 Good morning, everyone. Today, Mr. Petschek will provide our weekly modeling update and Dr. Levine will give us his regular health update. We'll also hear from Tom Lowson who served as a key member of on our Economic Recovery Task Force about relief programs available to employers following the recent COVID relief package passed by Congress. But first, today marks 10 months since Vermont's first death from COVID-19. We've lost 163 Vermonters to this terrible virus since the start of the pandemic. 163. This is not just a number. These are moms and dads, grandparents, coaches, mentors, neighbors, and our fellow Vermonters. In honor of their memories and the loved ones they've left behind, I once again ordered flags to fly at half-staff today. We must all remember them, but the best way we can honor them is for each of us to do our part to help save the lives of other innocent victims and those in need. I also wanted you to know this morning I signed into law H48, which gives municipalities greater flexibility for upcoming local elections due to COVID-19. This means they can, if they choose, mail ballots to all registered voters in place of more traditional town meetings or the typical in-person elections used by many cities and towns. As you might remember, we mailed ballots for the general election in November when the virus wasn't as prevalent as it is today. I want to thank the legislature, specifically Speaker Kowinsky and Pro Tem Ballant for their quick action on this very important bill. And I strongly urge local voters or local officials to take advantage of this and use the mail-in voting for town meeting day in upcoming local elections. At Friday's briefing, we discussed the next phase of our vaccine rollout. As a reminder, beginning next week, those over the age of 75 will be able to sign up for an appointment to get vaccinated. Once we complete this age group, which includes about 49,000 Vermonters, we'll move to 70 and over, then 65 plus, and then move to those with certain high-risk conditions. Again, with such a limited supply and an unpredictable supply of vaccine coming to us, we're prioritizing those most likely to die if they contract COVID. The fact is, the further down the list, our older Vermonters are, the more lives we're risking, and we believe preserving life must be our top priority. While we have more work to do, Vermont ranks in the top 10 states for the rate we're administering the vaccine, and we're working every day to improve our systems. I also want to address some of the concerns I'm hearing from some, especially those comparing what we're doing with those in other parts of the country. It's true that some states have started with broader eligibility than ours. The problem is, without the supply, they're not going to be able to vaccinate any more people, just create more frustration and more confusion. Overpromising is not the answer. The logical approach is to manage the supply of the vaccine we're receiving, and if we're allotted more, we'll scale up, which we hope will be the case. At Friday's briefing, we'll provide more details about next week's launch of phase two. Again, there will be two ways to sign up, online and by phone. We're standing up call centers with hundreds of workers, but the best way to register will be online. So again, I'm asking friends and family members to help those who aren't savvy with technology to help out. We'll provide a link and a phone number in the coming days. Now, moving on, as you recall, about eight months ago, Congress passed the CARES Act, which provided support for employers, direct payments to individuals, as well as money for states to distribute. In Vermont, we use hundreds of millions of dollars to provide relief for our small businesses. But like I said at the time, we knew it wasn't going to be enough. Fortunately, thanks in large part to leadership from Vermont's Congressional Delegation, last last month, Congress passed another much needed relief bill. This time, however, it did not include flexibility for states to spend, but instead use this federally managed and direct grant programs. When these programs were first launched, Vermont businesses took advantage. In fact, we had one of the highest per capita rates of PPP usage in the country, which kept Vermont workers on the payroll. I want to make sure we take full advantage this time around as well. So I've invited Mayor, former Mayor Barry and CPA Tom Lozon, who's been working with our team at ACCD to analyze funding to once again walk us through the available programs. We're also joined on the phone by Darcy Carter from the SBA, who can help answer questions when we get to the Q&A portion of the briefing. I want to thank Tom for his hard work and his support over the last 10 months, and so I'll now turn it over to him for an update. Tom? Thank you, Governor, and thank you for your leadership. We're going to move very quickly. We have six topics to cover in a very short period of time, so we're going to be moving very quickly. Before I begin, I just like to let you know that this presentation will be made available through social media and on the ACCD webpage. And in addition, for all of these, I believe all but one of these topics, we have done webinars, and there are more detailed presentations available both on the ACCD webpage, in the references that I'll provide today, and of course on the SBA webpage. So if we could move one more slide, please, to our... Thank you very much. So the first topic we're going to talk about is the Employee Retention Tax Credit, or ERTC. This was established under the CARES Act, and then it got much better under the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 21. It is a refundable tax credit. It is calculated on payroll and health expenses. Employers will receive almost immediate access to dollars by reducing required payroll tax deposits or by receiving a refund of taxes. The qualifier is a full or partial suspension or a percentage of revenue reduction. And I'm just going to spend a moment talking about full or partial suspension. Back in March, when the Governor appropriately issued his stay home, stay safe order, you were hard pressed to find a business that wasn't affected on some level. Even grocery stores who did stay open serving the public were staying open, but they were at reduced capacity in terms of the folks who could access their business at any given time. That is a partial suspension. So as we look through the qualifiers, some folks are looking at the percentage qualifier and stopping there. You need to go beyond that because, again, here in Vermont where we've kept things very safe, you're hard pressed to find a business that hasn't been at least partially under some sort of capacity reduction. So please pay attention to that. You can take a PPP loan and get an employee retention credit, an employee, excuse me, employee retention tax credit. That changed with the CAA of 21. That's why we didn't pay a whole lot of attention to the ERTC back in 20. You couldn't take a PPP loan and get an ERTC. That changed on December 27th of 2020. So now it's causing us to relook at this, and it's a very powerful program. Next slide, please. So there are different rules and limits in 20 versus 21. 21 is much more generous in 20. Qualifying employer can receive up to $5,000 per employee, but in 21, that's been changed. A qualifying employer can receive up to $14,000. There is no application. You simply take the credit on your Form 941, which I'm sure small business owners are familiar with, or your Form 943. So if you're a qualifying employer and you have 10 employees, you could potentially receive up to $50,000 in 2020, and $140,000 in 2021 for a total of $190,000. The interesting thing about the ERTC, it is not an appropriated program. It's a tax law change. So there is unlimited funding. And in addition, because of the three years statute of limitations, if you discover later on that you qualified for this and you didn't take it, you can go back and amend your return. So unlimited funding, and you've got time to take a very thorough look at this. Next slide, please. Thank you. We're going to talk about the family's first Coronavirus Response Act. That is also a tax credit to cover the cost of providing employees with required sick leave and family medical leave for reasons related to COVID-19. Again, it's a refundable tax credit. This generally applies to all employers with under 500 employees that began on April 1 of 2020. And it ends on March 31 of 2021. Next slide, please. The employer receives a tax credit based upon required wages paid and employer health insurance coverage. Credit is taken again on Form 941 or 943. Once again, as for the ERTC, if you were entitled to the credit, but you missed it, you can go back and amend those returns and a refund can be received. I do have to mention there's no what we call double dipping on this. You can't use double dipping for given PPP funds to generate either tax credit, either of the two tax credits that I've just spoken about. However, one thing that you need to remember is under the PPP program, you get 10 weeks of payroll, you have 24 weeks to spend it. So that leaves 14 weeks of payroll that would qualify for either of these tax credits. So what we're finding is that virtually every employer we've looked at qualifies on some level. So instead of 190,000, excuse me, 190,000, you may get 100,000. It's still going to help your business. Next slide, please. Thank you. I'm going to talk about the payroll protection program first straw, what we call PPP one, or I just call it P1. Borrower's who were approved for a loan, excuse me, got ahead of myself. So this program was revived under the CCA of 21. This program has reopened. Generally, P1 eligibility rules remain largely the same. These are forgivable loans. Borrower's may calculate the loan based on unlike the first round, now you can use 19, you can use 20, or you can use what's called a specific one year period. I'll just give you a brief explanation. Let's say you apply for a PPP one loan today. Today is the 19th. If you want to, you could use the payroll period 2020 through 1921. So that is the specific one year period. Self-employed individuals and partnerships are eligible. I can't tell you how many people all of us on the team have helped over the past year who thought because they were self-employed, they were not eligible for either payroll protection loan that's not accurate. They are eligible. They've always been eligible, so take advantage of that. But any eligible entity who has not received a first draw PPP loan can apply. This is interesting. Borrower's who were approved for a loan but did not draw the full amount can go back and receive the full amount. So for example, if you were approved for a $100,000 PPP loan but you only drew 50 because you were concerned about your ability to have to repay the PPP loan, you can go back and draw the other 50. If you canceled the loan, if you got nervous about the program and bailed out, or if you repaid the loan out of concern that you weren't going to meet the eligibility requirements, again, you can go back and you can draw the balance. Unfortunately, if you made a mistake on your first application and you should have been approved for a higher loan but you didn't get that because you made an error, you cannot correct that first draw loan, but you can take that greater amount on your second draw loan. You apply for a PPP one using form 2483. And lastly, if you receive a P1 loan, you can go back and get a P2 loan. However, you have to expend the loan funds under the P1 program first. There's a link at the bottom of the page here that provides some good guidance. Now we'll talk about the second draw payroll protection program. The eligibility requirements under P2 are slightly narrower. If you have 300 or fewer employees and a 25% reduction in revenue in any given quarter, and that has to be a calendar quarter, you can't make up your own 90 day period, it has to be a calendar quarter, then you qualify. You're comparing 2020 to 2019, and you only need one quarter to qualify. You don't need to be 25% reduced for the entire year. Again, borrowers can calculate the loan amounts on 2019-20 or a specific one year period. This is one of the big benefits under P2, restaurants and hospitality businesses with a NAX code 72 receive a loan amount using a 3.5 times multiplier instead of a 2.5 times multiplier. So they're going to get 40% more than they received under P1. All others use that 2.5 multiplier. The affiliation rules still apply, but they've been waived for NAX code 72 businesses. So if you're a restaurant, if you're a hotel, you don't need to worry about the affiliation rules. In addition, eligible news organizations with 300 or less employees also apply, also are subject to that waiver. If you own or control more than one business and you're not a restaurant or a hotel, please pay attention to the affiliation rules we've seen. We've given you a link to those. We've seen people get tripped up. If you own more than one business, for example, if you own a plumbing company and a property management company, you have to aggregate those companies for purposes of qualifying. In P1, we didn't worry about that too much because the only qualifier in P1 was 500 or less employees. And we found very few businesses in Vermont that had even in the aggregate had 500 or more employees. You cannot receive. A lot of people have asked, can I go right to the P2 program without receiving a P1? You cannot. You have to get your P1 first, then go back in and get your P2. And if you receive a shuttered venue grant, you're not eligible for a payroll protection program loan. You apply for this program using SBA form 2483 SD, second draw, and the guidance. Again, I've got a link at the bottom of the page here, which we will provide to you to the guidance. Next, I'm going to talk about the economic injury disaster loan or the EIDL. This is a long term direct loan program. It is not forgivable. It is a direct loan made directly with the SBA to meet financial obligations and operating expenses. There's a very broad allowance of use under this program. Generally, businesses with under 500 employees and nonprofits are eligible. This is important because businesses located in an economically distressed area who experience an economic loss of more than 30% will qualify for an additional targeted EIDL advance, which is generally $10,000. And we do have a number of those areas here in Vermont. So if you're applying under EIDL, please pay attention because that grant, that targeted grant, is just that. It's a grant. It's not a part of your loan. The loan amount depends on your need and application. Generally, you receive six months working capital. Borrowerers can utilize EIDL and PPP both one and two. Borrowerers cannot use the loan funds under EIDL and the payroll protection program for the same purpose. Generally, 30 year term, 3.75 for businesses, 2.75 for nonprofits. There is no prepayment penalty. So one of the strategies we've been telling people is if you have any doubt about your future, if you have received a PPP loan, consider the EIDL. If you find yourself with excess capital, you can pay the EIDL back. Payments are deferred one year under this program. And there is a fact sheet at the bottom linked to a fact sheet and also where you can apply. Last, we're going to talk about the shuttered venue operators grant or the SVO. This was established under the CAA of 21, $15 billion to eligible applicants who may qualify for SVO grants equal to 45% of their grossed earned revenue. There's a maximum award of $10 million. I like this part of it. There's $2 billion reserved and that's not limited, just reserved so there could be more for eligible applicants with less than 50 employees. So they thought in this program to take take care of our smaller businesses. Eligible entities include I'm not going to go through the entire list, but live venue operators or promoters. We have a number of those in Vermont who are particularly hard hit and motion theater motion theater operators, as well as talent representatives. So if you're someone who makes a living here in Vermont, booking acts, you may want to look into this program. Again, under the SVO, there's a broad allowed use grant funds, the qualifying applicants with 50 or less employees will be given priority. And then when they prioritize those smaller businesses, they're going to further prioritize the businesses by providing economic benefit to those who have suffered the greatest lost first. So if you're 90% of greater revenue loss, you'll be in the first round, 70% you'll be in the second round and then so on. This program is not yet live. We're waiting for the details of it. But again, I've provided you with a with a link down at the bottom here. So I realize, you know, I will apologize that that was a lot of information thrown at you very, very quickly. If you go to the ACCD webpage, or the SBA webpage, there is additional information as well as in the links that I provided here today. You know, as the governor said, we were given one charge when he formed the economic recovery task force. The governor explained that we needed to touch every business in every corner of Vermont and give them the opportunity to get as much relief as they can. That's exactly what we're going to do. Next up, I believe is Commissioner Peechak. Thank you very much, Mayor Luzon. And good morning, everyone. Just one week ago, we reported that the pandemic had been at its worst. Cases, hospitalizations and deaths were all at all time highs. And those same worsening trends were experienced in the region and here in Vermont. This week, however, the data provides a much more optimistic outlook for our country, for our region and for our state, suggesting even that the US may have surpassed its third peak. But we must be mindful, as the virus has taught us over the last 10 months, things can change quickly, both for the better and for the worse. And new challenges are always emerging. For seven straight days, the national seven day case rate has declined, representing an 18% decrease in new cases this week. And maybe the most significant, this is the first sustained case decrease not associated with a slowdown in testing from a holiday since late July. In fact, the seven day testing average is the highest it's ever been helping to drive down the positivity rate below 11% for the country. More encouraging, new case growth is slowing in every region of the country. So the improvements we're seeing are not limited to a small handful of states. But in fact, 41 states experienced case decreases over the past week. Similarly, for six straight days, we've seen a decrease in national hospitalizations, something that hasn't happened since September. And again, when taken with the change in cases, is suggesting to some experts that the US may have reached its third peak. Even with these positive indicators, America will reach another grim milestone today with over 400,000 Americans having lost their lives to the virus. Unfortunately, again, we see that the most recent 50,000 lives lost was the fastest pace of death we've experienced to date. It's important to remember that that deaths will lag cases and hospitalizations. So deaths will likely remain high for the next few weeks, even if the positive trends with cases and hospitalizations continue. But we do hope to see improvement very soon. And the seven day rate has shown some early signs of slowing down. While there are reasons to be optimistic, we also need to be mindful of a new modeling produced this week by the CDC that suggests the new COVID-19 variant from the UK could grow to be the dominant strain in the US by March. Because this new strain is more transmissible, it could cause our cases to remain at a heightened level well into the spring. Whether this occurs will depend on the pace of vaccination across the country and the degree to which we lower our cases over the next six weeks. Again, we're seeing some positive signs, but now more than ever, it's important for us to remain vigilant and to follow the public health guidance. Looking at our regional data, we also see early signs of improvement. This week, the Northeast reported just over 185,000 new cases, a 12% decrease from last week, and the most significant reduction we've seen in months. However, it's still important to note that the 185,000 cases is a significant number for the Northeast. The improved cases and strong testing has further driven down the regional positivity rate, bringing it closer to that 5% or lower threshold recommended by the World Health Organization. And again, given how interconnected our region is, it would be difficult to imagine Vermont getting its cases significantly lower without similar improvements regionally, which makes these regional trends all the more encouraging and significant. Here in Vermont, while our cases have slowed a bit, we did add an additional 1,000 cases in just the last six days, bringing us over the 10,000 case threshold. Vermont was the last state to reach the 10,000 case mark, taking us 315 days from our first case. And even though our cases currently remain high, we continue to have the lowest per capita case count for the pandemic. This week, we also recorded 1,129 new cases in Vermont, a reduction from last week. But just as we noted with the regional data, still a significantly high number of new cases. Further, you can see that there were more cases among individuals who were 65 years or older compared to last week. This is something we'll continue to monitor closely as we go forward, since as we all know, a significant number. In fact, 92% of our deaths and 62% of our hospitalizations occur in that population that's 65 or older. We expect to see cases decrease among this population over time as more and more people age 65 and older are vaccinated. So we'll continue to watch this closely. Following the rising cases after the holidays, we can now see that our seven day case average has slowed and has started to decrease, suggesting that the holiday impact we did see is not continuing to fuel new cases. Again, a very positive early sign. Turning now to our Vermont forecast for the next six weeks, we can see that cases are expected to remain elevated into February before improving. However, due to our most recent case data, we do certainly have reason to believe that we will stay below this forecast over the weeks ahead. But cases are likely to remain high. And again, we must remain cautious about this new COVID-19 variant. Our hospital projections continue to indicate that Vermont will have enough resources to treat those who need care, even if the increased case counts remain elevated over the next six weeks. And again, the simple steps we've taken to protect ourselves to date continue to work and should we should all redouble our efforts to follow the public health guidance to keep our case counts as low as possible. Although our case counts remain much higher than they did in the summer and in the fall, we must remember that the entire country, including our region, had a very similar experience. Vermont is of course not an island. And when cases rise significantly around us, eventually we're going to see those impacts. However, by following the guidance and making so many sacrifices, Vermonters continue to make major impacts in fighting the virus. Measured against key metrics, Vermont continues to be at the top or near the top. And we continue to be there consistently week after week. Finally, regarding the pace of vaccine administration across the country, the most recent data from the CDC ranks Vermont's second in the northeast, fourth within our travel region and seventh nationally in vaccine administration. And at this time, I'll turn it over to Dr. Levine. Thank you. I'm going to pick up on Commissioner Pechak's words and provide some cautiously optimistic remarks this morning. Knowing how reluctant I am to use just the weekend or holiday data to fully predict the future, I do have the following to report. Over the past four days, case counts have trended downward from 180 to 140 to 123 to 102. And testing did not seem to suffer over the holiday weekend. This makes our percent positivity rate 2.6 percent, which I truly believe is reflective of reality. Note that we are now three weeks since New Year's Eve and four weeks since Christmas Eve. And I think anything that's related to an increase in cases in that time period is now pretty much over with. I particularly take solace in there having been no additional deaths reported during this time period, keeping our count at 163. We do continue to see cases in long term care facilities, but overall the trend continues to be reflecting a slower rate of growth there. This is, however, too early to be explained yet by vaccination efforts in those facilities. Likewise, consonant with some of the slides you just saw, hospitalizations do not seem to be further increasing and they may have plateaued here, although there are still 40 individuals in the hospital today and five in the ICU. I note that our epi teams are still quite active and occupied following 48 outbreaks and 460 situations, the vast majority of which are in long term care facilities, health care and workplaces. As the governor said, our vaccination plans are strong and optimistic, needing to be matched only by the federal government's ability to allocate vaccine. I want to remind everyone that Vermont's approach follows the data very closely, specifically the mortality data, and is focused first and foremost on preserving life. After the three older age brackets receive their vaccine, our approaches to protect people ages 18 through 64 who have the serious conditions that put them at increased risk of severe illness from the virus. I and others have received many questions regarding medical conditions not on the list that I read to you last Friday and with concern for their own particular condition or that of a loved one. As I said before, a key driver of what conditions to include depends on whether the condition means greater risk for serious illness if one gets the virus. Please understand that many conditions are just too uncommon for there to be adequate data at this time, or that there is data for more common conditions like asthma that only suggest people might be at increased risk. Hence, such conditions do not appear on the CDC or the Vermont advisory panel lists. If you do have a concern about a specific condition or your eligibility, please discuss this with your physician. We wish there was enough vaccine today to give everyone regardless of age or condition, but as things stand, uncertainty about the allocations coming to Vermont means there's no real opportunity to change our approach currently. The age prioritization approach to saving lives is indeed our North Star. It is data driven and simple, and the larger approach really should reduce the tendency towards divisiveness when a resource like vaccine is so scarce. Rest assured, everyone will be informed when, where, and how they will get vaccinated. Please help us do this by not calling or sending emails until we provide all the details. With that in mind, it's a good moment to reflect on how very fortunate we are to even have a vaccine this soon. Normally it can take three to eight years, years for an effective vaccine to a new virus to be developed. The Pfizer and Moderna immunizations took only about 10 months and are already being provided around the world. We know how terrible it is to not have the ability to prevent diseases, so this accomplishment is really unprecedented. So as you wait for your turn and we get the systems up and going, please reflect on this accomplishment, and I thank you for your patience. Finally, allow me to express some optimism regarding the new variant or variants. There's no question that the B117 UK variant is in the U.S. And there is little question that it will be present at some time in Vermont if it is not already here. And CDC believes it may take over as the dominant strain by March. So why am I optimistic? First, it does not appear the virus seems to cause more illness or more severe illness. But since it is more transmissible, it will spread faster, causing more people to be ill, which means more people may end up in the hospital. The preliminary data I reported a week ago has not been added to, nor to my knowledge refuted, and scientists still believe that the current vaccines will be effective against the UK variant. What I would like for monitors to understand, though, is that though we are just at the very beginning of our vaccination efforts, we must remain committed to following all the usual guidance regarding masking, distancing, and avoidance of indoor clouded settings, even while we ramp up the vaccine efforts from now until at least the summer. This is the coming down the stretch part of our race with the virus and its new variants. And we must redouble our efforts, stay focused and not let our guard down. Especially because we have a vaccine that is actually 95 percent efficacious, and it will eventually be available to all of us, possibly with other new platforms coming online in the next few weeks. We have a long way to go before mission accomplished, but each of you doing what we can to get us there is our light at the end of the tunnel. And we have proven that countless times during this pandemic. Governor. Thank you, Dr. Levine, Mr. Pichek and Tom for your presentations. We'll open up to questions at this point. All right, it's about quarter of 12 and we have twenty three reporters in the queue. We'll start in the room with Calvin. Thank you, Governor. So maybe a question for Dr. Levine off the back. So maybe Secretary Smith, two of these on the phone. I'm wondering what our vaccine allocation was for this past week. And then also you may have seen Governor Cuomo is appealing directly to the pharmaceutical companies to try to purchase vaccine. I'm wondering if Vermont potentially will get taking a similar approach. Secretary Smith, did you hear the question? I think I did. What was our allocation for last week and I'll have to get back to Calvin. It was in the seven thousand one hundred range, but I will get back to you precisely what that is in terms of lobbying the pharmaceuticals. We will do everything we can. I think our conduit is through the federal government and their conduit is to the pharmaceuticals. So I think what our approach is we've we've made our case known. I believe the president elect is well aware of the supply chain needed for us to get to where we all want to get quicker and that's more production. So he is advocated for this. I believe that he will probably come out with some sort of statement. I believe a hundred billion by in the first hundred days, but I don't know what that means to be honest with you. I'm not sure if that's a hundred million more doses or a hundred million total. So everyone is on the same page and we need more vaccine in order to vaccinate more people. And it's as simple as that. Right now our hands are tied and and again, the federal government has much more power over this production and the pharmaceuticals than any individual state does. And Governor, a side topic too. You may have seen Treasurer Pierce on Friday. She is recommending that the state make cuts to teacher and state employee pensions, you know, to keep the retirement fund solvent. I'm wondering, I guess, if you think that's that's the best approach at a time like this. Well, I haven't seen the proposal at this point. I haven't been briefed. I you probably know as much as I do about it. But I do think it's a step in the right direction to at least have the conversation. We have an unfunded liability of about four billion dollars. That grows like this year alone. That's another hundred million dollars that we don't have to pay for it. So it's unsustainable. So we're going to have to have the conversation. I've said this for a while. It's not something that I can advocate for. I believe the treasure and the legislature have to be involved. But I'm a willing partner. So the conversation has to be had. Did you want to add anything to the other vaccine or is there anything more? It's not like when you try to right. Yeah, I think what Dr. Leen was saying is this is much different, you know, with them PPE was back about 10 months ago when all the states were almost competing against each other because we were going right to the manufacturers. This isn't the case. Everything goes through the federal government. So it's not going to help us to go directly to the to the pharmaceuticals. Governor, following up with Calvin's question, you have been preaching this for quite some time that we were going to get in trouble. It's the it's the hidden elephant in the mouse hole in the room. Perhaps getting commissioner or commissioner Treasurer Pierce and maybe the emergency board or somebody along. Well, I think it's it's again, this is a conversation that we've seen coming for quite some time. Again, in total, it's about four billion dollars that that is unfunded at this point in time. So and it grows every single year. So we need the treasurer. I think it's appropriate for her to come to the conclusion that we need to do something. It affects our bond rating. It affects, you know, our general fund. We just don't have the funds to follow through. So again, I think having the conversation is important. Treasurer bring this forward. I applaud her for doing so. I know it's difficult for everyone and having the legislature consider as well. What what type of restructuring? What are we going to do to make sure that we follow through on the promises made and as well, keep the the fund solvent? Committees have to make this their number one priority. Aside from I don't know if they have to make it their number one priority, but it has to be a priority and we'll see what the reaction is with the legislature. Treasurer Pierce has a lot of credibility with the legislature. So I think it's appropriate for her to take the lead. Finally, just perhaps talk about our success here in dealing with with the epidemic, the pandemic. Has that do you feel this has gone against us as far as allocation goes for the? I think it's still all by done by population. I think we're we're getting our equitable portion of the vaccines. I don't think that we're being punished in any way at this point in time for our success. So unless I'm seeing something different. Thank you. Thank you, Rebecca, just on that vaccine. I think Secretary Smith said seventy one hundred doses, which would be a 20% reduction from last week. And we were already substantially below our twelve thirteen thousand weekly doses that you've been promised not too long ago. Is is that acceptable? Well, again, we're at the mercy of the federal government and what we asked for and what's delivered are two separate things. So I would ask Secretary Smith to comment on that. Yeah, Stuart, let me just let me just check on those numbers. Obviously, we have been banking on eighty eight hundred. I just want to make sure that some of it of that number hadn't been diverted elsewhere. So into the federal the federal program. So give me give me an opportunity to check. And by the end of the press conference, I should have the number that you want. OK, terrific. Governor, tomorrow is a big day and I'm wondering how you are feeling about this turning of the of the page with the new administration. What are you most looking forward to? Well, again, you know, we have a long road ahead of us. There's so much unrest throughout our country, trying to mend some of these open wounds and trying to come together and unite America is going to be a tremendous task. And so tomorrow was the first day on our road to recovery in that respect. But we have a lot of work to do. I mean, we have so much unrest in our country as well as we have a pandemic. We have to see through and we're seeing light at the end of the tunnel, which is important, but we have to see that through and then simultaneous to that everything else we need to do to recover from this, whether it's economic recovery or whether it's just a recovery from from the health aspect of the pandemic itself. So again, a very, very a steep climb ahead of us. But but we'll see and and I look forward to the new president being sworn in and as well as the Congress and how we can work together to to get to our common common goals. Well, you continue the security profile around the capital complex for for a while. We'll continue the approach we're taking depending on whatever we receive for for information. So we're constantly watching, monitoring and working together with our federal partners to make sure that we're protecting Vermont and some of our assets. You remain concerned. I'm always concerned. Yeah. I mean, it's about anything specific. Nothing specific that I can talk about now. All right. Thank you. Yes. Thank you, Governor. Have you had any conversations with the incoming administration given that they're taking over tomorrow? Is this give you any more confidence in vaccine allotments? Yeah, no one on one conversations. Obviously, I've been involved with the National Governance Association. We've had numerous teleconferences with them and and talking about our concerns and and hopefully what's going to happen in the future. But but no one on one conversations. But, you know, our Health Department is in constant contact with the CDC and the FDA and others. And as well as our regional partners, I know Commissioner Levine is is in constant contact with them as well. So we're we're trying to work together in any way we can to try and advocate for more of a supply. And hopefully if there's a new, you know, we talk about some of the new entities that might get approval, whether it's Johnson Johnson or AstraZeneca. And if they come online, that will bolster and hopefully increase the supply of vaccine to the states. Do you expect things to run smoothly? Or is this the clearing up some of the issues that you've been facing with these allotments? Yeah, it really very difficult to to say. I'm I'm hopeful. But but I wouldn't say confident because you know, we've been struggling through this. There's been a lot of miscommunication along the way. Hopefully the communication will be better. So at least we know what's happening so that we can plan for the future. That's been part of the problem is it difficult to put together a plan for anything without knowing what the what the supply is going to be. So that's that remains to be seen. But but they've been receptive thus far and at least hearing from us. OK, thank you. And Galloway, B.T. Digger. Hi, good morning. This is a question for Dr. Levine. The Washington Post is reporting that there is no national reservoir for vaccines. What does that do to the schedule for the vaccine rollout in Vermont? Yeah, thanks for that question. I think the word they're using rather than reservoirs stockpile, but the message is the same. Originally, General Perna made sure that for every dose that went out to states that the stockpile held on to the second dose and then release that in time for the person in the state to get their second dose. They seem to have changed that policy now and basically sent everything out of the stockpile and chose not to replenish it and indicated that now somehow second doses are going to be arriving at the state with the first doses. But it's very unclear exactly what that means. And General Perna actually has a meeting that today nationwide and members of my department will be at that meeting to understand exactly what this means. Are we going to get the same or even more doses for the first doses and still get enough for the second doses? Are we just going to get a change in allocation that may not differentiate one or the other? I don't think any of us can stand here with confidence and tell you with complete understanding what exactly is going to be announced. So I'll have to just leave it at that. I don't know if Secretary Smith has anything he'd like to add. No, Dr. Levine, I think you you've said it all just uncertainty until we can figure out what's going on with the new administration. Yeah, I'm sorry. I had one more thing. I wanted to ask what are you doing to ensure the vaccine sign up web page is easy to use and doesn't crash like the DOL site did? We received a complaint about the testing sign up portal, the DOH website from an older Ramon who said he had to scroll through 928 months to get to his birthday, which happened to be in October 1943. You know, these kinds of problems he believes to create a quote bottleneck that will slow, congest and crash the system. Unquote, what would you tell that Ramon about the vaccine sign up system online that you're going to be rolling out? Do you want me to take that, Governor? Sure. And I think the one thing to tell the Vermonner is that we have had some experience with the platform that we're basing the vaccine sign up program off from the online program is basically taken. The base of it is taken from the testing program. And we do last week our seven week average was about 47,000 tests that we did. Now, not all of those are off the website, but a lot of them are. And so we do have experience with large number of people coming on to the website with that with that online platform. The vaccine the vaccine program is is the online registration program is is based upon that testing program. So it has some experience here in what we're doing. And most Vermonners have had a pleasant experience signing up for the test as we as we have rolled out the various 19 locations that we have for testing locations, all testing registration. Now, if you go to the 19 testing locations and or any pop ups are done centralize are done central centrally for registration, the same that the vaccine program would be. I don't know if that gives your reader more confidence, but it certainly gives me a little bit more confidence. Thank you very much. I think his question about the birthday. I know it sounds like a small thing, but that that that sort of bad you ask can kind of create problems. So is that something you're going to deal with? I'll look at it. I'm you have to scroll through a lot of birthdays against me, too. So let me look at it and see make sure that we don't have that issue. Thank you. My question is for Dr. Levine. We've heard from a couple of viewers who are in the on the list with health conditions that will put them at greater risk of COVID-19 and would be eligible once that once the vaccines available for them. But they're a bit concerned about getting vaccinated because their conditions weren't included in the vaccine trial. What would you say to those people? We've heard from someone who is pregnant and other is cancer patient. Every I'm trying to interpret your question. Is it that their condition is not not on the list of the conditions that are likely to provide you with a more serious illness? If you got COVID, but they're on the list that they're on another list that's less likely or not on a list at all because they weren't evaluated. They're they're on the list that you you read last week. Oh, so they didn't get tested or the manufacturer didn't have the trial. Oh, OK, correct. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. Now I get it. OK. No, the vaccine would be safe for them because they weren't included in the vaccine trial. Right. So that is a I would say that is a minor concern. The reality is when only 30 or 40,000 people and that's only that's a lot of people still are in a vaccine trial, there are going to be some conditions that don't get represented in a way that statistically you can come to some conclusions. However, they came to a lot of conclusions regarding ability of the vaccine to harm somebody. And clearly that's a very, very, very small number of people in the trials. And that's why we feel so confident using these vaccines in a broad population. So it's hard to give them tremendous reassurance with regards to the answer if their condition wasn't represented enough in the studies. I can tell you that all the other platforms that are being evaluated have varying degrees of numbers of people in different demographic groups, whether it be a chronic condition, whether it be an age range, young or old, or whether it be a racial or ethnic range. So we will try and aggregate to understand as much as we can about the conditions that your viewers have been concerned about. Morning, everybody. I have another vaccine question. And you sort of touched on it, but I want to ask it directly. When we started talking about vaccines, I don't know, six months, six weeks or maybe two months ago, you thought it might start to make a difference by, you know, see things changing by spring or there'd be different significant numbers of people vaccinated by spring. And now that seems to be sliding. And I'm wondering how far back do you think it is? I mean, if you figure 8,000 doses a week, you know, that would take 70% of Vermont, which would take about over a year to get that. And so when now, in your best guess of it, at this point in time, would you think Vermonters would really start to see some difference in their lives as we recover from the pandemic? Yeah, again, I might ask Dr. Levine and Secretary Smith to comment as well. But from my perspective, it just shows how vulnerable we are to the we're at the mercy of the federal government in the rollout of the vaccine itself. In the beginning, we were somewhat led to believe that we were going to be receiving 1112,000 doses every single week. And we thought it would scale up and build from there. And we quickly found out that that was actually going to be scaled back when reality struck. So again, we, we would like to have more of the vaccine. We're hopeful that they're scaling up. And the president, the new president will be advocating for higher production. And if that's the case of this with the production act, if that's the case, then again, we'll get ahead of this by increasing our own production in terms of vaccinating more Vermonters. So again, we we don't have any way of really forecasting only based on information we receive from the federal government. And, and, and it's been all over the place over the last few weeks. So difficult for us to say what we can expect. We have to just continue to deal with reality. That's Levine trying to keep an optimism theme that we've all presented this morning. You know, we have over 30,000 Vermonters vaccinated now. And that's with a vaccine that literally just came on the market, so to speak. So we've made some really good progress. I admittedly it's in the long term care population and the healthcare workforce population. But still, I think that's significant progress. I do agree that if you do the math 8000 a week with would not look very good. It would take us a long, long time. But I don't think anybody thinks that that's going to be the reality. We're worried about the immediate future due to the lack of transparency and issues with communication from the federal government. But I don't think we're so concerned about the more long term future. And I think the governor was raising the Defense Production Act, which has not really been enacted much for this effort that we're talking about right here. And that's what we hear will be happening. So I'm pretty confident that things will ramp up. When the new platforms come aboard, which I do believe we will see at least one and possibly two of them in the next month. I don't expect we're going to see skyrocketing numbers of a vaccine coming in from them either, but there will be some and that will be ramped up accordingly as well. So I think we should try to keep some optimism here. Okay, thank you very much. The data shows that our cases are going down a bit, both regionally, nationally and here and from as well. And given that we didn't appear in Vermont to see a major increase from the permitted Christmas or New Year's holiday gatherings, will you be using that data to ease up on multi household gatherings again? And if so, when might that happen? Yeah, I think it's it's a little early to determine the trend, as Commissioner Peachek had said, this is, you know, hopeful. But I don't know if we're seeing all the effects at this point in time. But we'll see and everything, every decision we make will be based on the data and the science and and hopefully that we can open up again, go back to opening up more of the restrictions, open the spiket, spiket just a little bit more. And that's that's our goal. I mean, we, we, you know, I'm the last person that wants to restrict trade and the livelihood of Vermonters. So we will continue to do what we think is best based on the data we're receiving. But but again, it's hopeful. And if there's trend continues and we see some downward trend, then we will consider taking some of those restrictions off. And hopefully we'll see, you know, again, more mobility around the region. We hope to go back to the travel map where we can allow people to come into the state without quarantining and get back to where we were back in maybe September, October. So trying to get more specific here then, how many weeks of flat or decreasing cases do you need to see here in Vermont before you lift some of those restrictions? Well, again, we, we meet almost on a daily basis to go over these numbers. And then with the group that that I put into place, we determine what we think is best and what we can do first. So again, I don't want to get ahead of the conversation. But, but we didn't get here overnight. We're not going to get over it just with with one week worth of data. So I'd like to see at least a week or two before we make any of those decisions. I guess on a broader perspective, you know, when we're trying to cover this, a lot of it is trying to look for different benchmarks. So at some point, will your administration consider releasing some benchmarks that people can look for that says, Hey, if we hit this benchmark, yeah, I will do X1V in our economy. I am very hesitant to over promising. Once you set a benchmark, it's like it's gospel and everyone expects you to do that regardless of what's happening with the data. So I'm very hesitant have been since day one. So we'll continue to monitor the data and make the decisions based on what we think is right, rather than the benchmark that was put into place. And I just don't think that's good policy. Okay, thank you. Oh, Secretary Smith, did you have a number to give us on the number of vaccines? Yes, Governor. And this is for Calvin and Stewart's follow up. We will be receiving this week, 9,075 vaccines. Now, we still have to allocate a portion of that to our federal partners through the through the long term care federal pharmacy program. So we'll allocate 2,925 and that will be the last allocation that we have to do for long term care. So we'll have available to finish up one a of 6,150 vaccine. Okay, thank you very much. Can you hear me? We can. Thank you. We've had a lot of discussion about the availability of vaccines. And that's obviously the most important issue. But I've been struck just been talking to people in the last couple of weeks that there's tremendous uncertainty about what it actually means to have the vaccine. The and well, there was a piece in New York, some information in the New York Times yesterday to the fact that the number of people that the number of people who have been already vaccinated and who have still gotten still gotten a serious case of COVID is one out of 37,000. That's a percentage of something like 2000 of 1%. My question is this. There's a question now about whether people are willing to take the vaccine. Obviously lots of people want to give me mine. I'll take it within the next hour. But the reality is it's a lot of surprising that most people are not going to take the vaccine right away. And one of the questions is that's been raised nationally is whether states are under selling the vaccine. So my question is, is the Dr. Levine, are you worried about that? And let me put it in the form of a specific question. Let's assume that there's six people who have good friends and have normally spent a lot of time together and all six have been vaccinated once they've been vaccinated. Okay. And they wait a couple of weeks to make sure that your nose doesn't fall off. Can those should those that people then have dinner together? They've all been back to that. Yes. No, I am going to let Dr. Levine answer that directly. But again, from my perspective, we need to again provide confidence in what we're what we're doing and trying to be transparent and and make sure that everyone understands what have the confidence in the product that we're we're pushing for. So again, from my perspective, that'll come over time. Not everybody is as confident as others. And so we'll we'll continue. We don't have we have a limited supply as it is. So at this point, going in the manner that we're going allows people to watch and see. But it doesn't close them off. So if they decide once we get through an age band, let's say 75 and over, we'll go to the next, which is 70 and over. But that would also allow those with it that were in the first band, 75 and over, and had decided not to take the have the vaccine that they could at that point. So we're not closing off any sector. So it gives time, gives people the opportunity to see for themselves that it's safe and effective and then and then choose to get back into the queue, so to speak, because they never get out of it. I understand that, Governor, but the question my question is a different is a different question. Now is the question of what what the what how will people's lives change specific, not in some kind of way to just protect the public, but about their own lives. Once you have been vaccinated, I understand a lot of people haven't been active at that. But once you have, then how does your life change specifically? How much confidence do you have in it? Once you've been once you've been vaccinated, are you protected? And so if you've got six people who want to spend time together, they've all been vaccinated. I understand that maybe not, but if they are, then what can they do that's different than not? Yeah, that that's the question the governor is allowing me to answer for you. So let's start here. This vaccine has 95% efficacy. Efficacy means that in the clinical trial under ideal circumstances, it had that level of benefit in terms of prevention of illness associated with COVID. And it did even better, I believe, with prevention of severe illness. We don't know that that translates into its effectiveness when we apply that on a population wide basis outside of a trial. But boy, it would have to drop really significantly to make a difference when you're starting at 95%. We also know, both from the studies, and now from our limited Vermont experience that safety is really good. We've had 23 adverse effects incidences reported in the electronic reporting system. And the majority, those are not what you would call severe end of the spectrum. We don't have good data yet to understand how the uptake has been in certain populations. But we're going to be getting that data. So people who've gotten vaccinated generally stand a really good chance of having the vaccine do good things for them. We don't know as much about their ability to transmit the virus from their nose. And we've talked about that before. But, you know, talking to some vaccineologists and virologists, it'd be pretty unusual to have a vaccine that works this well that wouldn't also prevent you from being able to transmit it to others. So the work is ongoing in that and we need to get the final results. But we should really look optimistically at how it will behave in that regard. So you give it to your six friends and you all want to kind of get together and have dinner. After the second dose, I would hope, and after giving another seven to 10 days after the second dose, just to make sure that everybody has got a decent level of immune response. Part of this question involves how much of the population has also taken up the vaccine and are we getting closer to that herd immunity standpoint? Because when we get there, either through natural infection in combination with vaccine, people can actually, that's what we expect. People can go back to those lives that they lived before and not have to do as much with the masking and distancing and all of that. So I can't promise people would be able to do that in February because it'll just be still way too much virus prevalent in our communities. But over time, as more and more people are getting vaccinated, they should be able to do that. So I think it would have a profound impact on people's lives and their ability to feel comfortable doing all the things they used to do. But the timing of that is really the question and certainly February March is way too soon. Sometime in the mid later spring, depending on how much vaccine is out there and how much has been accepted by the population, that might be more realistic. Certainly the summertime. Thank you very much for that. I think that's really helpful. I interpret that. I'm curious what you're saying to mean that there's really two lines in the sand, so to speak. One is, one is when this real herd immunity just isn't much of it around and then people are going to go back to where they were before. But is there another line out there that might precede that? But that's a judgment that you have not yet made and you're suggesting that it probably wouldn't be till late spring. Have I understood that? Yes. Thank you. Thanks, Rebecca. This might be for Mike Smith. And this comes from a school district about possible reduced services by the Department of Children for Children and Family Families. Apparently DCF in Vermont no longer responds to or acts upon so called education neglect reports for students who have completed the sixth grade. Sounds like this is a new departmental policy from what this educational leader indicated to me and the only recommendation is that the district handle all truancy cases pursuant beyond grade six according to local truancy protocols. So it sounds like DCF will continue to receive and potentially follow up on any reports of educational neglect involving only students who are in the sixth grade or below that district is having truancy issues doesn't feel it's getting any help. Is there any help out there available from DCF or any other part of the state? Mike let me follow up on that. I have not heard of that instance that you're talking about but let me follow up on that. I will get the the I haven't heard of a change in policy and I haven't heard of this particularly instance. I'd like to reach out to you after the press conference get the name of this display and and follow up if I could. Sure. Thanks. My other question is. And I'm not sure who this is directed to but another reader is asking why is it that a behavioral interventionist that works in a teacher's classroom is getting a COVID vaccine in a few days. But the teacher in the same classroom is not eligible. They have the same amount of contact and exposure with the students and whoever. And I'm told the nurses, the counselors, the behavior intervention list were told they could register through UBM and get their vaccines. But meanwhile the teachers are still waiting to hear when they might get some. Is there anything that you can anybody can answer about that? Maybe I'll try Dr. Levine first. I might the the real litmus test is if people have patient facing encounters part of the health care workforce. Certainly school nurse high on that list and appropriately vaccinated. Can't speak to the other position or even hear say about that position. Because I don't know what that position entails. But clearly the intent of one a is for people who have contact with patients. Who may or may not have COVID but potentially could have COVID. They have patient facing encounters, not just being frontline and encountering the public but countering people in need of health care. So that is what the one a group is designed for. I can't really comment beyond that. But you do understand the inconsistency of two adults standing side by side in the same classroom with the same contact. And one because their occupation is behavioral intervention is going to get the shot. And the teacher because they chose education will not be getting shot. Again I didn't get again. I need to know more about the position. But there are plenty of people in the mental health field who are not working by telehealth but are working face to face that have qualified to be in the one a position and we support that. But you don't support teachers getting up. I didn't say I don't support teachers getting up with teachers are not in the health care workforce. That is a priority group one a. I appreciate very much teachers have public facing positions and are with their classes every day. Much like many other people in society who have public facing positions. But they are not in group one a. Okay. And thank you by the way. I did get your list finally of. The outbreaks although the list is totally incomplete and doesn't comply with the law and I'll follow up with you on that. We'll take the first part. Thank you for getting the list. Thank you. Good afternoon. I want to follow up on questions about benchmarks. It's nearly all summer 2020 events like parades and festivals and fairs and weddings were canceled. Event planners need to know how to approach this season. Are there any benchmarks or indicators that they can be watching to determine their plans for organized in 2021 events? I'm talking about large events like obviously our own one fourth of July parade here in the Mad River Valley along with weddings and other festivals. Yeah, I know that there are a number of groups and entities that have an interest in this and they've approached our restart team and our restart team is is taking these up and we're considering this. But at this point in time, as I said, we are I'm hesitant to create a benchmark that we can't fulfill. I'd have to have a lot of confidence in where we're going and what we've done in order to set that benchmark but they are going to be considered. And I and I am very sensitive of the time element and the amount of lead time that many people need for these specific events. Thank you and I have a follow up question for Secretary Smith on the issue of second homeowner sheltering in Vermont and receiving the COVID vaccine. On December 21st, I asked the question about whether second homeowner sheltering in Vermont. Since last March could receive the vaccine and the answer was yes, they could and the Vermont Department of Health website reflected that position as late as January 7th. Last Friday, you said those people could not get a vaccine here. What has changed and why? And do you know how many people that might affect? How many doses of the vaccine we're talking about? What's changed is we made a we made a decision that Vermont residents would get the vaccine first. Given the limited supply we had a vaccine, we thought that it was prudent to have Vermont residents receive the vaccine first. Those second homeowners have other options in their home state to get vaccine if they choose to do that. But we thought it was best to have Vermonters stand in line first. Understood. And so that decision was made at some point after December, I'm sorry, January 7th, if I'm understanding you correctly. Yeah, I don't know when the decision was made precisely, but I know that we had discussions given the limited amount of vaccine we were going to have. What was the fairest way to do this in Vermont? And that and we determined that was the fairest. OK, thank you very much. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, everyone. Governor, you just addressed through Lisa Lumeth's question, one of the two questions I had regarding benchmarking and long range planning for hospitality events. But I do have another question. And here it is. It's heartening to see the plateauing and declining number of new cases over the last two weeks. But I do have some concern about border counties. Windsor County has seen 37 plus percent increase in new cases over the last two weeks as compared to over the course of the full pandemic. And that compares to only a 15 percent increase in neighboring Orange County, more in the interior of the state. 25 new cases in Springfield last week, 18 in Hartford. My question is, do you do you think that border communities with a higher level of cross-border traffic for essential services and work and potentially those with a higher number of tourist attractions in the United States are seeing a statistically higher bump in new cases? Again, we'll let the data speak for itself, but we are watching the region. When we see, I think Commissioner Pichek had shown in New Hampshire in particular, I think they had another 1,000 cases yesterday, which is an incredible amount, almost, you know, maybe not 10 times, but 7 or 8 times what our rate is. So it does have an effect on us from the very beginning when we talked about the region. We were doing well in Vermont, but we're not on an island. We can be affected by New York and New Hampshire and Massachusetts and so forth. At that time, New Hampshire was doing very well, as was Maine, but things have changed. And so, you know, that's why we look at the regional mapping. That's why we developed the travel map in itself so that we knew when areas were safe that we would allow them to come in without quarantine. I'm hoping we can get back to that and I'm hoping that New Hampshire can get their arms wrapped around their issue as well as in Maine. But we're seeing their numbers, at least in Maine, they're coming down. I'm not sure about New Hampshire, but again, I watch their data every day and theirs have plateaued at a high rate. And just to remind everyone, you know, we think, I mean, we're plateauing, which is great for us here around the 120 maybe range. But it wasn't that long ago that we were in the single digits. We're like seven, eight cases a day, or maybe 15 or 16 cases a day. And now it's, you know, it's elevated to seven, eight times that. So hopefully we'll see again, a leveling off and this may be where we're at for a while. But we'll we'll address the make sure that we prioritize the vaccines to those who are most at risk of death. And we'll see the death rate go back down. The number of hospitalizations go down as a result. Thank you very much, Governor. About 45 minutes in and only about halfway through the queue. Next up is Andrea from Seven Days. Hi there. I'm hoping to follow up on the DC bus trip from January 6th, wondering if there have been any cases associated with that trip at this point. If there are, I'm not aware, but I'll ask Dr. Levine if he's aware of any. Yeah, I've not been made aware of any cases. We've been looking for that, but I'll get back if there's a change. But to my knowledge, there have been no cases associated with that. And to your knowledge, has the health department been in contact for contact tracing purposes with anyone who was on that trip related to it? No, the only way we would be in contact is if we actually had a case defined and then did contact tracing around the case, which would presumably involve everyone on the bus since it was such a tight congested area that people weren't masking in. But so we have not done contact tracing because we have no confirmed cases. OK, thanks. And I think this is probably one for Commissioner Shirling. Is there any kind of follow up on conversations with the bus company about the capacity requirements? Have you had a conversation with them? Has there been any disciplinary action? Yes, we have. Thanks for the question. We have reached out to the bus company. It turned out to be a bus company from New York who does not do a lot of business in Vermont. They were unaware of the Vermont restrictions and were quite apologetic, indicated that they would ensure that they follow the capacity restrictions going forward. OK. Thank you. Commissioner Shirling, while you're still there, what was the name of that bus company? Well, there's a head scratcher. I'll ask it back to you with that. OK, I didn't make that call myself, so we'll find out. Yeah, I'll shoot out of an email. So perfect to close the loop there. Governor, you said during your state of the state address that Vermonters could expect to have 120,000 residents vaccinated by winters. And to what extent has your experience with the vaccine rollout in the intervening days shaken your confidence in that projection? Well, again, you know, some of what we've seen with the second dose reserves and that really not coming to be. There's a lot of trepidation around that. We're still hopeful. It may be a long winter, so hopefully we'll be able to attain that goal. But but again, we feel good about our plan and moving forward and also we need this to supply in order to meet that goal. And finally, earlier, Stuart asked you if you were aware of any specific threats to Vermont as it relates to security here. You said none that you're able to talk about. Are there any that you're aware of that you're not able to talk about? Well, again, we are continuing. Our team is continuing to monitor the situation in any type of chat or anything that's happening. And again, I want to alleviate for Montes concern where we're not seeing anything that would lead us to believe that something is imminent, but there's always the threat. So we're doing everything we can to make sure that we're keeping everyone safe and we'll continue to do that for as long as we think is necessary. So again, we don't want to talk about any specifics, but we just want to make sure that we're fully prepared for what we don't know. And that's part of the problem. Just as like what happened at the Capitol in DC, our nation's Capitol, they weren't, they weren't prepared. We don't want to find ourselves in that position. Have you been made aware of any specific threats to Vermont? Well, again, there are always threats, whether they're credible and whether they're substantiated are two separate questions. So we follow every lead and we're monitoring the situation. Commissioner Scherling, anything you want to add or anything that I should have said or didn't say? Yeah, I think you covered most of it, Governor, the only fragment I would add is, as we've said before, there are folks who affiliate themselves with some of these right wing radical groups in every state in the country. So that is of course concerning both on a national scale and inside Vermont. So as the governor said, we continue to prepare for a variety of scenarios and hope that you never have to use those plans. Thank you. Thank you, Rebecca. Good morning, Governor. How are you? I'm good. Good. I want to pick up where Mike Dungey left off on his question a few minutes ago. Earlier, you mentioned that the state is focusing on people's jobs and how they qualify for the vaccine based on the likelihood that they'll have contact with a medical patient emergency patient. Although it appears that the state police they're making that distinction based on rank and even though high ranking troopers do spend time on the road, are gonna be pulling people over from time to time, are gonna be responding to an accident when the roads get busy and other troopers are busy. So I'm wondering why strictly based on rank in the state police versus if you have a strictly best job or... I'm gonna take that as a question, Greg. You're making a statement that I don't know is fact. So I'll take that as a question and I'll refer that to Commissioner Shirling or Secretary Smith. Yeah, I'm happy to answer that, Governor. The lines of demarcation for first responders have nothing to do with their rank. They have to do with their job description and whether they are folks who would, as a result of their day to day activities be assisting with the care movement or transportation of patients while they assist in emergency medical response. So that's the key defining factor. So there's nothing within the state police structure that based on rank they would or would not get a vaccine because my understanding is that's different. It's not based on rank. It may by default happen to fall that way because it's a barracks commander, for example, who's a lieutenant does not have the same occasion to respond to assist with the provision of emergency medical services as a uniform patrol trooper. Okay, I was under the impression that it was sergeants down, not just lieutenants and sergeants are certainly on the road on a regular basis. I've seen prospering weeks, at least sporadically from lieutenants who cover calls while other troopers are busy or whether sergeants haven't quite gotten there yet. We know the roads get very busy in the winter and employees are stretched. Wouldn't dispute that if there is an underlying issue with someone who is a responder not eligible for a vaccine, I would ask them to send that up through the chain of command. Okay, and I guess I'll just, Governor, now that you're aware of it, because you said you weren't a few minutes ago to set, were you or did you stand by that? I'm not aware of it. What I said was you're stating a fact that I didn't know existed. So what I'm saying is you're making me aware of a question you had. So we're going to, I think, as Commissioner Sherling said, if there is a trooper who doesn't feel that they received the vaccine and they should have because they're on the road, they should send that up through the chain of command, but we're not aware of a situation. So I think the situation doesn't exist from my perspective. Okay, well, for a second, I guess I'll leave it at that. Thank you, Governor. Thank you. Thank you, Rebecca. And thank you to Tom Lowson and Darcy Carr, the SBA. And a couple of questions on this PPP. With businesses in Vermont expect the same amount of money, I'm getting this question quite a bit, the same amount of money in P2 as they got P1, assuming everything is the same. People are wondering just what they can look forward to. I'm going to look either Tom or Darcy. Darcy, Darcy, are you on the line and maybe able to answer that? Yes, yes, Governor. So under the second draw of the PPP programs, the maximum is two million, but the question is very good because it is still based on your average monthly payroll. For most applicants, that's going to be 2.5 times your average monthly payroll. I think Tom mentioned it's 10 weeks, but if you're in that 72 NAICS code, which is Restaurants and Hotels, Food, Service, and Accommodation, you get 3.5 times your monthly average payroll and that's based on 2019. And or you can use 2020 now under that second draw. So it sounds like it would be pretty much the same except for those groups, the Restaurants and Hotels, which would get a little bit more of that. Right, and some people are asking, well, you know, I didn't get a first PPP loan and I'm a restaurant because I couldn't open, so can I get the 3.5 times my monthly average payroll if I get a first draw PPP? And the answer is no. Under the first draw is 2.5 times your average monthly payroll. And if you haven't had that first draw, that's the loan that you do have to apply for first. Okay, and the EIDL would work pretty much the same as it did before. The EIDL is kind of a bifurcated program, but there's the loan side of the house which Tom went over and that is still available. Both are the long-term loans for 30 years with very low payments that cover about six months of your operating capital. The other thing that was a feature in the new act that was passed December 27th is called this targeted idle advance. And it's a bit confusing because basically there's $20 billion available and what the act is saying is that they need to go back to those people that were eligible to get a $10,000 advance, but we gave them 1,000 per employee instead again out of concern for funding. So our first priority will be to seek out those people who didn't get all of the 10,000 and who are in a low-income community and have no more than 300 employees and about 30% drop in their growth to receive. You have to meet all the criteria, then you get the rest of the 10,000. And the second priority is also people that applied. This is back into 2020 for the EIDL loan and advance combination and didn't get any of the advance because all the money was gone. And those folks will also be contacted as a second priority but they also have to meet those same criteria of being in a census tract as a low-income community. It seems to be defined as a new market tax credit location but there will be a mapping tool we understand and the people affected will be notified by SBA. So that's what's a little unusual. You won't really be applying for this, you'll be notified by SBA and invited to request the rest of it and show that you meet the criteria. And if there's more funding for the program, then you know SBA would hope to open it up to new applications. But based on the 20 billion allotment, the belief is that it's not adequate to cover all the eligible parties at this point. Well, at least not complicated, Darcy. Anyway, do you know how many companies received PPP or EIDL in the first go-around? Yes, we had 12,401 that received the PPP loan and that was about $1.2 billion. And then for the idle information, it's two buckets, right? Because we've got the loan bucket that was 6,310 Vermont businesses for a $345.6 million in the advances, which is that grant portion of it. We had 11,425 businesses received less than 10,000 in some cases and that totaled 35.6 million. Okay, great. Thank you very much, Darcy. Thank you, Beth. I have your budget address this week. Obviously the pandemic has had a huge economic impact, including on state revenues. Do you think that the state budget will have to be cut and do you know by how much do you think the state budget must be cut? We'll have an emergency board meeting this afternoon that has been scheduled for quite some time and we'll go over some of the figures that we can expect. And I'm not gonna get ahead of my budget address next week. It'll be a week from today, as a matter of fact. So you'll learn more then. Okay, thank you. I also, I got a couple notes from people who are a little confused about the spouses signing up situations. So I just wanted some quick clarification for someone to sign up with their spouse or partner. Both of them must be over 75, correct? I believe that is true. Secretary Smith. That is true, Governor. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you. Governor, Senate Bill S25 would seem to allow integrated marijuana growing production and sales operations to bypass the local voters and go directly to the cannabis control board for approval. The bill says, well, it proposes to require towns to place the issue of retail sales cannabis on the ballot before March 1, 2022 and this is the relevant part. It allows the cannabis control board discretion as to whether to grant any integrated licenses. So the opponents are worried that big marijuana, these operations that do grow produce and sell marijuana and one integrated operation would be able to bypass local voters for their retail operation. Are you aware of this proposed changed and what do you think about it? Well, again, it's a, it proposes the key word. It sounds as though I'm not familiar with it, but there are a lot of bills, as you know, a guy that they are introduced, they go nowhere. We'll see what happens with this one. We haven't even formed the cannabis control board at this point. We're still working on that. So I have a long ways to go. So I would hope that we'll adhere to the law that we put into place and not make any substantial changes along the way. Although we could use a little bit more time and I did have some suggestions on what we could do to improve the law as we move forward, but that wasn't one of them. Okay, thank you. Commissioner Levine, when is a reasonable timeframe in which we will know whether or not these two dose recipients are immune and cannot transmit? I understand what you said to Han Davis, but I'm just thinking about the timeframe. What are we gonna know? We're gonna know as quickly as the scientific research lets us know. We have a glimmer, but we don't have really a full picture yet. So all we have is a little bit of preliminary information from, I believe it was the Pfizer trial that leads us to believe that it may have an impact on transmissibility, but we don't actually know from a broader sample. And so I don't know how long their study is going on, going back to all the people that were in the trial to be able to determine that. So I can't actually give you the timeline because I don't know how far along they are. Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. I've read that the variant of the virus has popped up in Massachusetts, which as we know is right in our backyard. I'm wondering if and when it lands in Vermont, if this is going to impact the state's response and if there's anything that can be done differently. I think Dr. Levine answered this before, but go ahead, Dr. Levine. I would submit that Saratoga's more in our backyard than Boston at this point, because the case was in Boston, Saratoga's not too far from the border. So we're, and I know Connecticut's also had the case. So it's forming a nice perimeter. So I suspect it's either here already or it will be here soon. It's transmissibility is its major piece of notoriety at this point in time. And that's why I emphasize in my opening comments, this is really the time to redouble our efforts because everyone from the scientific community and the CDC included really says that if we wanna do something special about this variant, it's just really do all the things we need to be doing, but even more. Now admittedly, many parts of the country aren't even doing those things that consistently compared to Vermonters who have been very, very cooperative with that. And you hate to ask for even more, but this is the time to really ask for more. Because if there would be anything that would slow down some of the kinds of policy changes people were asking about earlier, it would obviously be if a more transmissible variant was actually causing way more cases and way more hospitalizations. But I really feel we have the opportunity here to interfere with that, if you will. And that's why I made my comments as I did. Did I cover all the aspects of your question? Yes, you did, thank you. I'd like to just go back up a little bit from the conversation earlier about herd immunity, just for clarity. Three out of, between nine out of 10 and three out of 10 healthcare workers refused the vaccine, I believe Dr. Levine, you said that on the January 12th press conference. What I'm wondering is at what percentage of the population have to be vaccinated to a few herd immunity? And you have concerns that if up to 30% of healthcare workers are choosing not to take the vaccine, that the general population is healthy, 18 to 50 year olds, that they're gonna choose not to get vaccinated either. I'll let Dr. Levine answer that, but part of my answer before still stands, there's still time. Those who didn't decided not to have the vaccine during 1A are still eligible for that. So we hope that the more confidence people have and the more they see the outcome that they will continue to have the vaccine. Okay, thank you. And Dr. Levine? Yes, thank you. I actually don't think I quoted numbers on the 12th that were Vermont numbers, but these are more national. I wanna get my hand on Vermont numbers as we come to the close of 1A. So we have a really good idea about numbers of healthcare workers who have or haven't got vaccinated and especially numbers of workers in the long-term care facilities who have or haven't got vaccinated because nationally, the biggest concern is in the long-term care facility staff. And the reason behind that is actually because many of them come from communities that have lack of trust in government, lack of trust in this kind of an enterprise and have a higher risk due to their racial or ethnic background towards getting the virus. So I'm feeling very comfortable with what we're putting in place in Vermont, especially regarding people from ethnically and racially diverse groups in Vermont, not saying that all long-term care facilities only employ those kinds of employees because I do believe they have a very heterogeneous workforce, but I do believe that if we wanna focus our energy on what nationally is being found to be the problem, we'd wanna make sure that we had coordinated, communicated, educated and offered access to members of these other communities who may feel less more disenfranchised and less trust in systems. And I think we've put the foundations in place for all of that in Vermont. So I'd be hopeful on that, but we need data first regarding how much we need for herd immunity. It's really still, it's a guessing game and the numbers go from 70 to 90% of the population. Okay, thank you very much. Can you hear me? Go ahead, Steve. Great, thanks. Governor, about perceptions. Once I was in an art show with my dad when I was a kid, we came across a Picasso painting and I asked him what was up with the Picasso and he told me that that was the way some people perceived the world around them. At the last conference, you said that you perceived the Republican Party to have white supremacy dominating, along with racial inequity. What with the highest number of minority votes going to a Republican candidate since 1960 and stuff like that, how do you perceive the party headed in that direction? Well, again. If I may. We're seeing a lot of extreme groups attach themselves to the Republican Party across the country. I think it's well noted with what we saw in Washington just a week or so ago with the insurrection that they were members of different right wing anti-government type of entities and they also attach themselves to the Trump Republicans. So that's what I was referring to and we have to make some decisions. I mean, I think the Republican Party has to do some soul searching. Do we want to continue to allow those groups to infiltrate the party and become the dominant force or do we want to get back to our roots? Which I think is more about the economic development, more about the smaller government, more about being more practical and so forth. But that's what I was referring to. Were you aware that one of these infiltrators was actually, the FBI had charged this guy named Sullivan. He ran an outfit called Insurgents USA. He was posing as a Trump supporter. He was engaged and busted before for rioting and he was at the Capitol posing as a journalist and had smashed out windows and stuff like that. Yeah, I'm not aware of the individuals but I would imagine some of that will, there's a lot of a recipe made at this point and maybe we'll get to the bottom of it. Yeah, one for the doctor if I may, I'm sorry. Dr. Levine, I wonder if you'd had a chance to find out about the adjuvants and with the vaccine, the two-dose vaccine is are the two doses separate entities or are they the same entity just two times? Yeah, I will get back to you on the adjuvant. I have not found that out yet. But with regard to the vaccines, the two that we're using now, Pfizer and Moderna, you're getting the same first dose and the same second dose. I know with AstraZeneca there had been issues in their protocol that varied the dose of the first versus the second and they're collecting more data on that now. And in fact, I think invited back some of the members of one of the arms of the study to see if they wanted yet another dose as they're collecting even more data about immune response. But for the two vaccines we're using now, you get the same vaccine and the same dose of that vaccine twice. And speaking of AstraZeneca, were you aware that they're working with the Russians on the Russian vaccine? And how were the Russians available? How did the Russians come up with the vaccine first? Wow. Yeah, I'm not aware about AstraZeneca and the Russians. And I suppose the Russians had their own version of Operation Warp Speed for, what do they call it? Sputnik, I think they're. Yeah, Sputnik 5. Yeah, they're vaccine. But I don't have more insight into that. Sorry. We gotta move. Okay. Great. Thank you very much. Maybe something about this has been said before, but I would have missed it in that case. Are people who are getting vaccinated, receiving any kind of, I don't know, for lack of a better word, credential? I suppose that would presuppose it would be good for something, perhaps getting on airplanes at some point, or is that not the case? You know, we talked about that in the beginning, but I'm not sure what they were receiving at this point in time. Secretary Smith, do you have the answer to that? I don't have the answer to that, Governor, but I'll follow up with Joe on the answer to that. There are some that are issuing cards, but I don't know how widespread that is. And Joe, let me follow up on that for you. Thank you. One other question, and I suspect the person most involved isn't on the call today, but perhaps there is an answer. One of our readers got in touch with us and said, she received one of the checks set out people who are on the Four Squares program in December. And she took the $236 check to her grocery store and it was rejected because they said a large number of the checks had been sent to the incorrect people and they were reluctant to take them from anybody, even though they had no reason to suspect her. Is this something that you've heard about and is there something that can be done to make the assistance useful to the person that was supposed to help? It does seem like I recall there was a problem with checks, a run of checks at one point in time, but I don't recall whether it was the Labor Department or whether it was AHS. Governor, it was AHS. It was the Four Squares program as Joe had pointed out. We had one batch of a bigger batch that did go to the wrong addresses. The checks were stopped and new checks were issued. So Joe, again, I will make sure that we reach out to you, get the name of that person to make sure that it's resolved on her situation, but by and large, it was resolved very, very quickly within days of when that batch, and it was a small batch of checks in comparison to the larger batch that went out on enhanced benefits for the Four Squares. Thank you very much. I look forward to hearing from you. Thank you, Joe. Is there a million records? Yeah, thank you. Good afternoon. These are probably for Secretary Smith. Are you able to describe the vaccination clinics and any greater detail in terms of the partners, facilities, staffing hours, things like that, that will be coming online next week? Yeah, we'll do that, Andrew, on Friday. We'll provide the list of where these facilities will be and we'll give you a projected, well, we'll give you the hours of operation as well. Can you say at this point, sort of what your capacity goal is, based on the vaccination dashboard, it looks like the state's maxed out at about 2,200 doses on any given day. Is that sort of what you're building up at this point? Yeah, I'm hesitant to say that right now until we get all the sites up and looking at the maxed capacity of various sites. There'll be a different depending on where you are in the various sites, but I will have that information on Friday. I guess then, again, on Friday, if you could speak to this as well, are you interested if allocation is gonna be based on population or if some regions are able to develop clinics with a greater capacity, would you be finding, for instance, Chittenden County getting a leg up in terms of the number of people administered versus the kingdom simply because there's a lack of clinic vaccination capacity? What we're trying to do is build capacity throughout Vermont to make sure, like we have with testing, to make sure that there's capacity throughout Vermont. I'll give you an insight on Friday of how we've done that. Okay, but is the goal for it to be an equitable distribution? We're looking to make sure that distribution is equitable throughout Vermont. Now, equitable can mean several things to several people, but we're making sure that the vaccine is distributed equitably throughout Vermont. Okay, thank you. I look forward to Friday. Can you hear me? We can. Great, thanks. I just had a question for Secretary Smith kind of going off of last week's press conference. Are there any, is there a plan to create a volunteer pool to sort of assist the vaccine call center when it runs up? I know we had one reader reach out to us to just ask if you are anticipating backups on the line and are trying to promote younger adults or younger children of older Vermont to help their relatives with the program, help that program, help their relatives sign up online. Could you also try to tap into people who may not have those relatives, but want to help out people who would prefer to call? Yeah, Ethan, that's a great question. We are encouraging relatives of seniors in Vermont for those seniors who don't feel that they're sort of savvy, online savvy needs of registering. We're asking them to help their seniors to register online. Obviously, we're directing people to online rather than trying to call. We do not want the call centers to be overwhelmed. As the governor mentioned in his opening remarks, we are building up the capacity of the call centers to take calls, but we also recognize that the more that we can direct people to the online application form or vaccination registration form, the better it will be for everyone. So, you know, we haven't given a general call for people to man the sort of the vaccination call lines, but we may if we need it. We have several organizations that have stepped up. We have contractors that have filled in on various, for various call center operations. We have existing call centers. So, we haven't done what we haven't reached out yet, but if we need, we may. So, I'll just leave it at that, Ethan. Very great, thank you. That's it, okay. All right, thank you very much, and we'll see you again on Friday.