 Good morning, everyone. We've got a lot to cover today, so I'll be giving our vaccination update, which will include our Vermont forward progress. We'll also get an education update from Secretary French and a health update from Dr. Levine. We're also joined by Holly Morehouse, the Executive Director of Vermont After School, to discuss the Summer Matters initiative we've been talking about. First, as of yesterday, about 77% of those 12 and over have received at least one dose of the vaccine, which continues to lead the nation. And we're closing in on our 80% goal when we'll lift all remaining COVID restrictions. We're not giving the exact numbers today because we're still working on data with the CDC. For awareness, the CDC hasn't fully updated its website to reflect all of the duplications as yet. They also won't be reporting any new numbers on Memorial Day, so unfortunately we're not going to be able to give you an update until Tuesday afternoon. I also wanted to let you know because the CDC hasn't made those updates, we may see elevated numbers on the CDC website over the weekend. But again, we'll be able to make those adjustments early next week. And now for an update on clinics. Next week, there will be over 130 walk-in locations for vaccinations, including most of the federal pharmacy partners. Today, you'll see clinics at National Life, Northern Vermont University at Johnson, the Danville School, the former J.C. Penny at the Berlin Mall, the Champlain Valley Expo, two separate mobile home parks in Bennington, North Country Hospital, and Northwestern Medical Center. Today through Sunday, there are more clinics at Waterbury Ambulance and the Rutland Regional Holiday Insight. Tomorrow includes the Orleans County Fair Truck Bowl, Weitzfield United Church of Christ, and the Burlington Farmers Market. On Sunday, there will be events at Thunder Road in Berry and the Orleans County Fair Concert. And finally, on Monday, there will be a clinic at Northwestern Medical Center and the Fairhaven Park and Ride. Again, these are just some of the walk-in opportunities for the weekend, and you can find more at healthvermont.gov. And because we've gone from less than 30% to over 50% of the 18-29 age band vaccinated in the last month, effective tomorrow, I'm lifting the 10 p.m. curfew for restaurants, bars, and social clubs. Which means they can now operate, or after tomorrow, can operate under their normal hours. Next, as we discussed, this summer will be critical in helping Vermont's youth recover from the pandemic. So my administration, working with Senator Sanders and his team, has partnered with Vermont After School to create the Summer Matters Initiative to expand the number of affordable summer programs statewide. The senator wished he could have been here today and had planned for it, but he has an active day in Washington. This program also includes making sure we're supporting older youth who may have aged out of a traditional summer camp and are interested in internships and employment opportunities. To support communities and create more partnership opportunities for school-based programs, we created a $1.5 million grant program using federal funds. Over the past few weeks, summer programs and summer camps, which aren't receiving federal money yet, like schools are, have had the opportunity to apply for funds to expand their programs. And the response has been very encouraging. 188 proposals were submitted, totaling over $7 million in demand, far exceeding the original $1.5 million we had planned for. Knowing how important this was and wanting to make sure we support our kids this summer, we're happy to announce that we've added another $2.35 million to the grant program for a total of $3.85 million. I want to thank Senator Sanders for securing this crucial funding for our state in total. About 100 grants will go out to programs in 13 counties. This is in addition to programs that local school districts are putting together for their students. I want to thank the team that worked over the last few months to make summer matters possible. Staff from AHS, AOE, ANR, Sarah Pickering, the principal from Arlington Memorial High School, and of course Holly Morehouse and her team at Vermont After School. And now I'd like to turn it over to Holly to go into more detail. Holly? Thank you so much. Thank you to Governor Scott, Senator Sanders, the Vermont Agency of Education, and the incredible team, a state partners who have worked so closely for months on this initiative. A few weeks ago, Deputy Secretary Boucher and the Vermont Agency of Education announced the summer matters grant program. And that grant program asks Vermont communities and youth serving organizations of all types to think about ways to expand access to summer programs this year. By creating programs in areas where few or no options currently exist, by addressing affordability for children, youth and their families, by increasing program slots weeks, days and hours, making sure that youth of underserved populations are well represented in the mix of children and youth participating in the programs, and providing additional resources so that youth with disabilities or special needs are able to fully participate. For the grant selection process, a panel of 50 reviewers, including colleagues from across Vermont, as well as 11 other states in the District of Columbia, read and scored all the grants with each proposal being reviewed by at least three different people. The reviewers represented a wide spectrum of expertise and experience, including after school and summer learning, youth development, diversity, equity and inclusion, health, mental health, child care, grant making and education. As the governor said, we originally had that 1.5 million to award, but thanks to his leadership, Senator Sanders, the Agency of Education and the legislature, that additional 2.35 million has been added to the grant program. The total funding will allow us to reach even further at even more programming, include options in more counties and areas of the state. Notifications for the first 38 grants went out earlier this week and are listed on our site at vermontafterschool.org slash summer grant. We expect to announce grants for at least 60 additional programs within the next week or so. These additional recipients have been notified of their provisional status and know that their grant is still under review, and we'll be working with them over the next week to clarify budgets and confirm as many as words as possible. In addition, the Vermont Community Foundation has stepped forward as a partner to help stretch those federal grant dollars even further. So what will this 3.85 million in funding help to create? We expect to be able to fund approximately 100 programs serving fairly equally all ages, elementary school, middle school and high school, and in almost every county in the state. 98% of the selected programs have measures in place to provide low or no cost programming for eligible children and youth, and on average, the funded programs will be able to decrease the weekly costs to parents and families by about $160 to $200 per child per week. The funded programs are expected to add 238 weeks in total to their schedules with an average increase of 3 days per week and an additional 18 hours per week. We estimate the funded programs together will create approximately 31,650 new and additional summer program slots over the course of the summer. 88% of the programs selected for funding have or are adding support so that youth with disabilities or special needs are able to fully participate in the program. Sometimes that is the addition of qualified staff or one-on-one support for a child. In other cases, it might be equipment, staff training, supplies, or transportation options to help meet needs. In addition, over half of the funded programs are providing transportation and 94% are providing healthy snacks or meals. Moving beyond the numbers, one thing that is clear is the impressive breadth and variety of options that are being offered. I can't say enough about the creativity, care, and collaboration behind each one of these summer programs, and it's truly, for each one of them, it's a story in and of itself. There are small rural places in Vermont that have never had any summer programming that have come together with their town library, their parks and recreation department, local artists, and other community members to offer multiple free, full-day programming for elementary school-aged children. Things like counselor and training, experiences for middle schoolers, and jobs as program staff and lifeguards for high school youth. There's a traveling arts bus reaching into small-world communities, a makerspace expanding slots for youth and families, and a community music center creating more outdoor free programming for kids and youth ages 5 through 18, who as they say, desire to make music and experience community and collaboration through the arts. There's a summer camp for students with disability using the funds to bring participants together in community for the first time in two years, a program for children experiencing homelessness that has an incredible schedule of summer field trips lined up, a teen program working with local partners to help middle schoolers get experience setting up their own youth-run business, and a program providing mental health supports and other experiences for youth who have been involved in the juvenile justice system, and or who have other significant trauma, history, needs, and barriers. The list really goes on and on. There's so much to celebrate and to be proud of, and we thank all the organizations that submitted proposals and shared their ideas. Vermont Afterschool and the State Summer Enrichment Team will continue to look for ways to support those that weren't funded, and we also continue to want to hear from parents, youth, and families about the needs that have not yet been met. The investments that we are making in our summer ecosystem for youth are especially important in this moment and coming out of COVID in this period of recovery, but they will also carry forward for many years. Not only will these children and youth have new memories, skills, relationships, and experiences coming out of the summer, but our partnerships and collaboration in Vermont on behalf of our young people will be stronger, more inclusive, and even more impactful. Thank you for your time this morning, and I will turn it over to Secretary Dan French. Thank you, Holly, and thank you Vermont Afterschool for your work. Sounds tremendous. Good morning. I thought I'd review two guidance documents for schools that we'll be publishing later on today. The first document is a memo from me and Dr. Levine to school leaders about how to manage the remainder of the school year, if and when the state of emergency ends prior to that. We feel this memo is necessary because our current guidance documents for schools derive their authority from the governor's executive order. When the emergency order is rescinded, our COVID-19 guidance for schools is also rescinded. After review by the health department team and their public health experts, we will strongly recommend that schools continue to follow the prevention measures outlined in our strong and healthy year guidance for the remainder of the school year. This recommendation is based on the consideration of several issues. The first is the majority of our students in the K-12 system will not be fully vaccinated before the end of the school year. We believe our current mitigation measures are necessary to ensure their safety. The second pertains the practicality of enacting any changes in the few remaining days of the school year. Schools require time to plan for the implementation of mitigation measures. There's simply not enough time in the year for schools to adopt new procedures. The other guidance document we'll be publishing pertains to what we think school will look like in the fall. This guidance is designed to give schools information now so they can plan accordingly over the summer. We believe that it's unlikely any specific mitigation measures will be necessary in schools for the fall. We are confident distancing will not be necessary. The issue of mass is something we intend to review over the summer. We feel confident about the fall due to the success of our vaccination efforts to date. It will be important, however, for students and adults to continue to get vaccinated through the summer or the fall. But a large percentage of Vermonters will be fully vaccinated by the fall. And strong vaccine uptake now will ensure our schools will be able to stay open this winter. Strongly encourage all Vermonters to get vaccinated to keep our schools and our students safe from COVID-19. Schools should plan on full in-person in the fall, five days a week, essentially normal operations. We will implement our normal pre-pandemic regulations pertaining to student attendance, the required minimum number of school days, and remote learning. In terms of attendance, we permitted some flexibility during the pandemic and allowed student attendance to include remote learning days. This flexibility was necessary to navigate changes in conditions for the virus and to allow schools to adapt to changing logistical considerations such as staff availability. In the fall, such flexibility around attendance will not be provided. We will use our normal regulations which define attendance as students being physically present in school. Some remote learning will still be permitted as it was prior to the pandemic, but schools need to have a majority of their students present in each school day to qualify the school day as a student day under state law and our regulations. It is fair to say that the remote learning we will see in the fall will be more based on the personal learning needs of students as opposed to whole grade or whole school remote learning that was more common during the pandemic. We have greatly expanded our use of technology in schools as a result of the pandemic, both for student learning and teacher professional development. This was a positive outcome of the pandemic and will need to be evaluated more fully, but for now, the priority is to return to normal operations. We also address the issue of snow days in our guidance. Snow days will need to be made up as they were previously. Again, our emphasis will be on the return to normal operations, which means a prioritization on in-person instruction and in-person interaction. That concludes my update. I'll now turn it over to Dr. Levine. Thanks, Secretary French. I'll try to keep my update brief today, but I do have a few important points I'd like to touch on. We're doing great in vaccinating more and more Vermonters every day, providing walk-in school-based employer-based clinics. We're hearing about people who had questions about the vaccine, but who ultimately chose protection from COVID-19. And we know how ready many people are to get back to life once again. Just remember, as close as we are to lifting restrictions, we will not let up in our efforts to get as many Vermonters vaccinated as possible. We know variants of the virus are circulating, and we've now seen one report of an additional variant of concern in Vermont, the B1351, first identified in South Africa. This is a variant that does still respond to the vaccines, but in variable ways. Fortunately, we have only one report. Our cases are still low, so we do not believe this variant or any others are having a begin impact here in Vermont. So let's keep it that way. Get vaccinated and help protect yourself and those around you, because the good news is that the vaccines are showing tremendous success against the virus in general, and this includes variant strains. And more good news has come out about how long our immunity to COVID-19 lasts. According to some studies that are new, immunity to the coronavirus lasts at least a year and maybe longer, but we got that immunity from being infected or from vaccination. If you did have COVID-19, the studies suggest your level of protection will be much greater by getting vaccinated, and you shouldn't even need a booster shot. People who are vaccinated but were never infected will most likely need a booster eventually, and probably after a longer period of time than you might have thought previously. But this is good evidence that not only are we protected now, but our bodies can recognize and stop this virus in the long term as well. Even if antibodies levels decrease in your bloodstream, there are potent immune cells with memory in your bone marrow that get activated if you encounter the virus again or a variant strain. This is just like what happens in many other infections. I also want to share that we are not aware of any cases of inflammation of the heart called myocarditis being reported after vaccination with the messenger RNA vaccines here in Vermont. A CDC safety group said recently it was looking into some rare cases of this heart problem reported in male adolescents and young adults. I want to emphasize the cases are not known to be related to the vaccines and no causal relationship has yet been established. About 285 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been given in the U.S., and only several cases of myocarditis were reported. Since the cases are rare and mostly mild, the benefits of the COVID-19 vaccines have increased and mostly mild, the benefits of the COVID-19 vaccines still far outweigh this rare and now only possible risk. This leads me to my final note about the reporting of adverse events in relation to vaccines. There was a question at the last press conference about eight deaths reported in Vermont in the vaccine adverse events reporting system called VAERS, V-A-E-R-S. Anyone can search this website, but it's really important to know that anything reported is only a report and can be reported by anyone, the person themselves, family, a healthcare provider. They do not necessarily mean the vaccine caused the event reported. The FDA encourages the use of this reporting system and requires healthcare providers to report any death after COVID-19 vaccination to VAERS. The CDC has noted the vast majority of deaths reported will likely be found not to be related to the vaccine, but a comprehensive picture allows a full investigation. We confirmed with our own Chief Medical Examiner's office that in the cases reported here in Vermont, the fact that these individuals were vaccinated was not a factor in their deaths. We have yet to hear anything from the CDC Immunization Safety Office where physicians perform their own review and then inform jurisdictions if a causal relationship is suspected. We have not received any communication that further evaluation was warranted. I appreciate the thoroughness and transparency of the federal government related to this data, but I urge anyone who looks at it to use and interpret it with caution. And with that, I'll turn it back to the Governor. Thank you, Dr. Levine. We'll now open it up to questions. Starting with Calvin Cutler of Channel 3. Thank you, Governor. So can you talk a little bit more about lifting the 10 p.m. curfew? I mean, what rules will bars and clubs have to follow and can municipalities and towns still impose stricter rules? First of all, this will lift the restriction on the hours at this point in time. They still have to follow the Vermont Forward Plan that was put into place. So any restrictions in terms of their day-to-day operations still exist? It's just the hours of operation. In terms of whether municipalities have that ability to restrict, if they have done so before, they can do so now. So I'm not sure if there were any that did. It seems to me that Burlington might have at one point, but I think they lifted that as well. So again, this is a time when we think we're within a week or two of lifting all restrictions. We felt with Dr. Levine, Dr. Kelso, that it was safe to do so at this point in time. There was no reason to keep the limit in place. I also want to ask about switching gears, about your veto of the juvenile public records bill a few weeks ago. You vetoed the measure and you previously said that you err on the side of transparency, but state police still have this policy in place where they're not, or I should say the Department of Public Safety still has this policy in place, not releasing names of juveniles involved or juveniles that die in these crashes. So I guess with your veto, can you kind of address this conflict? One really didn't have anything to do with the other. There are other reasons that I laid out in the veto message for vetoing that bill in particular. I think it has, we have more work to do in that regard, and it had more to do with the age of, that we were moving towards more than anything else. So let's separate that. We have some work to do in developing this policy that wouldn't have addressed the situation we still find ourselves in that did not fix that problem. So I'm asking for everyone's patience at this point. I was briefed on the situation developing now and the question revolving around the release of names for those juvenile deaths. And I'm going to get together with our Commissioner of Public Safety as well as our General Counsel and the General Counsel from Public Safety to try and determine a policy that works for everyone so that we can maintain that transparency that I think is so important. Steve Malmkamp? All set. Okay, Stewart Bloodletter, my MBC5. Go to Lisa, the AP. There you go. That's not Lisa. Thanks, David. Lisa, I think I heard something, so we'll just, we'll go to Stewart because he's on now and Lisa, I won't remute you so you can just hang out the line and we'll go right through after Stewart. Okay, thanks. I'll be, I'll be quick. Thank you. Sorry, about the double unmute. Can you just clarify the curfew will lift tomorrow at 10 so that a bar could be open at 10 30 tomorrow night or is it Sunday? That is correct. It'll be lifted as of tomorrow so they can stay open after 10 o'clock and make reservations. So you're safe to make your 11 o'clock, 11 p.m. reservations to it. I was going to say which member of the administration pushed you hard to make this change? I'll plead the fifth on that one. Let me check right there. At the rate we're going, I understand you don't have the updated statistics from CDC yet but do you still think next week we're going to get to the Promised Land? You know, I was a little hesitant to make that projection last week and I probably shouldn't make it this week either but I do feel that we're getting closer every day and it's been remarkable and you see the number of clinics we have open and available walk-in clinics and so forth doing everything we can to get more people vaccinated. So I believe that sometime end of next week is as possible. We'll have to see how well we do and I would encourage those who haven't gotten their vaccination yet to go online, take a look and take advantage of the opportunities that we have and any of the employers who are out there that have employees that would like to be vaccinated reach out to us so that we can make some accommodations to get people vaccinated. So yes, I believe by the end of next week it's possible but we'll have to see what the monitors do at this point. Lastly, medical question. I got an email asking if there is any harm in getting a second vaccination. This was somebody who I guess got one early on. Any medical risk in getting a second vaccination this summer? Sorry, I'm going to assume Stuart you're referring to the one dose vaccine, the Johnson & Johnson, getting a second dose of that because people would have already had two doses of the mRNA vaccine. She didn't indicate which one she had originally but I took it to me that if you got two would there be any harm in getting a second vaccine, brand one. Yeah, you know there's not a lot of literature or data on that but my suspicion is there would not be a tremendous amount of harm. I can't really give you an evidence-based answer to that because again we don't have literature to say that. At this point in time she's relatively close in proximity to the first dose. Most of what's going on now under study is obviously six or 12 month boosters so a greater period of time elapsing. But if she didn't have a lot of side effects from the first dose, I don't think there's going to be a huge amount of risk but I would not recommend this as a strategy so that's probably the important thing. The one dose vaccine is meant to be a one dose vaccine for a period of time and we'll see if that period of time goes as long as 12 months or even longer but I wouldn't want her to just assume she's doing herself a favor by getting a second dose at a much earlier time than it would be recommended. Okay, thank you very much. Go back to Lisa. Thank you. This is about the summer program. Is there any indication how many children or parents are signing up for these? I know they can go on the website at this point. Hi Lisa, this is Holly. Yes, so when the programs submitted their applications they put in an estimate of how many children and youth they could serve across the course of the summer. Many of them still have spaces and we are encouraging families to reach out to the list as I said and there'll be 60 more next week. The summer matters map itself has all the programs in the state that we are aware of. They can also be used by parents and families to find available programs. There are some programs that are full and if we are aware of that, that's indicated on our site as well. We also have a link on the site for parents or families or youth who are looking for options and when they go to the map or they go to the list of the grant funded programs and they don't see something that meets their needs, there's a link for them to fill out and let us know and we're constantly collecting that information and using it to better target our resources and analyze where additional programming is needed to help meet some of those gaps. Okay, thanks. And then were restaurants and bars notified of this change in hours before the press conference? They were not. We have notified, I mean the agency for commerce and community development has the information. We let the city of Burlington know as well as the department of liquor and lottery but that's one of the reasons why we're waiting until tomorrow so that they have at least 24 hours to decide what they are going to do. Obviously, individually the bars, restaurants and clubs can continue to close whenever they want. They can set their own hours and the communities can decide what they want to do as well. Okay, thank you very much. Greg Lamberow, the county courier. Good morning, governor. You said you had a pretty busy slate this morning so I think I'll leave it to just one question. I'm wondering with all your communications, whether it be on Tuesdays with the White House or with our federal representative, as you know, the Canadian border business is huge for the northern half of Vermont. I'm wondering how much lobbying you're doing in order to encourage them to get some sort of limited opening to the border happening, whether it be for vaccinated people or, you know, something else that could be safe. I'm just wondering what that looks like. I've been fairly active in a number of different ways. In fact, I had a meeting with the Chamber of Commerce, so to speak, on the other side of the border yesterday interactive remote meeting and we talked a bit about, you know, when this was going to open and they didn't have any more information than I do and they're looking forward to it as well. And they've made a lot of great progress in the number of first doses they've gotten out. In fact, I think they're up over 50 percent at this point in time. Their second dose is, but they put all their efforts into the first dose. Literally almost no one has had the second dose, so they'll start on that now. So they've got a ways to go to be fully vaccinated. We, as the New England governors all signed on to a letter to the White House and others leaders advocating for us to be able to share some of our vaccine if we have extra with our neighbors to the north to get to a point where they get their second doses and we can open the border quicker. So we're using all different avenues and advocating that they open up as quick as they think it's safe to do so. But I, again, I want to reiterate it's not just our side of the border. I'm not sure that the other side, the Canadian side, is anxious to open up at this point in time either. Have you advocated at all like one of your Tuesday briefings, I think you mentioned that Governor Cuomo was the governor that leads those. Have you reached out to him or anyone in your office to try to make it more of a focus? I have talked with other governors about this issue across the nation as well early on when the, with these White House calls. That was one of my questions and when could we expect and what could we do to expedite. So I've made my feelings known. I have not spoken directly to Governor Cuomo ever. So we haven't spoken about that. Okay. Thank you, Governor, and I wish you a happy and safe Memorial Day weekend. All right. Thank you. You too. Mike Donahue, the Islander. Thank you. Excuse me. Governor, we've received a report coming out of the Department of Public Safety that Vermont State trooper was fired by Commissioner Sherling due to some kind of flap over the use or non use of a face mask. It was an argument between the trooper and a private citizen in a store. The firing last month was never announced by EPS. So Governor, I guess we have to turn to you and ask you what you've been told about this specific conduct. Were you told about the firing before or after the firing and just seem a little extreme unless this is a piece of expressive discipline, just wondering what you've been told? I don't have any knowledge of that, Mike, but I certainly will look into it. And as with any story of this nature, there's always two sides to the story. So I will definitely look into it though. Okay. Great. Thank you very much. They have not been forthcoming with us. That's why we have to turn to you. So thank you. Hope you can get the answer. All right. Thank you very much. Have a great weekend. You too. Greg, Bennington Banner, and the Brattleboro Reformer. Thank you very much. Governor, I was wondering, I see with the announcement and the listing of programs that are taking place in the summer programs, I was wondering if a decision had been made about whether religious organizations were going to be eligible to receive funds. I did see that there was one particular program in Bennington County that had been noted in social media, and I did not see that on the map at present. And so I'm wondering if someone could sort of lay out how whether a sort of a policy was reached on that and what that policy is. I don't have that information. I don't know, Holly, do you have that? I'll let Holly try and answer. Thanks. Hi. First I want to separate out a couple of things. The programs on the map are any programs in the state that filled out the survey and submitted information that they're running this summer. The summer grant program is a subset, and those are the only ones that are being funded directly through the Summer Matters Grant Initiative. And those are located in a different section of the site. The Vermont Afterschool Slash Summer Grant has the listing of the first 39, and that's where the additional 60 will be listed. I believe the program that you're referring to, there were some concerns brought up on social media, and we brought that to the attention of the state and the state is, my understanding, looking into it and following their processes. So that's all the information I have on it at this time. But it is separate from the grant funded programs. I just wanted to clarify that. Okay. Thanks. That's going to do it for now. Thank you very much. Yourself, EPR. Thank you, Jason. Governor, a lot of children have excelled in the remote context. And I'm wondering if districts can come up with a remote learning plan that works for students and something that parents are on board with. Why foreclose that possibility with the reinstitution of the in-person attendance requirements? Well, first of all, I'm going to refer to Secretary on this issue. From my standpoint, we still have a lot to learn to reflect on in terms of the pandemic and the silver linings associated with such. I do believe there are opportunities to do more remote learning and maybe a hybrid different way of thinking about things, particularly for those schools and so forth that don't have the resources to provide for certain instruction. There could be a shared type of response amongst many schools in Vermont. So I think we'll learn a lot about that in the future, but why don't I let you answer that, Dan? Yeah, Peter, the first part of your question about, yeah, we're very much interested in districts that might bring forward proposals. Again, we will be evaluating those proposals based on existing regulations. So the point of our communication that's coming out this afternoon is to signal to districts so they can begin planning that essentially with the expiration of the emergency order, we fall back on our existing regulations. So any proposal that districts want to bring forward, and we certainly would encourage that, we would evaluate relative to our existing regulations. The theme with our investment in summer matters and the work that we see before us immediately in education I think will put a lot of emphasis on the re-engagement aspect of recovery. So that is a priority. To the extent that we would leverage remote learning in the future, which I think is, you know, again, the pandemic has provided a lot of opportunity to expand that capacity in the state is something to bring forward. But I think the immediate focus will be on restoring in-person so we can begin to address the recovery. And then secondly, anything we do in remote learning, which I'll say again, we had quite a bit of remote learning going on prior to the pandemic. Anything we would do in the fall around remote learning would be evaluated against our existing regulations. So if the district came to you with a plan for remote learning for some students because they thought it was the best learning environment for them, would you have the power to selectively lift the in-person attendance restriction for specific circumstances? I have some flexibility in our regulation to define attendance certain ways and essentially we utilize that flexibility, the flexible authority under the executive order but we were very careful last summer to ensure that executive order flexibility conformed to the flexibility that was already in the regulation. So I think, you know, looking at our existing regulations and our long-standing initiative around flexible pathways for students, that becomes sort of the primary lens by which we would evaluate these sort of proposals. To what extent is it meeting the individual needs of students? Larger proposals that essentially would be like a complete online learning situation for a large number of students currently don't conform to our regulations but individual flexible pathways types of approaches we'd certainly be interested in. Thank you. Tom Davis, come up for us. Thanks, Jason. CBS yesterday put out an announcement that nationwide for all of their stores where they come up with a big pile of incentives to get people to get vaccinated including a trip to the Super Bowl and 100-day cruises on Norwegian cruise lines. I'm not sure I'd want to get back on a cruise ship post-andemic but this begins on June 1st. How long will it be before the state will get information from them about how well it works, Steve? This will help Vermont reach its goal. I'll ask maybe Secretary Smith will be able to answer part of that. Tom, I think your question was how long will it take us to know if this program has impact on uptake on vaccine? Did I interpret that right? Yes. Well, we see the pharmacy numbers every week as a report to the CDC. Usually it comes in over the weekend. We see those pharmacy numbers. As you know, we've vaccinated a lot of people and the pharmacy numbers are starting to sort of level off. So if we see a real big uptake, one will check the numbers to make sure it's right. But number two, we'll have an indication of whether those promotion programs work. I haven't seen it yet, Tom. So it's going to probably take some time before we see this. Yeah, I understand. I was more curious to see if it's something that if it was working, the state might do a little bit of it like Ohio did and others. Although I understand the flip side of that is rewarding people who are reticent. Yeah. Any data that will be interesting to hear. Yeah. And I'll keep an eye out for that as well. Okay. Thanks. That's all I've got. I hope everyone has a great weekend. Thank you, Tom. That channel three. Governor, when you say you are going to list the remaining restrictions and we hit 80%, does that mean you will also lift the state of emergency as well at that time? Do those two go hand in hand? Yeah. We're doing our best to try and unwind that and contemplate that. So we'll have more information next week, but it may not be at the very same time, but it should be shortly after. I'll look to that. We heard Secretary French say the emergency order being lifted would get rid of some of their mandates on schools. I'm curious, what happens for the other breakout groups that are not under the Vermont forward plan universal guidance at the moment? I'm thinking like the healthcare sector or the long-term care facilities organized sportsly to correct me if I'm wrong, may have some restrictions still, a summer camp, things like that? Well, again, once we hit that 80% threshold, we'll lift all remaining restrictions. There'll be guidelines at that point. So then the healthcare sector will not face specific mandates beyond that? Yeah, that's correct. It'll be voluntary. Yeah, guidelines and volunteer. Correct. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Aaron Patanco, B.C. Digger. I heard anything to in-person schooling will up due to high risk children, children who may have, you know, medical conditions that put them at high risk of the disease and haven't been able to get vaccinated yet. So what are your plans for in-person schooling or remote schooling for that segment of students? Sounds like a combination. Secretary French, Commissioner Levine question. Secretary. Yeah, hi. Yeah, we have, you know, again, our existing regulations provide opportunities to provide those accommodations. So on an individual student-by-student basis, districts have tools through regulation through things like 504 plans to make accommodations for students who have conditions such as medical conditions that would prevent them from in-person attendance. So will this kind of be something that will be decided on at district-by-district basis, or will the agency of education be issuing some sort of guidance on that? Yeah, it would be on a student-by-student basis, and my point would be we have a long-standing regulatory tradition on how to approach these types of issues that predated the pandemic. Okay. I also have a question about the emergency order you mentioned, you know, putting out a memo on what to do if and when the emergency order gets lifted. But have you, Governor Scott, arrived at the decision for certain over whether you will be rescinding the state of emergency when COVID restrictions are lifted? I wasn't entirely clear on that from the last time somebody asked. That's for the Governor, I think. Yeah. Erin, as I think I've said before, our intent is to end the state of emergency just as quick as possible, but there are some other factors, mostly financial, FEMA funding and so forth, that is tied to the state of emergency. We may have to put some other provisions in place in order to make sure that we can continue to test, for instance, and get paid for it and administer vaccines and so forth and get paid for it. So those are the types of things that we're trying to work our way through in terms of the state of emergency. We want to end it just as quick as we possibly can, but we have to unwind it. So we'll lift all the restrictions that are in place when we hit 80%, but again, there may be threads of funding opportunities for us to make sure that we take advantage of over the last couple of weeks or something of that nature. So it won't end at the same time, but it will be shortly after. Okay. I mean, one thing that comes to mind with the state of emergency is the eviction moratorium. Have you considered how you're going to kind of, you know, preserve that aspect of it or sunset it or whether it will end entirely or anything like that? I believe, and I'll have to check to make sure that I'm correct on this, but I believe that the legislature tied this to the state of emergency so that 30 days after the state of emergency is lifted that the eviction moratorium will end in its present form. Okay. That's correct. Okay. Thank you. Devin Bates, local 22, local 44. Yeah, question for Dr. Levine. At the beginning here, you went into a little bit about the CDC's vaccine adverse event response system. I had not previously heard about this and I know it's a little bit buried on the website. Were you surprised at all by the nature of how these adverse effects or reported adverse effects can be reported just by anybody? I know there's a disclaimer there, but could this do more harm than good just having this system be, you know, anybody can report a supposed adverse side effects from a vaccine? Yeah, you know, you make a good point. I do see it the opposite way though. I do see more benefit than harm because the purpose, especially with a novel virus, novel vaccines is to really have as broad a net as possible so that anything that might even be remotely associated with the vaccine would be detectable and could be investigated. Again, you're right. It might not mean it's true, but that's the purpose of the investigations that will occur. When it comes to the deaths, you know, they account for 0.000 something number percent, a very, very small number. Even that small number though around the country after several hundred million doses of vaccine takes a long time to investigate. But we much rather have it be reported in the system so it can be investigated knowing that it could be misinterpreted by people initially and that is a risk, but I think the benefit far outweighs that. I do think, you know, members of the public who could access this data in the system just need to really be educated about the fact that nothing in there implies cause and effect relationships. Only further investigation can lead to that kind of causality inference. So you have to just understand the data you're looking at and what it means. Thank you. Hi, Governor. I had a couple of workforce related questions. One is, I know there's issues about people not working because they're getting pandemic relief benefits from the federal government, but by my math, there's about 15,000 people on that program at $300 a week is $4.5 million a week and Richard Harrington can check my math on that, but $4.5 million a week into the Vermont economy. Is that factoring into you wanting to keep this program going where other states have decided to drop it? Yeah, no, from my standpoint that has nothing to do with this and more to do with those who are on public assistance unemployment and PUA and so forth. Have legitimate reasons for not being able to go back to work, although albeit fewer and fewer as time goes on, childcare and so forth, especially with having kids in school and not knowing when they'll be remote and when they'll be in person. But that should end shortly and again with our summer programs, summer camp programs and so forth. That will all help out tremendously, I would think from the childcare aspect. So I continue to advocate that we need to get more vaccines in the arms of Vermonters and this will lead us to lifting all restrictions, which will get people back to work. But again, I would remind everyone we had a workforce shortage long before the pandemic and this has just made the problem that much worse. So we should expect regardless of what happens in unemployment and the unemployment insurance and the PUA and so forth and the stipend associated with that, regardless of all that after the fact we're still going to have a workforce shortage. Speaking of that, I'm sure you heard the good news that a Canadian couple is buying the Coffee Cup and Vermont Bread plants or plants too anyway, they haven't closed yet. Do you know if there's been any state assistance in that transaction, VEPSI money or VEDA money or anything like that? I know that there have been companies that have contemplated that but I don't have the specifics, probably a better question for the Agency of Commerce and Community Development and I'm not sure is Lindsay on today? Maybe you could answer that for us. Sure. The company that is purchasing the coffee cup, former coffee cup and Vermont Bread was approved yesterday for an incentive growth grant. No money has been approved. I'm at this point the way that program works is once they achieve their goals and maintain and achieve the numbers of having people on payroll, that's when they start to receive their payout. So it's been approved. That was a key component in making the field work and we're really excited that they are going to be doing business in Vermont and keeping that business going. I think it was 1.8 million. I would have to double check that. Okay, if that's wrong Secretary, if someone could get back to me, I'd appreciate it. I will do for sure. All right, thank you very much. I appreciate it. Joseph Crestor, the Department of Chronicles. Hello, Governor. I have a question from a reader I think I know the answer to, but usually that means I'm wrong. She is interested in knowing whether you will be taking it to consideration the percentages of people vaccinated in the state as a whole or in various areas, noting that the Northeast Kingdom continues to lag behind other areas in the state in the percentage of people vaccinated. So is this an all or nothing thing or area by area? Yeah, it will be the entire state and that's the 80% is for those that are eligible to be vaccinated those 12 and over at this point in time, but we'll take the numbers from the entire state to come up with the 80% much the same as I think President Biden has set a goal for 70% of the 18 and over at this point and by the 4th of July and that's for the entire country and we see that throughout. I mean we have a lot to be thankful for here in Vermont. I mean we again hitting this 80% threshold will be a huge deal. No one else has come close to this at this point in time. So we're looking forward to that and then on the other side is are some states that are about half that but we take everything in the entire country and we are taking all the numbers for the entire state to come up with this 80% threshold of those eligible. Thank you very much. Andrew McGregor, California record. Yes, thank you. Good afternoon. I'm wondering perhaps this is for Secretary Smith how many first dose appointments are scheduled right now. Are there enough on the books to get us over the threshold and in recent days do you have a breakdown of how many first dose appointments are going to lock in versus scheduled in the day. Secretary Smith. I don't have the number today of how many are scheduled but I can tell you it's transitioning to the bulk of our effort is happening with walk-ins now. We're seeing more and more walk-ins as we move forward so you'll see that I think over the next week you'll see that number continue to decline in terms of registrations and plus our strategy has changed as well and as you know we are as I've mentioned on a couple occasions these mass-vax sites will start transitioning to other types of sites probably around mid-June and we'll be more focused on taking the vaccine to people in walk-up type of sites so I think you'll start seeing that but I don't have that number I'll get that number for you but it is in transition as we move to moving the vaccine sites to the people where they live, play and work and do more and more walk-ups for example National Life Today is all walk-up as we move forward so that number will continue to go down as we transition to a different style of administering vaccine okay thank you and for Holly Morehouse I'm wondering if there's plans to develop a comparable grant program for nonprofits for fall and winter activities I'm thinking recreation and sports, youth programming things like that you drew Secretary French on that one yeah it's a great idea I'm sorry thank you Matthew for your response I think to the governor's earlier point this will be really we'll learn a lot from this summer but certainly from a recovery standpoint it's sort of like all hands on deck we want to really put a lot of opportunity out into the landscape for students so we can establish those connections for them and that's going to serve them well it's going to serve the schools well mentoring is a critical piece of that it's a great idea we have had some conversation with mentoring organizations during the pandemic and it's certainly a resource we'd be anxious to bring to bear in our recovery efforts but we don't have any formal program lined up for that right now of a comparable nature okay thank you and if I may one quick question for the governor all the discussion of return to normal activities that long weekend coming up car racing out of us I'm wondering if you have any plans to return to some of your normal activities yeah I do have plans at some point in time to get behind the wheel and do a few races this summer but this weekend won't be one of them so we'll wait for another opportunity okay thank you everyone have a good weekend thank you guide page chronicle of the Vermont State House governor nine states do not require parental consent for COVID-19 vaccinations for at least some minors can you confirm that Vermont does require parental consent for COVID-19 vaccination and do you see that policy changing at this point in time we do require authorization from from the parents for vaccinations I'm not sure if we're going to change that we haven't really discussed that at this point but I don't see it changing but anything's on the table I guess okay thank you question I suppose more for secretary French but you said that the question of masking this fall is being studied is a K-12 student vaccination status a key criteria for whether they'll need to wear a mask and if so will you be requiring proof of vaccination hi guy you had a couple aspects of that question firstly I mean just to draw the connection a little bit more I mean the vaccination not only protects individuals but it contributes to the broader suppression of the virus so that's where we say in confidence that we don't think measures like distancing will be necessary in the fall because the science of vaccination is more or less inevitable and our data shows that it's extremely effective in suppressing the virus so therefore even if we have students in school that are not eligible for vaccination yet or have not been vaccinated yet in the fall it's unlikely we'll need significant mitigation measures because the virus will have been suppressed significantly we're going to keep an eye on you know that that's really what's in our communication it wasn't really necessarily to convey we're doing a formal evaluation we just the memo that we're putting out to schools doesn't speak to that issue but certainly our decision making will be more informed by I think what the larger health conditions are in Vermont in the community and we'll keep our options open in that regard did I answer all your questions well so I guess I'm trying to find out if a student who is not vaccinated will they be first of all required to demonstrate that and divulge that and also if so will they be under any different conditions either for masking or distancing or anything got it we don't currently have plans to require vaccination maybe you're thinking of things like measles and so forth where we have a requirement to attend in order to attend public school you have to be had those vaccinations we don't have a similar requirement for COVID-19 we did talk about that a bit with the health department those requirements actually exist in the health department's regulations not the agency of education's regulations and there my review with Dr. Levine was that largely emanates from CDC guidance as well so I don't think there's going to be a requirement for students in the fall and Dr. Levine I don't know if you want to add to that at all but we don't see that as a possibility actually at this point so either masking or I understand about the vaccination but masking as a result of vaccination status on the table? I don't think we'll need to take those kinds of measures because again the high uptake of vaccination we're seeing in Vermont will contribute to a significant suppression of the virus so it's not going to be a case where we need to single out individuals for certain mitigation proposals Thank you I can just add one more comment to that we do fully expect that the percent positivity rates and the prevalence of virus in our communities is going to be so low that it won't and that a student will acquire virus in the community and bring it to school but having said all that we watch the data every week every day, every month and we'll make those decisions as time goes on currently the health recommendation and the CDC recommendations are still for unvaccinated people to have mass on and as we exit from on forward that's the recommendation we continue to make is that unvaccinated people which include people who can't be vaccinated because they're too young currently wear masks but this is now May and it's a little premature to talk about what will happen at the beginning of the next school year Sounds to me like the door is sort of open but not very wide But you didn't hear the word require at this point in time That's important Alright, thank you Lisa Loomis, the value reporter Lisa Loomis We'll move to Mike, True North reports Hi, thanks for taking my call Mike Velasquez, True North reports In regards to the CDC reported vaccine deaths in Vermont, will the health department provide more data on these eight incidents so that everyone can scrutinize what happened For example, when these deaths occurred in relation to the shots, what was their existing health status, just like the kind of data that we use when we scrutinize the deaths from the virus itself That's my question The most important point I need to make is these are not CDC reported deaths related to the vaccine in Vermont These are deaths that individuals, families or healthcare providers have entered into the adverse event reporting system So people still are free to look at that system and see that there are eight, but I wouldn't want them to look for details of any of the cases because they have not been determined to be vaccine associated deaths But you're right Obviously if they become vaccine associated deaths with some certainty we'll have that data to look at as a health department and ensure that we convey that to the public But right now as I pointed out in my comments we have no reason to believe that these deaths are associated with a vaccine and we've also done our own investigation with our medical examiner's office as well I'm sorry I had a problem with the mute button I have a quick another question in the state of Florida never had a mass mandate for the Orlando Sentinel is reporting that cases are down two-thirds over the past months and they're down quite a bit in January around 15,000 average daily cases down to 2.2,000 cases today roughly I know we're already looking at ending a lot of these mandates soon but looking at what's happening in other states is our mass policy going forward well looking at other states is fine I mean Florida had a very different climate at the time that their cases started to go down you may recall though that when you look at the death rate in Florida compared to the death rate in Vermont consistently they've been very very different and states that have had mass mandates in place have had differences within the state when different counties have mass mandates and different counties don't that really have added to the volumes of data indicating that mass mandates have been very effective in preventing cases deaths etc it's not so much an issue now as to where we are in our Vermont forward progress because we've obviously evolved with conditions during this time period so this would be something to think about in the future if the virus had a resurgence around the country for some reason which I can't really see forecasting at this point in time with the high rate of vaccination and at least the northeast region and increasing rates in other parts of the country so my answer would be that mass mandates have worked we don't need one at this point in time and there obviously something to pull out of the toolbox if needed in the future time okay, thank you very much hi I had a quick question about the bars and restaurants I guess I'm just looking for a quick refresher of where we're at as far as what bars and restaurants are expected to be doing is there any different expectations for people if they are vaccinated versus if they're not for example do a certain group need to wear masks inside, do all people it's just been changing so quickly it's hard to keep track can you just give me a refresher of where we're at again most of those who are entering restaurants do not need to wear a mask and for those especially as I recall because there's so many people who have been vaccinated at this point in time so maybe I could ask Secretary Curley I just want to make sure that I'm giving the correct information Secretary Curley or Commissioner Sherling yes, I'm happy to help so the restaurants and bars the curfew is listed they're still mandated to follow what we refer to as universal guidance which is on our website at accd.vermont.gov but just to give you a little refresher as the governor mentioned we no longer require masks for individuals who are fully vaccinated but for individuals who are not fully vaccinated they can wear a mask into the bar the restaurant and could have it on if they're moving around they can remove it when they're seated and they're eating or having their beverage beyond that we still ask the restaurants and the bars to provide for 60 a space between parties so again you may have a party that's fully vaccinated next to a party or party that's not vaccinated we also want to give people some time to sort of again finish out getting their vaccines and being fully vaccinated but again these will all be relaxed or sunset when we do hit that 80% goal that the governor's been talking about so again just want to point to the universal guidance on our website for folks to refresh their understanding and it applies to almost every sector at this point that specific guidance is highlighted very clearly that they have sector specific guidance I hope that helps yes that does and that's all I got thank you very much thank you Avery Powell you all have mentioned how the vaccination rate among 18 to 29 year olds is getting better are there going to be any more vaccination clinics focused on that specific group kind of similar to the north beach one that happened ago? yeah we're looking at every opportunity and those that worked and maybe those that didn't and advocate for different strategies so we're looking for every opportunity as I think I mentioned the other day we're going to have some at state parks for instance so we'll be going to some of those areas I'm not sure about maybe Secretary Smith has this I'm not sure if we're going back to north beach in particular or not but it doesn't mean that we won't in the future we're just trying to find again what works for us what doesn't and keep being creative and trying to do whatever we can to get to the rest the other 20% of the 80% that threshold that we're meeting at this point in time because we're not going to stop we want to again lift the restrictions and continue to advocate for people just to get the vaccine so that we can protect more and more people and protect ourselves in the late fall and winter when we believe you know the the virus will still be around so we just if you have your your vaccination you're protected did you all find that the vaccination clinic worked in that age group? well obviously something was working you know we've gone up over 20 points in a short period of time within a month so I think I believe it's working maybe Secretary Smith might want to comment on this yeah it is working we've seen the convenience factor make it work as the governor said we are targeting that group and you know we're targeting every group and making it easier and easier to to get a vaccine and working in conjunction with several events that higher ground is doing will be there vaccinating and there will be a couple events at higher ground both on the 4th of June and the 5th of June that we're going to be at that event and we're looking at some other summer concert events that we'll be at as well so we it is working and the convenience factor seems to be what is working isn't the reluctance it's the convenience and we're really zeroing in on like I said where you live where you play and where you work is what we're zeroing in on in this strategy okay I guess that's it but before we go as we begin to get back to normal we did this in an hour and a half so it's a sign of the times so next week we're going to transition from our twice weekly briefings to just once a week and that'll be Tuesdays at 11am and we'll continue to maintain the current call in format for several weeks as I've said I think it's incredibly beneficial that more outlets from across the state have had access to these briefings and we want to continue that approach in some form on an ongoing basis we've come a long way when you think about it we went from three a week in the beginning to two a week and now we're transitioning to just one and as a reminder to those who may or may not be keeping track this is our 142nd briefing since the state of emergency began and lastly before we go yesterday I had the honor of attending the rededication of the Fallen Heroes Memorial at Camp Johnson which commemorates the 14 members of our guard who lost their lives tragically serving our country in the global war on terror after the event I spoke with the parents of Sergeant Tristan Southworth Walden Sergeant Southworth was one of the 14 members we honored yesterday he lost his life in 2010 at the age of 21 while trying to save a fellow soldier in Afghanistan among others he was awarded the bronze star after his death on Sunday this is something the parents wanted me to know at the Coca-Cola 600 in Charlotte, North Carolina NASCAR will be honoring our fallen heroes they're taking 43 cars so they're taking 43 of those lives lost from across the country in each car we'll have the name of one of these brave Americans on the windshield so Tristan's name will be on the number 17 car out of Roush Racing driven by Chris Boucher I know this means a lot to the family so I want to thank former Vermonter, Steve Phelps president of NASCAR for making this happen we live in freedom today thanks to people like Tristan and it's important we don't forget how they lived just as well as how they died and as more than just names and dates on memorials I know those who step up to serve don't do it for the glory or fame they serve for their country and they do it for us so this Memorial Day let us remember all those heroes who never came home and their loved ones never do enough to honor them or their memory so if you run across a family who has lost a loved one or even run across a veteran this weekend take a moment to thank them and their families for their sacrifice and all they've done to protect us so again I hope you have a very safe weekend this and over the next three days and reflect on all the good things we have here at this point in time it's very easy to think about all the negatives but we're still the greatest nation in the world and we should reflect on that so again thank you all very much we'll see you next Tuesday