to 15 category will be helpful to the overall goals because we're doing it on the number of people, the population of Vermont. That's what we're basing our numbers on. So it isn't, I think there's some, you know, everybody's using a different denominator. And I think the federal government is using those over the age of 18, for instance. And we're just we've been consistent. We've given both of those percentages. But but basically what what our Vermont forward plan is based on is the total population. Those vaccinated based on the total population. So any any that we do pick up will will forward that goal and and help. All right, thank you. Cameron Paquette, St. Albans messenger. Hi, yeah, I've got a quite a couple of questions on vaccine allocation. The governor, you mentioned that the state's not putting any Johnson and Johnson in the allocation next week. I was wondering if there's a particular reason for that? It's they didn't give any reason for it other than it's the supply chain and they're not producing as much in the Johnson and Johnson factory, so to speak. So that's the limiting factor. I think that they had gone through some challenges with their Baltimore facility is what I heard. I think in the last few weeks, and they're just waking waiting for authorization so that they can continue to manufacture the vaccine. So I think that that's it's a supply chain issue. All right. And my next question is regarding how much Vermont can request because I've seen there's some national reports in the last couple days as one state that has decreased the amount that they're requesting from the federal government and their weekly allocations. I was wondering, does this play to Vermont's advantage in terms of the potential for having Vermont's requested increases approved by the federal government or does the federal government not really take that into account? Yeah, the simply answer is yes. I mean, that's where they're getting the federal pool for those states who don't request that week in particular any allocation that that vaccine throughout the all platforms and that's Johnson and Johnson, Moderna and Pfizer go into the pool. And then another state who is seeing that they have more demand can request that up to 50% of whatever they receive. And that's on a week to week basis. So the state that's giving up their supply next week would just go back to what they were supposed to receive that that previous week. So nobody loses in some respects. And I think it's a good system because if you don't need it, you're not going to use it. Why request it and and allow another state that has more demand as we do request more vaccine so that we can, you know, hit our targets. That makes sense. Thank you. Thank you, Jason. Governor, we've heard you talk every week that you get on these weekly calls with the White House and the governor and everything like that. I'm wondering if you could paint a picture for the audience and the press as to what it's really like. I mean, how long do these calls? When do they start? How long are they? And do you get to ask questions or do they rotate? I mean, with 50 governors, I'm sure they all have questions. Do they rotate the questions each week and pick a certain group? And can you actually like lobby at some point for Vermont on say like opening the Canadian Canadian border to ask them to push for that or other issues? I mean, what's it like to be on those calls? Yeah, they started at 11 o'clock, so which is the exact time we started our press conferences. So we receive a report from Dr. Fauci, Dr. Walensky, and other White House officials. And then they go through and talk to us and General Perna as well about the distribution of the vaccine itself. And then we get the supply that we're going to receive, the states are going to receive. At that point, that usually typically takes about a half an hour. And then in all told, it's 45 minutes allotted for these calls. So at 11.30 or so, then the calls are opened up for questions. Governor Cuomo, who's the chair of the National Governance Association, asked the first question because he's the chair. Second question goes to Governor Hutchinson from Arkansas. So he gets asked the second question, and then it's opened up. And it's whoever gets on first. And it's a combination of opinion and questions. So you can make points along the way. But it ends fairly quick. And I don't get through all the hearing all the questions that are relayed because I want to get back down here to answer questions that you might have. I did. And so all 50 governors do not have an opportunity to ask their questions or give their points of view or lobby for anything. I think amongst, I believe I've answered or I've asked one question and that was border related and what we could do to speed that up and what we foresee in the future. But that was that was a few weeks ago. So we continue to appreciate the information. They aren't really long enough and it doesn't fit into our schedule all that well, but we'll continue to participate. Have you thought or have you joined with the other governors that are on the national border on the northern border? I mean, to really try to get to get the border open in Canada. And I was talking to a businessman up in the islands yesterday, you know, 75 to 80 percent of their business is Canadian business. They lost out last year. It looks like they're going to lose out again this year. I mean, there's a lot that people are counting on in northern Vermont to get that border back open. And it would seem that he's got some of the other states to start putting some pressure on, maybe the Biden administration could put some pressure on or something like that. I mean, obviously there's a free flow down south of people coming over the border, but it's a certain bit of iron. Unfortunately, and we, you know, I keep track of the numbers in Quebec in particular and they haven't been good. They're getting better. I mean, today, I think was the first day. I think this is a low point in terms of the number of cases and deaths in Montreal. So that's a good sign for Quebec. But I would say it's not all on the U.S. side. I'm not sure Canada is ready to open up the border either. And we'll continue to advocate as soon as it's safe to do so. And as I said, I believe I said on Tuesday that we'll, you know, hold those from the province, from anywhere in Canada to the same standards that we hold everyone else. But we are in hopes that this isn't going to continue throughout the summer, that once we open up and there's an opportunity for their numbers to come in in line, that they'll be opening up their borders as well. Now, and remember, they have they have closed the border even between provinces within Quebec and Quebec and in Ontario. They aren't allowed to travel back and forth at this point in time. And I don't believe on the on the eastern side either. So again, they have their hands full. Things are getting better. They're getting more doses and getting more people vaccinated, which is the answer. And we'll continue to advocate as soon as it's safe to open up the border. And because we we truly they're our largest trading partner and we need them for our tourism and particularly up in up in your region. Right. Thank you very much. We'll see you on your bike pull up in the island at some point. I hope so. Avery Powell, WCAX. The hesitation among the population to get vaccinated seems to be pretty clear in the numbers. What is the state doing to specifically to outreach these communities and how can they help fight disparities if they set up clinics? But if no one can get to the clinics or can come based on maybe lack of transportation, how can you all close that gap? Yeah, we're looking for any approach that works and we'd again advocate anyone who has ideas on what the obstacles and and are that we can we can do something about. We want to make it as easy and as seamless as possible. But I may let Secretary Smith answer that. We have found in particular to answer your question more precisely that these barn storming events really do bringing the vaccine to the center part of various communities within a county have really been popular. And we'll continue those. Like I said, we have one plan for route 100 and then next week in Wyndham County and we'll continue those barn storming sort of operations. We also have, you know, a homebound. We continue that program if somebody is homebound. So, you know, those that are confined to their home, we will reach out and get them. So we're trying everything. And as I said in the presentation, not only drive-throughs, but Church Street at some future point, North Beach at some future point, restaurants, employees in restaurants, employees at various workplaces. We're going to go and obviously the numbers that we will get won't be as big as these big clinics that we have been. You know, we've had super pods at a thousand. These are going to be smaller events, but they add up. As I said over the over last weekend, they add up to almost a thousand people, these sort of smaller events. And so we'll continue that and reaching out and going to the communities and to the people. Thank you. First part of that question regarding Native Americans as well. Did I hear that correctly? Yes. Yes. This is Dr. Levine. So I just wanted to point out we've had several clinics that were specific to the Abenaki population. In fact, I was at one two Saturdays ago in Swanton and that seemed to be very well attended by the way. But part of the strategy with populations that are indigenous is to really learn from them what could be most helpful as well. So we do have teams that are working very closely in a health equity fashion across the entire BIPOC community, including the indigenous populations. So if we haven't hit on a particular strategy that would be helpful, we need to know that. But I do think we sort of have a lot of connection with these communities and with the groups that advocate for them so that we try to be as insightful as possible and bringing the vaccine to where it might be most effective. Thank you. Ed Barber, Q for Daily Express. This question is for Dr. Levine. I've been reading a couple of reports that getting the vaccine if you're outdoors is less than 1 percent, even though this EDC says it's upwards of 10 percent. My question, the first question is how many cases of COVID were transmitted by somebody outside at a restaurant and contracting, tracing or link that case to another customer or employee? Yeah, great question. A lot of interest today on this very topic due to the New York Times article. You may recall that we in Vermont have already transitioned our stance on masks in the outdoor setting using a lot of the data that supports the fact that it's unusual to acquire COVID from an outdoor interaction, quite unusual. And so we really do feel that our current posture is keeping people quite safe. You know, you ask about eating outdoors with others. I can't even begin to count on one hand the number of cases eating indoors with others has generated in our case counts. Generally, when we have an episode at a restaurant, it's often representing the community's penetration of COVID at the time and affecting one of the employees. Somebody in the back of the kitchen, perhaps, not even involved with serving customers or being involved with customers. And I can't think of any cases that would involve outdoor dining. I can look into this, but I'm pretty sure we're going to find if there were any, it would be very much one or two or three cases at the most, but possibly zero. Okay. Very good. Thank you. And my second question is, and this is from the CDC that just seems to be not following a logical conclusion, which is why are unvaccinated people safer at a small outdoor gathering than they are if they're eating in an outdoor restaurant? I'm not sure I can equate the two in terms of safety. I mean, I think we believe that both of those would be safe. Obviously, the outdoor restaurant, you have your mask off to eat. In an outdoor gathering, we currently still say that you can have your mask off, but you should be doing other mitigation strategies like making sure you have the distancing in place. And you may not be eating if you're at a gathering the whole time, depends what you're doing there in the first place. But I'm not sure about the data you're coming from with regard to one versus the other. I don't think they could be equated very well, again, because the number of cases from outdoor exposure and transmission is so small in the current world literature that we're drawing from. Very good. Thank you very much. Have a good day. Thank you. Good afternoon, probably for Secretary Smith about the proposed or planned vaccination clinics coming up at the schools. Would these clinics rely on the extra Pfizer doses you're ordering from the federal school or does the state have sufficient supply in hand to proceed with these plans? And how are you choosing the schools to host the clinics? Are they sort of regional hub schools or are you targeting communities with lower vaccination rates, kind of like the part of storming after? Yeah, I believe we formulated the plan based on inventory that we know we're going to get. But Secretary Smith will expand upon that. Yes, Andrew, we formulated a plan on inventory we're going to get. Getting extra just allows us to accelerate the time schedule quicker. So it would be use our allocation that we have just like we did with the 16 to 18 year olds use the existing allocation. But we think we can use the reallocation pool doses in order to sort of quicken the pace of getting people vaccinated. It's going to be a fairly short pace. Anyways, this would really accelerate it for us. The way that we selected this was not on a sort of a vaccination rate basis. We sort of replicated how we did school vaccinations with teacher vaccinations using some of the same hub schools that we did during that period of time. We'll have a full list and I'll have that for you probably by Friday because we'll be starting to register people probably on Thursday morning at 8 15. The full list will probably you'll probably see you'll recognize some of the same schools that you did during the teacher vaccination program. And the time frame for the school clinics, would those start next week or how quickly would you Monday take registrations for them? We'll take we'll take we'll take registrations from Thursday. They'll start vaccinating on Monday. But I would just say you can probably get a vaccination if you search around on the site where there are existing clinics with Pfizer that may be available on Thursday. Okay, thank you. Guy Page, Chronicle for Vermont State House. Governor, some of my homeless readers say that the eviction moratorium as an effect throws in turnover and housing and even those with money can't find housing. I know there's a federal eviction moratorium, but when do you see the state of Vermont lifting its eviction moratorium? Well, certainly. I believe that's tied to the executive order. And as I've been saying, it will go no further than the 4th of July. We hope to lift many of those if not discontinue the emergency order all together. But if it continues for other reasons, all the restrictions will be lifted at that point in time. So I would say you shouldn't expect it from a state standpoint to go any further than the 4th of July. Thank you. Also, this is a question for either you or Education Secretary French, I don't know if he's on the line or not. Is the 1619 project curriculum by the New York Times sort of a systemic racial injustice curriculum, is this in effect either as a requirement or a recommendation at the state agency level or in any school districts? Thankfully, I think Secretary's French is on. Secretary French? Guy, I would say we can look into it and get back to you. I just don't, I don't have the answer for you. I'm not well versed on that or the article for that matter. All right, thank you. And Wallace Allen, seven days. Thanks for taking my call. Governor, I'd like to get a little bit more information if I can about how businesses can handle employees who choose not to get vaccinated. I think you have said that employers can let people go if they won't show proof of vaccination. But if that is the case, do those people get to get on unemployment insurance? If they're not working because they didn't get vaccinated? Again, I think they're going to be provisions for those. I'm not saying that they would be discharged in any way, but again, I think for new hires and so forth, they might have that prerogative. Again, we have not looked in depth into this issue, unless I'm corrected by Secretary Curley or Commissioner Harrington who might have already done this. But again, I think this is going to be a discussion probably on a national level. I mean, we've already heard some of the institutions at the college's universities make a mandatory for students coming back to be vaccinated. However, I don't believe that any of them have made it mandatory for their staff or their educators. So I'm not sure that we're going to see this throughout, but there is this feeling that the businesses have that prerogative. I think, and again in healthcare, we've seen where many healthcare facilities have required their their staff, their healthcare staff to be have their flu vaccine vaccines or they have to wear a mask. Now, maybe this would be another approach to this situation as well. But I don't have that information at this point. I was going to ask if there's any group at the state that's going to sort of figure out a lot of these vaccine related issues. Are you saying that you're just going to follow whatever the federal guidance is? Well, I think we're looking for some federal guidance on this, to be honest with you. And I think there are a number of states that have either already made up their mind or contemplating what they do as well. So, so that there's some consistency again, so that there's some some guidance. But we haven't looked into this ourselves in its entirety at this point. You expected. Okay, that's right. Thanks very much. That'll do it. Erin Potanko. We're not bigger. Here is a man to you. You might want to give him an opportunity to ask the question first. Sorry, and you cut out for a second. Yeah, I see Eric from the time target right before me in the queue. Has he got a chance to ask a question? Yeah, he he messaged me saying this question that already been answered. So okay, there's all of them. You know, one picture that I was making sure my fellow reporters had their chance as well. Looking at the, you know, the data on BIPOC for monitors, I've noticed that the health department website seems to have almost the same rate for BIPOC monitors 16 to 64 as it does for white for monitors in that age group. But the disparity remains among BIPOC for monitors 65 and older. Why do you think it is that older BIPOC for monitors are kind of still behind? Yeah, that's an interesting question. We've been asking ourselves that very, that very quick question because we see the data as well and it's concerning. We want to do everything we can because those are the that is the population that's impacted the most. So again, it may have something to do with trust, but but we're trying to work our way through that. Dr. Levine. That's a great astute observation and really important question to have asked. I will stay from the outset that the difference in vaccination rates between non Hispanic whites and the BIPOC continues to be a smaller number with each passing week. And we're down in the six ish percent range right now, which is certainly less than half of what it started at in the beginning. So that's really good news. It is almost almost exclusively, not exclusively, but almost exclusively in those over 65. And we're still trying to get at what that could mean. I don't want to give a statistical sort of type of answer, but one of the unfortunate parts of the statistics surrounding the BIPOC community is that the chances of living to an older age are less than if you're in the non Hispanic white community. And in fact, some of our early vaccination strategy, though it has worked wonderfully for the majority of Ramoners, it was pointed out to us that in the BIPOC community, there are less in the over 65 range, so they couldn't have benefited as much from the very first part of our vaccine strategy, nor were there as many from a cultural standpoint residing in long term care facilities, partly because of age, partly because of cultural preference and willingness and support at home, so that that part of the strategy couldn't help the community either. We're working on this and I can't really give you any further answer than what I've just given you, but I can say that the number is getting much smaller. So part of the strategies that we've been using to allow more access to vaccine for the BIPOC community is helping, but it's still preferentially helping those under 65. Okay, and are there any initiatives right now that are still targeted towards increasing vaccination among the older population, like, I don't know, vaccine sites that were recently attended by older members of the community? Are you talking in general older Vermonters or just older BIPOC? I meant specifically BIPOC older Vermonters. Yeah, I know that the state health clinic kind of targeted towards that for the population early on in the vaccine effort. Yeah, so clearly the same strategies that we've been working on with the partners we have in the BIPOC community will help those over 65 because they are all community based strategies and bringing the vaccine to the relevant community. And as we know from what we've talked about previously, there are abundant, there's a higher rate of living in a multi-generational family, multi-generational household. And we hope that our ability to get households taken care of sort of all at a time will also help when there's an older member of that household who may not yet have received vaccine. But community based strategies, working with partners, having more access to vaccine at the community level are really the same strategies that we hope will be helpful. Do you think that the state maybe missed the boat early on by not immediately starting clinics targeting BIPOC Vermonters and not creating like special eligibility categories like you did later in the vaccine strategy? I would certainly not say missed the boat because I think we're actually leading the country to be honest in our effort. But early on we've had a very sequential process. So even if we weren't doing everything that we're doing today, we were certainly doing a lot early on and making progress as we looked at data all along. As you see, we've been accumulating the data over a great period of time now and watching the rates of vaccination, but also watching the rates of illness and hospitalization and deaths with COVID across various communities, including race. So we've kept our eye on that and most recently, the thing we keep an eye on the most is the vaccination rates across race. So I think we've done a pretty good job. Could we have done better? We could say that for almost anything in the pandemic and any state that wants to be truly honest should be able to say that. But I think we've done okay. Okay, that's just for me. Thank you. And lastly, Chris Mays, I was wondering if you're considering doing vaccination clinics at summer camps or summer programs in addition to the testing. I don't believe we've done a great deal of strategizing around summer camps. The goal, I think, is to make sure that people arrive already vaccinated or at least if they haven't had a chance to get two doses, at least have a chance to get one dose if they happen to be in the proper age range. I think the timing now is really good since we're in May. So if on Wednesday, we know for a fact that it's a green light for the 12 to 15 year olds that will certainly allow even people coming from another state and certainly those who are staying within Vermont to get vaccinated prior to their arrival at camp and probably get their second dose prior to arrival at camp to knowing when schools in the state let out and when camps usually begin. And do you have any sense on how many summer cancer programs you might be supporting with the testing? Monica, how it's going to come and answer that one? So certainly the testing opportunity will be open to all of the camps that are eligible throughout the state. And at this point in time, I know that looking at the Vermont afterschool map, we've got about 480 sites across the state of Vermont that have already made themselves known through that option. So that will be open to any camp that wants to sign up for it. Great. Thanks a lot. That's all I got. All right. Thank you very much. And we'll see you again on Friday.