 Good afternoon everyone. I hope you had a chance to enjoy the long weekend. As you know, last month I announced we were moving forward with a vaccine requirement for state employees in certain areas, like corrections, the vet's home and the state psychiatric hospital, which went into effect on September 1. At last week's press conference, I said we were beginning discussions on expanding the policy to more state employees. We have now notified the state employees union that effective September 15th, all state of Vermont executive branch employees will be required to attest they are vaccinated or be subject to at least weekly testing and mandatory masking at work. As I've said, we want as many people as possible to get the vaccine because we know they work and we feel it's the best way to put this pandemic behind us and I continue to urge other employers to follow suit. Next, as you know, in early September, my administration issued an advisory memo urging schools to mandate masks at the beginning of the school year for all students, regardless of age and vaccination status. Despite what you might have heard, we have achieved a near universal mandate with only one small school not following our guidance to institute a mask requirement. Let me repeat that because some seem to be missing it. By encouraging schools to implement the state's recommendations, we've essentially achieved a universal masking requirement in schools without a state of emergency. Now we did offer an exception after this initial period with a goal of incentivizing vaccinations, which is that once 80% of a school's eligible students have been fully vaccinated, we recommend the schools lift the mask mandate for those over the age of 12. It's important to remember this is only for students over 12 where that group is 80% fully vaccinated. Our guidance to school has always been that all those ineligible for the vaccine continue to wear masks until they become eligible. This transition was originally supposed to occur after the first 10 school days, but today we're updating our advisory memo asking schools to maintain the universal masking requirement regardless of vaccination status until October 4. We hope by then the delta wave that has impacted the entire country, though fortunately not anywhere near as severe in Vermont, will have begun to subside. Secretary French who foreshadowed this change with superintendents last week will go into more details in a few moments. We also wanted to make you aware of a school vaccine incentive program we've been working on. I've directed the Agency of Education to reserve two million in grant dollars for schools who achieve high vaccination rates. There will be benchmarks with corresponding awards as the school reaches higher percentages. Funds will be awarded to schools when they reach these thresholds and submit grant requests with input from students. Again, Secretary French we're going to further detail, but we're hoping to emphasize just how important it is to be vaccinated because it remains the single best tool we have to move from pandemic to endemic. Now I'm sure some are wondering whether vaccines make a difference because you've been reading so much about the small percentage of breakthrough cases, but before you arrive at that conclusion it's important to look at Vermont's data. As we've learned the vaccines were designed first and foremost to limit severe illness. While we hoped they would nearly eliminate cases that's not really how vaccines work and the goal is to limit the number of people who are hospitalized or lose their life once vaccinated and they're doing just that. As the entire globe has been hit by Delta, Vermont with the nation's most fully vaccinated population also has the lowest hospitalization rate and that's no coincidence. In short, vaccines continue to save lives. They allow us to do things we had to leave behind in 2020 and there are best path forward to put this pandemic behind us. What we also have to acknowledge is that COVID isn't the only virus taking hold right now. With the Delta wave has come a wave of divisiveness and anger, a resurgence of polarization that just started to subside earlier this summer. If we're truly going to move forward we've got to reflect on the language we use. The fear and anger these words might stoke and the wounds were deepening. This is the time to rally and pull together because COVID-19 is not going away and we must not let it tear us apart especially as the risks are being significantly reduced through vaccines. We've already gotten through the hardest part of the pandemic and we did it together. Let's rise to that challenge once again because we're beating this virus and with that I'll turn it over to Commissioner Pechek for the modeling update. Thank you very much Governor and good afternoon everybody. Starting first with the view from the national picture we want to start off by mentioning that of course Labor Day might result in some data anomalies nationally, regionally and potentially here in Vermont as fewer people potentially went and got tested. Testing turnaround times maybe were slowed and also state reporting may have been delayed from their usual timeline. So those are all things to keep in mind as was behavior people potentially gathering and you know interacting with each other could always lead to additional cases down the road so those are things that we have to be mindful of but with those things in mind taking a look at the data even before the Labor Day holiday you could see that the national case rate was starting to bend down that the average was slowing and even starting to decrease. The Labor Day holiday resulted in some anomalies there but still over this period of time down about 8.4 percent but if we go to the next slide you'll see this is hospitalizations nationally and the hospitalizations don't really or not really impacted by those kind of testing timing anomalies that we just mentioned about cases. Here the national picture does show that hospitalizations are not just slowing down but starting to decrease over the last three or four days of course we'll want to keep a close eye on this. Some parts of the country improving more quickly than others but certainly overall a good sign. Coming back home to the region you'll see that we did also have some data anomalies here when we look at the states that report around us. A couple of states did not report yesterday however the majority of them did and they backdated their cases throughout the weekend. So this is a somewhat relevant picture of what's going on in the northeast. Again the cases are down about 7.6 percent compared to last week but again take that with a bit of caution and a grain of salt as we wait to see the impacts both of reporting and behavior from Labor Day. So looking at Vermont we wanted to start off with the case numbers or sorry the the testing numbers actually over the last few weeks. You can see that our testing numbers were actually relatively stable throughout the Labor Day weekend. Our case numbers were also reported on the appropriate days so we don't necessarily have those you know testing decreases or those reporting delays that some of the areas around us have which makes us a little bit more confident in our data but again still the same caveats apply. When looking at the Vermont seven day average you can see over the last five days that seven day average has ticked down. Again we view that as a bit of good news but we want to be cautious about what those trends mean over the next week. Similarly looking at the next slide this is another bit of optimistic news in particular regarding Chittenden County which saw a pretty considerable spike up in cases through the Delta Wave then saw a plateau for a couple of weeks and now finally has started to see the cases come down. So our most populous county with the highest case load has started to see their cases drop which is certainly an optimistic sign. You can see it's down 34 percent since August 14th. Similarly Washington County which had a couple of outbreaks that will detail in a minute saw its cases rise throughout this Delta Wave as well and again another bit of good news over the last seven days or so those cases started to peak and plateau and come down as well down 24 percent through August 30th. When you look at the other counties nothing too remarkable at the moment in terms of a county that might see accelerated case growth but something that will want to keep a close eye on like I said over the next week. Mentioning Washington County and why we saw that pretty significant rise in cases over the last three or four weeks there are a couple of outbreaks in particular that helped fuel that case growth. I think both of these are known to the public but again wanting to provide a little bit of detail and then Dr. Levine will also provide some lessons learned from these outbreaks and some guidance and recommendations that individuals can make as well. So the first was a summer camp in Washington County that started on August 2nd so just about a month ago resulted in a small number of cases but it ultimately grew to 38 cases. This was a situation again where there was a mixture of vaccinated unvaccinated people a lot of younger people that weren't yet eligible to be vaccinated an opportunity for those that were not yet vaccinated to be inside with each other without masks. So those are some of the circumstances again Dr. Levine will go into more detail. The initial the wedding outbreak as well was a more recent situation but a wedding outbreak in Washington County again starting on August 26th with a handful of cases. Similarly an event that was indoors and outdoors limited masking and a mixture of people that were vaccinated and unvaccinated and that situation has evolved into at least 65 cases as of yesterday. So again just a couple of situations that really can balloon a particular county and community. Again we'll have some guidance and recommendations on things that lessons learned from those events and ways to avoid and help navigate in the future. So looking at the case rates we saw that the the overall rate was coming down a bit. You can see that represented here as well where the unvaccinated case rate has dropped just a bit but is still significantly higher than the fully vaccinated case rate which has been pretty much flat for the last few days. Similarly looking at those rates regarding hospitalization you can see again during this entire delta wave six times more likely to end up being hospitalized if you are not fully vaccinated. The vaccinated number of people that have ended up in the hospital is relatively stable as you can see and that difference between the two quite significant. Turning to higher education things have been pretty quiet on college campuses fortunately to start the semester. You can see last week there were 37 cases on campus this week 36 cases and the vaccination percentages continue to climb. Now 93.8 percent of students on campus vaccinated with just about two percent having an exemption and the remainder waiting to be vaccinated or getting confirmed in terms of their vaccination status. In the long-term care facility similarly a stable week relating compared to last week 101 cases relating to outbreaks down just a little bit from last week and the same number of open active outbreaks as last week was seven. So again looking at Vermont compared to some of the other places around the country with different vaccination rates you see we still stand out very well. Our case rate our hospitalization rate and our fatality rates doing quite well compared to even those other regions of the country that are highly vaccinated and then you know what all of that means in terms of the case growth and the projections and the trends you know we are pretty much following the model from last week the CDC ensemble model. Like we said there's a lot of things you can point to in the data that show signs of optimism but there's equally things you can point to that show signs of caution. So while we'll take those optimistic items we do want to not rely on them too heavily and watch the data very closely as this week in particular unfolds. Lastly looking at vaccination you can see that 2500 and 26 new Vermonters started vaccination this week that brings our eligible started up to 86.6 percent. You will see on the next slide that the vaccination rate has come down a little bit this is the second week in a row where the average has dropped down about 6.8 percent compared to last week. Still elevated compared to the start of the Delta wave but down a bit. And then lastly on the vaccine scorecard you can see Vermont number one in five of the six categories that we have here but the one category percent of eligible Vermont now ranks third but again number one in all of the other categories and in particular those that are fully vaccinated which we know is the most critical with the Delta wave providing the most protection. So with that I will turn this now over to Secretary French. Thank you Commissioner Pichek good afternoon. Our schools are open now and we continue to be challenged by the higher transmissibility of the Delta variant. This is quite a bit of that virus there is quite a bit of virus activity in our community so we should not be surprised to see it show up in our schools as well. Based on an understanding of the current amount of community spread we will be making a change to our masking recommendations as the governor mentioned. Previously we recommended schools require masks for all students and staff for the first 10 days of school and this recommendation had been adopted by almost all schools in the state. Our recommendation allowed schools to consider not requiring masks for eligible students and staff after the first 10 days when the student vaccination rate of the school had reached 80 percent. We will be issuing a revised recommendation that delays this timeline until October 4th. We will continue to recommend masks be required for all ineligible students including those under the age of 12. We think it is prudent to require masks for all students and staff through the month of September until we have a better understanding of where the virus is heading. We will continue to adjust our recommendations based on conditions for the virus in our schools and our communities. We get information on the conditions for the virus not only from the data that is summarized by Commissioner Pichek on a weekly basis at these press briefings but also in real time from the surveillance testing and contact tracing processes in our schools. Surveillance testing in schools is now ramping up but we have a good understanding of the conditions in our schools through the contact tracing process. On a daily basis we've been seeing about an average of 12 situations being reported in schools that are then evaluated through the contact tracing process. These situations are not confined to any specific geographic region of the state. This amount of activity has put a lot of work on local school officials and our team at the health department. Schools have experienced with doing contact tracing from last year. We have been meeting to review the contact tracing process for schools to make it more manageable. Contact tracing has proven to be an effective strategy for us in managing the spread of the virus in our communities and for minimizing disruption of the education of our students. We intend to publish recommendations on how to improve the contact tracing process for schools soon. In particular we want to leverage vaccination status to minimize the need for quarantine. Under CDC and Vermont guidelines vaccinated individuals who are asymptomatic are by definition not close contacts. Vaccination is the game changer for schools this year not only in terms of required mitigation strategies but also for the contact tracing process. We are reviewing all aspects of the contact tracing process based on the feedback from schools and our team at the health department with our goal of making the process more efficient and responsive. In particular we are working to revise our process so schools have access to the vaccination status of students as quickly as possible. Vaccination will not only keep us protected from COVID-19 it will also simplify the contact tracing process by reducing the number of students and staff that will be quarantining and identified as close contacts. This in turn will reduce the number amount of time that students are out of school. In short vaccination will not only ensure our health but also ensure the education of our students will not be interrupted. Our students cannot afford to have another year of a disrupted educational experience. To encourage students to get vaccinated we will be announcing a vaccination incentive program for schools in the coming weeks. Under this program we will utilize federal grant funds to encourage student vaccination rates of 80 percent and above in each school. We are still finalizing the specifics of this program but the program will provide incentive grants to schools based on their student vaccination rate and involve students in deciding how these grant funds will be spent. We expect the grant program to launch in October and our goal is to encourage a strong uptake in student vaccination prior to the winter months when many school activities will move fully indoors. That concludes my update. I'll now turn it over to Secretary Smith. Thank you Secretary French. Good afternoon everyone. Before I cover the vaccination sites available this week I want to touch on a couple of topics. First, we know that the demand for COVID testing has increased as Commissioner Pichek has pointed out as we've moved through the summer and into the fall. We've begun hearing that at some testing sites that those who walk in without an appointment often end up waiting longer than was the case in the past. As a result we're encouraging people to make an appointment if you're going in for a test. We still have a very strong testing infrastructure in place throughout the state and I just want to make sure that people don't have to wait for tests. It's easy to make an appointment online at healthfermont.gov slash COVID-19 slash testing. Please consider making appointment before you go in for a test. We're also working very closely with school districts to get surveillance testing in place at as many schools as we can. Over the next two weeks we expect to have 67 schools from 23 supervisory unions with the ability to run surveillance testing with more expected to come on board before the end of the month. In addition, we're actively planning for the rollout of booster doses once the federal government authorizes them. Our plan subject to the terms of the federal approval is that eligibility will come in the order people were originally vaccinated which means those first eligible to get booster doses will be healthcare workers and those who work and live in long-term care facilities. We've already spoken with two-thirds of all long-term care facilities in the state to ensure that planning is underway for boosters. This outreach will continue talking specifically about skilled nursing facilities. We have reached all but three. Those we have reached have plans in place for boosters or are working on a plan in conjunction with pharmacies. After this first group we'll turn to providing booster doses to the general population. At that point Vermonters should expect to start hearing about larger vaccination sites which can process greater numbers of people efficiently so that we can meet the demand. When we get to this phase you will need to make an appointment to get boosters at these larger sites. Just to be clear we are not currently taking appointments for booster shots for the general public because the federal government has not yet approved boosters and our plan is to start with healthcare workers and long-term care facilities first. Of course if you have a condition that compromises your immune system you can get an additional dose of the vaccine right now. Please talk to your healthcare provider or go to healthverman.gov slash COVID-19 slash vaccine to see the list of conditions that will make you eligible for an additional dose and where you can get vaccinated. Turning to vaccination rates as Commissioner Picek had mentioned as of today 86.6% of eligible Vermonters have received at least one dose of the vaccine. That means 77.4% of all eligible Vermonters are fully vaccinated. You can walk in and get vaccinated at most local pharmacies. You can also visit pharmacy locations at community health centers of Burlington Northwestern Medical Center and Southwestern Vermont Medical Center. In addition to those options here are the pop-up and school-based clinics for this week. Today the Barton Fairgrounds in Barton, 1311 Berry Montpelier Road here in Berlin, Waterbury Ambulance in Waterbury Center, Colchester Middle School in Colchester, Mount Mansfield Union High School in Jericho and Twin Valley Middle and High School in Whitingham. Tomorrow September 9th again at the Barton Fairground and matter of fact most of the week at the Barton Fairground. Berattable Retreat, the Essex High School, Rutland High School and the Waterbury Farmers Market Friday September 10th again at the Barton Fairground, 1311 Berry Montpelier Road, the Newport Waterfront Plaza, the Waterbury Ambulance and Waterbury Center, the Hartford Block Party in Hartford, Bellas Falls Union High School in Westminster, Mt. Abe, Mt. Abraham Union High School in Bristol, the Vermont Academy at Saxon River and on Saturday September 11th again at the Fairgrounds in Barton, the Taste of Montpelier Food Festival here in downtown Montpelier, the Waterbury Arts Festival in Waterbury and on Sunday September 12th again the Barton Fairground in Barton, Hyde Park Municipal Office in Hyde Park. If you aren't yet vaccinated against COVID-19 please get vaccinated. It's easy and it's free. Again, I do want to note that in the coming weeks these pop-ups will be scaled back as larger clinic sites are reintroduced for vaccinations and boosters. You can find information about these vaccination sites that I just mentioned at the website healthfermont.gov slash my vaccine. I'm about to turn this over to Dr. Levine but I want to mention one last thing. Clearly in different areas of the country we've seen very different responses to this pandemic. I don't think anyone would deny that. Here in Vermont, Vermonters have come together and supported one another through this pandemic but we owe it to ourselves in Vermont to remain united together in facing this challenge and not fracture as has happened in other states where as a result their pandemic response has suffered. Vermonters' response to the pandemic is something we can all be proud of. I know I am and as a result we're leading the nation in our pandemic response. We just need to remain united and on that note I'll turn it over to Dr. Levine for a health update. Thank you and on that note I'll pick up on a similar theme acknowledging the unique stage of the pandemic that we're in right now. Throughout this pandemic we've all been presented with various points of view related to restrictions, guidance, behavior, perspectives and opinions we've wrestled with and considered as we sought to protect Vermonters from the worst effects of COVID-19 but the challenges of the Delta surge has rekindled and intensified a new level of passion and at times divisiveness. Nearly two years in since the first reported case in China Vermonters have a high degree of fact-based knowledge about the virus which in itself is a great public health achievement yet I've never seen such differences in people's awareness of and view of the current conditions. People who are steadfastly for or against vaccines or masks, people who are pushing for more masks, people who shame the unvaccinated and blame them for current events, people who let their passions turn into unacceptable school board meetings and screaming matches displaying intolerance and incivility in front of children and people are making their own decisions about what they consider safe versus risky behaviors sometimes counter to medical and science-based recommendations. So first I want to say I get it these times are hard in a new way as we navigate a changing reality once again. The term pandemic fatigue probably doesn't even capture it anymore. It's disappointing and frustrating for all of us coming as it does after the gains we made in the spring and early summer but I must ask you to remember the enemy is the virus not one another. Let's not blame and make enemies of each other. Yes every case is a potentially transmissible virus and it's potentially preventable but the spread of virus cannot always be blamed on a specific policy or a lack thereof. We're learning how to manage prevent and live with this evolving and even more contagious virus. While there are things we can all do to help prevent spread the Delta variant is adept at finding ways to move through our communities and we will continue to see cases. Just about everywhere is dealing with this surge despite a wide variety of policies from very few limits to heavier restrictions. It's my hope that we can all responsibly support and encourage our leaders, school districts, businesses, nursing home administrators, child care operators, state officials and even our neighbors to do the right things in practice and in policy. Now despite the increasing cases we're seeing here Vermont is still in a relatively good position to weather this surge due to our high vaccination rates. Now with more than 76 percent of fully eligible for monitors being fully vaccinated. It's still our strongest most protective defense against COVID-19 right now because yes in addition to cases we can expect to see outbreaks during this current surge. Outbreaks in what we call situations which are cases associated with events and workplaces for example. A reflection of the presence of virus in our communities and our best defenses of vaccinated population. As Commissioner Pichek introduced there are two recent outbreaks that illustrate how we need to really pay attention right now to both risks and following everyday prevention guides. At a summer camp in central Vermont that had 127 campers and three pods of campers almost all of them too young to be vaccinated. Their activities were mostly outdoors but there were indoor gatherings on rainy days during which children initially did not wear masks. 38 of the 127 campers tested positive with 21 in just one of the pods and 75 percent were already infectious by the time we were notified and began our investigation. Adults who were all fully vaccinated were spared. There are a number of lessons learned from this outbreak. Certainly the importance of testing early isolation and rapid quarantine of close contacts no different now than it's been throughout the pandemic. We've learned from the experience in the indoor setting at the camp the importance again of masking and distancing. We've also learned that vaccination of the adults was very protective and obviously continued efforts to vaccinate all eligible Vermonters need to continue and hopefully we will be able to offer that to even our younger Vermonters soon. The other outbreak was a central Vermont wedding outbreak which demonstrates the risk of attending large gatherings with many families with food and drink. Not that we shouldn't do these things by any means. This outbreak had a total of 65 known cases with a secondary outbreak at a child care facility. Clearly the components in this that made a difference were the fact that though there were outdoor activities mainly in the ceremony part there were indoor activities in the reception part. Obviously many people were known to one another so there was an infrequency of masking. There was thought to be one person who was possibly infectious at the event who was known who was present at the bar while infectious and we know that bars are environments where we tend to eat and drink and socialize in close quarters. Nothing new learned here in that regard. But again there were children at the event as well who were unvaccinated because they weren't yet eligible for vaccine. So again not that we should not attend weddings and not have these but at the same time we learned from the difference in the outdoor setting versus the indoor setting and we learn about times when masking might be very useful even when amongst people that we are acquainted with. These experience especially the camp demonstrate and teach us why the current school and overall masking guidance we have is so critical. They highlight why we now recommend masks and indoor settings regardless of vaccination status and that people should consider any large gathering a possible exposure and get tested three to five days afterward whether you're vaccinated or not. This was the advice we gave before vaccines were available and it still holds now. I'm heartened to see these recommendations gaining traction. If you've been invited to such functions this summer you know that many invitations now actually require vaccination or testing. These basic prevention steps can have an impact on how and where this virus spreads and importantly keeping it from doing so. As I've said before if you do test positive or think you might be a close contact of someone who did you don't need to wait to hear from us. Please visit our website so you can act right away to protect yourself and prevent further spread. Because with this variant the interval between exposure and the development of symptoms has been quite brief. Because Delta is so contagious we need your help working even faster to make sure anyone who comes into contact with the virus knows what to do. Think about your calendar whether you worked traveled went to a social gathering went to school or a medical appointment and with whom. I hate to mention the term but one more thought on so-called breakthrough cases. From Los Angeles County through a CDC report we again learned that the rate of infection in people who were unvaccinated was five times the rate of those who received the vaccine. And the rate of hospitalization meaning severe illness almost 30 times higher if you were unvaccinated. And from Singapore in another report comes more confirmation that the risk of transmission from a vaccinated person to others remains low. Usually when it happens that occurs during a symptomatic phase early on and the viral load rapidly drops when the immune system kicks in making for a very brief window of contagiousness. Finally with regard to booster shots let's take a step back there are still many questions. Is the current delta surge and rise in cases and hospitalizations due to the power of delta itself? Or is delta overcoming some element of vaccine effectiveness a waning of effectiveness? Or is the surge due to a reduction in our use of mitigation measures by the population? Will we all need boosters or just certain parts of our population? Or is it a combination of everything I've just said? Well evidence coming from Israel is indeed encouraging and speaks to real-time evidence for a booster strategy impacting the delta surge. Not all of this Israel information is peer reviewed yet. There's also further evidence from the pharmaceutical companies themselves that antibody levels will indeed rise after a third dose. But we're not quite there yet. I encourage your patience for the next 10 days. By then I expect we will have answers to many if not all of these questions and will be prepared for whatever type of large-scale vaccination effort is needed to meet demand as we were the last time. And as always we'll keep everyone informed about what they need to do when and how. Please keep checking our website for continually updated information data and guidance. For example, we've just posted the first of the weekly K-12 school K-Stator reports. You can find that on our K-12 page and the COVID in communities pages. Same locations as last spring at healthvermont.gov slash COVID-19. Thank you. Thank you Dr. Levine. We'll now open it up to questions. Starting with folks in the room. What's your reaction to the three state troopers resigning over allegedly making fake COVID-19 vaccination cards? Yeah incredibly disappointed obviously. And I don't think it's reflective of the entire Vermont State Police organization. It's just a dumb thing to do to be perfectly frank. It just makes no sense to me whatsoever. There'll be an investigation outside investigation and we'll learn more details but my first question is why? It's just such a simple thing to do. Get vaccinated, you get your card. You don't have to fabricate something and it just again isn't reflective of our expectations within the Vermont State Police. How do you think fake vaccination cards are in Vermont? I don't think it's a big issue and certainly easy to get a real one. Just walk into your pharmacy, get vaccinated, and you have your card. I want to ask about the data, maybe Commissioner P. Check can play in as well. You know we mentioned that we revised case counts this past weekend because of the holiday but it appears as though the state also revised case counts and upped them on September 1st to the 4th I believe. I guess I'm just wondering why the state has had to update its data? I think again I had some of the same questions and I think others can probably answer this better than I can but they come in late late in the day. So I think about all the our health lab working there all day long and then having to work overtime trying to get every every sample in. So it's just been difficult because of the timeliness and but we want accuracy as well so they give the number and then they keep on working and into the next day and so we want to make sure that the numbers are accurate and they reflect that daily average. Secretary Smith. Yeah as the governor said Calvin we really want to be accurate with those numbers and keep it as we've done throughout the pandemic keep the case count toward the day that the cases are coming in and what we've seen is cases have been coming in lab reports been coming in late. We're changing our procedures a little bit in order to cut down on those swings that you're seeing. We've introduced a new software program and we're adding more people through a contractor to make sure that we can get at least we don't have those wild swings in data throughout the night. We're still going to have late labs coming in but hopefully we can cut down on you know more than you know than we've seen in the last we will have less than what we've seen in the last few days. And I guess when we change our case counts for that data I mean are we also updating the positivity rate and the forecasting all of those? We are and I'll let Commissioner Pechak we he gets all this as well as I do but I'll let him. I was just going to mention I believe that some of what Commissioner Pechak had said before was related to other states updating their numbers. Commissioner Pechak. Yeah thanks governor so Calvin it's a good question and I think you heard the reasons for you know that delay in the full case reporting but I think it's important to put in to remember that you know this really just started you know on September 1st it didn't impact our last presentation and when the cases are updated they're updated the next day so you might have you know a day where you don't have the full picture but within that you know within that 24-hour period you get the full picture of what that day is. So it really doesn't impact our presentation all that much or the modeling as long as we know what the actual count was on the day that it occurred as Secretary Smith said that's critical that we maintain that so we know the trajectory and the trends that we're seeing. Can I ask you I understand a number of state agencies and regulatory boards are going to look into this in some cases crazy long way to see a doctor or a specialist in our state what do you think is driving that what was your first take I assume you find it unacceptable. Yeah no I think I think it's going to be a combination of a number of factors and and we'll learn more obviously after the investigation takes place and this is an I gotcha moment this is how do we as Secretary Smith had said how do we fix it because this is unacceptable I think there was a lot of pent-up demand due to the pandemic a lot of folks weren't coming in to to get procedures done and to see a doc so that in itself was overwhelming I think the workforce shortage that we're seeing across every sector including our healthcare workers is having an effect on this as well so I think we'll learn that it's going to be a combination of factors it's not going to be any one thing and and from my standpoint it's probably going to be difficult to catch up but but we have to look at this and and be honest about the situation we're in. Secretary Smith anything I missed I would say I'm wondering what proportion of the breakthrough of the cases that are hospitalized or breakthrough cases right now yeah I I let Dr. Levine answer that but I just want everyone to think about this and it's difficult to explain but a lot of this is about math right so we have 470,000 people who were vaccinated so you take take the 470,000 and it's 85 effective so there's 15 percent that may not be as protected so when you have 470,000 people and you take 15 percent of that it's around 70,000 people right there right then you have the unvaccinated so we have about 70 to 75,000 who are unvaccinated unprotected so they're much more vulnerable so you can see 70,000 and 70,000 of the of the 475,000 so it's almost evenly split so you know it's just again the game of percentages and and that has to factor into this so hard to hard to contemplate but it really is about the math and I'm going to look at Dr. Levine maybe I just want to answer the question you're asking so give me the precise questions just want the precise question because we have multiple ways to represent the data you're looking at okay so like if I look at the 32-ish people in the hospital today yeah yeah right so over over the last week I would say between 40 and 50 percent of those are in the breakthrough case they're vaccinated people or in the hospital so for people and overall it's been about 70 percent have been unvaccinated for people who do get a breakthrough infection break case in August or September should they get a booster or will they be you know that they're in one of the early groups that would be eligible for booster right away yes once they've totally resolved their infection and have improved if they're in a group that's eligible for booster they should get it at the time that they're supposed to get it they shouldn't have to wait any longer because they recently had an infection of course no I would anticipate they will but we would still go with the original data that showed that vaccine induced immunity superimposed on immunity you got from an infection is better than not getting the vaccine induced immunity you get a higher level of immunity we've learned from Dr. Fauci Pfizer will go will be first likely with boosters for those who had no choice they got it Johnson and Johnson shot initially for example we not have the option to get a Pfizer booster that's where I asked for the patients over the next 10 days because we're eagerly waiting to see this Johnson and Johnson data that apparently is now accumulating and will be in the FDA's hands and then the advisory council's hands you know in Vermont I believe it's in the 40 000 range so if you think about the number of immunizations we've had it's the smallest percentage and its availability has been the most limited of late though there are promises I guess I could use the word from the federal government that that's going to pick up not related to that I don't think the state anticipated meeting this kind of testing for as long as we have maybe you guys did but who's paying for this and how much is it costing I'll let the secretary get into details but it continues to be free at all of the state of Vermont sites but it's um yeah it's part of our coronavirus funding from the federal government yeah like so so who's funding the collection kits the reagents all of that is that what just yeah the federal government hundred percent with that just seamlessly I'll get that number for you okay uh how much incentive grant money is available to a given school uh secretary french how much are we talking about here as I said we're we're still working on specifics but we're thinking we're going to invest approximately two million of our federal dollars in the program obviously that would have to be broken out a bit where you anticipate as the governor mentioned thinking about specific thresholds of vaccination you know again we're really trying to push beyond the 80 percent and ultimately like to see all students get vaccinated but also differentiate the grant award based on the enrollment of the school so we're still doing that sort of math to make it work it's too early to say I would just say we're we're thinking of two million dollars as a total investment the reports that you mentioned earlier about cases in schools that was just released showed 81 cases just in the opening days of the school year I wonder just what's your initial reaction to seeing 81 cases right off the bat yeah it's it's not surprising considering the amount of activity that we've seen I can't help but say it's still early I know it's you know for for many schools they're really just only been open a matter of days labor day activity and so forth but I I also can't help but reflect and draw the comparison to where we were last year certainly the case counts much lower but you know this year we're going in you know it's important to acknowledge that we have approximately 80,000 students in person right now in school and that's a tremendous achievement compared to last year where we were with the uncertainty of in hybrid and you know we had some schools that didn't open at all for in person for several months so we need to understand that the educational objectives here are as equally as important we can't afford to see our students go through another year like last year and yeah there's a lot of activity and certainly very challenging right now with the delta variant but I also would just say it's a pretty tremendous accomplishment that we have our schools open for full in person and 80,000 some odd students are going to school every day on buses or with their classmates and recess and after school activities in the arts and so forth so we've been able to achieve that sense of normalcy and certainly are going to work hard to maintain that. You mentioned that there was new contact tracing guidelines for schools on the way. One of the specific complaints that we've been hearing and talking to school administrators is that there seems to be a delay in terms of them being able to get any kind of help on contact tracing usually in the neighborhood of three to four days and as Dr. Levine said earlier with Delta the infectiousness is so immediate and so quick and that seems to be really causing a lot of concern for school administrators. What's the plan for addressing that specific aspect of the contact tracing issue? Yeah again I just can't help but reflect on the experience from last year and I think a better part of our success and I think it was success is this ability to consistently and constantly improve our processes based on feedback and to really leverage our close relationship with school districts. We are in the process of understanding their feedback I think specifically to your question the timeliness and access to vaccination information. As I mentioned that's a key difference in the contact tracing process as compared to last year so again if you're fully vaccinated and you're asymptomatic by definition you're not a close contact so we need to be able to expeditiously allow school districts to take those people off their list pretty quickly and there's been a delay in getting them access to that information so we're contemplating a faster process by which they'd be able to get to that information. Similarly we're looking at specific common areas like recess and so forth where I think we can make some progress and again trying to balance our educational goals with the public health goals. So I'm thinking we're we're going to get to a more efficient and effective process that allows us to focus in on the actual cases and try to get sort of the large numbers that are sort of crowding that process right now and contributing to those delays that you spoke of so we're really zooming in on trying to make it more efficient. Is there a reason why those efficiencies and those systems couldn't have been built in before the first day of school? Yeah I mean it's a great question I don't think any of us anticipated you know the the delta challenges I think it is fundamentally different and I also think the opening of school itself is just logistically challenging when it's not a pandemic so it's it's a perfect storm so to speak and again you know we've been successful in the past of refining those processes so we don't hesitate and we we have good information coming from districts you know concerns and so forth that that really factor heavily into our decision making and we'll continue to make those decisions to help districts be as safe as possible. Well when do you expect the vaccine to be authorized for children under 12 and then once that happens how quickly do you think it will be possible to spread that vaccine throughout that large pool of unvaccinated Vermont? I cannot commit myself to a date that only expert guidance panels and the federal government can commit to but the latest word is probably mid to late October for a portion of the eligible population unclear what age range that would be at that point in time but more importantly your other question is how nimble will we be when all of a sudden there's availability of vaccine for this younger group and we've been doing the planning for this literally for weeks already so we have great experience with the 12 and up using a host of methods a predominant one was school-based clinics but we also continue to use healthcare providers and pharmacies and all of that is really pretty much ready to go when the word comes so. So do you think my next year for a portion of the younger than 12 population I think it may be done in phases so there may be authorization for use for say I'll use an arbitrary age somewhere in six or seven or five year age 211 and then subsequent to that younger than that and the reason that you know if people are worried that it's taking so long maybe they should be suspicious maybe it's not all that safe it has to do with the very different kind of trials you run in this age group because unlike adults where the phase one and phase two trials kind of tell you what the dose is and then you just need to see how well it works and how safe it is at that dose with the pediatric trials there's a range of doses that are done concurrently because you want to obviously use a dose lower than an adult for someone who is far younger than an adult and has a different body mass than an adult and you want to make sure that you've hit the right dose where you've got that sort of sweet spot where effectiveness is maintained and safety is not an issue. To the phones starting with Greg Lamero, the county courier. Good afternoon governor. I'd like to start with a question. This week we had a local board school board who canceled their meeting after members of the public refused to wear masks inside the school building. It kind of begs the question with Vermont's open meeting law that it would seem that a local board's only recourse is to cancel a meeting if members of the public don't want to wear a mask or refuse to wear a mask especially without a state of emergency or an executive order. I'm told by several different people on local boards that their legal council has cautioned them about blocking unmasked individuals from attending a meeting in order to conduct business and obviously these boards have to get business done and I'm told that local policy wouldn't trump state law so they're really stuck between a rock and a hard place. As boards have to continue to get their work done are we are we nearing the point where if this continues we're going to have to have another state of emergency or executive order to get crucial government work done? Yeah I don't I don't think we'd have to go into a state of emergency to accomplish the goal of having these meetings. I think we just have to get creative and we're probably going to have to come to some legal conclusion on this as well. We haven't I haven't spoken to my general counsel about this yet but but I'm sure that we will reflect on this and provide some guidance. I'm not sure if the secretary of state has weighed in on this either but that might be another another voice to determine what what he would advocate for. Certainly I'll reach out. Quickly another COVID question here. We've been hearing from some parents that they think it's a little bit unfair to to be hearing that adults are going to get a booster before their kids 11 and under are even going to get a chance to get a first vaccine. I wondered if Dr. Levine or yourself would want to kind of just address that quickly. Yeah I'm sure that's part of the debate within the CDC and the FDA about you know the fairness of providing for another booster dose when some sectors of the population have not received any vaccination at this point and and throughout the world there are many countries who have not been able to receive the vaccine yet either. So that's what they're I'm sure they're debating but I'll let Dr. Levine weigh in. Yeah Greg fairness would be an issue if these two groups the very young and the adults were competing with one another for a resource that was in limited supply but that's not the issue. The issue is waiting for the science to be mature to have gone through the appropriate processes so that evaluating the science leads to the policy. I would be rather challenging if all the science came together at the same time and it's Halloween and all of a sudden we have to vaccinate every adult who already got vaccinated and all these new children. I kind of doubt that's going to happen just knowing how the pace of each of these pathways goes but it's really not a fairness issue it's really making sure that it's informed by science. Okay and lastly governor uh as you know the state announced this week the the reopening or a grand opening of a beautiful section of the Lemoine Valley Rail Trail here in Franklin County. I'm told that these are classified as linear state parks which really restrict the ability for any ATV usage. Communities across the state are considering ATV usage and and proponents are really pushing the idea that it would help encourage tourism and local spending. As a governor that I've heard promote that kind of idea a lot local tourism local spending I'm wondering where do you fall on do you do you think that rail trails should be open to ATVs and especially noting that they're open in the winter to snowmobiles? I don't believe that the rail trails should be open to ATVs and I'm a big proponent of ATVs. I think there's enough a trail network that VASA is working on and and expanding upon and maybe in parallel to the rail trail they can find some areas to connect the trails but but this is for physical recreation walking biking you know running and so forth and it's really not a great mix to have both on this on the rail trails at this point in time so I think you know we have those and I think it's fine in the winter they're not used as much they're not plowed for for walkers and so forth so VASA has been right there from the beginning in fact they spurred this movement and put a lot of equity sweat equity and financial equity into building out this trail network on the rail trails so they deserve to continue to to utilize that in the winter but I'm not sure expanding that in the summer is a is a wise choice for us at this point in time. Okay thank you Governor. Mike Donahue, the Islander. Thank you Jason. Commissioner Schirling maybe and or the governor as far as the troopers in the vaccine cards I'm just wondering if there's any thought as to how many other troopers might be involved in this or is free the limit and I guess why did it take the Department of Public Safety more than a month to actually go public with this crime and telling the taxpayers of Vermont that their troopers were we're doing this? Yeah I don't I don't have the details as to how many were involved other than the three and I think that's where the investigation would would look into but I'm going to ask Commissioner Schirling to to comment on the rest of the question. Good afternoon thanks for the question Mike no indication at this point that there are any other state employees involved but the FBI is leading the investigation on a parallel in separate track from the Department of Public Safety. In terms of the timing the the decision to release yesterday was actually in response to a media question otherwise we would not have released the information even at this stage because that is typical in any federal investigation. The government has an interest in preserving the continuity of the investigation by not having it be public until it's concluded. So are you saying the troopers would be less than honest if it became public? I don't quite understand what you're saying there. No as as you know there are a variety of potential witnesses and evidence that gets sought in an investigation and the way these things play out especially in in the world of federal investigations the preference is always to preserve the continuity investigation by not having them public until they're completed. But state investigations seem to work successfully and they are known so I just don't get it but anyway on another question Governor as you probably know there's a lot of concern in the islands about the closing of the Grand Isle Courthouse by the court administrator's office and it sounds like the judicial branch is blaming you and the legislature for not properly funding the security contracts so that there can be a deputy sheriff and I guess it's not even just Grand Isle but there's also some issues in Orleans, Wyndham, Franklin, Essex counties according to the court administrator's office. So I'm just wondering I mean what would it take to I mean the state does allow temporary employees what would it take to get a properly funded position so that the Grand Isle Courthouse could reopen and maybe fill some of those others that they could find people I mean I know it's an issue of personnel but apparently nobody in the sheriff's office wants to work at a reduced rate when they can make four or five dollars an hour more just by being out on the road they don't want to take a pay cut. Yeah I'm sure this will be taken up in the next legislative session but I think I don't think it's all resource related I do believe that it's about workforce and the challenge is that every sector in the state is facing at this point in time there's no there's a shortage of worker again everywhere so and law enforcement is is one that has been has been challenged by this as well so I don't I think we'll come to some resolution we want the courthouse to be open obviously but but I don't think it's just a resource issue No I understand it's part personnel but by understanding and talking to a couple of sheriffs across the state their their personnel are not interested in working at a four or five dollar reduction per hour you know when they can get go out on the road patrol and make whatever twenty three twenty four dollars an hour instead of making eighteen dollars an hour working at a courthouse so there's no incentive for them to take the courthouse job when they can be yeah they might lose $400 a week and pay for for the courthouse job. Right and I would say that coupled with that when you have fewer law enforcement in your in your agency or department that you prioritize and some of the more lucrative contracts come first so we'll see again this is something the legislature and we'll have to work out and see if there's more money available and the court has to look dig deep as well to see if they have money available to to fulfill the need that's there but but from our standpoint I don't I'm not sure that there's any buckets of money that we can forward at this point and I'm not sure that it would do any good again in the middle of in the middle of winter when there's no state contracts there's no transportation construction projects and so forth maybe the sheriffs will have more resources available to them and be able to to help out but but I'm sure we'll have this discussion so at this point you don't see adding any money to your proposed budget to to to make the pay comparable oh we yeah we have we're building our budget as we speak that isn't hasn't hasn't come up yet but we'll be building that and asking the judiciary about their needs as well they'll they'll come to us and the legislature to present their budgets last question did the judiciary did get raises themselves it's just the contracted employees or contracted workers I I don't get raises I don't know that yeah I don't know that Mike it has to come through the court the judiciary separate branch government comes to us with their budget there and their needs so they would present that to us we wouldn't be presenting that without their their input okay great thank you very much appreciate it Chris Roy Newport Daily Express yes no questions today thank you very much thank you Chris Tim McQuiston from Mount Business Magazine I do have a question governor with the federal government shooting down the unemployment to 25 extra a week is there any alternative to that anywhere else you could find a way to get unemployed people some money you mean the extra the $25 yeah yeah yeah I'm sure that you know this will be worked out during our negotiations with the legislature and and determining what state resources there are are dollars that might be available and what we'll do without in order to provide for that so it's part it'll be part of the negotiation okay for michael uh commissioner paycheck I was wondering if we're at the end of the the delta surge you know there's this sort of nine-week window where it would um increase in cases and then there would be a falling off and I'm wondering if we're just about at that timeline I'm wondering if you're seeing that falling off of the delta cases now yeah it's a good question Tim so you know when you look at our case numbers recently as we said we want to be cautious because of labor day even though we saw testing volume stay relatively solid during labor day you know there is the fact that maybe some people didn't get tested we didn't have the reporting delays that other states experienced so that gives us a little bit more confidence as well but with those caveats we have seen the last three or four or five six days our seven-day average start to tick down so you know we are approaching that period you certainly have seen other states that got to get to that seven to nine-week period and their rates have come down like in Louisiana in Mississippi and Florida Arkansas Missouri is the original state that had delta so it is holding in other parts of the country will it hold here we hope so there's some indication that you know that there's some movement but again we want to interpret that with caution for the labor day weekend and the behavior that occurred over the labor day weekend that might result in more cases all right great thank you Tom Davis compass Vermont thanks Jason Governor I was looking at the latest numbers and reading an article about the difference between the vaccination rate where people have gotten both shots if they didn't have the Johnson and Johnson and I noticed that Vermont is pretty much statistically similar with the rest of the country we're about we've got about nearly 40,000 people who never got the second shot and runs about eight percent is there any information about the reasons why people are not going forward for their second shot I I don't know I think it's it might just be a lack of interest on their part to go get the second dose it just seems as though you'd be much more protected we advocate for this and so I don't know if Dr. Levine has any any further information from the federal perspective yeah I don't I don't think we have a lot of information from these people because they haven't connected back with us but keep in mind good 10,000 of them are probably more recent vaccinees so they're still in that time period where they have a window to get the second shot so it's not like they've forgotten it or consciously decided not to get it we are keeping track of this data all the time and I don't think we're as high as the eight percent necessarily but you know we've been following it closely but I can't give you much more insight into actual people's thoughts about why they won't want the second shot I could guess that some might just say that they are not worthy not wanting to have side effects if they had side effects the first time and don't want to repeat that yeah the the current numbers 39,800 out of 481 is about eight percent and it has been tracking about eight percent across the country since April so there seems to be a consistency in that number in most places they have talked about side effects as one reason others have evidently have just determined maybe that they've got enough benefit out of the first shot which obviously I know you don't recommend as being the course of action I was just curious if you had any more information and I appreciate it my only other question governor if you notice that the state of Maine and Oregon are looking to try and get the manufacturers to pay for the plastics that have to be brought to waste after they've been used as opposed to passing that on the taxpayer dollars has there been any discussion about that for Glamot I'm sure there will be but I have not heard that yet these these types of things aren't okay usually done in isolation probably a national effort and I wouldn't be surprised if we heard about that here in Vermont in the next legislative session okay very good that's all I got thank you thank you Joseph Gresser Martin Chronicle Joseph I see you on the teams meeting but I think you're still muted hello well thank you this is a question for Dr. Levine I'm wondering the booster shots as presently envisioned are simply another dose of the vaccine that's already been given to people is that correct and if so is there work going on to develop the kind of booster that we see sometimes with flu vaccines that take into account changes in the virus yeah so first of all I believe with the Pfizer it would be the same dose but there has been some emerging data from Moderna that actually looked at the efficacy of a lower dose that seemed to hold up but again we've got to wait for this to all be evaluated by FDA and CDC to get true insight into that company data but there could be a difference in dose for one of the vaccines but not necessarily both of the mRNA vaccines there has also been a lot of discussion about inserting a new messenger RNA into these vaccines that would be appropriate to the variant strain that happens to be present in the environment at that time that's not being discussed for this current booster that would be something that would be kind of held in reserve if we encountered god forbid another variant that's on later date that wasn't as responsive to this vaccine so you have to stay tuned on that one for sure if i could just reiterate something from the previous question about that eight percent who may not have gotten their second shot we do know some of them are waiting to get it it's just it's not on schedule but the more important point again is against the delta variant one shot may give you 40 percent effectiveness and that hasn't cut it for the delta you really want to get back up to the 80 90 percent range which we know that both shots do thank you guy page from our daily chronicle hello governor your new school guidance gives students a day and how to spend millions in state grants if their school gets to 80 percent dangling a lot of money in front of children um are you are you trying to incentivize children to exert peer pressure and in any case uh how will you prevent zealous students from stigmatizing to use commissioner beansword or even outbullying uncooperative peers um a couple things we haven't gotten specific as to whether it's going to be the 80 percent or whatever whatever benchmarks we come up with um and uh in providing i think it's a it's a good project for kids to get involved in i think they should be involved in determining whether they get vaccinated or not i think it's just a good exercise and taking taking full advantage of of their own health so again it's a learning experience for them we will be i'm sure that our educational partners teachers and superintendents and principals and so forth will be monitoring this situation but uh but we want them to get enthusiastic about the process and we thought this was one way of doing so okay um also uh a uvm mc nurse told me today that a quote a significant number of staff rn and respiratory therapists are not planning to get vaccinated and leave jobs if the extension is not given um other health agencies dependent on uvm mc are falling into lines with that so in vermont uh there's nowhere else for these needed trained healthcare providers to work are you concerned that your new state employee mandate will create a demand for fake cards as has been seen in other states well there's always a concern as we're we've witnessed with the vsp issue um but um but again we believe that vaccines are are way out of this and if we want to go back to some sort of normal and not have to live with this in perpetuity we have to take this on ourselves and mitigate this in the best way that we we know of at this point in time so we believe in the science we believe that this is the best approach and we'll continue to uh to push forward on this and i i do speaking of the science go ahead sorry um the uh two of us health defense says that a close reading of the fba approval of the Pfizer vaccine um only gives full approval actually to the german biotech co-mernity vaccine of which there's now almost none in the u.s and that any vaccine from a Pfizer modern or j and j vial is actually legally still under the eua which has ramifications for any mandate um are you aware of this concern and if so what do you think i am not aware of this but maybe dr. veen is i am very aware of this thanks for bringing it to the public's attention this goes under the category of misinformation and uh it is abundant on the internet there have been abundant legal opinions from respected legal scholars and policy makers uh none of whom see this as a concern at all the new name of the vaccine is just that it's a name but it is not a new vaccine it is the same vaccine that's been in use they now that it's got approval they've given it a true name not just the generic vaccine but there's no difference in the formulation or anything the only difference will be the label will have a name of that of vaccine that wasn't present before so people who are holding this up in a way of uh trying to be in the anti vaccination cadre of people are actually just spreading misinformation thank you andrew mcgregor caledonian record uh yeah thanks good afternoon question for secretary french um on the contact tracing within schools just curious if you can describe some of the challenges that the schools have been facing already that prompted these revisions to to the protocols and and the approach to contact tracing yeah thanks i think you know as a prior question indicated uh it's a question of timeliness and i think in particular we identified the issue of getting access to vaccination information as being an area where we can make considerable progress again the big difference between last year and this year with vaccination vaccinated individuals that are asymptomatic by definition by cdc guidelines and vermont guidelines are are not closed contacts so to to make sure schools can have access to that information a timely basis i think we'll go a long way to making a process more efficient how do you how are you going to give schools access to that information are are they going to establish a list of who is and is not vaccinated beforehand or yeah what's the process yeah what we're evaluating is you know currently what they've been doing is relying on the health department to verify the vaccination status of the immunization registry um a week or so ago we published guidance on how districts could calculate vaccination rates for the purposes of our 80 policy so we're evaluating whether we could use that approach to enable school districts essentially to have verified local vaccination information in real time and use that as a basis for determining the contact status of someone for contact tracing i see and then just a quick shift appears the the vaccine incentive grants it is the use that that money can be spent on restricted in any way or are we talking end of year field trips and ice cream parties you know it's pretty much whatever the kids can come up with yeah it's a great question i mean again we're still designing it but you know firstly just underscore that the grants would go to the schools not to the students but we want to involve the students and directing those you know use of the funds but the funds would be i would say broadly restricted one of the ideas we're working with for example is focusing on our recovery priority areas which are academic social emotional supports and re-engagement in the examples you just mentioned pizza parties ice cream and so forth field trips those could be justified in in several of those areas in particular re-engagement and social emotional support so i think you know what we're trying to do you know first goal is to do what we can to incentivize more vaccination beyond the 80 percent but the secondly to involve students in that process and we think we can find a way to do both through the use of this program okay thanks a lot Peter Hirschfeldt vpr did you call on me jason i did i'm sorry i was unmuting i didn't hear it i don't know if this is for governor smott or secretary french but i'm wondering given that you have decided to extend the recommendation that schools keep mask mandates in place regardless of vaccination rates until october 4th can we take that to mean that if case counts toward the end of this month remain about where they are right now that you would further extend that recommendation into october yeah we would we're constantly reassessing and determining what the situation is on the ground when we put these policies in in place so we would reflect on that and it doesn't mean that we wouldn't move forward with uh with the policy at that point but but we'll just see where we're at at that point in time we just thought it was prudent right now there's just some um it's it's not clear as to whether this where are any complete downturn and you know we're hopeful and the last uh last three or four days are encouraging but we want to make sure of that before we move forward and secretary french did i hear correctly earlier that you said that you think schools are in a better situation as it relates to covid right now than they were uh this time last year i'm going to let the secretary french answer this but i i just wanted to again reflect on what secretary french had said 80 000 kids are back in school right now we couldn't say that last fall and uh as we heard in numerous numerous press briefings from our health care experts our school our teachers our school administrators as well as our pediatricians in particular our kids weren't doing well they weren't in a good spot and they were in a situation because of the pandemic where they were isolated falling behind and again this was the best move that we could make was to bring them back into school so we are thrilled if they're back in and when you take the number of cases versus how many are benefiting from in-person instruction i think that we made the right decision secretary french yeah hi you know my my comment was about sort of balancing our educational goals as the governor mentioned you know the idea that we have our students back and full in person i think is is pretty significant and i would just you know to draw the comparison last year a little more specifically look at high school specifically last year with our distancing requirement many high schools just with a distancing requirement we're unable to offer five days a week of in-person instruction so just by definition on the distancing requirement we had many high schools in in hybrid learning from the get-go at the beginning of the school year this year without the distancing requirement we have all high schools open and furthermore we have a very high uptake of vaccination among the school age population in high school so i think it's over 70 so what that means again from a contact tracing standpoint is not only are high schools operating full in person but with vaccination there's less likely going to be close contacts through the contact tracing tracing process which means there'll be less interruption to their educational process so just to draw a distinction between last year and this year i think we're in a much better place educationally and you know again committed to doing what we can to ensure schools remain open thank you both Aaron Potanko from Mont Digger thank you um i uh i have a question about the retroactive data changes um you know you've said that this is hopefully something that you are dealing with in the next few weeks but you have not said how you continue to reform the public about these retroactive data changes as far as i'm aware you know they were essentially uncovered by people like me or people on twitter noting the changes by manually checking the data dashboard one day and then going back to the numbers the previous days um i haven't seen any health department announcement or anything like that that informs people hey cases from a day ago or two days ago are changed now and that means that people who've just checked the daily dashboard don't really have an idea of um you know what the true case numbers are is there any way that you could be more transparent about that or you know be more proactive in informing the public about those retroactive data changes yeah let dr. Levine comment on that but um but that's exactly some of our concern is we want to be transparent we want the numbers to be accurate but we want the numbers to be fixed as well so we're trying to come up with an approach as secretary smith had spoken about to make sure that we had once we were dialed in that night that those are the numbers and they'll stay the numbers until the following day and then we'll move to the numbers for the for the second day so that's what our goal is and it did get confusing and deflating in some respects when when we'd hear one number and then the next day have the increase so um we're all on the same page here we'd like to have the number set and not change the following day and just to be clear with from honors um god forbid anyone is looking at these numbers and basing a major life decision on a 24-hour period in the history of the covid pandemic not to minimize the problem just to say that I would hate to think that those numbers are so critical that they would impact scheduling a wedding or traveling or what have you this is a 24-hour period we're talking about and it's rectified within the 24 hours can we do better yes and we will do better and we're looking at workflow improvements and identifying more staff to do what's called opening cases each positive result is a case that's manually reviewed to open an investigation because each one precipitates an investigation so that is a time-consuming but a critical process in the whole approach to containing a virus so just want people understand that it's a very important process we do rectify any misinformation within 24 hours so that people are aware of what the true count was as the secretary said earlier with more abundant testing more results come in later and there has to be a finite time when we end the assessment and then pick it up the next day so that's exactly what's been happening so don't don't make your life plans based on a 24-hour period of data report um I also I do have a question as well about the school data will you guys this year be tracking how many instructional days are lost or spent in remote learning due to COVID related cases and closures yeah thanks as secretary french we are planning on doing some data collection we were not originally going to think about like we did last year measuring the amount of hybrid versus in-person because of this year being solely an in-person our initial thinking was we were very interested in quantifying the recovery areas in education like specifically what do we mean by academic learning loss what are the patterns what are the areas likewise with social emotional issues so we can begin to focus our recovery efforts on students so that's that's kind of where we're heading in terms of data collection we will have attendance information and we are also talking about standing up a better process so that schools are alerting us when they're closing or when grades are down but that that presents some challenges in terms of data quality but it's something we're we're considering okay so far the school-related times when you know schools have closed entirely that I've heard of were Eastmoxiliar and Berry Town I also heard that Queenfield Union sent six or seven grades home due to cases is that the total number of schools that have had closures rather than just you know contact tracing related quarantining well they're the ones I'm aware of so far I don't I'm not aware of any other cases at the moment would that be reported to the agency of education is an entire school closed not necessarily okay so you'd only be tracking it via these kind of surveys or you know round up at a state level well as I mentioned it's something we're contemplating I'm concerned a bit about the data quality of that and how to how to create a standardized data collection when we have so many different varieties of school configurations and situations but it's something we're looking at but currently they do not report that information to the agency does that concern you at all considering that those schools may need to make up those instructional days not necessarily very similar to like with snow days we have a process by which you know local officials are required to follow the regulations in that regard and then there's a waiver process that kicks in later in February so we'll we'll cross that bridge when we get there but I feel confident that you know with some of the the contact tracing processes and the close relationship we have with districts on a daily basis from an operational perspective that we'll be able to monitor the trends fairly fairly closely okay thank you Patrick Gardel on Harold hello go ahead Patrick hello can you hear me we can okay so two questions uh first I think of for commissioner shirling uh to be shirling with those uh for lots of police troopers who have resigned what is being done to preserve those cases obviously they're uh to have ongoing cases that will have to maybe test to go to court or at least you know be be worked through what's being done to protect the integrity of those cases that's a great question uh the command staff from the state police and the shaftsbury barracks are working with the prosecutor's office to assess the uh the pending cases and any potential impact and to ensure the continuity of those cases as they move forward okay um and then uh and this is maybe for dr lean um I had uh talked to uh uh pastor kelso a few weeks ago she said that there was uh efforts being made to to bring up to uh the the number of people who are doing contact tracing is there any progress in that regard there's been actually significant progress in that effort uh a combination of uh members of the health department who had experience in that and were redeployed to that effort uh some national guard and the firm that we've contracted with actually has recruited more as well so uh on at least three fronts okay so does that mean that the state is where it wants to be now with uh the number of contact tracers it's where we want to be with the number of contact tracers but we're still doing a little bit of catch-up work so we're not quite where we want to be with the um connection with everybody that needed to be connected with but that's proceeding at an accelerated rate anything is possible but obviously we put a lot of protections in place um never did we dream that something of that magnitude would affect us here uh in the united states but uh but again due to the efforts of law enforcement homeland security that's been developed since um i feel that we're much more protected than we were at that point and not as vulnerable but again uh it's an ongoing effort and with uh with some of uh the new technology that we've uh that we've seen and that we're utilizing again it's keeping up to date and and it's a constant monitoring of the chatter and and whatever's happening on a global scale so difficult but uh but we have the best here in in the u.s. and uh and we just have to continue to focus on that how has it shaped in your view you know public policy here in Vermont i mean whether it be like you said security postures or otherwise yeah well and kelvin you're probably too young to remember before 9 11 in some respects but but things have changed dramatically since then i mean walking into an airport um pre 9 11 was easy i mean there wasn't the security there wasn't anything uh in some respects you could you could hop on on the aircraft whenever whenever it was uh up to the up to the gate pretty much it's just so much this change and we become more accustomed to at this point in time but it's a huge culture change for for many of us uh over that period of time maybe stewart could fill you in on some of that or wilson maybe do you think we'll ever get back to that no no i think this is you know we evolve and i think it's necessary and some of the border restrictions are necessary and and so it's here to stay but uh and we we have to continue it's a continual improvement as well but but again it's just a change in culture okay thanks very much we'll see you again next Tuesday