 Good morning, everyone. As of nine o'clock this morning, over 29,000 Vermonters, 75 and older, have signed up for their first COVID-19 vaccination. In total, we have already administered over 55,000 doses. This equates to over 44,000 Vermonters who have either received a first dose or second dose of the vaccine. And we've done this without the confusion, shortages and first come first serve waiting lines you've seen in other states. In addition, Vermont was the first state in the country to have more people vaccinated than the number of people who contracted the virus. And every day that goes by, we're getting closer and closer to ending the emergency and getting back to normal. I want to thank Vermonters for their patience while signing up for the vaccine so far. But even though registration went smoothly for most, we also know there were glitches and areas where we can approve. And you can be assured we're working to make this system work for everyone. But still, we're very encouraged by the fact that so many have already signed up. I want to thank those who helped their family, friends and neighbors sign up online, which is by far the fastest way. And to anyone who hasn't signed up yet or hasn't gotten through, don't worry, we have enough time slots available for all Vermonters in this population to get their vaccine. And again, to all those who aren't yet eligible, but are eagerly awaiting their turn. I certainly understand their anxiety, their frustration, especially when we see headlines from other states where they're advertising they have broader eligibility. But again, just saying more people are eligible doesn't mean they have enough vaccine to meet the demand. Every state is still receiving the same amount of vaccine as a percent of population. Every state is limited by the supply. But what's different in Vermont is instead of over promising and under delivering, we're being honest with you, setting realistic expectations based on the supply we actually have and targeting vaccines. Those we know are most likely to die if they get sick. And it's important for Vermonters to know we continue to be among the top states for both our distribution and the rate of vaccinations. But I can assure you being one of the best isn't good enough. Our goal is to be the best. As I've said, as we move through the age bands or if supply increases, we'll explain, we'll expand eligibility next to 70 and up, then 65 and up, and then those with certain severe conditions. The good news is I'm hopeful it won't be long before we move to the next next age band and eventually we'll be able to consider other strategic priorities and then open registration to the broader population. Yesterday I was on a call with the National Governors Association and the new administration and there was consensus amongst the governors. What we need more than anything else is clarity on production numbers and the timeline for increasing doses. Having that information will make a huge difference as to when and how to scale up our programs. In the meantime, we appreciate your patience and rest assured we'll get to everyone who wants a vaccine as quickly as the supply allows and will always level with you about what's realistic and why we're setting certain priorities. Now in a moment, I'll turn it over to commissioner P check for our weekly modeling report. But I wanted to give you some good news as well. Across the country, we're seeing case growth and hospitalizations decline, which will eventually lead to a reduction in deaths. If we can keep these trends moving in that direction while vaccinating our most vulnerable, we can take significant steps forward in our fight against this virus and begin to move back to more normal activities. So to all for monitors as we wait our turns for the vaccine. Let's continue to do our part to slow the spread. And I know this pandemic fatigue is real, but the better we do now, the more we control the virus and the quicker will end this state of emergency. So with that, I'll turn it over to commissioner P shot. Thank you, Governor. And good morning, everyone. A week ago, we reported some early indicators that our national, regional and local 19 trends were all moving in the right direction. And we are fortunately seeing those trends continue, providing us a clear picture that the US is coming down from its most recent and most deadly COVID-19 peak. As the governor said, this is good news for our country. But it's also good news for our region and our state as having control of the pandemic nationally makes it easier for us to control the pandemic here at home. For 15 straight days, the national seven day case average has been decreasing, representing a 33% decreasing cases since the most recent high on January 11th. Further cases in every region of the country are continuing to fall as our cases in 48 states indicating widespread improvement across the country. You will notice that cases are also decreasing more rapidly than at any other time. Although we anticipate this pace will slow, we do anticipate that cases will continue to drop in the weeks ahead. Similarly, we've seen a sustained decrease in hospitalizations across the country with the number of individuals currently being hospitalized down 18% from its most recent high in January, providing further evidence that the country is coming down from its peak. Again, as the governor indicated, it's important to remember that deaths will remain elevated even as we see decreases in cases and hospitalizations. And we're seeing that play out here with the national death rate falling just 1% since its most recent high on January 13th. However, with cases and hospitalizations continuing to fall, we do anticipate a steady decrease in deaths over the weeks to come. Looking at our regional data, there is also reason for optimism as we see continued improvement. This week, the Northeast reported just under 160,000 COVID-19 cases, a 14% decrease from last week and a 24% decrease over the last two weeks. The improved cases and the steady rate of testing has meant that the positivity rate for the region has also come down. Currently, it's at the threshold of the 5% or lower recommended by the World Health Organization. As the regional trends continue to be encouraging, so do Vermont's trends. This week, we recorded 942 cases, about a 200 case reduction from last week. And we are also seeing our seven day case rate slow down as well. After a period of sustained growth following the holiday periods, we've now seen cases on a seven day rate decline 26% since its most recent high. And without a major family holiday in the near future, we are optimistic that our trends will continue in this favorable trajectory. Now, not only are Vermont's overall cases declining, but so too are our most high risk cases. Again, we're paying close attention to those who are 65 years or older who contract the virus because this is the population that is most likely to be hospitalized and most likely to die if they come in contact and contract the virus. Generally, 16% of our overall cases have come from those who are 65 and older. This week, only 14% of our cases have come from that group. And this is something we anticipate continuing to see as the vaccine continues to be rolled out to the most vulnerable. Within this most vulnerable age group, cases among long term care residents have seen particular improvement. Although we've already recorded more cases in January than we have in December, we have seen significantly lower deaths this month compared to last. You can see the reason for this is in the far fewer number of cases among residents and long term care facilities in January, as compared to December. As a result, we see the number of deaths in this population have come down considerably this month, which has lowered Vermont's per capita fatality rate, once again, to the lowest in the country. And while it might be too early to attribute this decline in long term care cases to vaccinations, this is the type of impact that we expect to see as we continue to vaccinate our most vulnerable population in the weeks and months ahead. Looking across Vermont, we see that cases are generally falling in every county except for Bennington County, which has recorded the highest per capita active case count of any county since the start of the pandemic. Some of this is explained by the high number of New York residents that come to Bennington County to be tested. Approximately 21% of all positives since November 1st fall into this category. And when you look at our regional heat map, you can also see that the counties to the west of Bennington are equally high and they have been for some time. Again, possibly indicating some spillover from those border communities. Although it's important for everyone in Vermont to stay vigilant, it's particularly important for those in Bennington County at the moment. Many of Vermont's colleges are also starting to see students return to campus in the past few weeks. So this week we will start to again report on college cases. Unlike last semester, when colleges restarted during a period of particularly low growth rate in our state, we should all expect to see more cases on campus as the semester begins. As you can see from the chart last fall, as cases in the community began to increase, so too did cases on campus. And we're seeing that here at the first reported week, with 118 college cases initially reported so far during their restart. Turning now to the Vermont forecast over the next six weeks, we do see that the forecast has improved considerably compared to last week. However, cases are expected to still remain elevated through the rest of the month and into February. But as we indicated, the most recent data and the positive signs that we've seen in that most recent data give us all indication that we'll continue to beat this forecast in the weeks ahead. Our hospital projections also are looking favorable as they indicate that we have sufficient resources to treat everyone in Vermont who may need treatment, even if we see our cases increase. And again, I just want to point out that when we measure ourselves against the key metrics across the country, we see that Vermonters and Vermont continues to make a major impact. We continue to be at or near the top of these very important metrics. And again, on a consistent week after week basis. And finally, as the governor mentioned, the pace of vaccine administration is also making Vermont a stand out. The most recent CDC data has Vermont ranked number two in the Northeast and eight nationally in terms of the pace of vaccine administration. And with that, I'll turn the presentation over to Secretary Smith. Thank you, Commissioner Pichek. As many of you know, on Monday, we began phase two vaccinations in accordance with our vaccination strategy strategy to save lives. Vermonters age 75 and older are now eligible to schedule an appointment to get their COVID vaccine. Vaccination clinics begin today, and I will have more to say about that in just a moment. As the governor mentioned, as of nine o'clock this morning, more than 29,000 Vermonters in this age group have signed up so far for the vaccines, either online or through the call center. This truly is an impressive number. By and large, the registration process has been a success. Most have registered online and that continues to be our preference as an easy streamlined way to get an appointment for those who can use it. But not everyone who tried to register online succeeded. As expected, in its first day of operation, as the governor mentioned, there were a few glitches in the system. For example, if you entered your email address incorrectly, your verification letter could not be sent. Sometimes, depending on your computer settings, the letter ended up in your spam file. Or the registrant, and in some cases the call takers, made the appointment for a COVID test rather than a vaccine. When we recognize that, we reached out to those people to schedule their vaccine appointment. And on Monday, as the call center was preparing to start operations at noon, we were challenged in the early morning when a flood of calls were directed to the Health Department, initially to the wrong number, which resulted in some frustration for those callers. So we rushed the call center into operations hours early, but many people had to wait or were not able to get through. And we apologize for that. We worked it out over the course of the day and had good results through the call center after that. As you know, the 75 year old and older age groups is just one of several groups we will be vaccinating over the next few months. After this grouping, which we think will take approximately five weeks with our current allocation, we will begin scheduling people 70 years and older than 65 years and older, and then those with specific underlying health conditions to put that put them at a higher risk of severe consequences from COVID-19. Again, the reason for starting with the older age groups is that over 70% of COVID-19 deaths have been among 70 Vermonters 75 years or older and more than 90% among age 65 and older. Given these facts and the limited number of doses that states are receiving from the federal government, we have an obligation and moral obligation to take this age based approach first. Vaccinating Vermonters at the highest risk first also helps us get to the end faster because this is the fastest way to reduce the number of people who have severe illness. And this positions us to start to travel down the road to begin to return to normal much earlier than if we reduce the benefits of a limited amount of vaccine by giving it to people who are at very little risk of severe illness complications or death. We will be reaching out to a select group of those who have experienced the registration and vaccination process to get their opinions on how we can improve the process for others since we plan to continue to use these systems for the remainder of the vaccine rollout and hope to be able to ramp it up even faster as more vaccines are available. And for those that have not registered, please there are still available slots for you. You can go online to the at the health department's website at healthvermont.gov slash my vaccine. That's health healthvermont.gov slash my vaccine or you can call the registration call center at 855-722-7878. Again, I said a little bit of this last week, but I think it's worth repeating when you register here are some of the things that you need to either register online or by phone. You will be asked your name, your birth date, your address, your phone number, and an email if you have one. You will be asked to verify your residency in Vermont. If you are not 75 years old and a Vermont resident, you should not register. You will be asked to answer a series of health questions that are important to know for the vaccination process. You will be asked insurance of information. So please have it handy. But if you do not have insurance or you do not wish to give insurance information, you can still register. Again, it will be helpful to have your card for your primary insurance, but it is not necessary to register. Once you finish answering these questions, you'll be asked us to select a vaccine clinic site. Please select the nearest vaccination site to your home. Once you have selected the site, you should select the date and time from the menu of options available. Once you register online, you will get an automatic verification letter sent to your email. If you register over the phone, we will collect a phone number and email address if you have one, so that we can issue you a verification. Please remember to keep your appointment once you make it. Cancellation or no shows will disrupt the process and could lead to vaccine vaccines being spoiled. We can only register one person through an appointment at a time online and through the call center. That's because each slot is a series of questions that applies just to one person. So if you have a spouse or a partner and you are both 75 years old or older, you will need to register individually to do this online. You can either create an account for each person or create a single account and add the other person as a spouse slash dependent. If you are making an appointment by phone, you can also make more than one appointment by just telling the call taker that you want to make more than one appointment. Now let's turn our attention to what's happening today. Today clinics are opening at 25 locations throughout the state and throughout the week. There'll be other locations that will be available where Vermonters can get vaccinated. I just want to repeat a few things. Vaccinations, like I said, will start statewide today and here's what you can expect once you come to your appointment. It's winter in Vermont so dress for weather and please arrive on time for your appointment so you don't have to wait long or keep others waiting. Once you arrive, you will be asked for your name and date of birth. You will be asked to sign a vaccine administration waiver consenting to receive the shot. Then you'll be vaccinated. You will then be asked to stay at the site for about 15 minutes so that you can be monitored for any immediate reaction to the injection. You will also get you scheduled for your second dose while you are at the clinic so that you can leave with the follow-up appointment in hand. Please note, and this is very important, we cannot accommodate walk-ins. The health department's equity and community engagement team is also working with community partners to reach out to those members of the BIPOC communities to identify those 75 years or older to answer their questions and ensure they are able to access the information and tools to register and be vaccinated. And we are separately working through the logistics of reaching out to those who are 75 years and older in our homebound and unable to come to the vaccine clinic. We are collaborating with regional EMS and home health agencies on this and we'll have more information on our plans real soon. Finally, I want to thank everyone who has worked so hard to make this community vaccination program available throughout the state. This includes many state employees across multiple departments and agencies from the Agency of Digital Services to the State Emergency Operations Centers to Transportation to the people at VDH. This has been a collaborative effort from the state's respect, but it's also been a collaborative effort along multiple lines like our health partners, loved ones, neighbors and friends who are lending a hand to help folks get scheduled and all of Vermont for staying vigilant. As I said last week, Vermont has had the most successful pandemic response in the country and we've done that by supporting each other and putting the needs of others ahead of our own wants. This is the light at the end of the tunnel and vaccinating the most vulnerable first will get us out of this faster. We just need to stick together. I just wanted to give you an update. As we were walking in, I was getting a text and this is just in. We're learning about it. It's a situation at Springfield Hospital that we want to be transparent about it, but I don't have all the facts right now. So we are still gathering the facts and I'll tell you what I know. We don't know everything in detail, but we are sending a VT, a Vermont Department of Health team to investigate. Let me get to the text. We believe that 860 doses of Moderna vaccine were subject to temperature excursions today at Springfield Hospital. That means that the temperature is supposed to be 8 degrees and it was 9 degrees. So we were storing about 860 doses of vaccine that was supposed to be at 8 degrees. It was at 9 degrees at Springfield Hospital. The hospital and others have consulted with the manufacturer that is required. It led the manufacturer, they had the final say on this, to require that all doses be wasted to concerns about viability. 400 of those doses were for second dose clinics. VDH is doing a site visit. I don't have all the details. This is unfortunate because we've had minimal, I mean minimal, wasted doses in this state. Again, we're still getting the details. I read you from a text that I just got as we were coming into the auditorium but out of transparency. I wanted to make sure that everyone was aware of what we were getting for information. With that said, I'll turn the presentation over to Dr. Levine. Thank you. While it may represent just a moment in time, Vermont once again returned to a case count of less than 100 yesterday, 78 to be precise. It's been a while since we've seen numbers like that. On another day when testing was still at a high level and our percent positivity rate continues to go lower, and now it's at 2.2%. After a week where as you just saw on the data slides, the new active cases are trending going lower over a week or two weeks period of time. Please realize that though our progress with vaccination has been quite good, it has not yet been a factor in the trends that I've just talked about. And in fact, our data shows we still have a long road ahead of us. There are 46 people in the hospital today, eight in the ICU, one on a ventilator. Sadly, we lost one more of a monitor COVID-19, raising the total to 172. Now preserving lives, preventing more deaths, is as you've heard innumerable times a core part of our vaccination strategy. And that makes me take even greater note of attitudes that effectively diminish deaths and human toll from COVID-19. Sometimes we have discussed that at these press conferences. So let me just briefly present some information from the latest issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association on that topic. From reputable investigators at Virginia Commonwealth University who look back between March and October of last year to look at the deaths from COVID and compare them to the leading causes of death two years prior to the pandemic. Now, as you all know, there are over 400,000 deaths from COVID in the US, setting records all the time, unfortunately. And the daily death counts have sometimes reached in the 4,000s, exceeding those of 9 11 by over a thousand a day. Analysis reveal that COVID-19 has become the leading cause of death in the US, even deadlier than heart disease and cancer. We also learn that similar to our Vermont data, the risk of death is highest among our oldest citizens and lowest among our youngest, who unfortunately still die at a higher frequency from the so called diseases of despair, including drug overdoses, suicides and accidents, much of which has been exacerbated by the pandemic. My final comment on that topic is that the nationwide public health consensus is that many of these deaths could have been prevented with an early and comprehensive national pandemic response plan that incorporated basics of mask mandates, adequate testing and contact tracing and containment. Returning now back to Vermont of the 63 outbreaks, our epidemiology team is currently following. 23 are in the long term care facility or senior independent living setting. 27 are in workplaces and five are in schools. You've seen some of the early college data. Both Norwich University and UVM have had increasing numbers of students returning and we are seeing cases on day zero and day seven testing. And multiple athletic teams, as you've read in the newspapers, continue to be on pause. Conclusions about the student cases from the viewpoint of the school's directors of student health services are that they've observed spread as occurring more rapidly with shorter incubation periods and that students are presenting with more symptomatic illness when compared with the fall. Our hopes are to obtain samples to perform genome sequencing, searching for variant strains in some of these students who may have come from other states. Now keep in mind this is exactly why we are requiring testing of returning college students to identify, isolate, and quarantine before the semester even begins to allow for a safe start for the schools and the surrounding communities. And we are working with the campuses to educate and strategize regarding preventing on campus transmission. And just a word this morning on the questions that always continue to come up about the variant strains. As advances in our knowledge as well as speculation is occurring every day. First the word on the UK variant almost 400 cases in 24 states. Now it is believed it might be associated with not only more transmission but with more severe illness and per the UK findings which need to continue to be peer reviewed and evaluated perhaps increased mortality. It is still thought to be susceptible to current vaccines. At the same time we are hearing some discouraging reports about how the vaccines may be slightly less protective against the variant strains from South Africa and Brazil. Fortunately these are not prevalent in the United States at this time. What this means for the public is the importance to vigorously follow the prevention guidance to that we always give about getting and spreading the virus. Now you've heard Secretary Smith detail our efforts to begin community vaccination clinics today. I just want to add though it was not without some bumps along the way this is a tremendously exciting step and I am so proud of the work all of our teams did to make this happen together. It is truly a great day for public health in Vermont and in this country. As we begin vaccinating thousands of Vermonters who are 75 and older we know we're protecting those most at risk for severe illness and death from COVID. We're already vaccinating healthcare workers and the long-term care facility residents for just a bit over a month and we're grateful to our hospitals who've been wonderful partners in shown clear leadership in this effort. We're now transitioning to phase two of vaccination beginning with the Vermonters 75 and older which I've described in the past as an overlap of phases. We've always envisioned we would overlap phases to use our allocations most efficiently to vaccinate those who need it the most as quickly as possible and this is consistent with the advice of the CDC and Vermont's vaccine advisory committee. Last time I spoke I told you I was very pleased with the percentage of the 1a groups that were agreeing to take the vaccine. Well current epidemiologic and modeling projections give me yet another reason to be optimistic. In Vermont so few of us have been infected that we stand the best chance in the country to benefit from the vaccine. We can get ahead of the potential for virus spread by having people vaccinated in numbers that lead to what's called herd immunity but strict herd immunity is not our only way back to a better nor more normal life here in Vermont. We need to continue on our current trajectory to protect the most vulnerable by immunizing the most vulnerable and while we wait for enough vaccine for everyone we must keep up the same protocols that will protect ourselves our loved ones in our communities. Remember masks on faces six foot spaces uncrowded places and if you want to get tested there are abundant locations around the state where you can go and it's quick easy and free. This pathway of increasing levels of vaccination effective containment and suppression of the virus through testing and contact tracing and following all of the usual guidance I just recited can and will be our successful strategy to having our state reopen successfully even ahead of achieving herd immunity. Finally having just emerged from quarantine and thank you for the many well wishes and words of support I want to clarify some questions about when I will get the COVID-19 vaccine. I have said and the governor has said we will get the vaccine when we are eligible not until then but we will get the vaccine. I look forward to doing so and to sharing my experience with Vermonters as it is a safe effective and critical tool to halting the spread of virus. Governor thank you Dr. Levine we'll now open it up to questions. If I heard you correctly did you say that after we vaccinate the most vulnerable groups we turn to considering other strategic priorities? I guess if you can clarify what does that mean? What we're trying to do obviously we've set a path forward our plan to do the age bands we want to get to those who are most impacted by death due to the contracting of the virus so that as Secretary Smith had said I think it is a remark 90% of those over the age of 65 are impacted by death in those categories so we want to get to those and then we want to get to the some of the severe health conditions next and then we're going to look at where we go from there and there may be strategic areas that we want to focus on we just don't know at this point but we're going to get through that those phases first and then reflect on where we go from there Ian as Commissioner Petschek said the data is beginning to continue to look promising I'm wondering I guess at this point what you would need to see to maybe lift some of the restrictions we've seen on on gatherings and even if it's just a single household trusted family like we have Yeah we we have a restart team that is constantly monitoring the data we meet on a regular basis so we're seeing some good news one day doesn't make a trend I'm that I'm encouraged to see I think 78 today was what the number was that's that's good it's trending in the right direction the number of deaths has slowed slightly which is good news as well we're getting vaccines in arms that's good news so I think you can expect we'll be opening up the spicket a little bit more in the coming weeks ahead but I don't want to exceed our expectations I don't want to over promise but we look at this every single day the faster we can get there the better off we all are so I think you can expect some in the near future and then just one last follow-up question about your budget recommendation yesterday you know number of sweeping proposals one time proposals but you know there's been some concern from the business community Chamber of Commerce Grocer's Association and others that are concerned that there's not enough help in there I'm wondering how confident you are that more help will come from Congress of potentially in this next package and if we can wait that long well again you know the budget I proposed yesterday was for the next fiscal year so I don't think anything that I would propose in that budget would help the business community in this fiscal year as you recall in budget adjustment which would help I propose 10 million dollars to help businesses it's met with I mentioned in my remarks it's met with some resistance from the legislature I don't know if they're going included or not I've asked them to reflect on that so that we can help some of those businesses but you know it's a little disappointing to hear from the business groups when I've been an incredible advocate for them we poured hundreds of millions of dollars in with some of the CARES Act money and the CRF money that we've received thus far will continue to do everything we can I think Congress is poised for more action they were they were given some opportunities for PPP loans and so forth we had Tom Lowe's on here a week ago and considering some of their options so again I know how frustrating it is I've talked a lot about especially in the hospitality sector how impacted they are and we're going to do everything we can to help but the budget address yesterday wouldn't help them immediately this is for the next fiscal year before we go to the next person I just want to make note that we do have a long queue today 24 let Steve Governor the new administration has been in for a couple of weeks now he's mentioned the President has mentioned that he's going to have a liaison between them and the state governors or the government as far as COVID goes have we seen that yet and have you been where are we at supply-wise yeah well there was a national governance association meeting yesterday that I was listening in on and they committed to having weekly calls of that nature talking about COVID updates and so forth again giving us we were very clear about what we need we need you know we don't need them to come in and tell us how to vaccinate what we need to do is have them come in and tell us first of all increase the supply secondly tell us when we can expect or the consistent nature of that to date we've been going on a week to week basis hard to plan when you don't know what you're going to get the following week they did commit yesterday to a three-week consistent supply so that's good news they can they also committed to a 16% increase over those three weeks that's good news we don't know for sure what we're going to get beyond that but we think it's going to be consistent and hopefully upgrading as we move forward but we just want more transparency about what the production levels are what we can expect in the future so that we can plan and that's been the beauty with the strategy that we're using here in Vermont when we use the banding that we're using limited number of people within each band before we move on to the next we can plan that far ahead but if you if you open it up like other states have to a really broad population and then you're and then you're going out you know five six months ahead not knowing what you what you have for supply coming in it doesn't allow you to be as nimble as you could be so I believe our our strategy our plan will get us towards the vast majority of Vermonters getting vaccinated than others other states it's just a good plan then we can reassess every time we go to a next a new phase very quickly the talk of coming out of Washington that they would have made inroads with the Canadian government about getting a dialogue going to open up those borders any response to that have you heard anything well I haven't heard anything specifically about the borders but Mr. P check and and myself we I we keep track of that data on a daily basis watching what's happening and in Quebec in particular because it does impact us just like it's part of our region so we want to you know we want to get there where the borders open up as quick as possible but we don't want to get there quicker than we can take care of it either when they we still see the positivity rate is escalated from where it was during the summer so we have some concerns they have concerns about what they're seeing in the U.S. as well particularly in states that border us like New York for instance their their cases have increased dramatically so I think we just all want the same thing we just want to open up the borders as quick as we can when it's safe to do so thank you again Stuart Leiberer NBC 5 for that I'm going to excuse question Governor when talking about the population of eligible Vermonters to receive the vaccine is the state the number of Vermonters who go down to Florida place yourself for the winter our data shows Vermonters in that population so if they are Vermonters who go to Florida and are still Vermonters then they are part of that age being yes by that and on that point not everybody in the eligible group will register for a vaccine so at what point are you going to move on to the next group to open up registries yeah I mean we haven't I don't know what the exact number is maybe Secretary Smith can answer that but obviously we'll watch the numbers as they come in we'll be sure that we can vaccinate all those with the supply we have and then we want to move on to the next age being as quick as we possibly can but again as I said before if we if we had an idea how much we're going to get like a month from now and and beyond that gives us the opportunity to to gauge this the size of the vaccination plan according to the supply we know is coming in so that we don't over promise but we don't under commit either we want to make sure that we're we're have the all the details that we possibly can in order to give Vermonters what they need Secretary Smith Dr. Levine and and the governor mentioned this we're not going to wait until every single person in that group is vaccinated you know like we did with 1a we'll start moving on to the next phase once we feel that registrations are starting to taper down and also when we look at the available slots so we we don't have a time commitment you know a time period on this but we'll play pace play pay close attention to win those vaccinations vaccination registrations start to taper off and then start planning for the next phase please during press conferences last week but I'm wondering if there's been any developments in reaching older Vermonters 75 and up who are homebound and cannot get out of their house to go get the vaccine yeah that's been a concern for us I'm going to have Secretary Smith to answer that directly but we are contemplating that to make sure that we can get to them just as quick as we possibly can and it's part of our strategy thank you Courtney for the question we are we're moving as rapidly as we can to get line lists of those various individuals through the home health agencies who are homebound as soon as we have those lists completed which we're getting pretty near completed we'll start setting up through home health agencies and when the home health agencies don't have the capability of reaching those people through EMS to vaccinate those individuals as well I would say you would start having we would start having specifics within seven to ten days from now okay thank you I'm also wondering just over the past few days if the call center has fielded any calls from people under 75 who may be trying to beat the system go against the guidelines you guys have put out yeah I have not heard of that instance instance from the call center I've actually heard some that are amazed at some of the people that are signing up online for example people that are over 100 signing up online but I haven't heard of the any instances that you you spoke about okay thanks very much good morning my questions are about vaccines one is from a reader who enrolled her parents in to get a vaccine yesterday as she enrolled them online I'm sorry not yesterday Monday and she reports that this morning she got a text with an appointment reminder for each of them and the date was wrong in both instances and then she got a second test suggesting that a second appointment be made by calling the phone number and she asked me to find clarification on if that's normal she was under the impression as were many readers that you make your second appointment when you get your first shot she is absolutely correct there was a wrong text that went out this morning to about just over a thousand Vermonters we are correcting that right now tell that person to hold tight they should be receiving something information to clarify what's going on excellent I will share that back and related to registering vaccines I heard from another reader who was frustrated with her ability to make an appointment for her dad on the state's website that she was able to make him an appointment through the Kenny drugs she wanted to know why people weren't informed about the Kenny option can you clarify that Kenny option sure on on our website you have the option to going directly to the Kenny's website Kenny's is a partner with us in fact they'll be doing 19 locations this today in terms of vaccination sites Kenny's is a partner and then starting next week I believe it is hospitals will be a partner some hospitals will be a partner in our vaccination program but the Kenny's is a partner so if you go on the website there is a button you can push to go to the Kenny's website to register for that for Kenny's great and if I could just have a quick follow-up I received an email from a school guidance counselor who was in a district south of Bowers and she said that after the holidays all the counselors in her district were told they would be vaccinated with the EMS group and they were told to sign up and did she said this was pushed by her school board in the nearby hospital distributing vaccines so this group of school counselors eight of them has received vaccines in the priority group 1A and when I asked about this last Friday I was told that had not happened she additionally said that her the teachers in our school were told to sign up for vaccination cancellations lots should those in approved bands decide not to get vaccinated can you shed a little light on that for me please yeah yeah she shouldn't have been vaccinated and I'll look into it in terms of what's going on there is Lisa you asked me this last week and I'll just I'll reiterate there is no sign-up sheet for you know extra doses of vaccine vaccination we do as I mentioned last week we do maintain a list of people that are that are 75 years and older because we have that list now that we can use any individuals that are homebound will use that list so if there are extra doses we're going to really concentrate on those priority groups 75 and older and homebound so those are the priority I don't know of any sign-up list for extra vaccine okay thank you for that clarification we received an email from a reader telling us that their their parents vaccine appointment got phoned because of a double booking and an appointment apparently the reader had made an appointment online and someone had made an appointment over the phone only to find that the phone appointment was overlapping with the online appointment so they bumped their our reader's father do you know how many of those double bookings occurred and are you taking any steps to make sure that it doesn't happen again? Secretary Smith by the end of today we'll have over 30,000 that are registered so what I want to do is make sure that we understand that we are going to find glitches into this that where people have double booked we are going through right now to make sure that that's not a prevalent issue and so far from my understanding it isn't a prevalent issue of double booking on that we will straighten those out individually by calling the person but I don't believe Erin at least it hasn't come up to me that this is a widespread issue it may be small issues within the 30,000 that we're registering right now okay and do you know if the online and phone people registering are working off the same system? yeah they're working they're working in collaboration I don't know the you know I'm not a computer expert and I don't profess to be a computer expert but my understanding is that there isn't the possibility of double booking should be eliminated through the computer system okay I also received an email from a librarian who had a couple questions about helping people to register for the vaccine and it made me wonder if the state had planned any kind of coordination or guidance for libraries obviously libraries are a sort of computer and internet access for a lot of the monitors and librarians help to register people for the census so you know I was just wondering if that kind of mentality extended to the vaccine registration process we are reaching out to as many partners as we possibly can you bring up the libraries I think that's a very good suggestion I will follow up on it to make sure that happens okay thank you very much thanks Rebecca morning governor good to see you back and everybody back I was wondering I don't know who this goes to but I'm wondering why the initial list of vaccine sites had at least two sites for each county across Vermont except Grand Isle County which has a elderly population there were no sites listed and clearly there are plenty of schools churches and sheriff's office in Grand Isle that have space and you know whole blood drives and so there's obviously space for something like this just wondering why Grand Isle County was shut out how much Secretary Smith it may be added in the future because we haven't determined all the sites at this point in time but let's Secretary Smith answer that Mike the way that we distributed the sort of the sites is looking at the number of 75-year-olds that are in the county and did it proportionately in terms of dosage and in terms of sites based upon the number of 75-year-olds in that county in comparison to the total number of 75 so if it's 10% in that county and you know we did the dosages based upon what the percentage was I don't know precisely why we have not what we have in Grand Isle County but I will double check on that just to make sure and give me the day to double check on that and I'll get back to you okay yeah I just seemed a little live that Essex County which is just in rural ended up with two sites at least I guess or whatever so thanks I appreciate you following up on that for those up in the island my other question is and we've received mixed reviews about the sign-in and much like you mentioned there were glitches that haven't brought to your attention I don't know who gets this question but readers were asking were Vermonters including some of the unemployed offered jobs at the call center I would say that the complaint we received boiled down to two things lack of communication skills by whoever is advancing the phone and lack of knowledge of Vermont in particular at least two different families in Essex reported the call center tried to send them to Island Pond in Essex County for their shots were quite insistent apparently that people in Essex Vermont go to Essex County and also got a call from a gentleman in Bells Falls unable to register for his shot in his hometown site which there was and now he has to drive to Brattleboro what other issues have you been hearing as far as lack of geography local geography when I believe you want people to go to the most local sites yeah we do and I've mentioned it a couple of times we want people to go to the most local sites because that's how we distribute the dosage you know ironically we used for our call centers local companies to some degree we used several local companies for the call centers on that so I'm a little bewildered about the that aspect of not knowing Vermont we did use Maximus as well which is a state call center that we use a variety of places whether it's in the Department of Vermont Health Access or other places throughout state government so you know they have done well by us in the past but I'll look into that and see what's going on but we we did use Vermonters in terms of call centers for reaching out to Vermonters okay thank you very much one of the things that really stuck out from your budget address was the 53 million for the general government modernization and that was about a quarter of the 210 million and you know obviously there's going to be a lot of the legislators going to be looking to all this money and looking to where to where to spend it what would be your big argument on spending so much money on that piece of it well again this is one time money as I said in the address and we should use it strategically for some of the challenges we've been facing some of the areas that we've been trying to improve upon part of that I think a 10 million of that was the integrated eligibility in the H.S. that we've been working on over the last number of years some of that money has been appropriated within the capital bill for instance this year the another proposal was in the capital bill for about 10 million dollars for integrated eligibility that's borrowed money in the capital bill we borrow every single year for those uses I've long thought that it was inappropriate to use bonded money for IT needs so this was an opportunity to take that out and open up more appropriate uses within the capital bill for some of our infrastructure building needs and structures and so forth so that was 10 million of it we have some other challenges again these legacy systems whether it's in labor 50-year mainframe 50-year-old mainframe or whether it's in motor vehicle 50-year-old mainframes they need upgrade it's very expensive to do motor vehicle alone will be I think about 45 million dollars the labor department is something to that magnitude as well as well as many other IT needs throughout state government that will improve lower costs for Vermonters in the long run and give them a better experience so we just thought these are things that we're planning to do that's been that we're planned for a number of years we just thought it was a good use of money one-time money to do this while we had the opportunity that was at hand is there a timeline at all for replacing the UI system I know that was obviously a big issue last spring again some of this money would go towards maybe putting a few band-aids on in some respects but we know we're hoping that the federal government will give us some latitude within future appropriations to replace that we're not the only state that is in this position many many other states have the same legacy systems and and everyone knows they need to be upgraded so we're hoping in future appropriations from from congress that we'll be able to accomplish that as well okay good luck thank you yeah thank you Avery WCIS can you all hear me okay we can Dr. Levine mentioned in the beginning of the press about college students returning and the recent cases from Norwich and the University of Vermont obviously the pandemic is very different from when it was when college students returned last semester is there anything being done different this time around to kind of help with the increase in cases well again I think the good news is we learned a lot from the initial experience they did by and large did a pretty good job in making sure they contained any cases that that were were found in in this this this plan to bring more students back they were required to test before as they came out to campus and in quarantine and that's when we found the cases or they found the cases when they came back onto campus and were tested and were in quarantine so it's working actually so that we're mitigating the spread so I'm not sure that we do anything different but I'm going to let Dr. Levine answer further you're absolutely correct Avery that this the time the students left in the fall compared to the time they're coming back for the spring semester very different times in the trajectory of COVID doesn't mean the same strategies that we use to bring the students back in the first place in the fall aren't going to still work this time around and I'm hoping to make the case that they are working by identifying cases quickly and making sure that proper isolation and quarantine can occur but having said that we do know that the environment especially for out-of-state students is very different even for in-state students but of course with our rates rates still being amongst the lowest in the country it's much more pronounced for out-of-state students we're also clearly going to be focusing on the variant strains and making sure that any of the students positive tests reflect that that we can get a handle on that very quickly but I want to just make the point again that we are all products of the communities that we're living in and circulating within and any student that comes here with a positive test is reflecting the prevalence of virus from where they come the one place I think we need to learn our lessons very closely from uh experiences going on now are in college athletics and you know the faculty and uh athletic staff in the University of Vermont would only support what I'm about to say which is it's a very hostile environment out there when it comes to the virus you know athletes are trying their best essentially living in a quarantine type of existence and their um testing frequently and when they get off the bus they play the game and they get on the bus and come home they're doing everything they possibly can but we're seeing just like across the country and in professional sports the challenges of carrying out some of these winter sports at the college level with frequent games canceled frequent teams being quarantined etc to the point where the University of Vermont women's basketball team decided they really didn't want to deal with that anymore and they have I'm sure a lot of reasons that they came to their conclusions but even enduring the harshness of the lifestyle that was imposed on them it wasn't paying off in terms of their ability to engage in competition so it's a very different world and we're watching it very closely the health department's providing a lot of guidance like we do with any response to cases around the state we're very accustomed to working with the colleges have a very productive working relationship the staff at these colleges are superb we meet weekly with all of them as well so there's abundant guidance going on both at the state level and bringing some of the insights that the federal level and CDC have to the college scene thank you hi I guess I should say good afternoon everybody I have two questions one very simple and I'll ask that one first you're talking about vaccinating the 1b category 75 and older in five weeks is that both shots or just one well first of all it's not 1b we've gotten rid of that designation it's phase two so I believe I believe that it includes both both vaccinations and everyone's shaking their head yes it includes both okay okay that was my simple question second one governor it's a political question what would you do if you were suddenly presented with a an opening in vermont senate delegation and how quickly could you fill it realizing how important that would be at a time like this when the u.s senate is so narrowly divided yeah yeah you know I know where this is coming from but I think I've answered this question before when we were talking about senator sanders the possibility of him being appointed to the cabinet of the Biden administration and throughout my last four years I've strived to do the fair thing and appoint someone from the same party to represent us when there is an opening and this would be the same in the future whatever we do I just believe in the process I believe in parity I believe that we all have an obligation to tone down the partisanship and and this is an area that we can do that so I would continue to do what I've done over the last four years and if there's an opening in any legislative seats or otherwise that I would appoint someone from the same party okay and then how quickly do you think you could do that thinking of the Senate you could do it fairly quickly whatever you needed to do as the occasion would arise so again I think we're getting ahead of ourselves I don't think there's a need to do so and I hope we maintain the congressional delegation over the next two years in this present forum okay perfect thank you very much hello this question may be a little early but now that the first people who received the vaccine are in the process of getting their second shots I'm curious it's clear what the hope for effect on society of having widespread vaccination is to be but what difference is it likely to make in an individual's life when he or she receives both doses of the vaccine well I'll let Dr. Levine answer this but from my perspective for this population in particular it means the difference between for some of them life and death so I think that's pretty significant and that's why we focus on this area of age banding and 75 above first and then working down from there to 70 to 65 so I think it's significant but I know where you're going with this in terms of having more latitude and seeing more people yeah I think it is as you just heard life and death but even beyond that it's the emergence from what for many has been a very socially isolating past nine months or so because I truly believe that so many people in this age band particularly have really hunkered down and not been able to see friends, family, etc and try to keep themselves as safe as possible and I really do believe this is the time they can emerge from that posture and try to reintegrate to some degree I would dare say this would be the time they could hug their grandchild so I think it could make a huge difference I appreciate that but going forward as younger people people who might be presumed to be more active in the community their term arises do you or see offering new guidance in how people should behave and will that be complicated by the difficulty in knowing who has and who has not been vaccinated yeah those are really good questions and as the governor alluded to earlier these are the questions our restart group is grappling with several times a week and doing the appropriate planning for for the future because though we don't want to have a constant focus on case counts throughout the state as sort of the metric that people want to hold on to the reality is we do expect case counts will go down with vaccination with people continuing continuing to abide by the guidance that we provide them with I hate to say it on a 25 degree day but with the emergence of spring and people being outdoors more and less having to deal with crowded indoor settings you know the hope is we're going to see a lot less of the kinds of issues we've had with the virus so ultimately people will you know still in these next few months be masking be distancing be doing all of that when they can evolve from that to a more relaxed posture isn't clear yet and I don't want to set a date or put a month out there and have people hold on to that but clearly for the next several months we're in the same posture we're in now but there will be a time when they can change that behavior to some degree you know at the beginning of the pandemic many people were saying that the handshake will never occur again I don't think that's going to be true especially now knowing that most of the way you get the virus is from the air and from breathing not touching things but obviously still handshakes can be currently potentially dangerous that people are coughing and sneezing into their hand and then shaking somebody's hand so we're not quite there yet but I need you to give it a little more time Joe because I don't want to get highly specific about things but I do see us emerging in the way I said in my prepared comments and an answer to your question thank you for quick questions first I'm just wondering if you have on hand the number of the total number of vaccine doses spoiled so far prior to this 860 dose spoilage Dr. Levine as of a week ago it was in the high 20s I assume it's perhaps a tiny bit higher than that but certainly not dramatically so very very very small percentage when you're talking about 50 60 000 doses even now with an additional 800 that's still not a high percentage and I have to say this just not to make any excuses for anybody but the reality is in any kind of large vaccination program these things happen we're going to make sure that we know exactly the details behind this circumstance and make sure it doesn't happen again but these things do happen we have exquisite sensors on refrigeration and freezer equipment and they're meant to actually tell us when things like this are going wrong and they help the entire immunization program adhere to all of the specific guidelines for every type of vaccine that's out there and that's why the public can generally feel very very confident and comfortable that what they're getting injected into them has passed all the quality standards and has been maintained in a state where it is still viable it will still be effective and it won't be spoiled or harmful in any way so keep that in mind not to not want to make this a silver lining thing and say wonderful that we discovered this and nobody got these doses because we obviously need to make sure this doesn't happen again in large scale vaccination efforts and we've learned that over many many decades um I mean on on that percentage front this um 860 doses is almost 1 percent of what what we've gotten so far and that's 800 people who you know 860 people who presumably are not getting uh a dose when they expected to does this have any impact on um kind of overall time projection you know obviously the people who were scheduled to get these doses will have to be rescheduled but that doesn't mean they're not going to get their doses and it doesn't mean they're going to get them six months from now instead of a couple days from now so we have you know we're already putting the plans in the work to make sure that they will get the dosages that they're supposed to get thanks um and and this is um another question on the sort of scheduling front but um I know at the press conference conference Friday Secretary Smith said about five weeks for the 75 plus age band but that the second and third age bands down to 65 would be through by the start of spring which is really only about seven weeks away and that that doesn't really line up with what with our current vaccination tastes combined with the estimated populations for those age bands what accounts for that sort of seemingly maybe optimistic estimate do you anticipate weekly supplies increasing or are we going to dramatically speed up can pick up the speed that we're sort of getting those doses into arms in the next few weeks and thanks for the question I think it's a combination of a lot of things one is the fact that we've already hit some of these some of this group in long-term care facilities some of it is that not everyone although we're planning for a quite substantial amount of people that will be getting the vaccine not everyone will be getting the vaccine those other groups are smaller to some extent than the group that we're doing now as we move forward and you know they're as you sort of lay it out what I have said as springtime arrives will be through those first three bands the 65 about 125,000 people will be will be through those first bands we've had really good success in the first month with 1A as you can see there's about as Dr. Levine said 55 to 60,000 doses that we've done almost 50,000 people I think or 46,000 people so we've had really good success rates with that so I'm not I'm not backing away from the the springtime table in terms of rolling out getting through these three bands I mean I I think that's that's a dramatic increase based on you know even discounting some from 125,000 people in these three age bands we would have to pick up the pace by a lot based on sort of what we have been doing is that something that's going to happen? Yeah I believe it will be you know we don't know what's going on with a vaccine allocation there is some indications that those will be increased we're not planning on that right now but if that happens that accelerates the time schedule like I said the next bands aren't as big as this band and in some respects again we know that you know roughly seven to 8,000 long-term care residents have already received the vaccine so we're fairly I believe the start of spring is right around the start of spring is a good projection for this okay thank you Rebecca just want to reiterate what we've said previous we found out about the spoilage as we were walking in into this press conference we don't have all the details and we don't know what this is going to mean in terms of vaccinations in the near term but what we do know is we are getting 16 percent more next week that could be utilized in some respects we don't know at this point as well we don't know what's in the supply that we have right now so we may not have to cancel anything spring field as far as I know right now is continuing to administer the vaccine as they plan today and but we'll have more information for you as the day goes on and we'll be able to report back to you but I just want to alleviate some of the concern out there and I'm not not promote some of the uncertainty until we get the facts as well you know some of the what we've learned with the Pfizer vaccine there is a six a dose within within each application so they that could give us a little bit more leeway as well so we'll have some of this information for you later in the day go to Greg at the county courier thanks Rebecca thanks for swinging back around me I know most viewers don't know but this isn't like some states where we have to submit our questions in advance so appreciate you guys working with us glad to you governor and Dr. Leigh and out of quarantine just for clarification the justice that was destroyed the state didn't have any option on that correct now this was something that the manufacturer has makes the final decision on this they were contacted as far as I know and they made the decision that they should be spoiled and not utilized okay thanks for that moving on I'm hearing from several 1A workers who were in line for appointments to get vaccinated received calls on Friday saying the facility to run out of vaccine and they they didn't have any more allocated for 1A workers one of the voicemails was actually shared with me and and the message basically said we're we're out of vaccines for 1A workers we have some for the 75 plus crowd but when we get more in that are earmarked for the 1A workers we will reach out to you and and reschedule an appointment you know I'm I'm hearing from this group here that you won't move on to the next group and shut the old group off like when you go to 70 to 74 you're not going to stop dealing with the 75 but it seems like you've at least temporarily stopped vaccinating the 1A workers and am I missing something there Secretary Smith we'll find out where the miscommunication is we're we're continuing to vaccinate 1A workers we hope that that will tail off fairly fairly soon but we are continuing to vaccinate 1A workers we do have we are starting to limit the supply for 1A workers because we're starting to move that supply to 75 plus but our we've we've said this over and over again and and we do mean it we're we're going to continue you know to vaccinate those groups once we leave them that are qualified within within those groups and 1A workers that are that are still qualified to be 1A patient facing in some cases EMS and and others will continue to vaccinate now the time schedule may be a little bit different as we start to use the vaccines in different ways but nonetheless they will give vaccinate to Greg the same thing when they go when they move to 70 to 74 age group will they start limiting the the 75 age group no well that'll maybe no we won't and and if you if you can give me offline where this came from I'll check it out as well moving on to my other question hearing from some municipalities are having trouble acquiring mailing envelopes for town meeting voting we're told that the state has run out of envelopes and they don't have a plan for printing more between now and town meeting day I'm told that even though individual municipalities can print their own ballot they're not allowed to print their own envelopes was this a little short-sighted when I think Governor you fund this bill last week or the week before allowing the state to pick up the tab for mailing but you know there's not enough envelopes but picking up the tab doesn't do any good again I think this is a better question for the Secretary of State he's in charge of elections and election process I'm sure he's thought about the envelopes I know he contemplated this when he came before us back last summer in terms of the general election worrying about concerned about the envelopes and making sure they were printed so I'm sure he's all over this I would contact him he could probably shed some light on this have you heard any other concerns along that line I have not no I haven't myself but that doesn't mean they're they're not concerns out there but I have not heard them okay can I can I thank you for your time Greg I want to just go back to your other question and some of what we're seeing I think with the 1a population in phase two the difference in the transition of between that is we we have more control now at this point in time we didn't have as much control over 1a a lot of it was done through the pharmacies and the hospitals and so forth and so on with phase two we've initiated a reservation type of approach and a policy so anytime in the future now that we've started this process this strategy anytime in the future anyone from 75 and older for instance and as we move to the next phase of 70 and over those over 75 can make a reservation so we'll be have we'll have more control the process in the future than we do today so I don't think I think we'll see a lot of these issues alleviate as time goes on appreciate it thank you governor and uh thank you again Rebecca for circling back to make much appreciated moving to Andrew at the caledonian record yes good afternoon um I I guess I'll follow up on a couple of questions we've heard so far first is on Wilson's question about the five-week timetable did you say you expect the bulk of the 75 and overgroup to receive their second dose within the next five weeks with the three and four week pause between them does that mean you expect to give everyone their first dose within the next two weeks or so secretary smith yeah there are some towards the the end of the of the phase for example that will spill over past the the five weeks but the bulk of that population will have their second dose within that time period of five weeks so how many registrations lots and or doses are you scheduling this week next week in the following like how many do you expect how many arms do you expect to poke yeah I can tell you I don't have the number of reservations for each site but I do know the number of doses that we are expecting we had planned on 8800 doses coming in per week for the for planning purposes now we will get a bump as the governor mentioned because of the six the six dose out of the the Pfizer and there is indications that the the biden administration is increasing our allocation in fact our allocation has been increased for this week that's coming up so we will see allocation continuing but right now for planning purposes we used 8800 so just shy of 27,000 over the next three weeks how large is once again the 75 and over group it's it's reported to be about 49,000 people but then you've got to subtract out the people from long-term care that have been already vaccinated in many cases their second doses and then you've got to subtract out people that probably will not take up the opportunity to get a dosage so you're talking probably a population of 38 to 40,000 so at 9,000 a week that sounds like it would take you closer to four weeks to get through the first dose does it not just remember that we're doing first when you do the first dose let's say you do the first dose today you'll have with Pfizer and Dr. Levine please help me out here but with Pfizer I think it's 21 days three weeks you'll be getting your second dose in three weeks so if you're getting it tomorrow it's three weeks after that you can see that a lot of people will be vaccinated within the five-week period I'm not saying everybody but the bulk of the people will be vaccinated within the five-week period and by the way when you talk about the 8,800 just remember you have to multiply that by two because the federal government gives us the second dose from there and then to follow up on one of Greg's questions I will say we've heard over here too about 1A members there were at least a hundred cancellations of people who were late additions to the 1A group that didn't get a chance to get their first dose because of the the redirection of the doses that the hospitals have received yeah I will assure you that those that are qualified for 1A will get their doses are 1A people allowed to register through the online system now if they if they can't get appointments through the hospital are they 75? not all of them then then no they're going to have to go through the regular process that we originated with 1A okay thank you I have two clarifying questions based on some of the answers who've gotten so far so we brought up that there's a 16 percent increase in doses expected to come in presumably the appointments now are being scheduled based on the assumption that Vermont is receiving the current levels of the vaccine so as these additional doses come in will people be rescheduled to get the vaccine sooner if they're in this age grouping or will those new doses be given to new appointment registration? yeah we're reassessing that as we speak we didn't know about the additional 16 percent until yesterday afternoon so we're reassessing we don't want to confuse the issue we don't want to confuse anyone out there just stick to the appointment you have right now and we'll continue to assess and how we account for that but there will be other needs obviously like I said we may may need them for the Springfield spoilage and also in terms of those in 1A so we're going to figure that out and we'll be able to report back to you I would say by Friday as to what what will happen from here and my second clarifying question is what happens to extra vaccine doses if people don't show up for their appointments for whatever reason something came up they couldn't make it that's kind of unclear to me because we heard a couple weeks ago that the state was potentially going to create this rapid call list to people nearby who could get the vaccines so the doses didn't go to waste today Secretary Smith said there's no lists and those extra vaccines will be given to seniors 75 and older or homebound elderly so just so I know in our reporting which is it yeah again just because there's no official list track of by the state each individual location is keeping has a strategy in place to make sure that we get those shots into arms we don't want any more spoilage we don't want them to go to waste so there is a strategy in place I'm going to let Secretary Smith elaborate on that yeah cat I I apologize if there's confusion what I was referring to there's no sign-up list that you go in and sign up for extra dosage the the list that I was referring to is they do each district has lists for people that are homebound there are 75 and over or people that are 75 and older on their current registration list so they they have various lists but they're I just want to clarify there's no sign-up list where people can go and sign up for maybe extra doses at the end of the day what we have told and what they're the protocols that we have used is make sure that we don't have extra doses where we allow spoilage of those extra doses go to your lists that you have whether it's a homebound list whether it is a 75 plus list that you already have through registration and use it there if you can in extreme circumstances use the 1a list but there is no sign-up list and I apologize if there's confusion that's what I meant you just can't go and sign up for dosage at the end of the day so then a follow-up question I have to that is I've gotten a couple emails with people saying they've heard of kind of those informal lists people who work at vaccine clinics calling people they know to get the shot if there are extras and it kind of leads people to feel like you know do I have to know people to get on you know this list of you know extra shot recipients if especially if I'm 75 plus I think that was kind of a question for some of the people and a couple of people said they knew people who were under 75 who were on those lists who are getting the shot so I guess where's the criteria for the clinic it doesn't have to be 75 and older remember this is the first day of the clinics we have been fairly explicit in that our priority are those that are 75 and over in that if you get to the end of the day and there's 1a available we have said do that but out of any circumstances do not spoil dosage I would be very upset if friends are calling friends and if I find out about that I will be extremely upset about that thank you for clarifying all that I appreciate it and all of my questions have been addressed for today but I just wanted to take this opportunity to welcome the governor and the other state leaders back from quarantine I'm sure to speak for all of us in saying that we're pleased you're safe and well yeah well thank you very much Tom we appreciate that thank you we're also hearing from readers that they've not been able to get appointments near their home and will be required to drive on in what might be difficult winter weather we're noticing that 20 out of 53 vaccination sites are kidney drug stores and none of those are in southern Vermont and we're wondering when will some down state pharmacies be enlisted in vaccine distribution so people get shot near home also can we get numbers on the appointments scheduled by town or by county secretary Smith Sean I'll look into your last request I just I don't I don't want to say yes and then all of a sudden I find out that we have some issues with it so let me look into your last request we're always adding on health care partners as we move we're going to be adding on through the appointments we'll be adding on obviously some hospitals we'll continue to add on hospitals as we move forward we're continuously looking at gaps by the way and the the thought process here is once we have permanent partners that can handle sort of service areas we can use sort of our ability to strategically bring in health department pods as well so I I'm pretty certain that we'll have areas of coverage I don't remember in Windsor County and in the Chester area I know Springfield's one area but I don't remember where else there are in that county secondly we will add vaccination capacity if we have to right now when we looked at capacity throughout and this was last night as we looked at capacity throughout the system there was still capacity at every site but let's we will evaluate that every day and we can add capacity if we have to yeah we maybe we can talk because we'd be happy to tell you some of the stories of people being told that they had to go to Windsor even though they're eight miles from Springfield the other the other question I have is we've heard about appointments for second doses from Springfield receiving cancellation notices and we're wondering what the Moderna window is for those people to get maximum effectiveness and should people who made appointments on Monday and Tuesday for Springfield or that area should they expect that some of those will be canceled well there's two different things that I just want to clarify I mean we have the we have the 75 plus what we call the health department distribution site and I don't have any information on that I'm presuming at this point that's moving forward and then we have the situation at Springfield hospital we're at the 8 860 doses that were spoiled 400 of which were the second dose and I'm going to ask Dr. Levine to talk about that as they probably reschedule the second dose what that means in terms of the Moderna vaccination schedule yeah I believe the current guidance from the CDC is one can go out six weeks past the first dose and that would be fine the I'm sure that's going to be a moving target too to be honest but right now they felt comfortable with six weeks as the outlier questions are once more of a clarifying question that is the 16 percent increase in doses that are coming in is that strictly from the increase from Moderna and you're getting the same level of the 5-0 vaccine it's a 16 percent overall and I'm not sure how that's whether it's for both 16 percent for both or whether it's more for one or the other but at the end of the day for the week it's 16 percent okay one of the reasons I'm asking is one has a much longer shelf life which is easy to distribute and get out there would you prefer to have Moderna because of the longer shelf life ahead I would prefer to get as much of the supply as possible whatever means that is whatever manufacturer whether it's a future manufacturer Johnson and Johnson or AstraZeneca or Pfizer or Moderna will take anything they want to send to us okay and the next one not as much a question as it is an intervention I've been I've been trying to working interviewing some people in the dairy industry up here who have value-added products so they sell cheese or yogurt and they applied for unemployment last year we're denied and we're never able to get through to find out why I've called on employment to ask them to clarify you know what the status is for people who work in agricultural fields how to respond is a way somebody can get in touch with me yeah Commissioner Harrington are you on? I answer and certainly well I can follow up and make sure we get the information it really is case specific so I'd be out in left field if I wanted to answer that without more detail but happy to follow up okay but I really need to get into detail with the press conference but my Jason has my email so in contact that way is that how to work? Ed will get the the contact information to Commissioner Harrington perfect thank you and again I just I just want to make sure that everyone's clear with the 8,816 percent more that's been promised over the next three weeks anyhow hopefully longer and hopefully increasing but as well just keep keep in mind for those trying to do the raw numbers that there is the allotment of the second dose that isn't included in that 8,800 so it's going to be double that in some respects if you want to think about it that way so it's the 8,800 plus the 16 percent let's just say that gets to 10,000 that's actually 20,000 doses a week so that we're able to give the second dose so just want to make sure that's clear because it looks like an awful long time if you don't include that second dose that isn't really counted in that base thank you for the clarification that is important thousand but is that early March yeah just first some I think there was some confusion or is it yeah I think that's why I was bringing it up I mean because if you if you start doing with just the 8,800 number and even the 16 percent it looks like it's a longer period of time when we're actually getting double that so we're able to give the second a second dose much sooner and not take away from that that initial dose so just want everybody to be aware of that well can you hear we can go ahead hi can you hear me we can well I guess I guess if I only get two questions both would be for the doctor but I'd love to ask the governor it's a it's a great it's a great day Dr. Levine now thank you Dr. Levine regarding the adjuvants and thank you for the info and getting back with me on that stuff and I've been looking into to these lipid particles and there appears to be like four different types of lipid particles that the MRA MRNA is encased in um could you tell me if these lipid particles are they grown from from human cultures don't have an answer for that question I strongly doubt they're grown from any cultures at all they're they're synthesized probably through chemical processes but they don't I don't believe they require a human culture media to grow so it's not like a living organism well it's it was described as a substance of biological origin that's soluble in nonpolar solvents and then there are four different types and I don't want to waste time by reading them all but when it's at a biological origin I just thought that that would mean like human origin yeah don't have an answer to that but I can look into it great I'd appreciate that and secondly I'm not sure you know this but in in order to combat combat the vaccine hesitancy among the African American community Morehouse University had reached out to you know civil rights leaders and black elders to come in and take the vaccine one of which was Hank Aaron and he got his vaccine and he was dead two weeks later do you think something like that might affect the hesitancy among the African American community you know I didn't know that that correlation existed if it's a correlation at all with Hank Aaron I I would hope that for one Hank Aaron there were abundant others who did not have any relationship in time between getting the vaccine and any untoward outcome because this again we don't even know this had anything to do with the vaccine and I'm going to assume it didn't but the reality is I think the strategy that Morehouse came up with is is a fine strategy it's similar to the strategy of putting the president of the United States in front of the camera and the vice president and getting their shot at the same time but they may not be as generalizable for a specific community or another so I think if you have members of the community you feel you belong to that are publicly acknowledging that this is a safe endeavor and that this is something that they would encourage you to do I would think that would pay dividends especially as you mentioned an older black population because they have that historical context to put things within and if they believe themselves that we have advanced somewhat from some of those historical injustices that might make a younger black person today hesitant to get the vaccine I think that that role modeling is really good so I think that's a wonderful strategy great well it looks like the governor is off the hook this time and if you could if you could get back to me or on the on the lipid particles I've had questions from viewers about that too also I'd really appreciate it so thank you so much for your time I really appreciate it and I'm glad to hear that all you guys are doing well too thank you Steve thank you I just want to add one thing it has probably nothing to do with the Hank Aaron issue but just to remind everyone once you receive your vaccination you're not invincible especially after your first dose this takes at least a couple weeks and then you have to have your second dose in order for it to be truly effective so it's a a matter of weeks so don't you still need to wear your mask stay socially distance take all the precautions we've been talking about so just don't assume that you're you're not going to contract the virus because you might already even have it who knows so just just be careful hi yeah can can you hear me okay we can okay I wanted to I think my questions are best answered for directed to Dr. Levine and I I know and noted and heard your responses and appreciated those regarding the the UVM in college court situation from earlier today but I was wondering if you could provide a little more detail into what the scope of the outbreak is at UVM at the moment Dr. Levine I don't want to convey the sense there is an outbreak at UVM first of all because I don't think I could label it that there are cases of students returning who are positive now with sometimes within the context of a team we might label it an outbreak but that's different than saying there's an outbreak on the campus of UVM so I can't give you any more details on a specific outbreak at the college at this point in time why is that no I'm just saying it's the nature we we have people who test positive and they become cases generally because they arrive from somewhere and we're incubating the virus it does not mean that they have caused an outbreak especially if they are appropriately isolated and anyone they were in contact with is quarantined that does not fulfill the definition of an outbreak at that time okay understood I guess then my my question would be if you have any sort of clear picture of what's going on within those individual teams and groups at UVM if you could I guess articulate a little more about what those situations are how many of those outbreaks or situations there are that the contact patients have identified yeah I can't give you that at this point but we can come back with that okay and I get the last follow-up I had was just what sort of guidance have as the state as the health department given to UVM through this time yeah so we've given guidance to multiple colleges universities whether they have cases or not but the guidance always has to do with how to manage the cases that they find that are positive how to cohort people how to make sure that transmission does not occur beyond the initial case contact tracing guidance which the colleges are getting quite good at but which we augment with our workforce as well and obviously and when indicated further testing guidance if there's more testing that's indicated based on the cases that have been found to that point in time awesome thank you very much thank you Rebecca question to the governor shifting gears here completely from vaccinations to act 250 as you probably know a number of district commissioner commission chairs that have testified that the system from from their perspective isn't broken and that their rulings aren't inconsistent which is an argument that that seems to be made for the NRB taking a greater role so can you sum up for me why why the change to the professional board is needed from your perspective just so I'm clear so the district commission coordinators have testified there's no problem so that makes so that there's no chairman same thing so that means there's no problem well that's what they're saying and I'm asking you what you see the problem at well obviously I think there is a problem somebody that's been on both sides of this issue over a number of years over my 30 years in construction and developing and so forth I see a vast amount of of different opinions that are given depending on where you go between districts and this isn't consistent because you have different maybe today there's no problem with with some of the particular chairs but we go back three or four years when they weren't chairs or weren't part of the district commissions and and there's a vast degree of differences of opinions so I I would disagree I believe that there is inconsistency throughout the process just the way it's it's formed when you have volunteers and they're appointed I've appointed a number of them a previous governor appointed a number of them the previous governor to that appointed a number of them so you have a number of different people from wall walks of life in these district commissions it leads to a lack of consistency so I just stand by my feelings that this would be the better opportunity and it doesn't mean that they can't deal with some of the minor applications I'm talking about some of the major initiatives they've gotten very complicated and very costly and so having a more professional board take on these big big act 250 permits I think would lead to a better outcome for everyone do you it's obviously in the early days of this will you your administration be presenting testimony of detailing inconsistence opinions from these district commissions to buttress your argument I would I would hope I would hope that the I would hope the committees of jurisdiction would reach out to anyone that who wants to testify on this whether it's developers and others who have utilized the act 250 process over the last 40 50 years and have them have them testify I believe legislators have heard from their constituents about the lack of consistency so I'm hoping the process will work and that people will get their their day to testify on what their beliefs are great thank you very much that's it okay thank you very much and we'll see you again on Friday