 Good morning everyone. Today we'll provide our weekly modeling update and Dr. Levine will announce a new step in our contact tracing process which will help get information more quickly to those who've been in close contact with a positive case. As he'll share, we won't be able to do this for every person but it will definitely help with containment. Doing all we can collectively continues to be crucial because we're still seeing too many days with over 100 new cases and our long-term care facilities are still being impacted which unfortunately has led to more loss of life due to COVID. I know it's hard to be separated from friends and family but we've got to pay attention to what's happening right before our eyes. That's why I'm once again urging Vermonters to follow our health guidance like avoiding multi-family gatherings that are a want rather than a need. Think about the risks you may be imposing on your loved ones and everyone you come in contact with afterwards. As well, avoid travel. And if you do take that trip you've got to quarantine which means avoid contact with others for seven days and then get a test. And when you're around those outside your household wear a mask, keep six feet apart and wash your hands. These are the most important things we can do right now. So we can get a handle on the virus and keep it out of our nursing homes away from our most vulnerable and keep our schools open so kids could get the in-person instruction we know they need. I know many of you are waiting to hear when we might be able to roll back some of our most recent guidance and allow for more travel and gatherings. As we said last week it's still too early to know the impact of Thanksgiving and what trajectory these holiday events will put us on before we make a decision on whether to reduce or to add additional steps. We also have to be aware of our surroundings and what's going on in other states which as you'll hear from Commissioner Pichak this morning is troubling. Rhode Island, a three and a half hour drive from here has the highest rate of daily cases in the country surpassing the Midwest hot spots. New Hampshire just had a 7% positivity rate with over 1,000 cases. Maine hit its record with 427 and Massachusetts had over 7,000 cases in the last few days. So even if our numbers improve I remain concerned about how our neighbors may affect us. For now while we continue to collect data over the next few days I'm asking yet again for your patience and perseverance. As we continue to await the FDA emergency approval and then roll out the vaccine there is light at the end of the tunnel but we're not there yet and we still have difficult days and months ahead and we have to be realistic. The vaccines will not provide instantaneous relief. It will be many months before we receive enough for everyone. But even with all the obstacles before us I know we'll get through this but we need to be vigilant. Yesterday we marked the 79th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. And as I said in a statement to mark the solemn date we can learn the lessons and honor the legacy of the greatest generation. Their service and sacrifice after the attack was both historic and inspiring and it galvanized us as a country. And that service, that collective sacrifice will remind it that there is no greater force for the greater good than when we are united in a common cause. That's what we've all done here in Vermont since day one but we've got to keep it up. We've come too far to give up and the consequences are far too great. If we can just stay focused I have no doubt we'll get through this and I'll turn it over to Commissioner Inche. Thank you Governor and good morning everyone. Last week we spoke about our cautious optimism with COVID-19 metric starting to move in the right direction. And while more time is still needed to evaluate our own trajectory in the full impact of Thanksgiving we are looking with caution at the rise in COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths that are occurring around us in New England and the Northeast. During the first week of December both the country and the region have seen rapid case growth. The US recorded an additional one million cases during the first five days of December and New England and in New England all of our states as the Governor mentioned have broken various single day records in the past week. Further the risk here at home remains high with more active cases circulating in our communities than at any previous point during the pandemic. We must continue to remain vigilant to do everything we can to protect ourselves and to protect others. Looking at the reported cases over the past three weeks we can see that increases have been happening both nationally, regionally and in Vermont with that growth increasing over the past week. And while case growth is a cause for concern the greater concern is the movement we've seen recently in the positivity rates. While the nation's positivity rate increased modestly and Vermont's decreased slightly over the past three weeks the positivity rate for the region increased by more than 50% and has recently risen above the 5% threshold recommended by the World Health Organization. A similarly alarming statistic is that over the past week we've seen the U.S. death rate reach its highest point on a 7-day average surpassing the terrible peak that we experienced this past spring. And when we look at where the case growth is occurring and where it's happened over the past 14 days we can see that the nation's hot spots are unfortunately moving closer to the northeast and that impact is already being felt. For the 15th straight week in a row regional cases have increased but that rate of increase has also jumped significantly this week with over 50% more cases being reported this week compared to last. Further with over 140,000 cases reported this week the total reported cases this week far surpasses the previous regional high setback in April. And as we reported last week the case growth that started to slow over the past few weeks that trend has reversed course and we've seen the most significant percentage increase in cases in the region since last spring. Looking at the regional heat map where the hot spots are in the region fortunately none are currently in Vermont nor in northern New England. However we continue to see the numbers the numbers of these 10 highest counties continue to increase. These hot spots that have significant cases continue to get hotter over the past few weeks. Looking at Vermont specific numbers this week reported 718 cases compared to last week. This is our single largest weekly increase and it also pushed us over the threshold of 5000 reported cases in Vermont. As you can see it took us about 88 days to reach our first 1000 cases and about 39 days to reach our second 1000 cases. But as the rate of growth has picked up we have reached these thresholds more quickly in the recent weeks and months taking only 10 days to move from 4000 cases to 5000 cases. Again as we mentioned the active case counts here in Vermont are greater than at any other time during the pandemic. Again this means that our communities continue to have an elevated risk of COVID-19 and that we all have an elevated risk of encountering someone who is infectious. Accordingly we must continue to follow the guidance and be vigilant. We're showing the Vermont forecast for the first time in two weeks but I still want to make a note of caution that we need more data from Thanksgiving to determine exactly what trajectory and trend we're on. This is the trend that the forecast would tell us that we're on but again things to the forecast need to be considered like the holidays and the impact that we're going to see in the days and about a week ahead. Across northern New England we've added 392 cases in our K-12 school systems 185 of those being reported in New Hampshire, 177 of those being reported in Maine and 30 of them here in Vermont. There were no new outbreaks since last week's report in Vermont's long-term care facilities. However, we did report a significant number of new cases in those facilities that did have an outbreak adding 117 from our last report on Tuesday bringing the total to 283. And when we look at the national data on this topic we see worrying statistics regarding long-term care facilities generally. Residents of these facilities make up about 0.6 percent of the population but they've made up about 6 percent of U.S. cases to date. And unfortunately this is a foreseeable consequence when you have elevated cases in a community as we're seeing here in Vermont as well. And finally just a brief note regarding our flu vaccination data we are currently at 72 percent of our goal of 325,000 Vermonters having received the flu vaccine for the upcoming or current flu season. 6 percent of where we were last year. This is also good news considering that we continue to experience reporting delays from the cyber incident that occurred at UVMMC. So these numbers are very likely under-reported and even significantly under-reported. So there has been a big uptake in the flu vaccine this year but serves as a good reminder for all Vermonters who haven't gotten one yet that there's still certainly time to do so. And with that I will turn it over to Dr. Levine. Thank you Commissioner Pichek to add to the grim statistics I believe if you calculate a national percent positivity rate it's 11.5 percent. For those who watch our website every day and look at our daily counts you've noted that our daily numbers continue to go up and down a bit. They were over 100 on Friday and Saturday to the 60 range on Sunday and Monday to reported 100 today. There are 28 people hospitalized with COVID currently four in the ICU zero on ventilators. We're now in the time period when cases that could be linked to Thanksgiving gatherings would start to show up. So far we're not seeing a clear trend or pattern or abundant events but the overall daily reports of infections are still in a higher range than we are accustomed to. While many people closely watch these case counts don't forget these numbers represent people and people are connected to communities. That means each person who has COVID-19 often has to contact somewhere else. When that person goes to school or a workplace or a healthcare facility it can have a ripple effect. It means people need to quarantine school pods may have to switch to remote learning businesses may be disrupted. That's what we tend to call a situation as health teams need to do additional follow up to help prevent any further transmission among people in that setting. We're currently investigating 144 situations and to give you an idea of what they comprise in the K-12 school setting 27 situations. Child care 6. Healthcare facilities 45. Work sites 54. It's a list that gets added to every day. It's a lot of work for the teams at the health department but importantly it's a reminder of how we are all connected right now how each action we take affects our fellow Vermonters and how often when we choose to follow the guidance we are really protecting this unseen number of people every single day because when we prevent cases we prevent situations and when we prevent situations we often prevent outbreaks. Right now we're following 38 outbreaks and I'd like to give you in my only slide today a quick look at our outbreaks over time from back here in March all the way to the current date. The details of the slide may not show up well although really it's the colors I want to call your attention to that would really matter. So starting in the very earliest days of the pandemic when we didn't even have abundant testing or PPE available there was community spread fairly quickly and outbreaks were predominantly in long-term care facilities in bloom and in a correctional facility in green. In late spring the community outbreak of Burlington-Winooski occurred in Magenta. Getting to the present since mid-October in the lighter gray you will note a new type of outbreak related to social gatherings and other events like the Central Vermont Ice Team event. But look what happens as we moved from October into November we go from the light gray back into the blue color that we started with. As you'll note we had record breaking daily case counts at that time and we see that this increase in daily case counts really was impacting our congregate settings such as long-term care facilities. And as you can see the high proportion of outbreaks related cases among these settings in that brighter blue color. This is yet another example of the impact our actions can have on others. Increased social gatherings in October leading to increases in cases throughout the state and ultimately impacting our most vulnerable settings. I have a few topics I'd like to jump to this morning. First one is going to be a new initiative that Secretary Smith previously announced. Later this week the health department will be offering a new text notification system for certain people who've been identified as close contacts by someone who has COVID-19. This will help us get information out as quickly as possible so these close contacts can quarantine right away and access other important information on our website. Please know that the text do not replace our expert contact tracing work. Those identified as a close contact will still get a phone call from a contact tracer. The phone numbers that we use to text people will be provided by the person who has COVID-19. Our contact tracing team will help determine who gets these texts based on the exact situation. But if you do get a text please know it is a legitimate and important message from the Department of Health. For people who do get a text they'll see two short messages from the number 8-6-9-1-1. It will tell them that they may be a close contact that they should expect a call from a contact tracer that they should quarantine right away and that they should visit our website for more information healthvermont.gov slash close contact. Text will be sent between the hours of 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. We hope that by using this new communication tool Vermonters can start preparing quickly to take steps to protect themselves and others around them. Thank you in advance for answering the call and helping slow the spread of COVID-19 in Vermont. Moving back to Commissioner Pichek's slides you'll note that amongst eight long-term care facilities there were 283 cases of COVID-19. You see from these numbers how susceptible these facilities are to rapid and extensive spread of virus, even with existing testing and restrictive visitation requirements. Last Friday I spoke of the more aggressive testing policy that we were immediately launching to help identify cases as early as possible and mitigate the impact of COVID-19 in these settings. For the 37 most susceptible higher acuity skilled nursing facilities that consisted of daily staff testing with the Binax Now antigen test cards along with weekly PCR testing for all staff. For the lower acuity assisted living and residential care facilities it used antigen tests for immediate identification in symptomatic staff or residents and it was paired with twice weekly PCR testing. I'm pleased to update you and note that over the weekend 60 already clear wavered facilities received a total of 42,400 cards leaving 15,000 in reserve for additional supplies. This will permit testing all staff for the next 10 days plus if needed a round of resident testing. We're currently working with Health and Human Services in Washington to obtain more of our promised allotment. I'd like to also reconnect with comments I made previously regarding the treatment BAM Lanivimap once again. That is the monoclonal antibody. Two weeks ago I noted that this drug which had just received emergency use authorization from the FDA by the federal government received unfavorable reviews from both the NIH and Infectious Disease Society of America. The NIH felt there was insufficient data to recommend for or against the use of this drug which was thought indicated for preventing outpatients with mild to moderate COVID from needing hospitalization and that it should only be used in a research trial. The Infectious Disease Society suggested against routine use of the drug because of the low certainty of evidence at this time though it left as an option use in a shared decision making fashion weighing the uncertain benefits and the risk for untoward adverse events. Many interpreted my comments as closing the door on the use of this drug in Vermont but nothing could be further from the truth. In fact one of our smaller hospitals has already infused this drug into outpatients and a number have requested and received allotments of doses. At a time when we're seeing case numbers and hospital numbers higher than ever before we should avail ourselves of all options so long as there is transparency and a clear shared decision making process between patients and their physicians especially in light of the reports I cited. Furthermore I do hope our experience in Vermont turns out favorable as we add to the nation's experience with this potentially promising new modality. My final comments will be an update on the tool in our toolbox we've been most waiting for the COVID vaccines. We've been keeping in close communication with CDC and FDA as planning for vaccine distribution at the national and state levels has increased and evolved. The news about vaccines have been front and center and expectations are high so I want one thing to be clear from the start. We're in the very first stages of vaccine production and distribution to the states. There will likely be a limited early supply of vaccine so some groups may be recommended to get vaccination first. This is similar to when testing supplies were limited early in the pandemic and recall today we have more than enough of those. The National Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices met on December 1 they advised the CDC and voted to recommend that vaccine recipients in phase 1A be high risk health care workers and residents and staff of long-term care facilities. This was not a tremendous surprise and on Friday December 4 Vermont's own advisory committee met to approve recommendations to further refine those groups of vaccine recipients in phase 1A based on the anticipated limited allocation to Vermont. Our implementation advisory group is in agreement with all of these groups on long-term care facility residents and staff with patient contact. Clinical and support staff who have patient contact in settings at high risk for COVID-19 patient contact. Home health care clinical staff and caregivers at high risk other health care providers staff who have patient contact. We will publish that information in an updated interim draft jurisdictional plan on the COVID vaccine page website. ASIP, the advisory committee nationally, will be making recommendations to the CDC for phase 1B soon and we will await those recommendations before making further plans. Vermont expects to receive the first shipment in mid December about a week from today. As always, this timeline is not promised and could shift but I'm optimistic. So far we've ordered 5850 doses, 5850 and we will continue to place orders each week. Those doses take into account the fact that an equivalent number of doses are being held in reserve so that those individuals can get their second shot. Pharmacies that have been contracted to provide COVID-19 vaccine at skilled nursing facilities will receive a portion of these doses and may hold their earliest vaccination clinics at long-term care facilities as soon as December 21st. Despite the speed at which vaccines are being researched and developed safety and efficacy remain the top priorities with respect to any COVID-19 vaccine. Before vaccinations can be given to the public, they must be approved by the FDA and formally recommended by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. One last point. 2020 has been a lesson on what happens when we don't have a vaccine for an infectious disease. We're fortunate that the opposite is true for other diseases like flu, polio, measles. That's why we urge everyone who can to get vaccinated when the vaccine is available. And cost should not be a barrier. The vaccine will be provided to Vermonters at no cost. While providers may charge an administrative fee, you are guaranteed COVID-19 vaccine regardless of whether you have insurance or your ability to pay the fees. Included in the guidance given to providers who will be the information that they may seek reimbursement from health insurance plans that cover COVID-19 vaccine administration fees. For uninsured patients, the vaccine provider can seek reimbursement for an administrative fee from the HRSA Provider Relief Fund. You're doing your part and we will do ours. Turn it back to the governor. Thank you Dr. Levine. We'll now open it up to questions. We'll start in the room with Calvin. Thank you governor. So looking at the data today you said that it's too soon to see the full impact of Thanksgiving and other holiday festivities. And you said that we have to wait a few more days to see if we roll back some steps or take more steps I think you said. If the data continues to trend down up to the worst, what could we be looking at for more restrictions? If it continues downward or upward. If we go, yeah. I look at the other way around. If we see more positive cases we're just going to have to reflect on what we can do to protect ourselves, protect from others and we have a team working on that. Again we need almost every day to contemplate this but I don't want to get ahead of myself. What we're seeing right now is at least a leveling out. It's still not good news. Triple digit every single day isn't good news but we did see a day when we had I think in the 60s and so if we see that trend continue then it doesn't appear that we have to take any measures at all that we can continue down this path. We really want to get beyond Christmas and New Year's that those are the two big big ones from my standpoint and get into January and then with the vaccine coming into play and again less activity I believe that will be more of a downhill slide so to speak. I'm looking forward to that but we have to stay vigilant over the next probably month in order to get to that other side of the most infectious period. As you probably saw over the weekend a new stimulus package from Congress remains elusive you've been hearing for months really about a lot of critical programs PWA housing programs the everyone eats program for instance I'm just wondering how the state maybe just looking at everyone eats for example the one that provides meals from restaurants to families in need how are we preparing I guess first off for the need for additional food resources. Here in Vermont we've been providing the foundation for us to continue the unemployment insurance is my biggest worry at this point and as well you know I'm encouraged at the same time seeing this bipartisan effort in the Senate at least they're talking at this point I did have an opportunity to speak with Senator Leahy yesterday and so I'm cautiously optimistic I know they're working very hard our congressional delegation is trying to do what it can to move this forward and myself and four other Republican governors wrote a letter to our senators the majority in the Senate in particular to tell them that we as Republicans are concerned we need their support their help in providing for relief for our constituents so we're hopeful and again I'm cautiously optimistic that something will be able to be agreed upon over the next couple of weeks it may not be today this week but they're working at it and Congressman Welch we text as well and I know that he's supportive and he's trying to get a deal moving through the House and through the Senate thank you with the vaccine coming out next week I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit more about the freezers that are going to be needed to store the vaccine at very cold temperatures how many freezers does the state currently have and where exactly are they located yeah we're in pretty good shape in that respect and it's due to proper planning on the behalf of the SEOC the public safety and so forth I might ask Commissioner Shirling he's on top of this I know we adored freezers I'm not sure if the last one came in or not but Mr. Shirling can you bring us up to date on this I can I have a question Governor I think it's in the room from the microphone but if the question appears to be regarding the status of our freezer capability yes and we do have okay we do have the freezer space that's been deployed at the vaccine depot and there are a number of possible facilities around Vermont that also have the freezer capacity to be able to handle the ultra cold Pfizer vaccine so we believe we're in a good shape to receive both initial doses and then hopefully as the numbers ramp up to be able to accommodate those as well I'm not going to add and Dr. Levine maybe could speak to this further but the Moderna vaccine isn't as low a temperature it doesn't require that to be stored at a low temperature like the Pfizer vaccine and we're hearing that there are other vaccines coming coming out possibly that could be stored at room temperature so again we think we believe we're in good shape because the freezer capacity we have here that would accommodate the Pfizer vaccine and again we don't have that concern with Moderna and certainly some of the others that are coming about Dr. Levine okay so it sounds like they're at the freezer capacity is that a number of hospitals any state facilities yes we had purchased a I think a low temperature freezer for our vaccine storage facility state run is that correct Mr. Shirley get it here thank you Governor again on the expiration of the unemployment I've taken in several calls from folks who are in the system they did they did appreciate the news that once they're in there you know they're still in the system even though the program goes away but they're saying they're at the point now where by the end of the year they may be homeless yeah again I don't underestimate what they're going through and I have extreme amount of sympathy and we're working very hard diligently but it really is up to congress at this point we just don't have the means the capacity or the use of the unemployment trust fund to be able to continue they just we just can't do it we need their authorization so we're hopeful and I think they get that part that's why I believe there'll be some sort of compromise there'll be something that will come into play from again from my standpoint I would like to see more stimulus dollars and and other money for all of what we need to do but that one action they could take a couple of steps and be able to to I guess give us the ability to continue with the unemployment benefits is there anything that folks can do that you can see to maybe put some pressure on these folks to get going I mean again we're doing all we can in the state writing to to your congress whether it's secretary or senator lehi or senator sanders or congressman welch I will say they're on board but it doesn't hurt to reinforce that but they they again see the need as well thank you we'll start with ed at the new port daily express ed new port daily express for us and for the governor and as well the doctor will be I don't have a dog in the flight but I have been getting feedback from the issue involving iris bird and the the church where our first electricity was closed by iris and came out negative three times swore that she wasn't a church on that funding for all that and the agitation have come through that you don't believe that she's a congregation the preacher tell the truth can you give us an update on what you think the truth of the matter is Dr. Levin thank you ed I really have no update nothing more to add to what I said at the press conference on Friday that according to our staff and our laboratory test results we have a positive nothing more I can really say you know that's already well over a week or more old already so I don't know of anything recently that's happened other than what always occurs initially so I've really no update on that as well contact tracing that would have been relevant would have occurred at the time and if we got input after our press release was released telling others that they may have been exposed but I'm not aware of anything in this recent few days that's happened that's different I can't say that with certainty that I'd have to look into I would hope there haven't been to be honest right now right now you are a close contact of a case of COVID in Vermont you have an 18% chance of becoming a case yourself looking at that flip side over an 80% chance you will not become a case but I bring that up because earlier in the pandemic you had less than a one in ten chance of becoming a case now it's almost the one in five I appreciate that answer I just would also like to add we're seeing more cases in Orleans County that we'd like to see so for those who are listening if you are going out please wear a mask it's a simple thing to do and it might prevent someone from you coming in contact with someone so it's a it really is an easy method to prevent the spread Wilson, the Associated Press pretty much to zero throughout the summer how did they get back in what was the mechanism of that and the one to ten is easy to understand how it could take off so quickly but how was it so positive for such a long time and then suddenly within a couple of weeks it explodes as it appears to have thank you some of it came in through a little softly so I just want to make sure we're referring to cases overall in the state or in long-term care facilities no, specifically in the long-term care facilities okay so I don't want to sound like a broken record but every place in society that we go we go as a representative of the community that we come from and whether we go into a work site at a long-term care or whether we're going to school we look like our community with regard to virus so the reality is spring and summer we had such a success due to all of the work of Vermonters and all of their compliance in the spring with everything that we asked of them that we got the level of virus suppressed to a very very low place and frankly we've enjoyed that for months and months and months and months until we got into this mid-October to November cycle here so our communities now have more virus in them so people can vector this virus into a facility bring it in without knowing it because they don't feel poorly they're in the several days of having no symptoms and they may actually have no symptoms during the time course of their illness and so they're not aware of it when they enter the facility I think that's what happens it all takes is one case in places where you have a vulnerable group of people and it can take off so that's sort of the simple explanation okay great thank you Mike Donahue, the Islander thank you for that Governor it appears that Vermont Police Academy has become the first Vermont school that has had in person spread of COVID virus and updates this morning indicate there's now a third of the students testing positive what's the latest you've heard on the Police Academy outbreak and how will that impact future training for police and obviously it's going to delay state group or sheriff's municipal getting out on the road when we are already facing some shortages in the police world it may be two-fold I don't know if Dr. Levine wants to or Commissioner Sherling first maybe Commissioner Sherling could bring us up to speed as to where we're at at the Police Academy certainly thanks for the question Mike much earlier in the year when the prior class was in session the Academy staff in close contact with the entire public safety community made alterations for the operational posture to try to prevent this from happening by cohorting the class reducing the size and a number of other efforts unfortunately those efforts did not work this past week as you've indicated as of now it's 8 of 23 we've gotten a more rapid test that indicates a positive but they are also simple symptomatic so they're implied positives at this point we also have one symptomatic staff member that's down there who's pending a test we anticipate that everyone both students, faculty and staff who were present last week will be tested on Friday using the PCR platform to confirm and determine the full scope of infection those may be asymptomatic until then the Academy is closed all of the folks I mentioned are isolated or quarantined and the Academy staff is assessing based on those results what the operational posture looks like going forward I know that they have been able to do online learning for a variety of the things that the students are working on this week unfortunately is not a curriculum that lends itself to being entirely online so more work to be done in that area thank you was there something particular you wanted me to add to that very comprehensive view no it's just the Governor's thoughts to say my other question maybe to the Governor Commissioner Sherling now that Attorney General Donovan has publicly ruled the temporary gag order closed by public safety three months ago was invalid or inappropriate will TPS restore transparency within the state police promptly remove the old gag order and generally when will reminders be able to expect the release of the public information on cases of the state police had to hide without crime these past 12 weeks the legal opinion was sought from Attorney General Donovan I'll ask Commissioner Sherling to comment as well this is somewhat breaking news to me I actually just saw the headline of your article in the Times Argus and maybe the Bennington Banner but I didn't read the article yet so we weren't I wasn't notified from the Attorney General I don't believe we were but at this point it's good news in some respects we had offered ATGs at question whether the legality so we asked the ATGs to weigh in and he has at this point so this is good news now we can move in that direction and probably reinstitute what we were doing before with the ATGs blessing so Commissioner Sherling anything to offer there should be a communication Attorney General Donovan that you guys didn't know anything about it as of last Friday he said he planned to call Commissioner Sherling directly so that maybe you did I'll let Commissioner Sherling answer whether the Attorney General will call them Thanks Governor my answer is probably going to be far less satisfying than what you're looking for but first I need to flag an error that no opinions had been communicated to us until this morning when the Attorney General and I spoke for the first time he and I are very clear on that our staffs have been in contact for a number of weeks but no opinion has been communicated until this morning of note the opinions that we discussed this morning is very narrow it relates to accident reports specifically so I want to flag for transparency in the interest of clarity that we're continuing to evaluate a variety of conflicting statutory constructs that deal with juvenile records across the 40 volumes of statutes that exist here in Vermont on the 23rd of October DPS Legal Staff had quoted a memo to the AG's office for review we're not asking them to define our policy only to cross-check the legal analysis and this morning as I've indicated the AG and I spoke for some time we're both quite clear that there continues to be confusion as a result of conflicting statutes that are not intentional it just happens organically when laws evolve over time we have that as I've mentioned an ongoing analysis underway around the full spectrum of records relating to juveniles and again in the interest of transparency it's not only juveniles it's those under the jurisdiction of the family court which the legislature has recently expanded to be people that are all the way up to age 22 so we both believe that this is something that could use legislative clarification we plan to ask the legislature to take a look and determine whether they want to wait into this beginning in January regarding the analysis of accident reports and juveniles for clarity for all those who are listening we've never wavered that accident reports are a public record at some point the question is and the thing that we've been analyzing is when they become a public record while an investigation is pending there is a subsection of public records law that prevents them from becoming public if no charges occur and again that relates to juveniles if no charges occur then those accident reports can be released and at every time the accident report reaches the department of motor vehicles another statutory construct takes over and they're always able to be released from that particular repository in the event that charges result against the juveniles a result of an accident report or charges were to occur as a result of someone that's subject to the family court's jurisdiction so it could be an 18, 19, 20 year old if those charges are referred to the family court there's a section of the juvenile law that prevents the law enforcement agency from doing any kind of publicity that relates to that report but again there's a conflicting statute where that report then becomes public when it reaches the department of motor vehicles so we're well aware of the strangeness of all of that but our job as law enforcement is to make sure we're following the law to the greatest extent possible I just would also note that every time the question gets asked referred to as a gag order it's simply an effort at making sure we're complying with the letter of the law which is our primary responsibility as a law enforcement agency so you haven't addressed the traffic tickets even though that was clearly part of that whole problem this morning all we talked about were action reports as I indicated we've got an array of other analysis that is underway and again we're hopeful that maybe there'll be some clarity that could be brought through a legislative look as well okay well maybe Paul may later elaborate a little bit more thanks very much Kat WCAS hi so I have a question from a viewer about cases in long-term care facilities they wanted to know why are these cases in deaths occurring and then spreading in healthcare facilities if the staff and residents are both following PPE requirements and other state requirements that are designed to prevent spread because I think they want to know where is a breakdown that's allowing the infection to spread once a staff member maybe brings it in and doesn't know it okay thanks for that question Kat that's an important one we learned a lot of important lessons from the early part of the pandemic with long-term care facilities and did very well with them for so many months until as I've said before the level of community level of virus increased these facilities do have obviously access to use of PPE but they do suffer from some common things together number one is their patients don't all have private rooms in fact the minority would have a private room another item is that the facilities often have so many patients in them not that they're overcrowded but just to their capacity that when it comes to cohorting patients and trying to isolate people out quickly early on when you're identifying cases that becomes very challenging for them I think another issue is they're always vulnerable to staffing issues and the minute staff begin to get COVID and other staff that they've been connected with have to quarantine they quickly run into staffing issues and it's been challenging for them to cohort both patients and staff at the same time in separate places and sometimes it's just the geographic arrangement of the facilities some of the ones that have patients separated by floors are able to contain outbreaks one floor and not another floor versus those that are more on one level and horizontally integrated where there's less of a division between one setting and another our health care outbreak prevention team has done yeoman's work working with all these facilities both in a preventive and preemptive strategy as well as in a outbreak response strategy and because we think it's so important they're actually meeting this week with members of the CDC who have guided us at previous junctures throughout the pandemic just to see if there's something else that we're not doing that we can do more effectively or have these facilities do more effectively so that's sort of where the status is right now but I think again it's that ability of the virus to come into the facility unbeknownst to anyone because they have no symptoms and maybe even multiple people at a time and then through some of the other staff or even the residents not having symptoms but having virus when you don't know it that's why we do these very rapid facility-wide testings of these places residents and staff but often once we've done that things have already happened so we're discovering some of the transmission as it's occurring in real time and I think that's the nature of what happens in these closed congregate facilities I do want to point out we have a lot of cases on the slide we show today and those were eight facilities not all of which are at the level of the skilled nursing facilities we have a 37 total in the state and over 200 of the aggregate types of long-term care facilities and this is not impacting every single one of them so the ones that are impacted it's very unfortunate and we feel terrible about the necessary illnesses, hospitalizations and sometimes loss of life but don't get the impression it's impacting every facility in the state because it certainly is not and so then it's not a question of do we need to have better types of PPE for them so that the virus if they have it doesn't get spread in the first place it's just a matter of these things kind of just happen I'm thinking like is there a better map for something that could be used or something like that I don't think it's the type or the access to PPE that's the issue as much as it does happen sometimes that might imply that there's been a breakdown in protocol but that's been very hard to identify when it comes to any of these facilities and you're often identifying something that may have happened two, three, four days prior and you really can't trace it to a specific person or a specific protocol or anything like that Thank you Lisa, the Valley Reporter Thank you for taking my call There's a very visible increase in testing availability in our community and other parts of Central Vermont including drive-up testing that we know need to register for testing opportunities for asymptomatic people who are all in the state guidelines but are they for asymptomatic and symptomatic people who socialize through another household or feel they may have been exposed I guess I'm wondering if there's not testing capacity or if you want students to get regularly tested or should these new testing opportunities be reserved for symptomatic people or those who are worried about exposure? Lisa, I'll let Dr. Levine answer more completely but from our standpoint our goal is to have testing available to anyone who wants it and whether they're asymptomatic obviously if they're symptomatic we'd rather not have them go to those testing platforms but we just wanted available for anyone who has questions where they've been who they've been with to have an opportunity to get tested so they know where they are at least that day so that's our goal and we've increased testing capacity dramatically as you noted throughout the state and we continue to try and build upon that so that we can get our case count back down to where it was at one point during the summer. Dr. Levine Yeah, very very comprehensive answer and the only thing I'll add is the word asymptomatic is important most of these are designed for that those who do have symptoms work usually through their health care system and their health care providers but if you've been to gatherings clearly that's a priority if you're a person who just is more social and tends to end up in gatherings of people periodically we're actually recommending that clinicians direct those individuals to get weekly testing because again we're trying to get at the people who have virus but don't have any symptoms may develop symptoms but are infectious without symptoms because that's really the power that this virus has over us in this country and in this world and that's how it can infect people so frequently so the more we can get a handle on that the better and if you are testing yourself without symptoms you are doing everyone else a lot of good especially in gatherings but even if you haven't if you have other reasons for the testing like you may have been in contact with someone with COVID or you may have performed some travel and need to and would like to test to get out of quarantine those are fine reasons but you're protecting somebody else when you get tested because if you have a positive test that allows others to know that they may also have come in contact with you and be potentially infectious so they can isolate themselves out as well okay thank you very much Craig the county courier good afternoon governor just for clarity take on that last question you mentioned that you wanted everybody to be able to get a test that wanted one but didn't notice that starting next week there's no testing center in Franklin County anymore and last but not least Franklin County's like County's impact is great what's the decision from that yeah I find that hard to believe I'm not doubting you but I would think we would have more testing facilities there and I believe we do maybe secretary Smith can you can you shed some light on this Franklin County yeah sure governor we we do have 18 testing centers up around the state that are seven days a week in most cases seven days a week we are you have testing capability at Northwestern we are going to be including additional testing in either next week or the week after in Franklin County I think there are two spots scheduled for Franklin County one being in Bridgeford the other one escapes me word is right now but I can get that information for you Greg and those will be coming up either next week or I think it's next week Greg I would appreciate that are these testing centers that you can sign up for on the state website you can sign up for on the state website if you have to go through a provider for that yeah these are ones you can do these are the on-demand testing sites that we're putting in to Franklin County okay appreciate that clarification governor you mentioned in the past that there's little to no evidence that there's been spread in restaurants in Vermont I've visited two restaurants in the last info day one in all of them where there were no other customers the two hours I was there dairy center in the first Sunday morning where you would expect that they would have to be taking reservation very quiet here on Saturday what kind of reassurance can you give Vermonters to help encourage them to patronize their favorite establishments to keep them going and kind of a second part that as your administration gives me work to prepare to present a budget to let this place here next month are you looking to do any programs that are going to help keep Vermont hospitality industry as well yeah I'll take this last part first as you know over the past nine months since we've been trying to allot the the stimulus money to different sectors we've highlighted the extreme position that the hospitality industry is under restaurants and lodging in particular that's why we committed the $150 million and stimulus money that's going out the door as we speak over the next couple of weeks and we specifically wanted to highlight the hospitality industry again in particular because we know they're under extreme duress and in terms of the behavior you know people and rightfully so are a bit timid in terms of getting out which we again encourage that you be aware of your surroundings what you're getting yourself into but we put into place guidelines for restaurants that are fairly strict 50% occupancy rate one household per table wearing a mask when you go in taking names making reservations so forth and so on so I acknowledge it's difficult but in these times under these circumstances it needs to be and hopefully when again we get to the other side we get to pass the holiday season and get into January then we'll see the case counts continue to go down the vaccines will be in place and we'll be able to start to distribute those and we'll get back to some sort of normalcy over time but we'll continue to focus on the hospitality sector with this next round hopefully there's going to be a next round and I'm fairly confident there will be if not in the next couple of weeks certainly in January or February but I believe that there will be a package that comes out of congress that will help and we will continue to do everything we can to help individuals for monitors and those who are unemployed at this point in time as well as the businesses so that are in dire straits some of them are right on the edge we've known that all along we continue to know that and we continue to do all we can to make sure that we keep them in survival mode so that when we come out of this they'll be able to thrive so we haven't taken our focus off from them quite the opposite we're doing everything we can to put towards those initiatives so in short you're pretty confident with the restrictions that you have that restaurants are safe to eat at and patronize? if you're following the guidelines we've found very little evidence that there is spread within restaurants under the guidance that we have in place knowing that it's strict we believe it's safe have you been to any restaurant personally again? I don't get out much Greg this pandemic has consumed my life from before light to well after light it's been 6-7 days a week I do take advantage every now and then of take out but again from my standpoint I just don't have the opportunity of the time to do this alright we're going to move to it would just be like if it's completely safe you definitely hear that the governor has gone out and patronize some of these businesses it's not for lack of confidence Greg it's for lack of opportunity and time I think you can imagine how much work is going on in front of everyone involved in the press conference today but also behind the scenes it's just constant so I just don't have the opportunity to go out. Greg we got to move that's 6 questions so we're going to move to Andrea from 7 days thank you healthcare workers and the residents staff of long-term care facilities are 1A groups for the vaccine distribution but it looks like long-term care facility residents and workers alone would be about 2 thirds of those initial shipments that we are expected to get and wouldn't I tell that what the plan is for sort of allocating those shipments proportionally as they come in who will forget those I'll let Dr. Levine answer that but keep in mind we'll get an initial shipment and then we're supposed to be continuing to receive shipments on a weekly basis so we may not get to some people the first week, the second week, the third week but we're do whatever we can to continue the process. Dr. Levine yeah so we don't have the exact allocation numbers of the 58-50 doses but portion will go to each of those groups that you mentioned knowing that over the 3 weeks to 4 weeks that follow that the same number of doses will come in and be apportioned appropriately as well we also don't know yet what the uptake of those will be I suspect in long-term care the uptake will be very high the healthcare workforce our hospitals have been formally and informally surveying their workforce and I would say 2 months ago it was a 50-50 split more recently it's in the 70 to over 80% range of people who said that when the vaccine arrived they would have that administered to themselves so those are the kinds of uncertainties we deal with but I'm really heartened by the fact that so many more are saying they would actually take the vaccine and I suspect that when this is expected to be given authorization which could happen by the end of this week people will have even more confidence after they get to see the data and understand the review process this went through kind of as far as that that initial sort of initial breakdowns you expected that would look something like 50-50 to sort of the long-term care for healthcare workers would that sort of depend on who's asking for it no no it's not who's asking for it so it is approximately 50-50 I don't have the exact numbers in front of me I think the fact of the matter is we do want to protect people who are currently susceptible to infection, hospitalization and dying in those facilities are clearly trying to prioritize that group and working with the pharmacies that are going to be administering those doses so it's at least 50% of the dosage going there okay great thank you Stuart, NBC 5 thanks Rebecca question I guess for Dr. Levine so we hear that the Pfizer vaccine is 94% effective with two doses but we also hear that it is 80% effective after one which would obviously double the number of people who could be vaccinated early on is it two or nothing do you have discretion or an opinion on this yeah the answer is I don't have discretion nor should my opinion weigh in because we're actually using the recommendations of expert guidance panels and the manufacturer themselves and the study results that you've pointed out some of the preliminary data that has become available the goal is really to have people feel confident that they've received the best opportunity to have an immune response that's robust now there's no measurement being done of people after the first dose after the second dose to see what impact it had and I wouldn't want people to sort of play around with it in a sense I'd rather we do it just the way we do other vaccines knowing that we're trying to achieve that 95 and hopefully higher percent efficacy for people's chance to do it then in fact getting back to the word discretion even if I did have discretion the government has taken that away from me because they're only releasing the doses for the first dose and holding back for the days that will elapse till the next dose is required and then shipping that in so they're kind of telling us right off the top of the bat don't use your discretion give everyone who should have it their first dose at this time and make sure that they come back for the second dose because that's when we're sending you the rest of it is it fair Dr. Levine to say that given the current degree of spread that you want for monitors to avoid all social gathering outside their own households at least through the rest of the holiday season that's what we're saying but we're reserving judgment because again not only do we say we want to be data driven we want to be data driven and the data isn't complete yet so I wouldn't want to tell people dogmatic we made the decision weeks ago that for the next five months you're not going to social gatherings that's not true we're really looking at it on a daily basis so I can't be more emphatic than that that we will reexamine the data and come to new decisions but obviously if we stay where we are right now we're going to probably not alter our stance alright thank you Andrew Caledonian record yes thank you good afternoon Governor you mentioned concerns specifically about Orleans County a little bit earlier and I see today's data reports Orleans with with the county's biggest increase in cases yet I know often there isn't enough information to comment on sourcing for current cases but are there any indicators of outbreaks or clusters there and will the state take any additional steps to help communities with comparatively high recent cases as was done earlier with Washington and Orange County what Dr. Levine comment first and then possibly Secretary Smith so you're referring to the most recent cases in the last 48 hours correct yeah 20 cases today and today's report for Orleans County which is the fifth of the days total across the state yes so you know the way contact tracing and case investigation work is those numbers come in overnight and so today we will actually have more light on what those cases mean and if they do relate to an outbreak or to situations as we called them within the county so I'll have to reserve judgment on that because that's what today will be all about is gathering that information but we'll know by the end of the day for the majority of those cases since our contact tracing workforce is pretty up to date on those initial case interviews I guess before Secretary Smith had been while I have you Dr. Levine I was curious about the texting initiative if there are going to be any provisions for verifying identities and numbers before that gets before those numbers are texted or is there a risk that people may inadvertently receive a wrong number text if you will and how quickly will people get a call following the text? So Secretary Smith can weigh in on that as well because the reason we haven't released it as of today is we're going through those final checks and balances and making sure that from a personal protection standpoint and legal standpoint everything is set before we actually make it operational I'll let him add to that though the phone call would come usually within the same day so it wouldn't be days later this is just a very early quick mechanism to connect with the person get them familiar with our website get them familiar with what they need to do about quarantine Thank you for the question there is a verification process that did play now could there be a situation where a text definitely went to the wrong person because of a change of phone or somebody's phone is enhanced somebody else that's a possibility but we're putting all the precautions in place to make sure that doesn't happen as we move forward on this we need to get the technology out there I believe in making sure that we contact people as quickly as possible and get them to quarantine I think the likelihood of the scenario that you talked about given the safeguards that we put in is very low but at the same time I'm not going to discount it as a non-possibility out there but as I said we put various safeguards in there to make sure through a verification process that that doesn't happen in terms of meeting with the community Dr. Levine and myself are very happy to meet with the communities of any county where we're seeing some situations where we need local involvement to get the word out we did that with Orange and Washington counties we'd be more than happy as soon as we can get the contact tracers and some information on Orleans and Essex County as well you may also have noticed that Essex County has been increasing its positivity rate primarily because of its proximity to the New Hampshire border which is also having its problems in northern New Hampshire so on both of those I think we A, we put the technology in place and put the safeguards in place but B we'll meet in Orleans and Essex depending on what the outcome is from the contact tracers okay thank you for that quick follow up on the text the sourcing of those phone numbers that's literally just the person who is a positive is sharing their contact list from their cell phone they're submitting the phone numbers for the contact tracers that's correct they are submitting or we will find it through a different way sorry just Dr. Levine or Secretary Smith maybe you could clarify is that what the process is currently when you're getting the contacts from a positive case for the contact tracing process exactly all right we will move to Erin at BT Digger can you hear me? I think you're reporting that several states are having issues from the federal government side with IT and for being the delivery of the vaccine has for my experience any of those problems? being that hasn't even been approved yet we haven't experienced any of those problems at this point Commissioner Scherling or Secretary Smith is there anything you've heard from on your side that would give you give you a pause Governor this is go ahead sorry I'll do a brief one then hand it over to the Secretary the vaccine depot that's been set up in Vermont did an exercise with the federal government checking on the ability to order and virtually receive and distribute the vaccine and that went well no reports have come in through the FDOT of issues that were aware of turn it to Secretary Smith I'm going to basically say the same thing that Commissioner Scherling said that we're building a lot of stuff as we go along here to be in compliance with reporting requirements from the CDC and other federal government requirements but so far I have not heard of any sort of hiccups along the way in terms of our IT gateways I guess we'll call them okay thank you I was so I'm curious you mentioned that the state is providing help with getting them access to testing what about access to other things like TPE and staffing to fill gas and staffing needs Secretary Smith sure a couple of things we're making sure through the FEOC that they do have the required PPE that they need as you know we built up our PPE inventory during the times when we had low case counts and now we're using it in those long term care facilities so we have PPE to supply to those long term care facilities if they need it and any time that they've asked for we have delivered those PPE by the way the response teams will often ask those questions to the long term care facilities when they have an outbreak in their facility what types of things do they need and how can we help in terms of staffing there's several things that we do one is that the commissioner of the department of aging and independent living Monica spent a lot of time on the phone making sure they have the appropriate staffing and talking with other people whether it's UBMMC or other facilities to make sure that staffing that their staffing needs are met there is a period in time and Dr. Levine had to mention this about 24 to 48 hours when a facility first has its outbreak that the staffing needs are most most compromised is one of the ways that Monica the commissioner has been working with them to get staffing in there there's also we're also developing and probably announcing next week we're also developing a pool of reserve staffing to come into long term care facilities that will be on standby for these situations if they arise in the future so we'll have that pool as well because there's two areas as I said the 24 to 48 hours and then in an outbreak where they are seeing death in there in their facility that those last hours do take a lot of staffing in their facility so we're gonna we're gonna do that and hopefully we'll help with those long term care facilities and their staffing needs and that pool for there's not gonna be nurses like qualified nurses there's another general lack of shortage of nurses in the state there would be a combination of nursing nurses both RN and other types of nurses plus nursing assistants so there would be a combination of those two depending on what the facility would need okay thank you and Rebecca here one additional layer of detailed add around PPE and long term care facilities what happens is if they have an issue with their supply line they're able to order a 14 day supply medical countermeasures warehouse that 14 day supply is based on the amount that they have in stock at the time they make the order and their projected burn rate and then taking into consideration to potentially add to the stock that's spent to them in that 14 days is whether they have COVID positive staff or residents active at that point so that assessment is made and then the shipment is done is that an effort to operate and launch our care facilities affecting like our overall burn rate in the state I would say they are affecting the burn rate because the more cases you have the more the larger that burn rate becomes but the stability of the stock is remaining stable so we haven't seen decreases in the states I shouldn't be clear in the state's emergency countermeasures stock at this stage Tim Vermont Business Magazine Hi Governor, perhaps you've seen a report about the Vermont State Colleges and if I'm getting into the weeds too much one of the recommendations was that you need to be more assertive in keeping these colleges with full physical closures to talk about the solidities you all know and yet one of the other big recommendations is consolidating the administration not shattering the colleges but having one administration overseeing all of it to save some money and I'm wondering what your thoughts are on that as far as me personally getting more assertive I don't think there has been anyone else who has been more assertive than I have over the last four years in trying to promote more dollars to our state colleges I've already done that in terms of the future we are in a bit of a holding pattern as you know we don't know what the stimulus is going to look like our coffers aren't exactly full here in Vermont we're going to have to make a lot of decisions about what between want and need and if the legislature and myself agree in terms of providing resources to our state colleges it's going to have to come from somewhere it's not a endless supply of dollars here in Vermont and we're going to have to make some very very tough decisions so if we invest in one area it has to come out of another area so there isn't just this magical stockpile of money that we have available I will say again a lot of this is predicated on what Washington does in terms of stimulus and so forth so that's the great unknown we know what we have coming in we don't know what will be provided and what the terms will be so again we'll get into this this is something the legislature has an interest in we have an interest in and we'll try and work the details out over the next couple of months but I'm not here prepared to talk about what I'm going to do or what the legislature is going to do because I don't think anyone knows really at this point I am continuing to look for a plan from the state colleges that was part of the agreement as we when we provided the 20 I think additional 22 million dollars to them that they have a plan for the future in terms of becoming more solvent so I look forward to that plan I know they're probably still working on it and we'll work through that in debate with the legislature so just for clarity you don't have an opinion right now with a consolidated administration no no I think that's all suggestions by this group that was formed and I know the legislature again has an interest in this we have an interest in this and we will have that debate over the next couple of months great thanks Liam, VPR I just wanted to follow up on some of the questions that have been about staffing at these long term care facilities and I know the secretary was just talking about a plan to create a pool for helping staffing out at facilities that might have an outbreak but I'm kind of curious about how if the state is concerned about staffing levels at any of these facilities experiencing outbreaks Elderwood at Burlington has 66 new more cases from last week St. Alvin's Health and Rehab has 22 more for Land Health has 16 more and I imagine that a number of those are among staff members so is the state concerned about staffing levels at any of those places and if so what's being done about that yeah we're always concerned about staffing we were concerned about staffing issues long before the pandemic we had the shortage of workers here in the state of Vermont so that's ongoing and it's been exacerbated by the pandemic so we've had some challenges early on if you remember Burlington Health and Rehab at a situation we were fortunate the UVM Medical Center came to our aid in a short time, stepped up to help in this time of need so we're looking at all avenues and trying to provide for the long-term care facilities and taking care of the most vulnerable and we'll continue to do so and this reserve capacity is something that we want to put together so that we have resources when needed but Secretary Smith do you want to add more to that staffing as the governor has said and we continually to monitor those needs I think Commissioner Hutt was on the phone most of the night of Thanksgiving and continues to be on the phone just about every night just making sure that their staff there has been there has been communications with the University of Vermont Medical Center to help out in some of the staffing needs at Elderwood as well as some other places that have come to the aid of Elderwood as well as you noted when we have a outbreak in those facilities it stretches and stresses staff in those facilities then we spend the commissioner spends most of the day making sure that those facilities are well staffed and that's what she's doing today as well with Elderwood and so can you tell me how many folks are being sent to help out at Elderwood it sounds like that is the one that is experiencing the worst and just from the numbers it's experiencing the worst situation right now I don't have those numbers but I will get those numbers for you okay thank you and I want that Joe Barton Chronicle Joe go ahead hey Joe you're going to have to start over if we didn't get any of that on Friday I asked Secretary Smith about where things stand with getting out there about things in places like Orleans County he said he didn't know at the time but he got back to me on wondering whether he knows more now I think we got part of that Joe Secretary Smith do you know yeah I think Joe and if I get this wrong let me know I think you mentioned hubs childcare hubs last time we had talked and I said I would follow up on that which I have the childcare hubs as you remember we we stood up in like a few weeks a major number of childcare hubs and we stood them up based upon the need at the time on who was going to be remote and who was going to be in classrooms obviously got priority during those times as we said in the beginning we used coronavirus relief funds in order to do that those funds are running out at the end of this month so we're going to have to look at a different mechanism I think for the area that you talked about primarily because we don't have the funding for that actually we're in the midst of shutting down in those homes given the fact that they were the time that they were useful has since passed now with that said we do have capacity in our regular childcare program and it's matching that capacity with your needs up there and we're looking at that right now Joe thank you I had a question I guess for Dr. Boudine and the question is at what point will you begin to have a sense that the vaccine is actually working once you begin to administer it in the community a very challenging question Joe so everyone agrees that we can achieve what's called herd immunity or community immunity which is somewhere between 60 and 80% of the population being vaccinated since we don't have such a high percent of the population who already have seen the virus and been ill from it or not even from it but contacted with it so that's not going to happen probably till most ambitious and optimistic program would be late spring to see that level in the community I will say one thing though and this is important and there's been a lot written on this recently people talk about the vaccine preventing people from getting ill which is what it's designed to do but then they also talk about the vaccine being designed to prevent transmission of the virus from one person to another and not so clearly worked out yet if that's going to be impacted by having a vaccine when you get a shot for a vaccine it causes your body to produce antibodies to the in this case the viral antigen the spike protein that's in your bloodstream so once the vaccine enters passages usually and other mucus membranes once it's getting into your bloodstream it's going to be counteracted by those antibodies what is less clear is how about at the level of the nose itself so will the virus still be able to replicate itself and get to higher levels in people's nasal mucosa and they will still be capable of transmitting it to others even though they will fight it off in their bloodstream we don't know that answer right now so what's being recommended is that everybody continue to do all the things we do with the masking and the physical distancing and avoiding crowds etc so that that kind of transmission can't occur during this period of time when more and more people are getting vaccinated but one thing that we should be hopeful of I believe we still may be the best state with regard to numbers of cases and percent positivity we're certainly in that top group if we're not the best and if we can continue as we're going and even better and suppress the level of virus in our communities to levels like we saw months and months ago we will have a quicker response from vaccinating our population and the population will achieve that immunity quicker and I guess the end result that it would translate to would be returning to a more of a semblance of normality within the state of Vermont quicker than in other places so I just hold that out to you as a possibility if we can really keep getting a handle on things here get people to take the vaccine at the rates that we expect we'll see where we are in earlier late spring Lisa, the Waterbury Roundabout Good afternoon Dr. Levine that was a great lead-in to the question that I wanted to ask about kind of the practical rollout of the vaccine by an individual and that you have a good handle yet on how long it will take from the time that someone gets the vaccine is actually starting to be effective for that individual and I've seen some reporting about how there's some expectation of side-effects I don't know if that's with all the vaccines or certain versions of it are you expecting there to be many people that will be displaying side-effects of that and what that might look like especially if the healthcare workers are some of the first people getting it will it look like they're getting COVID or they may just be reacting to that? Okay, thank you for those questions so first of all when people get the vaccine the side-effects that are being reported tend to be fatigue maybe a transient low-grade fever ejection site discomfort things of that sort not necessarily the whole constellation of symptoms that characterize what we now call COVID-19 so I would not expect people to have any kind of prolonged symptoms that might make them think they're coming down with COVID itself but they may have these other milder symptoms that will still be noticeable to them hopefully for only a 24-hour period the rate of and we only know this really for the one vaccine the Pfizer one so it's going to be potentially different for every vaccine and we're just going to have to learn that data and understand it better but the rate of significant reactions is very far below 1% perhaps lower than 0.5% and that kind of stuff we'll know more about after the panel reviews it and potentially authorizes its use so there's that part of your question the first dose the interval between the first dose and the second dose is going to vary by the vaccine it could be 2 weeks it could be 21 days it could be a month and that's going to be vaccine dependent but if we accept the thesis that we discussed earlier in the press conference that you really need the second dose to achieve that level of effectiveness that everybody would want to have that's going to be a minimum of 4 weeks and 4 weeks is probably generous it's probably going to be more like 6 to 12 weeks before we would really want people to feel confident that they've gotten both doses and they're getting the immune response in their body that we would want them to have to fight off this infection so that's why we're telling people that this whole business of having to wear your masks and do everything else is going to continue during the time we're vaccinating people and it's again potentially because of that ability to transmit the virus through the nasal secretions through talking coughing etc early on in the course even though the person isn't going to get very ill from that in the long term and that's why if we can suppress the virus to very low levels in the state then people would have to worry about the fact that they might have it in their nose because there won't be that much virus around very helpful explanation one other question I'd like to ask is if there were any other updated tests and healthcare workers I'd asked for that a couple weeks ago and I've gotten a bunch of messages from people from Central Vermont Hospital and UMEA Medical Center that they're concerned about so bad that they aren't being tested unless they have symptoms since we're so close to the vaccine at this point is the plan to just go full steam ahead with vaccinating healthcare workers rather than trying to roll out a testing program for them? No, these two things would go in parallel I'd hate to say we have so much faith in the vaccine and in having enough vaccine over a rapid period of time that we would abandon any other strategy so testing of healthcare workers is important I want to just make a point about that though when we talk about testing healthcare workers yes it is to protect the public and protect the facilities but frankly that's not really the problem because as you know if you don't know we're not having abundant cases in healthcare facilities transmitted to people who are patients of those facilities or visiting without patients we may have a staff member here a staff member there most of those people in hospital settings unless they have a desk job administratively are wearing their N95 masks and other PPE so we're not as worried about transmission within the facility even though this will of course help to have a testing strategy but we're also equally concerned about having an important population of people who are like other Vermonters in most ways that they happen to work in healthcare and so that will be a good surveillance strategy much like we're doing in correctional facilities with teachers etc so that's why we will do those hand in hand the vaccination strategy and the testing strategy thank you very much for your answer we're closing in on one o'clock and we still have three folks left in the queue Guy Page, Chronicle, the Vermont State House Governor Sanunu in New Hampshire wants to help the trouble hospitality industry there by cutting the rooms and meals tax which is now 9% same as Vermont would you recommend our legislature reduce the rooms and meals tax to first not lose business to New Hampshire and also to help our own struggling restaurants and hotels then we're taking a different approach here we have committed a good deal of money millions and millions of dollars to our struggling businesses those in hospitality I talked about it earlier in the press conference and we'll continue to do so so when we receive money we know that there's dire need and they and some of them are on the brinks of bankruptcy so we will continue to do what we can with that those dollars I don't think in one sense so eliminating the rooms and meals isn't going to help them specifically I don't believe unless I don't even know what the strategy is of Governor Sanunu's whether he's just allowing them to keep the rooms and meals tax is that what he's doing I believe he's reducing it so I guess I'm not really sure how that helps the restauranteurs in particular okay thank you also could you please or the commissioner please explain the thinking behind prioritizing vaccination of at-risk health care providers over the at-risk health care recipients such as nursing home residents I think we're all in one grouping and we're hoping that we can help both I understood the commissioner to say that this week the first battery would all go to healthcare providers was I mistaken in that one yeah no I think it's split 50-50 guy thank you also the checks number 8-6-9-1-1 8-6 is police radio code for fatality and 9-1-1 is the emergency number is there a subliminal or maybe not some subliminal message in selecting these numbers for the checks I have no idea yeah someone has to come up with it I don't know we'll look into that and get back to you okay thank you Steve any KTV hello can you hear me great thanks Rebecca I had a question for Mike Sherling and one for the good doctor if I may Commissioner Sherling we had a a shootout here up in Newport last week and I know people who witnessed it personally and I guess one of the statements from these gentlemen who were involved in the shootout said they came to Vermont to make some money I'm not sure if it was like roofing, siding, maybe post-foliage tours but but where is the drug task force if stuff like this if we could monitor cell phone data for people entering the state and what not can't we monitor like repeat visitors or people who cross the broader frequently but is the drug task force doing with other folks and enforcement agencies and say Connecticut where these guys were from we take them in reverse order the drug task force in conjunction with the DEA local accounting law enforcement are in constant communication with law enforcement organizations around New England and beyond on complex drug investigations regarding tracking people crossing border I think it's important for listeners to know that the tracking that's done or the statistics are able to provide about cross-border travel relative to the pandemic are not based on individual identifying information they're aggregated data about just general cross-border traffic you would need some kind of core order in order to track individuals yeah but folks didn't adhere to our quarantine stuff and if they're like known bad actors or have prior records wouldn't that enable us to maybe get such core orders or warrants to maybe follow some of these fine folks I'm not familiar with this case specifically but the threshold for a core order or search warrant to get that kind of information is facts and circumstances that lead a reasonable and prudent person to believe the crime has been committed and the evidence of that crime will be found in the place to be searched so there's a pretty high bar that you have to make a direct nexus to the tracking law being evidence of the crime it's a fairly robust legal standard I also believe Steve I believe that has to be volunteered they can't just take your data cell phone data you have to volunteer to be part of that program I believe that's what Commissioner Pichak has told us yeah so it's mostly after the fact they have to commit a crime first in order to get the warrant to do anything yeah that's the way it's supposed to work here okay and for the doctor again with this PCR thing I've had a multitude of information ahead of my way from different folks and it seems to be the law of exponentials here and I guess from what I understand you know if the use of PCR cycle of 40 it equals a trillion where if you use a one of 20 it equals a million and there's no infectious virus found in any samples over 30 with lab cultures and even Dr. Fauci said that anything over 30 is meaningless and every single study in journal states that the method because it's not really a test doesn't ID infectious virus that only a lab culture does you mentioned that you were meeting with the CGC folks is were you discussing like some kind of standard so that I mean maybe a cycle threshold of 30 be adopted as a standard so that we're not again catching minnows and detecting them as whales these are all good questions and they do beg some standardization don't they which doesn't really exist right now I don't think Dr. Fauci cut it off at 30 I think it was in the low to mid 30s but still what you're asking is should there be a cut off limit and the answer is probably yes and it's probably because the pandemic has been evolving rapidly that has not happened the whole issue for those who are wondering what we're talking about is just trying to determine if someone who tests positive is actually testing positive because they have infectious virus in their secretions and that would mean a lot more than if they just had fragments of virus that actually weren't going to harm anybody including themselves or they were a residual of a previous infection or just a very sensitive test so we don't really have the answers to that because we don't use cultures for anybody that's a pretty cumbersome and time-consuming and expensive process and that's why we have to use the test that we have so until that's resolved which will be much more resolved in the scientific world I don't have a good firm answer but I do think it is something the CDC should be thinking about more and it's not something we've been meeting with them on we have enough other issues but could certainly raise that as one of them so how many cycles are being currently used by the different labs that the state is contracting with so we don't know all of them because there are so many of them and each one of the labs has multiple platforms so they won't just have one test that they can give you the cycle threshold to be multiple so there is a whole spectrum and I will say though that this kept us in good stead because we've been let's say we're over identifying as the risk that we were taking it's not really hindered our ability to manage the pandemic and to appropriately isolate and quarantine and make sure that Vermonters are safe I'd feel much worse on the opposite end where we weren't actually detecting enough and perhaps people were more susceptible because of that so I'd rather err on this side than the other side but I do agree with you that more standardization in the field at large would be helpful Rebecca's indicating to me that we need to finish our final questioner so we can end the press conference but thanks for your question alright thank you thank you we're going to move to Avery at WCAX alright Governor Scott conference is not it's no money comes from congress or very little for a stimulus plan what does Vermont plan to do is there any discussion about cutting program well again we're right in the middle of our fiscal year we just passed the bill back in September so we have the resources to get through to the end of June of 21 so we're not in dire straits at this point in time we do have reserves and capacity there that we have not touched so there are other mechanisms that we can move forward with but if you're speaking about 22 I'll be presenting a budget to the legislature in January that that will deal with what we have right now whatever it is whether we have the stimulus package or we don't we'll provide a balanced budget to the legislature for their consideration thank you very much and we'll see you on Friday