good evening. joining me are major general tim ofen the national guard and depy secretary the maryland department of health. we begin 2021 at a critical moment in the war against covid-19 which continues to pose a serious threat it does offer

hope and we have a long way to go in this fight. distributing and administering vaccines throughout 2021 will be without question the peacetime undertaking in american history and it will be a massive all hands on deck ongoing operation involving the federal, state and local governments and private sector. over thehe last nearly three weeks, we've already successfully allocated, deployed and distributed 270,150 doses directly into the hands of the frontline vaccinate her's and hospitals, nursing homes and local health departments to begin phase one a of the

vulnerable population vaccination. this represents 98.7% of all the doses the federal government allotted to the state of maryland. only 1.3% have been retained by the state and state health department or emergency backup reserve purposes. 270,150 doses have already been deployed to every single hospital in maryland, to all 24 of our local health departments across the state and to cvs and walgreens, which have a federal contract to handle all of our nursing homes across the state and to support the vaccination

of the maryland frontline workers and federal facilities we've distributed them out to the frontline healthcare workers and those who work with facilities in dc and hospitals in the district. 163,225 were sent to every maryland hospital for critical frontline workers. to date, those hospitals have administered 55,941 doses, which is 34.3% of the doses we have provided them. some of our hospitals are doing extremely well. already utilizing as much as 67% of their total allocations. while others are still just ramping up. the slowest hospital completed 16% of their allocations

[inaudible] to every one of our county healtcountyhealth departments ae begun vaccinating the emts and first responders so they can in turn start up their clinics. public health departments have administered 11,401 doses which is 32.4% what we have deployed to them. five counties have done a remarkable job and have already completed 80% or more of the phase one vaccinations. that includes howard, montgomery, m st. mary's and mcaroline counties. other counties are just beginning to ramp up their

operations. 61,425 doses were sent directly to cvs and walgreens which have a federal contract to administer vaccines in all 227 of our nursing homes.si to date, cvs and walgreens have entered into the system data showing the completion of 8,503 doses or just 13.8% which is actually close to on par with the numbersh they are doing nationwide but we have been working hard to get to the bottom of these issues, so i have contacted the health and anhuman service secretary to express our serious concerns about the pace of the federal nursing home pharmacy program

and in addition, i had the long and productive earlier discussions today with both the ceo of cvs who said if they had actually done nearly twice as many vaccinations as are being reported and they are now working with the team to corrected the data reporting issues they hadn't entered into the system yet and i spoke with the ceo of walgreens that said theyey are scheduling clinics io every single one of the nursing homes they are responsible for that they've been assigned under federal criteria the ones they've been assigned. we are going to continue to stay on top of this and be in close contact with cvs and walgreens to continue monitoring progress and see what we can do to help them ramp up their vaccinations. most of the states in america are having very similar issues with those contracts.

we have reached out to the national governornational govern in the effort to begin some joint dialogues between the nation's governors, federal partners and between the pharmacies conducting those contracts. are thrilled us with theth pace of the rollout over the first couple of weeks, i can assure you that it is improving every day. .. when we were back the spring dealing with testing. back when we let the nation, but it took us almost nine months to go from 50 tests a day to 50,000.

today, alone maryland has reported a record 11,553 new vaccinations. for a cumulative total of 76,916 vaccinations and i'm pleased to report that as of today second doses have already begun. at maryland hospitals. i wentur to in sure that the people avirulent and we we are going to leverage every single resource at our disposal to get more shots and into more arms as quickly as we possibly can. in a safe and orderly way. i would like to just take a moment to make sure that the people of maryland understand exactly how this vaccine distribution process works. each week, the federal government informs each of the states of their allocation. after that, they open up their

ordering system, the federal government has a system called tiberius. the states then are able to place our orders directly with them as to t where they should ship those doses. and we are able to then notify our providers, the frontline vaccinate her's, and then they immediately begin to have their clinics ready to receive those doses. dand then they begin vaccinating. so when these early couple of weeks, there's a little bit of a lager time. those orders are shipped out directly to the providers to those vaccinate her's. straight from the cdc through operation work speed and that process takes about a week. it can take as much as a week. but, vaccine demonstration is the responsibility of each of those providers. for example, and phase one a that we are in right now, it is the federal contract with c

vs and walgreens is responsible for nursing homes. maryland hospitals are the ones who are doing their own staff. and to the front line healthcare workers and those hospitals. in those 24 county health departments are receiving their doses directly from their own health department staff and the county's first responders. all of these providers i can assure you, have a desire to get these vaccines into the arms of the people who need them as quickly as they possibly can. and no one is attempting to delay all of us are doing our best to work at all levels of government and with our private sector partners to get all of the frontline vaccinate her's whatever resources they need. acto accelerate this process and to do their job as effectively and efficiently as possibly can. but today, i am announcing some additional steps which we

believe will help providers get more shots and more into more arms quicker and a a safe and efficient manner. last month, i reactivated the maryland national guard to provide us support, to state health officials for the distribution of covid-19 vaccines. beginning tomorrow the guard will begin to dispatch emergency vaccination support teams. loacross the state this will happen to assist local health departments with the expansion of their vaccination capacity. each of thesell emergency teams will include 14 guardsmen members who will actually assist with the administering of vaccines and who will also be able to help provide logistical support for vaccination clinics. through our maryland response medical reserve corps, which i announced earlier, of retired

and or volunteer health workers we have already identified 700 qualified people who are ready and willing to assist local health departments and other clinics with the administering of shots. and we are sharing the information with county health departments to help enable them to help expand their clinics to seven-day week operations. we have also offered assistance to the maryland hospital association and offered every single resource at our disposal, including additional vaccinate her's, logistic support, pbe ppe or whatever, we can possibly provide to help them speed up their pace of vaccinating their workers. slow and uneven data reporting has made it extremely difficult to d determine where there are issues with faxing ministration.

certain people have said that they are doing thousands of vaccinations but some hospitals have not reported any at all even when they've done quite a bit. were trying to fix that. we need to address these reporting legs particularly with some of the hospitals but also with cvs and walgreens. walgreens and cbs were giving 72 hours to do their reporting under the federal contract. where as we are requiring others to do 24 hours. so i have those discussions with the ceo and the president of walgreens and cvs today and today i am issuing an executive order which requires all providers in the state of maryland to report data onto our system and units within 24 hours. after vaccines are administered. and we will be posting this data publicly, and using it to track the progress of every single provider in the state. the maryland park department

of health is also issuing an order today. which states that any facility which has not administered at least 75% of their total first dose allocations may have their future allocations reduced until they can prove their ability to meet capacity requirements. any provider that has access doses will be required to notify their little local health department so that those doses will be reallocated to other priority populations. effective immediately we will be adopting a new, what i'm calling a southwest airlines model, rolling vaccine allocation model. no doses should be sitting in freezers going unused waiting or backing up while others are in need of more. so we are going to be adjusting the plans to say that we are going to no longer

be waiting for all of the members of ap particular priority group to be completed. before we move on to begin that next group and and the other next group in line. our message to those who are responsible for doing the vaccinations is clear. either use the doses you been allocated or they will be redirected to another facility where they will be used immediately every single week we will be continuing to brush out to vaccines to our hospitals, pharmacies, local health departments, and to all the other vaccinate her's across the state based on need and on utilization. as soon we move forward from this initial phase one a, which is an extremely limited supply. we will then be able to scale up to broader vaccination clinics across the state. however, i want to make

this.clear. the states are wholly reliant on the federal government on those two vaccine suppliers, producers, for the supply of vaccines. in the first three weeks, we eeand the others have received 4.4% or enough vaccines for 4.4% of our population. for the foreseeable future and until or unless and until there is an increase in production of new vaccines from those producers or until new vaccines are improved or made available we expect to receive about 72000 doses per week from the federal government, which is roughly 10,000 per day we are all hopeful that this will all increase from their and we all expect that it will but those

of the real numbers right now that were counting on. yesterday we are ready did more than that by vaccinating 11,453 marylanders in one day. exceeding our daily allotment. so at the current pace of allocation from our federal partners, we would expect to have 1.8 million doses by the end of may. which would represent only 30% of our states population. so, this is going to be a long haul. doctor fauci said, the other day and television, that we could expect to have 60% of our national population vaccines by the fall. so that's the bad news, the good news is that this week as i mentioned, we have already begun second doses for some. and not only that, but we have

also already expanded our phase one a populations, we are now all licensed, registered, and certified healthcare providers anywhere in the state. they are now eligible for vaccinations. local health departments have now begun to make arrangements with providers to get them all vaccinated in the coming days and weeks. vaccinations will also and soon be underway for all law enforcement agencies, correctional offers, and judiciary staff. but, just phase one is more than a half of million male owners so if you look at that pyramid we have that is one a is half a million people. so i just urge people to be patient why is everybody dumb? this is a massive undertaking. today based on the based on

the recommendations of the federal advisory committee on immunization practices which is comprised of public health experts on the use of vaccines we are now announcing updates to our phase one of marilyn's statewide vaccination plan. our new phase 1b will now include all marylanders over the age of 75. it will also be expanded to include special needs group homes, high risk inmates, developmentally disabled populations, continuity of government vaccinations, as well as teachers, childcare cand education staff the maryland department state department of education has already begun. but they are going to immediately begin coordination with all of the county school systems to prepare the implementation of their plans

to vaccinate thishi critical personnel. overall this revised faced 1b of our plan now includes approximately 860,000 additional maryland marylanders. based on the current rate of allocation, we anticipate the state being able to move into phase one at the end of january. we will, we have updated our phase 1c to now include all marylanders all ages 65 to 74, and workers and additional critical sectors, including grocery stores, public transit, agricultural production or in manufacturing. phase 1c now includes an additional 772000 marylanders.

based on the current rate, and again were hoping to see that exponentially increase in the months ahead, but based on the current rate of the allocation that we a are receiving we expect to be movable move into phase 1c sometime in march. or nearly at the phase two will now include marylanders 166 to 64 who are at increased risk of covid-19 illness due to morbidity, as well as essential workers and critical critical utilities and other sectors. so phase two, will now include another 11.1 million milk marylanders. obviously people have many questions about when they will be eligible, they have many

concerns about the safety of the vaccines and we are going to continue to tried to print to provide information and get to as much information as possible and here are some ways you can help stay informed. first, the state will be issuing regularar vaccination updates through our state wide 211 texting service to opt in to receive these alerts. text md ready 289-8211. so that you can receive updates as soon as possible, as soon as new information becomes possible. second, marylanders are encouraged to visitre company vid link .-dot maryland .gov. for all available resources that we have on the state vaccination plan along with all this safety information regarding the vaccine. and lastly, we ask that everybody be patient as this will be a long process.

already we are seeing instances where people are attempting to help cut the line. in sheet the rules and take appointments away from front-linero workers. not only is this and it's reprehensible behavior and it also slows down the entire process. the more steps that i that are vaccinated as an providers had to put into place the have to add the have to verify the vaccine recipients, the longer this will take for everyone to get their vaccines. so please exercise decency and common sense while these vaccines do offer us a light at the end of the tunnel and allow us to look ahead to the day the pandemic will no longer will no longer work disruptor lives and prevent us from getting back to normal and prevent us from seeing loved ones. right now were still in the

thick of this fight. marilyn 70 positivity rate did drop a little bit today to 1.9% but it still much higher than we wanted to be. our statewide case rates increased slightly today to 44.0. all 24 of our jurisdictions our still in the red zone four cases according to the federal government. as of today, a 1,771 covert patients are hospitalized in the states. fortunately, this is 8300 beds below what hopkins had projected for the beginning of january. this is great. better treatments have clearly helped improve our ability to fight the virus, and to keep her hospitalization stable as of today the percentage of new cases that lead the hospitalizations has fallen by 72% by april the percentage of

new cases that lead to death, has fallen 67% since early may. and the percentage of hospitalizations that have ended in death has fallen by 48% since early july. these are really encouraging numbers, we continue to utilize the alternate care sites, we opened in the spring hour critical prayer coordination center still continues to transfer patients. all of her search preparations are still ready to handle any additional searches that may happen. we ours concerns about a much morehe contagious variance of the virus that originated in the uk. it is now as of today with the addition of georgia has been detected in five states, and at least 33 countries so far.

our public health out of but tori is testing for the variant which is five times the national rate, they're testing every single day. and luckily we have not yet detected a case connected here in maryland. this is another reason that we all need to keeping vigilance. while we focus on getting his vaccines ramped up into our frontline healthcare workers in our most vulnerable. as i i have said throughout this entire crisis we are in this together. we will get through this together. by staying maryland strong. at this time i'm going to turn a it over to general gallen to discuss and little more detail some of this support to that the guards will be providing tour counties. general.

>> thank you a governor for your leadership during this hard time. and thanks are in order for every maryland or who has come together to work so tirelessly to combat the spread of covid-19. as most of you are aware, the maryland national guard has a dual mission. soldiers and airmen are generally seen deploying overseas to fight america's wars or putting on uniform here at home to provide aid during a natural disaster. last march through july, 1500 maryland national guard members were activated to competent combatt this pandemic. during that time our troops contributed to processing and helping give out personal protective equipment, and a million bills across the state. medical support team screamed, tested more than 22000 people including high-risk residents including 222 residents at skilled nursing facilities.

we all continue toll experience immense challenges related tovi covid, but the vaccine provides hope. hope of not only slowing this virus, but defeating it. over the last several months i have assigned some of my best planners to support the maryland department of health to help prepare for the vaccination effort. as the governor mentioned, starting tomorrow we will provide direct support to county health departments with mobile vaccination support teams with the mission of accelerating vaccination efforts. in maryland, national guard mobile vaccination support teamto consists of nine to 14 medical professionals. initially, we will have close to 200 personnel organized into 214 teams. additionally we are providing manpower to support congregate care andng long-term health facilities and additional manpower to support county health county s department

called assistance call center assistance datacenter analysis and logistical support. our medical military medic medical specialists are world-class professionals who live and work in the communities they serve. these unique capabilities are well suited and integrated to work alongside their interagency partners and communities. this is an initial ability that were fully prepared to execute which we will continue to part support to the governor's directive. i think all of people of this great state of their generosity that you've shown the maryland guard. we are honored to support the great state by serving on the front lights were read work. your national guard is always there andno always ready to hold the line. imu will be followed by doctor chan of the maryland department of health.

>> thank you, thank you general gallen, thank you governor. i'm glad to be here this afternoon and this evening. to make remarks about our vaccine rollout we are beginning the new year with hope as vaccines have started to rollout in the state as the governor had mentioned you know, there's a lot of work that is being involved in this vaccine and the rollout. and they're more than 500,000 individuals who are in phase 51 a or 1 acre who are healthcare workers or in the nursing home rather than first and first responders are hospitals have been administrating vaccines to their staff members and again to theirra communities and healthcare workers and others. our federal partners, cvs and

walgreens has also been administering vaccines and healthcare facilities in their lower local healthcare departments have now been provided vaccines and they are ramping up their vaccination efforts in their brain thing about the local level. as of this week, again emphasizing the all the license and registered certified healthcare workers in the state of maryland are now eligible for vaccination and distribution to for first responders and 911 specialists in correctional officers at the local level and we will ramp up in the next few weeks. i was speaking to a number of health officers in the states i've been talking with them about their t vexing clinics in the work that they've been doing to stand up those clinics, training staff and others to make sure that vaccines are administered safely and effectively and efficiently. they have all been implementing the plans and more specifically over the last few months.

many have started to vaccinate not only first pair responders but other healthcare workers and they continue to reach out to those populations and now with appointments those and that information will bewi more available to healthcare workers. we also want to appreciate the national guard for standing up to support their efforts and local healthcare departments have been working alongside the national guard and all of her public healthcare and healthcare workers around the state to respond to covid-19. soak testing and contact tracing and other effortsto continue, and now they arenu standing up a monumental vaccination effort across the state and so it is all hands on deck. we very much of appreciate the support of the governor of the national guard and others in this effort. over the last few weeks there we have been working very closely with their federal and statee partners to ensure that

the vaccines get to the facilities in maryland. as the governor illustrated, it does take some time. for the time that they tell usha that we have a vexing allocation to when we order it, and then when it actually gets delivered to the states and to a certain facility. and that's before vaccinations begin. over the last few weeks our hospitals and local health departments implementing our plans that has been happening behind the scenes. including staff training, education, communications to the eligible groups, coordination with local providers, coordination with local counterparts with fire and ems for example. in addition setting up appointment schedules, make into the clinics are set up securely and safely, and also with adequate room to accommodate all of our covid-19 precautions to avoid

crowding in these vexing clinics. so all of this has been happening behind the scenes perhaps people maybe not be appreciating but this is a lot of the logistics and the operations that are local health departments in our hospitals and are walgreens and cvs partners have been in last few days and weeks. the manyci marylanders who are currently available to get vaccinated we are currently expanding into all healthcare providers. we get them a link that they can get for vaccine appointments and instructions for how too make those appointments, whether it's at long-term care facilities or within the hospital, or the local health department. again i would emphasize of the unauthorized use of his private dresser tracing links that are attended for someone elsese and directed towards healthcare workers, really, if someone uses it in an unauthorized way it takes spot

away from our healthcare heroes who really are at the frontlines of caring for individuals. not only with covid-19 but with so many other missions and that is her first most priority. vaccines will become available to more and more maryland and we're looking forward to looking forward to advancing into the next phase of our plan as soon as we possibly can. again depending on the supply of vaccines that come into the state. as we expanded to phase 1b populations as we receive more vaccine we also t do anticipate expanding the number of providers who will be able to register and are minute system and begin to receive vaccines themselves. to vaccinate the population. so, again, as we expand it to 1b, 1c and beyond we also will be expanding the number of providers that and can get vaccines. this includes federally qualified health care centers, primary care centers,s urgent

occares, pharmacies, and other locations that people are accustomed to receiving vaccines. so i went to shift gears and touch a just a moment on to a topic that the governor also alluded to, and that's about the uk variance. so like, what i wanted to talk about was that we know that viruses generally will morph. and we have seen that even covid has had some changes genetically over time. but those changes have not really impacted its ability to spread, or other characteristics. however, in this particular instance what we have seens is that both the uk, and in south africa have now announced that they have seen some new variants that may change some of the characteristics of the way that the virus is spread. and as the governor has mentioned, there are some states here that have already

detected the variant here. so it is possible that because of travel, because of other means of spread, that the variant is here at marilyn's. but we are staying extremely vigilant and we are working very closely with our cdc partners and we are conducting the sequencing that is needed to be able to detect the potential variance here in maryland. while it does appear to spread more easily, we have not seen any evidence that it actually causes more hospitalizations, or severe disease, or that it increases the risk of death. and that is important to understand. in addition, i know a question have been raised about whether or not the vaccine that we are rolling out would be effective against this new variants. and right now the answer is that it appears that it will be, but it has a study that will be done more on it. the vexing itself will protect

and create antibodies against multiple parts of the spike protein. and so the change in this particular virus is really only one part of that spike protein that the vaccine is protective against. and so, we believe that the vaccine will still be protective against both the string and others. our public health officials continue to study covid-19 variance to make sure that we control the spread and we act, that marylanders continued to wear a mask, practice social distancing, wash their hands, refrain from large gatherings, and other basic public health measures to prevent the spread. you know, as we roll forward i know that in discussing our new one a and one to be prior to station groups,at other states have been doing the same. including a florida, texas, and others, and we have seen the other have had long lines and calls to call centers that

really inundated their system. and i would say that, and my experience, in 2009 with h1 and one when we actually began to get a h1 and one vaccine. we receive them in the hundreds. in the very, very few amounts. to be crated appointment system which got quickly overwhelmed with hundreds if not thousands of calls, and we don't want that to happen here in maryland. which is why we are implementing a phase and phased-in approach as the governor has outlined. we will continue this in the coming days and weeks you will have more vaccines here and from in maryland and for more marylanders. we will continue to make sure that every manager who wants a vaccine will have access to it. we encourage people to learn more about the vaccine, through trusted sources such as our website covid .-dot link .gov.

while we are still now in the early stages of ramping this up, the governor has been really strong in his messaging to all of us this has to be an all hands on deck efforts. so thank you all for for all of the work that you're doing. thank you for the work that you're doing to prevent the spread of covid-19 here in the state of maryland. thank you good evening. >> thank you doctor chan with we will take some questions. theyey both have, the ceos of both corporations have assured us they will, our teams have been working all day with the health department with us walgreens and see it vs to make sure that the kinks have been worked out and that they

will report the 20 flowers. i think we will have recourse, i'm not sure exactly what that will be, hopefully we will need to utilize it. but has the full force and effect of law. as a federal contract that they do have the full or directives. [inaudible] [inaudible] they can't get a vaccine, but it just comes up the process. so if are not qualified, you're not going to get one. and you should not slow down for bales. >> no-no what. [inaudible]] >> i do, i said the same thing on television a week and half ago or two weeks ago. this is no time i don't think to be pointing fingers. this is a massive undertaking, and the the good news is this

is way ahead of schedule. in the good news is as i said, we're getting vaccines into arms. and that is a hopeful positive message. the mattress or the second doses. the bad news is it's not going as fast as anyone wants, i look i'm not going to be happy and to work done. i'm going to keep pushing and driving 247, and i'm not going to leave any stone unturned until we can get done. much is the way i am. so never going to be satisfied, but i don't want to place blame anywhere. but right now our whole focus has been how do we help the hospitals that is their job? howw do we help the counties get more done? how do we get cvs and had a wide tell two national corporation what to do their federal contract. i'm trying to fix it and get the other governors of benson walled parents trying to fix the problem. i don't want to blame, i think everyone is trying to do their best. i don't think there's one particular glitch in the system. look, it's only been less than three weeks. again it comes every day.

right so only the first two ghospitals got the first couple of doses. like tuna half weeks ago in maryland. the first nursing homes were like a week to ten days ago or something. the first two places got it on d , we for two holidays in between. a lot t of the staff wasn't there, people were gone. there is setting up new systems. didn't know how to enter the data, they didn't have people trained, but yesterday we did 11,600. that's more than they gave us.at that is we're going to outpace and were going to get to the.where we don't have any more vaccines. the guarantee was gonna switch, it's not like the skin tot be how come you haven't use them? can it be like a wooden when you get some more. it's good to be a flip a switch here in a couple weeks. [inaudible] montgomery, howard, carol or

caroline, 8790%. no not absolutely not true. everybody's been given the same god and said they've been working with county health tmdepartments exactly the same way almost every single day. pretty sure the county and they might be very far behind the rhythm of try to provide them every bit of help and we will so the national guard and to help, working to be there. whatever it takes to get up to speed. i explained that earlier, that's the way the process works. i heard other counties complaining we just found out about them? well that's the way it's gonna happen. they tell us on thursday, this is what you're gonna get, we then get online we place the order and then we tell them this is what you're going to get. you make it on monday or tuesday or wednesday, we don't

know, but you're gonna get this. were not holding out on them, that's the way the process works and that's the way it's gonna work. they can whine about it they can get to work and do their job. [inaudible] [inaudible] well, we've had this conversation with the hospital association and the number of the hospital ceos. part ofer it was over the holidays when they were short staffed already, look, they are overworked. they are short staffed. they are trying to help take care of patients and some of them are hesitant to say i don't get the vaccine while the holidays are here, and i don't have the full

understanding. that's gonna start picking up those percentages are going up. some hospitals are like 80% of their staff is getting it. some are not doing as well, nursing homes are actually much lower and that's a problem are more concerned about. but we are going to encourage the hospitals to get the higher percentage of the half staff covered bringing the hospital association to do that, and i think that were going to helpe convince people that they need to do it. but, we are going to have to work we can't leave them sitting in the freezer the hospital's week have to use them or send them somewhere else. we let them know that. another part of that is that some of the beds are filled, so i think i heard that question today, we talked about percentage used, we set out a hundred% of the beds and nursing homes. in a hundred% of the hospitals. but their 70% full. so, 70% is only hundred% of what they have. they don't have any more. there's 30% last left. you can think them and send them somewhere else.

maybe doctor chan can talk. [inaudible] i think that were going to work her way through that right now. this discussions of the hospital association saying look we really need you to pick up the pace, we are not here to try to force people to move at a rate faster than they fill is safe and effective. but, we want them to know that you just can't sit around forever because otherr people are desperately in need of these vaccines. if you're not going to use them work and have to figure out something else. i don't think we have an exact deadline, we just have the ability and now to say we may have the option to do this. it's not saying if you don't use them by this time there going to be removed.

[inaudible] [inaudible] well i guess that's the million-dollar question, tom, i am you know very clear on my views on this. repeatedly. i think it's a terrible mistake i think it undermines the very basics of our democracy you know there's no thereon there's no there joe biden is going to be sworn in as the next president of the united states. this is a perfunctory process that there is no question that these senators to raise the

senators to raise this issue the folks in the house to raises issues because trump is pressuring them to do it. think it's the terrible mistake for those senators and congressmen a thing is that for the republican party and bad for the country. i think it's destructive to our democracy anything diminishes our standing in the world. [inaudible] what's your reaction to i've heard in a promise about that. i do find it shocking that they would even seriously consider overwriting the veto in the middle of the worst economic crisis in the middle of a global pandemic we simply can't afford it exhalation .massive tax hikes in the middle of a crisis in the cooler heads and everything else will prevail. anybody else? [inaudible]

i'm not sure all of the doctor chan talk about that. >> thank you for that question, so with high risk inmates we are looking individuals who have interlining medical conditions of course that might put them at risk for covid-19. in terms of the general population, it will be in later phases, likely into phase two. so. an audible and audible. [inaudible] understood and if we get more vaccine, we will be able to provide more and more vaccines to the correctional setting. ande if we are able to do them earlier we certainly will.

[inaudible] to do the what? >> i think that we are going to figure out what people at the local governmentsve may need. we're going to provide whatever they do need at this., i don't know that we have any unmet needs, but if we do we're certainly going to make this federal government aware of it. at this stage for the next month or two, it's a limited mission. and it'sim being handled in the nursing homes in the hospitals, and the local health departments and were trying to provide supports. the next phase is completely different. it's going to be in every doctors office, and every pharmacy, and were going to be standing up clinics in the community like we did w in testing and it's a whole different mission. but as we get into the general population i'm sure as it did

with no new national strategy or plan it's going to be involved in ongoing basis. i do intend to get vaccinated i don't know exactly when. i am in a high risk with comorbidity, but i want to make sure that we get them out of the hospitals and nursing homes which we are doing now. sometime when it's appropriate i certainly will