 Good afternoon, everyone. Just got off the phone with fellow governors and White House officials, and here's what we heard. First, CDC director Dr. Walensky discussed Omicron in the news yesterday that the variant is now the dominant strain in the US. She also discussed how the CDC has endorsed a test to stay strategy in schools, which as you know, Vermont was well ahead of the curve on. Dr. Fauci reiterated the importance of getting vaccinated and boosted as the best way to protect yourself from Omicron. They also indicated that additional therapeutics would be given EUA approval in the coming days, potentially the Pfizer and Merck antiviral oral pills. They also previewed the president's address later today, much of which has already been reported, including that they'll be sending a half a billion at-home tests to Americans who want them. Next, before we go into detail about Omicron, boosters, schools, modeling, and more, I wanted to take a moment and reflect on how far we've come over the last year, thanks to your hard work and the power of vaccines. It was just over one year ago, December 15th, to be exact, when the first Vermonter received a dose of COVID-19 vaccine. In the year since, about 500,000 Vermonters have rolled up their sleeves in a vaccination effort that has led the nation. As Commissioner Pichek reported last week, one estimate says that to date, vaccines have prevented almost 1,000 Vermonters from death due to COVID-19, 1,000. I know it seems like a decade ago, but it's also important to think back to what our lives were like just one year ago as the very first shots went into arms. One year ago, we had a ban on multi-household gatherings, which meant you couldn't visit family or friends. You couldn't travel into the state without a quarantine. A lot of businesses were closed or faced many restrictions and limitations. Most kids weren't in the classroom five days a week. When kids were allowed to play sports, you weren't allowed in the gym to watch. And while there were some sports allowed, we hadn't completely figured out banned in theater. And tens of thousands were still out of work. Fast forward to now, where we leave the nation in vaccination, which has led to Vermont having one of the lowest hospitalization and death rates in the nation. Over 80,000 kids are now back in school. Businesses are open again. A year ago, over 31,000 Vermonters were collecting some sort of unemployment insurance. Today, it's about 3,000. In fact, we have more jobs available than we have people to fill them. With the common sense precautions we've discussed, you can go to your favorite restaurants again, see family and friends, travel, and so much more. This is all because of the vaccines and your willingness to step up and do the right thing. Vermonters have faced challenges head-on and you've done it better than anyone else. But now, we're about to face another challenge. As we're seeing across the country and in fact the world, the Omicron variant is very transmissible and spreading fast. Although Vermont is one of the only states in the Northeast that is actually seeing cases go down over the last couple of weeks, between holiday gatherings in Omicron, they will go up again and we'll see more breakthroughs. The most important thing you can do right now to protect yourself and others is to get fully protected, get your booster. As we said last week, don't consider yourself fully protected until you have. This will not only reduce your chances of being case, but dramatically reduce your chances of severe illness if you do get it. If you're not vaccinated at all, it's just a matter of time before COVID finds you. And when it does, you have a much higher chance of being hospitalized. As we've said since the beginning, protecting our healthcare system has been our focus. So the metric we continue to watch is our hospitalization rate. Fortunately, we're down almost 40% from our peak a few weeks ago. With more spread of Omicron, this too could go up again. Becoming fully protected, which means getting your booster is the best way to prevent this from being you. We've also talked about the other common sense precautions you should take, like wearing masks indoors, using testing as a tool and staying home when sick. Doing these will be critical as Omicron continues to spread across the country. I heard Dr. Wen on CNN yesterday talking about the rule of three. This is when you're considering getting together for the holidays. She said when doing so, you should accomplish two out of the three of the following, be fully vaccinated. Number one, number two, get tested before you go. Number three, wear a mask. She said if you can check two of the three boxes, it's pretty safe. As for employers, last week at my direction, Secretary Curley issued guidance to the business community on how they can add layers of protection in the face of Omicron. It's really a variation of the rule of three just described. She will go into further detail in a few minutes, but making sure employees are vaccinated and boosted is critical. And if they're not, they should be testing and masking. We're also suggesting that some places adopt a vaccine or negative test requirement at the door. We think these common sense precautions will increase safety for employees and customers and also help keep staff healthy and available for work. Again, Secretary Curley will discuss this further, but first, I'll turn it over to Commissioner Pichek for modeling. Thank you, Governor, and good afternoon, everybody. Starting at the top here, as the governor said, the Omicron variant is now per the CDC, the dominant variant in the United States. You'll see here a chart that shows the CDC modeling that was put out last night, identifying Omicron as the dominant variant just two weeks ago. They were estimating that fewer than 1% of all cases made up of this variant last week, 13%, and then this week over 73%. And just to give some perspective on the next slide, you'll see that that took about four weeks for Omicron to get to the United States, to get to a place where it was over 70% of cases in the United States. And Delta, for example, that same timeline, it took Delta eight weeks to reach 70% of all cases in the United States. So it gives you a sense of how quickly the variant is circulating across the country. And we're also still seeing, per the CDC data, some regional differences in terms of the prominence of the variant. You'll see that in HHS Region II, which makes up New York and New Jersey, the estimate is that 92% of cases are in the Omicron variant. Compared to New England, where the estimate right now is that 38% of all cases make up the Omicron variant. And you can see that in the case data, New York and New Jersey are seeing cases really elevate over the last two weeks, while New England is continuing to go up, it's going up at a slower rate. I think, of course, it's inevitable that our numbers will get closer to this other region, but it does give us some more time to get those who are not yet boosted, boosted in those who are not yet vaccinated, their first shot or second shot of the vaccine. So looking at what that means for cases in the region in the Northeast, you'll see that we had a 41% increase across the jurisdictions that we've been tracking since the beginning of the pandemic. Most of the jurisdictions at neighbor Vermont, that makes this week's total about 228,000 cases. That's the highest number of cases that the region has reported since the beginning of the pandemic. And again, you can really see that being driven by places like New York, where cases are up about 73% from last week. And also Quebec, where cases are up about 92% from a week ago. So really seems like the virus is spreading fast on our borders. And as the governor said, we anticipate cases will rise over the next number of weeks from holiday gatherings and the variant becoming more prominent in Vermont. Looking at our data for the moment, you'll see that cases have stayed steady in terms of coming down a bit over the last two weeks, down about 1.3% over the last seven days and down 16% over the last two weeks. Looking at how testing and positivity has fared, you'll see that testing is down just slightly. And as a result, the positivity rate has decreased a little bit as well. So a pretty steady state going into the holiday season. But again, at about 400 cases per day, certainly a much higher elevated level than we'd like to see. And we'll talk a little bit about what that might mean for the holidays in a moment. Looking again at our trends for cases, some improvement in the long-term care facilities where we went from seven active outbreaks last week to four active outbreaks this week. Similarly, looking at our higher education data, we reported 50 cases this week down from about 104 cases last week. This is the last reporting period for the fall semester. So just wanted to put a summary here of what was experienced in terms of higher education. You'll see when you compare the fall semester of 2021 to the spring semester of 2021, there were about 8,000 more students on campus. But even with the 8,000 more students on campus learning, there were fewer cases this year compared to last semester. Those cases also made up a much smaller percentage of the overall cases that we saw in Vermont. About 3% of all cases in the fall semester and about 8.5% of cases compared to spring of 2021. So really you can see how effective the vaccines were across college campuses, more students, but fewer cases even though there were more cases in Vermont in our communities with the more transmissible Delta variant. Looking at hospitalizations, you'll see that as the governor said, our hospital numbers are down this week down about 23% on the med surge beds. Same story as we've been seeing for quite some time, about 73% of those in the hospital are among those that are not fully vaccinated. And on the ICU side, you'll see 16% decline this week. So following that general trend of hospitalizations coming down in Vermont with 73% of those being among the not fully vaccinated. That's moved some occupancy in both our medical surgical beds and our ICU. You'll see that over the last seven days. The occupancy, the vacancy for beds in the hospital system is up about 82%. That's up about 64% on the ICU side. Those are some of the greater number of open beds that we've seen in quite some time really going back to the middle or later part of September. So certainly good news to have more availability heading into the holiday season. And as we talk about full protection or being fully protected, just again, want to run through these slides that show the differences between those who are not fully vaccinated, those who are fully vaccinated but not boosted and those who are fully vaccinated and boosted. First, when you look at the 65 and older population, you'll see that this is a population that's the most susceptible to ending up in the hospital as we've talked about for quite some time. About 564 per 100,000 cases are ending up in the hospital. But compare that to those that are fully vaccinated and boosted about 16 hospitalizations per 100,000. So a significant difference, a significant level of protection for those who are fully vaccinated and boosted. And even when you compare those that are fully vaccinated, still a significant amount of protection between those who are fully vaccinated and boosted. And the story is similar for adults as well, between 18 and 64 years old. You'll see that there's a 46 times difference between those who are not protected, who are not fully vaccinated and those who are fully protected with the full vaccination and the booster shot. Looking at Vermont's fatality data for this week, you'll see that the number of deaths for the month of December increased to 37. We also had two deaths that were reported back to the month of November, putting that month's numbers at 42 for the moment. And a similar story though here, when we look at the populations that are seen fatalities, still a considerable difference when you look at the protection that's afforded by the vaccine and those who are fully protected and boosted. You'll see that the number of deaths that are happening in that not fully vaccinated population is about 30 times the number of deaths that are happening in the fully vaccinated and boosted population over the last six weeks. So those numbers have held steady. Just shows how important it is to get your booster generally, but how important it is with the holidays coming up and with the Omnicron variant circulating in the Northeast and circulating in Vermont. Looking now at the patterns that we've seen, we've shown this a number of times, but we continue to hold pretty steady in terms of the patterns that we saw last year in the fall heading into Halloween and Thanksgiving and then Christmas and New Year's holidays. And just to give some perspective, what we saw last year, the cases at the beginning of the Christmas holiday to the weeks following Christmas and New Year's increased about 50% in Vermont. So if we were to see a similar increase here just from holiday gatherings in Vermont, our cases would get up to about 600 per day and we'd likely see cases over a thousand on some days when we have larger reporting days. So that is just from the holiday gatherings and a similar example of what we experienced last year. It just gives us a sense of how we need to protect those that are most vulnerable, need to protect ourselves by getting vaccinated, getting boosted, wearing masks and doing everything that we can over the holiday season to keep our cases as low as we can. And then when we look at the modeling for Vermont, you'll see that that sort of matches the experience that we potentially could see. You'll see that cases are likely to increase over the next four weeks and potentially could get as high as a thousand cases per day on this model on the very high end. So again, just reason for us to be cautious and reason for us to take this very seriously heading into the holidays and with the variant upon us. So we are doing a good job, obviously, of getting vaccinated. You'll see here on the scorecard that Vermont continues to be at the top or near the top in terms of vaccine uptake among those five to 11, the age group that is the most recently opened for vaccination. Those numbers continue to go up with about 53% with one dose and 37% fully vaccinated. Then the booster shot, which of course, we've been emphasizing today, continuing to make good progress, about 19,000 more Vermonters got their booster shot over the last seven days. That's averaging about 25 or 2600 of Vermonters every day getting their booster shots. That's great progress. But at the same time, we're estimating just under 200,000 Vermonters are eligible for their booster shot, but have not yet received it. So good progress, 19,000 more Vermonters this week, but a long way to go. So really encouraging those 200,000 individuals that haven't yet gotten their booster shot and are eligible to do that as soon as possible. And with that, I'll now turn it over to Secretary Curley. Thank you, Commissioner Pichak. Good afternoon, everyone. As we head into the Christmas holiday and New Year's celebrations to follow and with uncertainty about the latest COVID-19 variant, we all have a role to play in reducing the strain on our hospitals. We at the Agency of Commerce and Community Development have been working to support the business community and ensure they are aware of best practices and the various resources available to them in the months ahead. As the governor mentioned, we are in a very different place than we were just a year ago. Last year we had capacity limits, closed bar seating and event venues and ski lodges completely shuttered. Our business community stepped up over the last year to suppress the virus. And as we fully reopened the economy last spring, employers began putting into place their own operational changes to address the safety of their employees and customers. Last week, I sent a memo that once again asked employers to step up as they have done so many times during this pandemic to protect their most valuable assets, their employees. We are without a federal backstop and ensuring paychecks continue reaching Vermonters is vital to our neighbors and families. I wanna reiterate that our intention was to offer recommendations for best practices for workplace safety and tips for motivating employees to get vaccinated which eliminates their need to quarantine if they are identified as a close contact of a positive case and they have no symptoms. These recommendations are not mandates were required but instead useful strategies developed in consultation with our own health experts. Every business is unique in their operations and we recognize at this stage in the pandemic there is no one size that will fit all. Again, our goal is to keep people healthy and reduce the strain our hospitals are experiencing. In addition to the memo, as the governor mentioned, he also asked us to host a webinar to further discuss these mitigation strategies and answer questions from the business community. The webinar was held yesterday and recorded. You can find the recording on our website at accd.vermont.gov to recap the recommendations that we covered. Encourage your employees to get vaccinated and boosted. As we've said, fully vaccinated employees do not need to quarantine or test in the event they come in close contact with a positive case so long as they have no symptoms. They will be able to continue working uninterrupted. Vaccines are also the best tool for preventing COVID-19 hospitalizations. Encouraging the vaccinated to get their booster shot six months after their initial vaccine is also crucial. Next, create a vaccine or test and mask policy. We recommend implementing a policy of asking employees to provide proof of full vaccination and booster shots when eligible. Again, the advantage to your business is that fully vaccinated employees do not need to quarantine if they're identified as a close contact of a positive case and have no symptoms. For employees who choose not to be vaccinated, we recommend that you require proof of a negative COVID test weekly and require them to always wear a mask indoors. The state of Vermont has adopted this policy as an employer and the webinar I referenced earlier details how the state implemented and currently runs this program. Certain public facing businesses should consider proof of vaccine or negative test policies for customers. This policy is already in place at various restaurants, bars, resorts and event venues in Vermont and can sustainably increase vaccination rates and reduce community spread of COVID-19. It also provides customers and employees with greater peace of mind. As more businesses adopt these proof of vaccination policies, we are asking all Vermonters to know before you go. Call ahead to learn the policy and carry your vaccination card with you. Please respect the hard choices our business community is making and be kind and patient as you head out for dinner or a concert. Finally, businesses should review all workplace safety protocols even beyond COVID-19. Reviewing protocols for mitigating all workplace injuries can help reduce hospital visits of all types. The Department of Labor has resources to help you provide a safe and healthy workplace. As we continue to move through this phase of the pandemic and try to minimize the impact of the new variant, we know that keeping the public healthy and our hospitals from being overwhelmed will be the key to keeping the heart and soul of our economy, local small businesses and the Vermonters they employ, both open and working. As you hear the governor and my colleagues behind me say every week, vaccine is readily available. PCR testing through the state is readily available and at home rapid tests are becoming more available every day. I encourage employers to consider these strategies, check out the webinar at accd.vermont.gov and adapt their policies to operate as safely as their business model will allow. I wanna thank the Vermont business community once again for all they have done thus far to suppress this virus and they've answered the call every time and we are grateful to them. In closing, I'd like to wish everybody a happy and safe holiday ahead. And with that, I'll turn it over to Commissioner French, Secretary French. Thank you, Secretary Curley. Good afternoon. Most of our schools will begin the holiday vacation on Thursday of this week. Last week we announced there would be no contact tracing in schools during the holiday. Beginning Thursday the 23rd this week and through the holiday period, the health department will not be advising schools of positive cases and the schools will not need to develop line lists of close contacts for cases that occur in schools. We are recommending schools conduct additional testing sessions after the holidays including scheduling large testing clinics during the first week of January. Vaccination including boosters remains our most important mitigation strategy. We continue to make excellent progress in five to 11 vaccination. And that will have a significant impact in the positive way in our operations after the holiday. And boosters are now available for students aged 16 and older. So please get your children vaccinated and when they're eligible for boosters, make sure they get a booster. Secretary Smith will have more information on our vaccination efforts in his report. Test to stay is going very well. Last week our schools conducted the largest number of antigen screening tests since the program began in October. Last week our schools did just under 26,000 tests in test to stay, which is impressive. Test to stay has been very successful in our schools, both from the perspective of detecting the virus and enabling more students to stay in school. As the governor mentioned last week, the CDC formally announced its endorsement of test to stay, which confirms from our experience how successful test to stay can be for schools. We are now evaluating the Omicron variant and its potential impact on school operations. We have three mitigation strategies against the virus, regardless of the variant. Those three strategies are vaccination, contact tracing and testing, and our recommendations for mitigation strategies for schools in their operations. Of these three, vaccination continues to remain our most important strategy. And in terms of Omicron, it's more important than ever that students and staff get fully vaccinated and boosted when eligible. In terms of contact tracing and testing, we are reviewing these processes to see how they can be adapted to meet the challenges of Omicron, which appears not only to be more contagious, but also spreads more quickly. I think this issue of speed of contagion has proved to be one of the more challenging aspects for our schools relative to our experience with Delta, particularly as we consider this idea of speed of contagion relative to some of our processes in schools, particularly contact tracing and testing, which have shown to be difficult to keep up and manage in a dynamic period of contagion. So we'll have some more information in the coming weeks on how we plan to make some modifications to contact tracing and testing in our schools. We are reviewing the mitigation recommendations as well relative to the potential impact of Omicron. All our schools, except one, have adopted our recommendation to require masks, and mask wearing will remain an important part of our recommendations going forward in Omicron as well. It is likely we will be pushing back our recommendation on mask wearing when student vaccination rates reach 80% in schools. That recommendation was set to go live on January 18th, but we're most likely pushed that date back. I think the biggest challenge for schools in terms of Omicron will come in areas related to workforce and staffing. More illness from COVID, even if the illness is less severe, will impact staff availability and the pool of substitutes is very limited at this point. I have been meeting with a task force of the various education stakeholder groups to develop some recommendations on how to make the work in our schools more doable at this critical moment, particularly as it pertains to staff fatigue and staff shortages. I intend to publish some recommendations after the first of the year on how we can reduce the administrative burden on schools. This has been a challenging year for our schools and for schools around the country and not the world. I do wanna thank our school staff for their dedicated service and their hard work. Also wanna thank our parents and our students for their partnership and support during this challenging time. And I do hope everyone has a very restful and enjoyable holiday season. That concludes my update. I'll now turn it over to Secretary Smith. Thank you, Secretary French. Good afternoon, everyone. As of today, over 92% of Vermonters age five and up have received at least one dose of the COVID vaccine. Around 217,000 Vermonters have gotten a booster dose. That's 52% of the state's population that are ages 18 and over. For children ages five to 11, 23,317 have received their first dose or have an appointment to get their shot. That's roughly 53% of Vermont's children ages five to 11. We're encouraged to see that the availability of hospital beds and ICU beds are increasing. As you know, we've discussed this on numerous occasions. We've been planning since September and been talking about implementation of different strategies to find out ways to reduce it and started to implement those strategies in October. As we mentioned a few weeks ago, maybe even three weeks ago, in anticipation of the holidays, we requested teams from FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency to support hospitals and the distribution of monoclonal antibodies. They have now arrived in Vermont. 30 FEMA staff members are now embedded at UVM Medical Center and Southwestern Vermont Medical Center, 20 at UVM 10 at Southwestern Medical Center to help expand their staffing. In addition to those 30 FEMA staff, six teams, three from FEMA and three EMS teams that we contracted from out of state arrived to help deliver monoclonal antibodies across the state. These teams will help with the anticipated spike in cases after the holidays. I want to especially thank the staff at the Department of Health, the Department of Public Safety and particular emergency management, as well as the hospitals for making this happen. Now I want to cover best practices for the upcoming holidays. Dr. Levine will discuss this in more detail in just a moment, but I want to lay out the basic steps that we can take to keep Vermonters safe. The governor mentioned many of these, but I'll add just one more. Again, the governor had said first and most importantly, please make sure that you're vaccinated and get your booster shot. Boosters have been available for two and a half months now, but in the U.S., almost 70% of adults have yet to get their boosters. As Dr. Levine has said, if you haven't been vaccinated and gotten your booster shot, you are not fully protected. Being fully protected ensures a safer holiday season for you and the people you care about. As you can see in the slide here, we have layered on additional vaccine clinics throughout the state during the holiday season. We have added 26 pop-up sites in addition to our regular vaccine clinics. These include clinics on December 24th and the 31st. You can find out where these clinics are located at healthvermont.gov slash vaccine. You can also call 855-722-7878, and we'll be sending out a press release with vaccination sites and testing sites later on sometime today. As we enter the holiday season, there are some key steps that we're asking all Vermonters to take during the holiday. As I mentioned, getting vaccinated and booster is the number one thing that you can do. This is the best thing you can do to protect yourself and our community. Number two, test. Before you gather with other households, make sure you get tested first. On this next slide, you can see because national and regional labs are closed on December 24th and 25th, and again on the 31st and 1st, the state is augmenting our testing capability over the holidays. Special testing sites are available on December 23rd and 30th. These sites offer take home lamb tests, which are PCR-like tests. You can get the results in about 30 minutes. Please register online for these tests. We wanna make sure there's enough tests at these sites for you, so please register online for these tests. There will also be antigen tests available for walk-ins. Those are rapid results tests as well, and they'll be handed to you as a walk-in. For take home tests, after taking the test, you should report your results at healthbermont.gov slash report results. On slide three, as you can see, we are also have partner organizations distributing take home tests. This includes the distribution of over 6,500 take home tests to BIPOC communities as well as those experiencing economic hardship, food insecurity, and homelessness. As a quick reminder in Vermont at state testing sites, testing is free to everyone. Testing is the only way to know if you have COVID. And if you do test positive for COVID-19, all the resources you need, including reporting your status is on the Health Department website. Go to healthbermont.gov slash COVID-19 positive. You can also call 855-72-722-7878. So remember, the first priority is to get vaccinated and boosted. Number two is get tested before you join others. Number three is to mask. Please wear a mask as much as possible when you're inside. And finally, just the one I just wanted to add on is the fourth number, which is ask. You should know whether the people whom you are gathering with are vaccinated. This includes whether they've received their booster shot. You are right. You have a right and the responsibility to ask about vaccination and booster status. That way you can decide what level of risk you're willing to take. The holiday season is likely going to drive a spike in COVID cases. That's just the reality. But by taking some common sense measures, as the governor said, vaccinate, test, mask, and I'll just add one other one, ask. We can help control how high the case spike will be. We still don't know exactly how severe the Omicron variant is, but we do know that it's clearly more contagious than the Delta variant, as Commissioner Pichek had pointed out. So we're asking Vermonters, please do your part. Again, here are other simple steps you should take. Make sure you're vaccinated and boosted, test before you gather, wear a mask indoors as much as you can, and four, ask about vaccination status. It's the responsibility of all of us to look out for one another. Now I'll turn it over to Dr. Levine for a health update. Thank you. So it's no surprise that as we announced over the weekend, the first case of Omicron has been confirmed here in Vermont. In addition, we now have three cases confirmed by sequencing and others likely to be confirmed very shortly as well. Omicron is here and likely has been for several weeks. Keep in mind that genome sequencing to identify the variants is done on positive PCR tests and it may take 10 days to two weeks to complete that analysis. This means the Omicron variant likely started circulating in our communities at least since the beginning of December. It's been found in nearly every state now. It's amazing to say that in less than eight weeks since it was first identified overseas, it is now the dominant strain in the US having already overtaken Delta. Just recall, around two weeks ago, we were talking about 1% of cases, then 3%, now we're up about 70%. We will be reporting more cases attributable to the new variant, but the details of those cases are far less important than the approach we all take to minimize the variants impact because that's what really counts. While science is still learning more about Omicron, scientists generally agree that it is highly contagious. So by its nature, it will result in an even greater surge in cases, which I believe will be just weeks away. And if the experience of South Africa, Europe, Canada, and now our country proves true, while illness may be less severe, a larger number of cases will mean greater stress on our healthcare systems, which are fortunately doing better now than just a week or two ago. I've said that good news is that in Vermont, we have high vaccination rates that protect us from the worst effects of COVID-19, including hospitalization and death. And this continues to be the situation. But like many vaccines, this protection does drop over time. It's why, of course, we've always needed to get an annual flu shot. So when it comes to variants of this virus, like Delta and Omicron, we do need to do more. And that means anyone age 16 or older, get your booster shot as soon as you can. I'll repeat again, you are not fully protected against COVID or up to date on your vaccination until you get that booster shot. Now, new data from the United Kingdom shows specifically for the Pfizer vaccine that while protection against infection alone after two doses is not as good for Omicron as it was for Delta, protection from infection increased to 76% more than double after getting a booster. And South African data confirms what we've always said about these vaccines. They will protect you from serious outcomes like hospitalization. So if anyone tells you that the vaccines don't work because people are still getting positive tests and maybe getting breakthrough cases, that's simply not true. It is the protection against severe outcomes, serious illness, hospitalization and death. That is the true measure of the vaccine's effectiveness. And let me reiterate a key point. Being fully protected against these outcomes means being vaccinated and having a booster shot. Boosters are free, safe, and as you've seen available in Vermont with even more walk-in opportunities now. Remember, it takes two weeks for your booster to offer its full protection. So getting that shot now means your body will be ready if it encounters the virus when we see more transmission due to Omicron as we expect in the next several weeks. And if you're not vaccinated or your child age five or older isn't yet vaccinated, remember that this is the best tool we have to fight the virus and protect our community. The time for sitting on the fence and waiting is long past. You want to be able to enjoy the holiday season, so for yourself, your loved ones and your community, you need to get your shot now. Now, in addition to vaccination, of course, we all need to commit to wearing masks and getting tested to slow the spread of the virus right now. Wearing a mask in indoor public spaces and if you're around anyone at higher risk of COVID-19. Get tested if you have any symptoms or maybe a close contact or are taking part in activities that could put you at risk like large gatherings or travel. Now, many of you have been getting tested and planning to do so before gatherings. Take advantage of the state's PCR or LAMP tests and the option of rapid antigen tests. If you can't do that right now, be sure to follow the rest of our important guidance to prevent spread of the virus, including masking indoors, keeping your distance, especially when around people at higher risk and of course staying home if you're sick. These are all especially important as the holidays begin for many this week. I know many of us are eager to celebrate with loved ones and are exhausted by everything COVID keeps throwing at us, but any way we can lower the risk, the safer we will all be. We don't want the lasting memory of 2021 to be regret that our holiday gathering could have been done more safely. So as I've said in previous weeks, my theme is this, make your arrangements in a way that the most vulnerable person in your life will be protected. That generally is going to mean smaller groups with eligible people who are vaccinated and ideally boosted. And of course, whom you've asked about as Secretary Smith just told you. Using masks appropriately indoors if older and much younger generations are mixing together and getting tested before and after a gathering. Hopefully you've made your plans by now using this guidance. As we've learned, things change quickly, so pick the events and gatherings that are most important to you and be prepared to adjust if anyone does test positive. It's better to miss out now so you can and the people you care about you will be healthy tomorrow. So let's keep thinking about others, especially those who are more vulnerable to the virus as we enjoy the season. The final two topics I wanna cover. One is our case dashboard has some changes coming with more data such as rates of cases, hospitalizations and deaths among fully vaccinated versus not fully vaccinated people. We hope it will answer many of the most common data questions we get, so please keep an eye out for that tomorrow. And finally, I wanna remind Vermonters who are at higher risk that there is treatment available. I've spoken a number of times here about monoclonal antibodies, which can be used for those over age 65 or with certain medical conditions. Anyone in these categories who test positive should reach out to their healthcare provider as soon as they get their result to be referred for an infusion at a treatment center. And an important update on the monoclonal antibodies is that those that we've been using for Delta do not work as effectively for Omicron. Now the federal government is releasing very gradually a newer antibody, Sotrovim Sotravimab, which is effective. We have received only 156 doses of this thus far, but expect this to ramp up in coming weeks. It will currently be reserved for use in patients known to have Omicron or residing in communities with high prevalence of Omicron. Keep in mind, we are still seeing a lot of Delta and the antibodies we are using currently will take care of that. There's also a new treatment recently approved for emergency use called EvuShout. This long-acting injectable monoclonal antibody is for a very small niche of people, those who are immunocompromised or have an inadequate response to vaccination. It's used for people who have not yet been exposed or infected with COVID. So it's a preventive. It may provide over a 70% reduction in risk of developing symptomatic COVID in that population. There is a very limited supply at this time, but along with antiviral pills, expected to be improved in the coming one to two weeks from Merck and Pfizer. It is good news to see more promising steps in treatment and protecting those most at risk. I'd like to thank Vermonters as I have many times before for being such wonderful partners with us all as we work day to day in this pandemic and wish you all a great holiday season. Now open it up to questions. Starting with folks in the room. Maybe Secretary Smith can help me to understand too. Last week you mentioned that there is about 5% of unvaccinated Vermonters that were driving hospitalizations. I'm looking at the dashboard right now. It says that 78% of Vermonters have received at least one dose not necessarily the 92. So I'm just wondering if you can break down the map of where the disconnect is. Yeah, maybe somebody else can, but 5% of Vermonters of adults have not received any vaccinations. So if you take the adult population, 95% of adults have had at least one dose of vaccine and 5% have not. Anything else? Does that clear it up? I just clarifying then what about the, you mentioned there was a 92% with one dose number versus the dashboard says 78. What is it? I don't know what that is. It says 78% of Vermonters age five. Yeah, that's the issue. This is the adult population, right? So you're taking from five up, correct on that? So it's five and over what you're reading on the dashboard. What we talked about was the adult population, 18 and over. Okay. From email to be here in the moment. It's just a, I think it's on a couple of week basis. We don't know how long and it's something that we talked about over the last couple of weeks. So it's just to relieve some of the pressure in the hospital, some of the EMTs and so forth or relieve some of the pressure on the staff in the hospitals. Secretary Smith. If there is a spike, could their contracts be extended to continue helping? We believe, I mean, we'll see what our need is at that point. Obviously we want to not encumber all the staff that is available. If our numbers continue to level out as they have, we may not need their help. And we want to have, make sure that they're available to other states that do. Secretary Smith, anything? You can just mention the cover. Okay. Thank you. We'll keep reassessing that. We'll also mention that divided administration's working on distributing about half a billion tests. Certainly those might not come till after the holidays we're hearing. How confident are you in our current supply of lamp tests, PCR tests and antigen tests through Christmas and New Year's? Yeah, I think we're okay. But we need more tests because we keep promoting the fact that that's part of the answer for the future is the test before you go to a gathering and then test after as Dr. Levine had described over the holiday season. So we believe we're okay, but we certainly look forward to the half a billion that will be distributed in some way. And I don't know the details of that at this point either, who they're going to be distributed to and how. Secretary Smith. Calvin, as you know, we've never sort of backed off from the PCR tests we have. We have PCR testing all through the state. We've had a robust PCR testing regime throughout this pandemic, one of the best in the country, it's not the world. And we haven't backed off on that. On these special occasions when the labs are shut down, we do use the lamp rapid test, which is a PCR like test, and we use the antigen tests. And we believe we have enough supply to get through the holidays on that. As the governor mentioned, and I've mentioned on multiple occasions, we hope to transfer sort of technology from the PCR test, which we haven't discontinued yet, but from the PCR to more rapid results tests, we see great results in the schools on these rapid tests. And we hope that that is going to be the, well, we know that's going to be the future. That's where everybody is headed. And that's where we'll be in the lead again. But through the holidays, we have lamp and we have rapid antigen tests that are available at the state sites. And by the way, if you look at a state site and you see that it's full, there's a couple of options. Keep looking, because we keep adding, we assess those on almost an hour basis. We keep adding slots as we need to. And secondly, we have quite a supply of antigen tests that we can do, and you may wanna just walk in. Secretary Smith, this also, yesterday I checked with a handful of pharmacies in the center of Vermont. All of them said they were out of the rapid antigen tests. None of them knew when they were gonna get another shipment. So should people in central Vermont looking for one, should they go to a state site? I would recommend that they go to a state site. Now, again, we don't use these on an ongoing basis. We use them when we need them right now, and right now we do it on the 23rd and the 30th, because those are when the labs are gonna be shut down for multiple days, and we won't have the PCR capability. But I would recommend that they go to a state site on the 23rd or on the 30th. Everything else will be shut down for Christmas, will be shut down for New Year's, but everything else opens back up after that. I don't know who could answer this. Maybe Commissioner Pichek. What is the state's fully protected population percentage? We see what the fully vaccinated percentage is, and then we see a percentage of that, but what is the actual fully protected percentage? It's gonna be, go ahead. Yeah, so it's a good question. I mean, when you look at the total numbers, not the percentages, there's about 216,000 people that are boosted right now. So 216,000 out of 630,000 or so Vermonters. So you can do the math on that, but that's approximately the difference. Obviously, more of those are skewing older. There's more 65 and older, more 50 and older than those under 50, but that's approximately the number 216,000. And like I said, we're adding about 2,500, 2,600 a day, about 18,000 or so a week. So hopefully those numbers go up even more quickly than that over the next few weeks. Probably for Dr. Levine. Do you have any insight on people who have been boosted? Should they test positive for the Omicron variant about the time for quarantine? I've seen a lot of debate from doctors that it should be shorter than the standard 10 day period. Yeah, thanks for that question. First of all, you will see more people who have been vaccinated, possibly more people who've been vaccinated and boosted who become positive tests for Omicron. So should all just understand that. Most of them should have very mild illness. Right now, there is no new policy on the length of the isolation period. We're actively discussing that within our state. The CDC is actively discussing that. Tends to move a little more slowly. So we'll see how that plays out. Right now it's the same advice, which is a 10 day isolation period if you've become a case. Thank you. Governor, we seem to be at the calm before the storm, if you will. The big one's running down on us. Are we ready for a thousand cases a day? And who knows how many hospitalizations that would bring with it? Yeah, we're prepared. But I think it depends on the intensity of the storm, right, how severe the storm is. Because if it's a mild snowstorm, so to speak, it won't, and it's just vast, it won't impact us as great as with the Delta variant and other variants of the COVID-19. So that's the billion dollar question here. How severe is this going to be? And is it going to be severe enough to put people in the hospital? Every indication we've seen and we're hearing from the health experts across the world that it may not be as severe. We hope it won't be, but it will be vast and we'll see a number of cases. But as we've done from the very beginning, we have focus like a laser on our hospitalizations protecting our healthcare system. And that's what we'll continue to do. And we're prepared if it elevates, but we'll hit something to pay attention to, obviously. All right, we'll move on to the phones, starting with Lisa Loomis, the value reporter. Good afternoon. Am I unmuted? You are. Okay, if people have had one or two J&J shots, should they get a third and possibly a fourth mRNA booster based on new knowledge about J&J and its antibody response? I'll let Dr. Levine answer that, but someone like myself who had the J&J from the beginning, I had received a Moderna booster and I'm told that I'm all set at this point in time. We'll see what happens in the future, but that's the recommendation that I'm receiving. Dr. Levine. And I think that was a great recommendation. So we know that after a single dose of J&J, the Moderna does boost your level very substantially, not that the Pfizer doesn't either, just a little less than the Moderna, but that a second J&J dose does not get anywhere close to the levels that those first two did. So we know that if you've gotten one dose of J&J and one dose of the booster size Moderna, which is half the dose of the initial series, your antibody levels will do fine and you should be fine with that without doing a full series. Nonetheless, this is something that's an evolution because we actually don't know what happens to those levels over the ensuing months. So recommendations change, it'll be because people have used the science and used the data to make a new policy change. But right now should be fine to have a dose of J&J and a more recent dose of an mRNA vaccine as long as there are no contraindications to getting the mRNA vaccine for the person who chose J&J in the first place. And if somebody has had two J&Js, should they get an mRNA booster? That what interval? Yeah, I certainly think that would be reasonable, although I would probably say that they should wait the two month period afterwards because the reality is your levels just after two J&Js pale in comparison to what they do after a mRNA vaccine. Thank you. You might as well stay there for my second question. What is the accuracy of the LAMP test? And when they're described as a PCR type test, what does that mean? Okay, so the category of test really is NAAT, nucleic acid amplification tests. PCR is the most common version of that. LAMP is a slightly different technology, so it's not called the same test, but it is in the same category of nucleic acid amplification. So that's important because it differentiates it from the antigen tests, which are just looking for proteins on the surface of the virus. Both the PCR and the LAMP are looking for the nucleic acid material. The DNA, RNA is nucleic acid. So its accuracy is very similar to PCRs. It's been FDA approved like the other tests under an EUA because it has sufficient sensitivity and specificity to be categorized as such. So it can be trusted as much as we would trust our PCR testing. And the difference with the test that's being handed out on the 23rd and the 30th is that its result is ready in about a half an hour and a person can take it home and get the result. Great, thank you very much. Tim McQuiston from our Business Magazine. Hi, Governor, you know, before the emergency order, your emergency order, and there was just a discussion about masks, there's a lot of consternation and businesses were put in a difficult position of having to police it. And then when you issued the emergency order, kind of let them off the hook. How should they, and you know, they could call the police if they needed to. How should they respond now if they have rules and customers are not following? What should be the procedure now that could get, you know, kind of ugly? Yeah, communication is the best policy, first of all, and being, everyone being fully aware before they enter the establishment and making sure that that's really, really vivid and clear. I think that's the best approach, but I'm gonna let Secretary Curley, because she had her webinar last night, probably that came up. Thank you, Governor. I do know that businesses have asked how they navigate this, and some of the advice I give is make sure you articulate to people coming into your establishment what the expectation is. So if there's a mask mandate, put a sign on the door, let people know, and then really, you know, we recognize that there's some amount of enforcement that could be really uncomfortable and there are some employees who are more comfortable refusing service or telling somebody they're, you know, they're not able to come in, right, without a mask on. So really, it's letting people know what the expectation is, maybe reminding them when they come in, I don't know if you saw the sign on the door, but you must wear a mask, and hopefully people will do what you're asking. But again, I know, I don't think any of us expect the employees to police it in this hard way. It's really just a reminder to people to ask them to stay safe, and just to remind everybody again, if your employees are fully vaccinated and boosted and protected, they have that extra layer of protection as well. And in environments where there's a long duration, unlike a convenience store where you're running in or out, if you're at a bar, for example, and again, it's hard to keep a mask on while you're having a drink. So this is where it comes into us saying to employers, you should consider requiring a proof of vaccine. We have many employers around the state that are already doing this and finding success with it. Some have mentioned that it is a bit challenging to implement at first, and there are inevitably a customer or two that get ugly about it, but overall they're feeling really good about it and they're feeling that people appreciate that extra sense of security. I hope that helps. Yeah, no, it seems like people are resigned to whether they like it or not at this point. Yes. I have a question about the older variants of the virus, Dr. Levine, where where did they go? Are they being supplemented by the newer variants or have we defeated the older variants to some extent? What's gonna happen to Delta this time? Yeah, I think you're seeing natural selection and evolution occurring right before your eyes. So we had the Brazil in the past, we had the UK, we had ones that didn't really take a foothold in our country and we thought they were gonna be really serious. There was a previous South African one. They got outcompeted essentially. So if enough of the population contracts one of these variants because it is so transmissible, it outcompetes all of the rest and they just become suppressed and we don't see or hear a lot about them. So that's kind of what's happening. All right, excellent, thank you. Allen Flanders, seven days. Hi, yeah, these holiday testing sites on December 23rd and 30th, how many tests have we set aside for these? How, what is the stock that these are pulling? Secretary Smith. Yeah, Colin, I mentioned the other day that we had 10,000 lamp tests and we have up to 50,000 ancient tests for the holiday season. Okay, so for these two days, we're expecting we have about 60,000 tests. About 60,000, different types, but about 60,000. Okay, I along with I think probably every other reporter in the state who's been calling a bunch of pharmacies in recent days to get a sense of what the stock is and I alone talked to about a dozen, all of whom had said that they do not have any at-home tests. They're turning people away left and right and Winooski, one of them said it was 50 people alone on Monday who they had to say, sorry, we don't have any. I am, I was a little surprised to hear earlier in the press conference this idea that tests are ample available wherever you want them when I'm hearing from people that that's not necessarily the case, especially the at-home ones, which people seem to want to be able to use right before gathering. I'm curious as to whether you think everyone who wants a rapid test is going to be able to get one before the weekend? Yeah, I mean, you have to plan for these holidays, obviously, as we move through the holidays. But if you go to a state site, we've been planning for a couple of months for these holidays getting in the supplies that we need for the time when these national and regional labs are shut down. We've never shut down our PCR capability until the labs are shut down for the holidays. This is, we augmented the shutdown of the labs with these rapid tests. Now, eventually we hope, and the President announced today, that these will be readily available. We've had to search for a supply chain on these. I was hoping that the pharmacies would have more of a supply chain. That seems to be a national issue and something that hopefully the federal government will resolve. But at the same time, we've been planning, like I said, we've been planning for months to have these tests available over the holidays. And then once the holidays are over, we're back to our normal testing schedule. And then eventually, as I said, we're gonna move to these rapid, rapid tests. We're gonna move away from the 24-hour turn around, 24 to 48 turn around time PCR tests to these rapid tests, whether they're in LAMP or Androgen in the future. For those that are planning the holidays, you can still get a PCR test today and get the results in in time. And you can get the rapid results test on the 23rd and the 30th. Gotcha, okay, just one other thing. I mean, I'm looking at the state website right now for Chippin County and the earliest available appointment is the 27th. I'm hearing from people who are going to the walk-in sites and getting told around noon, I think yesterday it was one person that they just didn't have any more available appointments. If we only have 60,000 at these pop-up sites, that's one for every 10 Vermonters or so. I'm just curious, are we concerned that we don't have enough testing capacity heading into the holidays and worried that people are going to be kind of going in blind to these gatherings if they're not available to get these tests? No, I think we have planned sufficiently. Now, we know that Chittin County, we're adding slots to Chittin County as we speak. Remember, we will have those angiotests or take-home tests. So we'll be handing out those angiotests at these sites on the 23rd and the LAMP tests. You have to register for the LAMP tests. We'll be handing those out on the 23rd as well. But right now we should, we're upping, that's when I said we are looking right now at capacity and beginning to up our capacity. At the same time, you know, we have PCR testing available throughout the state before we go to these days when the national and regional labs are shut down. So try to look around and we'll, as I said in my remarks, please check back on the website as we add capacity to these testing sites. Thank you. Michael Doherty, Vermont Digger. Thank you. I'm just curious as it relates to the new business guidelines that Secretary Curley ran through, as well as other general health department guidelines that if we know, as Dr. Levine said, that being fully protected means having a booster shot, then why are we still rolling out new guidelines that are based around a two-shot regimen? I'm not sure I understand the question, Mike. I mean, it seems as though, you know, we've talked about the significance of having a booster shot to be fully protected here, but it seems so like in all of those guidelines about, for example, people who are close contacts not needing to quarantine, that that's true for you if you've only had two shots. What would we have to lose by building a, you know, a three-shot requirement into those guidelines? Well, I think eventually we're going to evolve into that. And we're waiting for some CDC guidance on that as well. I know that they've been talking about, you know, what is fully vaccinated really mean. So we are going to have to transition into that arena. But it's a good point. I think that we've been communicating that you're really not fully protected unless you have your booster. But we've used the terminology of fully vaccinated as being the two regiment or the single J&J. So we're entering a new phase now. And there could be another phase after that. We just don't know when it's hard to keep up. And it's confusing to some. So we keep advocating for the booster in hopes that they will do that. But we need some continuity amongst the entire nation in order to do this as well. Dr. Levine, anything you want to add to that? The only thing I would add is let's not lose track of the concept. That's the most important thing. It's I'm less concerned about the policy in the business world than what have you. The individual Vermonner needs to know if they want to consider themselves really protected, they need to have the booster period. We have been blessed in Vermont to have an incredibly high uptake rate of booster. But even that isn't high enough, as you've seen on the slides, when you're in the 50% range, even though the nation is about 20 to 30% at the most, maybe even less. So these changes do take a little time to get people socialized to them. And I think we'd need to make sure we gave people ample lead time if they have been sort of forgetting about or not prioritizing boosters so that they understand that there's a date ahead of them that we're gonna get to that level. But we might as well say it now, as the governor just said, we are working towards that in that direction. So getting boosted now would be anticipating the fact that there may be changes down the road, just not today. Thank you. Joseph Gresser, Martin Chronicle. We'll move to Greg Lamero, the county courier. Good afternoon, governor. Hopefully I get the gold star. I don't have anything for you this week. Yes, you definitely do. Gold star. Thank you, Greg. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. North country public radio. Brian, if this is your first time at star six to unmute, move to Howard, BPR, Bird-Wise Tisman, BPR. Sure, thank you. I'm wondering if someone could talk a little bit about some of the strategies that might be upcoming or some of the things we're missing as far as convincing the unvaccinated to get vaccinated. There's still a lot of folks in the 18 to 29 year old that are not vaccinated. I know that you've had a pretty constant message to get vaccinated, but what are we doing to convince folks to get vaccinated? And also what might we have learned from some of the folks who are late to the party, so to speak, who may have just gotten their vaccination in the past month or so? I think part of the strategy as communicated by Secretary Curley to some of the business establishments, especially the bars, that might convince a 21 and over crowd that if they can't go into the bar because they're not vaccinated to get vaccinated. So there's one strategy that we're using. I think that's going to be fairly powerful if we can get more compliance and more people considering imposing that restriction on their establishments. I think that would be pretty powerful for that 21 and over, but I'll let Secretary Curley answer any other questions. Well, no, go ahead on that. I do have one more question, but thank you. All right, he'll come back up. I'm glad you asked that because it gives me an opportunity to talk a little bit about why we reached out to the business community as a former business owner. Continuity of operations is really important and in order to do that, you need your employees to show up and be healthy and safe. At the same time, I'm listening in on the governor's COVID response conversations and we're trying to make sure that we prevent deaths and we keep our hospitals available for those who really need them. And so I thought to myself, there's a ingredient that we both really need. And that is, again, making sure that our employees stay healthy so they can show up at work, but at the same time so they don't need to go to the hospital. And so in terms of driving the vaccination rates, again, I would hope, I said it probably three or four times as I was talking this morning, is to remind people that when they are identified as a close contact, if they are fully vaccinated and not feeling symptoms, they will be able to continue to go about their daily lives, going to their child's concert or going to work or going to the Flynn to take in a show. And so I do think that there's something that will drive is businesses who continue to increasingly ask for proof of vaccines, but also as people realize that the disruption that's reduced, significantly reduced by being fully vaccinated will encourage them to be vaccinated. So that's all I have to add. Okay. Okay, thank you. Well, maybe not a quick question, but one more question for Dr. Levine. I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about folks who are fully vaccinated, fully boosted. They can still catch the virus. They can still transmit it easily. Could you talk a little bit about, and if someone is fully boosted and not feeling sick and not showing signs, is it somewhat dangerous that folks walking around not knowing they have it and possibly passing it on? Yeah, that's a lot packed in there. So, the more than any variant before this variant has the capability of infecting people who are fully vaccinated and even boosted. Again, the caveat there is most of them, if not all of them are gonna have a mild illness and not have a serious outcome from that. They will, just like with Delta, be capable of transmitting the virus at a point in time in their illness. However, if Delta's a good example for us, it will be a very brief time period where they are infectious. Where they have a sufficiently high load of virus in their nasal secretions to be able to transmit it actively to somebody else. But that is part of the evolution of this virus that will occur. So, they could potentially walk around asymptomatic as well and be able to transmit the virus. Hopefully though, on the flip side, when they're in a public place or they're in a gathering indoors, they're wearing a mask so they can help mitigate any possibility of that happening. If I could go back to your previous question too, it's all about incentives, really. And that's what Secretary Curley was describing. If you look at our most recent cases in Vermont, there's about a third to 40% that are in this sort of 20 to 40 year age range. Now, admittedly, some of those individuals who are unvaccinated may be very skeptical and very hesitant or resistant to getting vaccinated. But I personally believe it's a minority of them. And that many of them are just people who may feel more invincible, who may not have prioritized this in their life schedule. It's a hassle for them to go off and get it. What have you? And that's why we're starting to see more people going to our vaccine sites and getting vaccinated. So I do think that there's still opportunities there, but they do lie in the realm of making sure that the incentives are appropriate. And if a powerful incentive is being able to get into an event, a powerful incentive is being able to get into a venue that you wanna go to, powerful incentive is to keep your job. And I know there's a lot going on in the courts now with regard to the vaccine mandates on businesses, but part of the reality of that, that United Airlines and others have proven is that almost everybody ends up getting vaccinated to keep their job, and they don't sort of become a casualty of an ideology, let's say. So that's really where the answers are. And I would submit one more answer is protecting the most vulnerable people in your life. Because what better Christmas gift to a elderly loved one that you want to see and wants to see you, but to actually walk in vaccinated and not put them at any risk compared to if you weren't. I'll stop there. Okay, thank you all. Ed Barber, Newport Daily Express. Okay, this is Ed Barber. I don't have any questions at this time. Happy holidays. Another gold star. Thank you, Ed. Okay. Ham Davis of Vermont Journal. Thank you. Governor, given the enormous emphasis you put on vaccination and its importance in just managing the whole situation, could you tell us whether you have considered or would consider actually having a vaccine mandate, not a mask mandate, just a vaccine mandate in order to ring the most you can out of your position as governor in order to protect the public during this new variant? The availability, it may be that you would have to have invoke a emergency status again, but if you look at, I've read this statute, that 20 VSA Vermont State Law says you have plenary powers, that you can do whatever it takes to protect the public. You don't have to have a lockdown. And so I just wonder whether you would consider a vaccine mandate as a last step to go to final distance to protect the public. First of all, it would take a state of emergency to impose that type of restriction or to force people to receive their vaccinations as you know, from the very beginning, it's just my style, I prefer carrots rather than sticks, the encouragement of having businesses decide to just only allow customers in who have been vaccinated, I think is a good strategy, encouraging that guidance and so forth. We've tried to use within our own state employee system, either you're vaccinated or you have to test a mask, one of the two. And that's been successful. There's a certain percentage of the population that just is not going to do it and will resist. It will create, I believe, a lot of controversy to try and impose something of that nature. I don't know of any other state from my standpoint that is considering this. And you know, Vermont has done really well. I mean, you look at the statistics and the number of people who have stepped up, the 95, I mean, there's 95% of the adults who have decided to at least have one dose. What we'd like them to do, if we could get that 95% to continue to get their second dose and their boosters and so forth, we'd be in really, really good shape. We wouldn't need to impose any type of mandate at that point in time. But I understand your point, but I don't think we're there and certainly not for Vermont because we've done so well and we've had so much cooperation with the style and leadership that our team has given the state and they've done well in stepping up to protect themselves and others. So I think we'll continue to advocate for boosters and doing all we can to make sure that they're protecting themselves and to watch the hospitalizations. And again, what we're seeing today and over the last three or four weeks, seeing the hospitalization rate drop is encouraging. We're now leaving the Northeast in that regard and we have had that throughout the pandemic. So again, I don't see the need for this, but I get your point. Anyone else? That's all my questions. Thank you, Ham. Aaron Nutanko, BT Digger. Looking around kind of at my local community, I've noticed an increase in people going out for holiday shopping in the past couple of weeks. Certainly, obviously the biggest surge happens on that December 23rd to 24th squeeze, but why not issue this kind of employer guidance in before now, basically, preferably before Black Friday when shopping starts to happen? Yeah, again, as I look at where the cases are coming from, when we see the surges on Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's and so forth, Halloween, it's not because of the shopping. It's really about the gathering. It's about those small gatherings, some of those small gatherings in homes and certainly even in bars. I mean, we've, you look at social media and you see where people are in bars and they feel as though they're invincible at that point. No mask is a safe haven and that's where I believe I believe there's a lot of transmission. Timing is everything. We have tried throughout the pandemic to try and lead people when they're willing, not to force, but to lead them when they're willing and it feels like the right time to lead people in this direction because this isn't going away anytime soon. This latest variant is just the latest variant. There's going to be more variants to come, but we are going to evolve and transform from pandemic to endemic, eventually here. And this might get us there, but again, just changing behavior, trying to encourage people to have their vaccinations and doing it in this way, I think is the way to transition. Anyone else want to add to that, Secretary Curlie? Yeah, I just wanted to clarify, a couple of questions now have led me to believe that people think we may have issued new business guidance and we have not issued any new business guidance. And what we did was reach out to ask them to double down on their efforts, all the tools that have been available in the toolbox to reconsider them and rethink them. And, you know, the governor made this point, I don't think any of us are expecting a retailer where people are in and out to ask for a vaccine card. They can, they may want to. I think we really are highlighting those places where it's a dense setting where people are there for a prolonged period of time where it's unreasonable to think that they're going to wear a mask the entire time or maybe they can wear a mask the whole time but they're really on top of each other. So I just wanted to make sure it was clear that there's no new business guidance. It's just an ask to like double down on the tools that are there and let's get through the holidays. Erin, maybe I can give you an example and some of this triggered some of my thinking on this. It was probably two weeks ago and the contractors, associate general contractors had their annual meeting and they were trying to decide whether to have it or not. So they decided to move forward with it but they were going to require anyone who attended to be vaccinated. And that was the first, they did this all on their own and they had over 200 people at this event. And I asked them how it went and it was successful. They only turned one person away that wasn't vaccinated. And again, they had over 200 people there. So then after seven days, I said, are you keeping track of whether it was successful or not? Was there any outbreaks or anything that was associated with this dinner that went over a period of hours? And they didn't have a single case as a result. So that gave me the encouragement in some respects to say, if they came up with this on their own, there are others that should know this and maybe want to do the same. So whether it's a dinner, an annual dinner or whether it's in a bar or a restaurant, those are typically the places where people are gathering and getting together and typically because of the activity without mass. So it was just a thought that we wanted to make sure that others would consider. And again, trying to encourage those that population from 21 to 40, that we seem to be having some difficulty in encouraging them to get vaccinated. So we thought it would help twofold. All right, Tom Davis, compass Vermont. Thanks, Jason. The legislature will return. Do you have any sense if in the early time that they get back, if one of the priorities will be to take a look and question any of the strategy that you and your administration is going to cover? I really don't know, Tom. I know that there was some talk of that a few weeks ago, but I really don't know. Some probably a better question for them at this point. I'm hopeful that they come back into session and focus on some of the other issues that we could use their help on. And some of the money, the tremendous amount of once in a lifetime money that is coming from the federal government and how do we invest that wisely? So we get the best return on that. And how do we address our workforce shortage and the housing shortage and all the other things that we really could use their help on? Our team has done, I think, a really good job over the last two years of dealing with this pandemic and will continue to do so. We have a wide, vast group that have gotten quite acclimated to this pandemic and I think some of the decisions we've made, maybe not all, but the vast majority of the decisions we've made have been beneficial to Vermont. I appreciate that. Governor, I did want to express my appreciation for the speed at which the members of your administration and their crews get back to all of our news outlets. My decades of experience, but you definitely ranked number one. So I just want to say thank you for that and I hope you have a great holiday, Oliver. Well, you too. And while we're on that point, I do appreciate, again, it's not all the questions we want and some of them are difficult, but I don't know how many press briefings we've had this year. Maybe we'll count them up for next week, but it has been beneficial for us to have you asking the questions so that we can communicate to Vermonters about what they want to know and have you be able to communicate that for us. So we thank you as well. Page from on Daily Chronicle. Guy, I have a cool start here waiting for you. What Tom said goes from me too. And yes, we're glad to be of service. So I'm looking at the latest mortality statistics. Can you or Commissioner Levine, please write down how many of the unvaccinated dying of COVID actually had COVID symptoms leading to death? And perhaps how many merely tested positive actually died of other causes. And if there is no effective way to break that down, why not? Yeah, I've had some of the same questions because I see a number of the deaths as well. They die with COVID, they test positive for COVID and it probably contributed to their death, but not all there are some that have been have terminal cancer for instance. And so it was inevitable, but at the same time, you know, we want to be able to communicate exactly what we're seeing. They had COVID and under the conditions that we imposed upon ourselves and others throughout the country, I believe that's the guideline that we use so that we wouldn't be accused of hiding anything. So Dr. Levine might be able to explain it better. Not better, but maybe some additional. So all of this information comes from death certificates. So the quality of the death certificate is essential to understanding what went into a particular death. You have to understand that with the number of deaths that have occurred in this country, which I think are in the 800,000 range at this point, not every medical history and hospital chart is being opened. So it's really done through death certificates. I can tell you that because we have a much smaller number of deaths in Vermont, we do have eyes on every single one. And I can tell you that particularly now during the Delta surge, the deaths that have occurred in the unvaccinated people are generally people who ended up in an ICU because they had such a severe case of COVID. Not exclusively, but a very large percent. There will probably be some that had COVID as being present at the time of death, probably the straw that broke the camel's back and the person who had other illness. But it's really hard to give you the exact number you're looking for based on the fact that you can only read into a death certificate so much. Not every case is easily decipherable. But my instinct about the Delta surge I think you can take to the bank. Thank you. The water's very roundabout. Hello, thanks Jason, can you hear me? You can. Okay, I guess I'm batting clean up. I have a practical question for maybe it's Dr. Levine or Secretary Smith on the tests that are gonna be available on Thursday. Like Colin, I've been hearing just from everyone right now a lot of frustration about not being able to find rapid tests and a lack of appointments before Christmas because they wanna test before gathering. So I'm wondering if, which is the better test or is one more effective or accurate than another? Say if you've been a contact of someone and you wanna be tested or you're just someone who wants to be cautious. Which test should people be aiming to get on Thursday to make sure that it's right for their circumstances so that they have that information going into Friday and Saturday? I'm gonna let Dr. Levine answer that. But in terms of, you know, I've considered, I was thinking about this as you were describing how their antigen tests are not available on the shelves and I've heard more than one person who have bought them for gifts this weekend, actually. So I'm wondering if there's going to be a supply that suddenly appears come Christmas day? Let's hope. That's the case because they are going to be needed but I have a feeling that there are a number of them available. I was wondering if Santa with the National Guard on these convoy the next tonight might like to be handing them out up and down the state, but who knows? You know, I'm also confident that many people have them at home because they did buy them ahead of time because these press conferences are so effective that it created a little run on the pharmacies. The reality is, I do wanna caution people, you know, if you wanna point fingers, there's 100 places, you can point fingers at the pharmacies, at Amazon, at the state of Vermont, at the United States, at the manufacturers. It's a big problem so everyone needs to sort of be understanding about that now and we're in a holiday season where there's a big rush on things. The half a billion that the president has promised are not gonna happen by January 1st. They're going to happen, God knows how far into 2022 because they do involve the War Act and revving up manufacturing, et cetera, et cetera. So we are behind European countries in having the population have as ready access to this. I think in Vermont we're doing phenomenally well with regard to that. The two tests are doing two different things. The PCR test is the most sensitive way of knowing that you have COVID. It has a much higher sensitivity than the antigen test and it's a gold standard test. You only wanna do it once because once it's positive it can tend to stay positive for quite a while because of the fact that it's looking at fragments of the viral nucleic acid which may still be present in your nose. The antigen test is a wonderful test to determine on the day you did it are you infectious? So could you infect somebody else then and there? So it's a really good choice if you've been using them all along to determine that you've suddenly turned positive and that's why they do come as a two-packed and we recommend you do the first test a few days before the holiday gathering and then the second test the day of. It really enhances the sensitivity of that test bringing it up a little higher. So at this point in time for those who are really just not sure what to do because they can't access anything I would have them go to the state site and whatever they get handed they get to use essentially. So whether it's the LAMP test which is the nucleic acid test or an antigen test to take home either way make good use of those. But that's the kind of strategy people should use as they do this. So Dr. Levine if you're someone who thinks that you've been exposed to somebody who is positive do you have a recommendation to which one of those you should be taking on Thursday or really does it not matter? Well, you need to allow a couple of days to go by because you're probably not gonna test positive right away so make sure there's about a five day period that when you start your testing but I don't think I would say one is better than the other at that point in time. It would be whichever one you can access. I think if you're at day seven and you're a negative PCR test you're pretty well assured that you're most likely not gonna turn positive at that point in time. Especially with these newer variants infecting people so much more quickly. Okay, that's helpful, thank you. One last question if I might would be for Secretary French where you mentioned schools after the break potentially setting up clinics to be able to test I'm thinking about all the thousands of kids and teachers and staff that are now gonna be out in the community for a week and a half. Our school officials have been emphasizing how safe everyone is at school because everyone's wearing masks inside schools and the spread that we're seeing among children is coming from the reflecting what's in the community. So I'm just thinking about how schools should try to re-gather I guess come January 3rd. It would seem like would it be more recommended if they start testing before kids come back or as they come back? I mean just imagining them all getting back together and then being in school for several days and all those germs circulating again. It seems like there's gonna be this sweet spot of trying to figure out are people infected before they spend too much time together? Yeah, you raised some good questions but firstly school is gonna close down for the holiday. Everyone needs a break and the schools are representative of the levels of contagion in their community. So it's important to acknowledge that. I think what we've done after every holiday is to encourage schools to offer more testing just sort of on that sort of surveillance perspective. But I think you do raise an important question and this probably will be asked as we get further into the Omicron experience. What point can we maintain a disposition of protecting schools per se when really they're just situated in the broader contagion pattern of the community? So I think Omicron's gonna push us to that and I think it's certainly gonna be I think really critical that we have that expanded capacity to screening testing in the community as opposed to just in schools in the form of tests to stay. But good question, but from a practical standpoint we'll approach this holiday like all the other holidays and be prepared to encourage schools to offer additional testing. Okay, great, thank you. Thank you for that. I guess we'll be hearing more about that and happy holidays to everyone. Well thank you very much for tuning in and regardless of whether you observe Christmas or not, I hope you have a very safe and enjoyable weekend. And maybe you could just reflect for a moment on all the good that's still out there in the world. Sometimes you have to search a little harder for it and if you're searching and can't find it maybe you should create it. Those random acts of kindness are so well needed, much needed in this world and the controversial world we're living in right now. So take a moment and reach out to someone in need because I guarantee they could use a helping hand. Thank you very much.