2.9.2021 Press Conference 49ers Levi Stadium

Press Conference at Levi Stadium


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Al Guido: We're all eager to return to normalcy for our children to hug our grandparents, for our friends to come over for dinner, and, yes, for fans to cheer on the San Francisco 49ers, and by opening the site, we're taking a huge step forward in bringing an end to this pandemic. The County of Santa Clara and the 49ers are both committed to ensuring the distribution here is safe, efficient, and equitable. Here at the 49ers, we know the value of teamwork, and opening this site would not be possible without many players working together on behalf of our community. First, I'd like to thank the County of Santa Clara supervisors and public health officials. This site will be running under the supervision of Santa Clara County health officials to ensure compliance with all relevant safety and availability guidelines. I'd also like to thank the other public officials we have here for their support, including soon to be Governor Gavin Newsom. We're grateful for all of their leadership and we're happy to welcome you here. I'd also like to give a huge thanks to our hometown heroes on the ground that are getting this job done, the security staff, the custodial staff, the nurses, and frontline workers, and everyone else who is making this logistical lift possible, you embody the sentiment of faithful to the bay! Finally, I'd also like to thank Levi's and our other partners, they stepped up with their support, to ensure this vision could become a reality, and we at the San Francisco 49ers will never forget that. As I've said before working to protect our bay area community is a mission we cannot sit out. We're excited to see the community come out to levi's for their vaccinations and look forward to the day when we can again welcome fans for 49ers football. With that, I'd like to hand things over to Supervisor Ellenberg.

Supervisor Susan Ellenberg: Good morning! Good morning. Thank you, Al, and the entire team operation for making today's announcement possible. I am so appreciative of the San Francisco 49ers, and they're opening their home to the benefit of all,  of all Santa Clara County residents in such a significant way. This vaccination site, I'm proud to say, not only the largest in the state but located here in my very own supervisorial district, will play a significant role in getting residents across the county vaccinated faster. Athletes and sports teams have a long history of social activism and support of their local communities, and today reflects an example of strong teamwork, we will only get through this pandemic if we all work together. Levi's Stadium is an important site, because of its central location in the county proximity to public transportation, and ability to serve a large number of residents every day. I hope that this convenience will make it easier for residents and their loved ones to get vaccinated, no matter where they live because equity is and must always be a primary concern in how we address this health crisis. We must work intentionally to be very sure that no one is left behind we must redouble our efforts in those pockets of our community that we know are home to the highest rates of covid. We know that as terrific as this site is not everyone will be able to access it. All efforts large and small are necessary and important and must be undertaken in parallel to ensure that we are serving our whole community, and as he gets ready to join us here this morning, I hope that we can count on Governor Newsom to be our trusted teammate and push us over the goal line with a substantial increase in our vaccine supply so that everyone in Santa Clara County can be vaccinated. If I might adopt the NFL's 2020 marketing campaign slogan, "We are stronger together!" Thank you.

Al Guido: Thank you, Supervisor Ellenberg. I'd like to now welcome, Supervisor Cindy Chavez.

Supervisor Cindy Chavez: Well Good morning, everyone, and I am so excited to be here. And iI want to remind some of you who were here with us, a little over a year ago when we were reaching out to leaders in the business community and asking for their help to protect our nonprofits, one of the first companies that stepped up, one of our first partners that said "yes" was the San Francisco 49ers. The San Francisco 49ers stepped up then, they stepped up to allow us to have this as a voting center in Santa Clara County, and they've stepped up over and over again. Why am I emphasizing that? Because, as we look at this pandemic, one of the biggest challenges we have is making sure that we get every single person across the finish line, that we get every single person tested, that we continue to get people tested even as we're getting people vaccinated, that we continue to get everybody vaccinated. And one of the best ways to do that is to have a layered approach, one, is something big and mighty that's happening here at 49ers stadium, two, are all of our community clinics that are really reaching deep into the community to make sure that people have access, especially in the area that I represent which is East San Jose and southeast San Jose, and three, making sure that we're being creative and innovative for those people who can't get to where we need them to be that we go to them and get that vaccine in their arms. The 49ers Levi's, the Levi Corporation and all of the other folks that have been helping us, I just wanted to say a very sincere uh "thank you". I'm here to just demonstrate gratitude and also to to say, that as a community, as one of the largest communities in the state, that having the largest vaccination site is going to be one of the ways we make sure we don't miss a single person in our community, and I'm grateful to the 49ers to to Levi and also to our public health department and our hospital health and hospital system that haven't missed a beat. Thank you for letting me be with you this morning.

Al Guido: Thank you, Supervisor Chavez. I'd like to now bring up Dr. Jeff Smith.

Dr. Jeff Smith: Hello. Thanks, Mr. Guido. I really appreciate being here. I hope tomorrow the headline in the newspaper is that "The 49ers Save Lives", because today they demonstrate that they care even more about the community than before. They've always been here for us, they always will be here for us, but right now, they're opening their home to make sure that citizens in Santa Clara County can get vaccinated, can get back to a normal life, and actually, it will save lives. So I'd like to thank the 49ers from the bottom of my heart. I also want to thank all of my team at county health and hospital. It's been an enormous effort to get this logistically put together. I think when you see inside, you'll be totally impressed. We are going to be doing great work here along with the 49ers, and i want to thank everybody for coming.

Al Guido: Thank you so much, Jeff. Next up, i'd like to welcome Dr Jennifer Tong.

Dr. Jennifer Tong: Good morning. I'm Dr Jennifer Tong, associate chief medical officer for Santa Clara Valley Medical Center. We are pleased to announce this further expansion in capacity to vaccinate our residents of Santa Clara County. This partnership between the 49ers and Levi Stadium, with our county, gives us the ability now to vaccinate at scale. Our county health system has already provided over 113,000 first doses, in addition we have over 40,000 appointments scheduled in the week ahead. This is joined by about 100,000 doses also administered to date by other providers in our county. Levi's Stadium is now our fourth mass vaccination site in the county, this joins multiple other sites operated by our county health system including those within our clinics and a growing number at community-based sites. Despite challenges in vaccine supply, we have been able to quickly expand our capacity and maintain that capacity. We sincerely hope that we're able to continue maintaining this capacity and that it's not disrupted by decreases in our vaccine allocation, by by decisions that are beyond our local control here. We have built both the infrastructure and the human power to get vaccines and arms as quickly as possible. We anticipate that this site could grow to a volume of 15,000 per day, pending the availability of vaccine supply. This site is also scheduled to be one where we are open on at least one weekend day, as well as have evening appointments available to best serve those in our community who are working.

As announced last week, our county has implemented a no wrong door system for residents of our county to be vaccinated. We will offer appointments to those greater or equal to 65 years of age, who reside in our county regardless of where they typically get their health care. We also continue vaccinating health care workers as part of the phase 1a population. I'd like to take this moment to thank all of the extremely dedicated staff and volunteers and teammates from Levi's Stadium who have worked tirelessly night and day to quickly get this facility ready to vaccinate our population. I'd also like to reiterate the importance for everyone to continue those public health measures that we've all grown to know, maintaining social distancing, wearing your mask, washing your hands frequently, all remain key at this stage of the pandemic. To learn more um about eligibility and to make an appointment, residents can go to sccFREEvax.org, org excuse me, sccFREEvax.org that is vax, for vax, to learn more about how to make an appointment. Thank you.

Al Guido: Thank you, Dr Tong, and I'd be remiss, if i didn't thank you for helping all of our team here get set up. With that, I'd like to turn it over to Ash Khalra.

State Assembly Member Ash Khalra: Good morning, everyone. It's wonderful to be here. Ash Khalra, State Assembly Member District 27 in San Jose. We are in the district of Alex Lee, my new colleague, who is in Sacramento right now, uh and also wants to extend his appreciation and thanks to the 49ers. As you know, joining the chorus, the 49ers have always stepped up when the community is in need, and i think this is the greatest time of need that we've had in recent memory. I also want to thank our wonderful county partners, Supervisors Chavez and Ellenberg, uh we have a great relationship in terms of ensuring that we're doing everything that we can to have a partnership, now from the federal level all the way down to the local level in our county, and i in fact the governor's not here but he would attest, attest to the fact that as recently as last week, I told him what a great job Santa Clara County was, was doing please get us more vaccines. Do whatever you can. (Laughter) And i think that with a location like this, with the focus on equity that our county has, that certainly um we have at the state, we want to make sure that we can create access for everyone in our valley to be able to come here, as well as the numerous other state sites that the county is working on with our various cities. So again, thank you so much the 49ers. I know we'll be hearing from the governor and the state is absolutely a partner in this. I want to thank the governor for taking the time to travel the state to ensure that folks know that these sites are opening up. Thank you.

Roger Ross: Everyone, before we get to the governor, we're going to do questions and answers for those assembled have already spoken. Were if you can identify yourselves when you ask a question, and the mike will come to you when it's your turn, and we'll start with the mercury news.

Media:  Hi Emily, Mercury News. Can you tell us a little bit about where the supply of vaccine is coming from? and if it's coming out of Santa Clara County's allotment, how does that affect hospitals in in the region, El Camino, other places? Are they going to get less vaccine, because more is coming here? And is this going to become a regional site at any point? or will this always be for Santa Clara County residents specifically or could San Mateo County residents at some point come here?

Dr. Smith: Thank you great question. Everybody's wondering how much vaccine is going to be coming from the feds, the president has promised an extra 20 percent allocation to all the states. um We know that a new vaccine is on the horizon with Johnson and Johnson. We know that more Moderna is being made, more of the Pfizer is being made, so this will not steal any vaccine from anybody. This is a a site that will be able to expedite the use of the vaccine, get vaccine into arms, and make sure that the people of Santa Clara County are vaccinated as fast as possible. In terms of the question about regionalization, at this point the distribution of vaccine is by county. We look for direction from the State as to whether that will change, and if that did change that would certainly change the administration process.

Media: good morning, Ansar Hassan, with ABC 7 news. Just want to know how many vaccinations you're planning to do daily? i was told about 5,000, and then you guys are looking to ramp up to 15,000 on some days.  um What's the average that you're looking to do daily?

Dr. Smith: Just like any logistical effort, it starts slow to make sure that we can actually make it work. We're planning, eventually, to get to a capacity, physical capacity of doing 15,000 doses a day, but of course that all depends on getting the doses. So at this point, we're starting slower but we anticipate being able to put out 15,000 vaccines a day.

Media: so this site, Chris Sanchez NBC bay area. This site says it's for Santa Clara County residents and people who work in the county. Just wondering how you're verifying how people, whether or not people are legitimately in line?

Dr. Tong: So all of our vaccine locations follow the same process for eligibility and that includes being a health care worker, who either lives or works in our county, or being a resident of our county who is 65 years or older. Upon arrival, people, at the time of scheduling appointments, those scheduling appointments are asked to bring documentation showing their residence in the county, or if they're a healthcare worker showing their evidence of employment as a healthcare worker in the county, or their residence in the county. And those documents are checked at the time that someone is checking in for their appointment.

Media: Hi Michael Williams from the San Francisco Chronicle. Can you explain why Santa Clara County went from defying the Supreme Court Order uh regarding indoor religious services to allowing them? and Why are they capped at 20 percent, as opposed to 25 percent which is the statewide typical?

Dr. Smith: Well we'd like to focus on vaccine distribution today, but a quick answer to your question, we're worried about gatherings of any type not focused on churches, but any indoor gathering puts people at risk, so we want to make sure that people know that it's not safe to gather in large groups indoors.

Media: Brian Kylie KPIX, curious what most of these sites are set up in parking lots as drive-throughs, why was this one chose to be indoors? and you know is there concern about putting that many people close to each other?

Dr. Smith: a couple of reasons, um first of all, it's technically very difficult to do drive-through vaccinations, because everybody has to wait for 15 minutes after the vaccine to assure that they have no adverse reactions, particularly allergic reactions. And if you're in the car it's hard to monitor somebody. Secondly, in order to do vaccination in all weather in so indoors is much preferable, and we have as you'll see later on set up completely with an emergency care center, so that if there's a problem, we can render emergency care immediately. That's not something you can do when somebody's in a car. That being said, if the weather gets better, and we can find other sites or we can expand this site with appropriate monitoring, drive by is not off the table.

Al Guido: All right, everyone, thanks for hanging in there. With this, i'd like to welcome to the stage, Governor Gavin Newsom.

Al Guido: All right, everyone, thanks for hanging in there. With this, i'd like to welcome to the stage, Governor Gavin Newsom.

Governor Newsom: Thank you. yeah. Apologies for being a little bit late. Let me thank the supervisors for their comments and their hard work. And let me thank congratulate the 49ers for their partnership, uh for yet another mass vaccination site here in the State of California. I was just down in San Diego PETCO Park, the first large-scale site of its kind here in the State of California. San Diego County is leading this State as a county, in terms of the administration of the vaccine, more vaccines are being administered per capita, by the basis of percentage of those delivered than any other part of the State of California. Santa Clara County is among the leaders as well, and i'm honored to be here, joining their partners and joining community leaders that are making this site possible. The goal is pretty straightforward, the goal is to design a system that has only one limitation, and that's supply, that has the capacity to deliver on our promotion and promise to vaccinate everybody in the State of California that chooses to be vaccinated. And i want to underscore that, the issue in this State, in this nation, is supply. I just got off the phone with all the governors in the United States and the Biden Administration, it's our weekly phone call, where we discuss allocations, we discuss the distribution, we discuss the availability of vaccines for, not only our state, but for every state in this nation. We're going as a nation from 10.5 million doses that will be distributed nationwide to 11 million. That's not enough. We have a three-week window. We have a three-week visibility. That three-week window, that visibility into the future shows that the State of California will receive roughly the equivalent number of doses that we received a week ago, a little over one million, however, of those million doses the majority of those doses, while they may be first doses, they only total 594,000 first doses, the rest are second doses.

Next week, we anticipate a modest increase in the total allocations, and based upon the call today, we'll adjust that 500,000 increase nationwide, works out to about 50 plus thousand here in the State of California. Supply is the issue. That's the constraint. So when you ask me, what are we doing to vaccinate this group, that group, what about this group, what about that group, it's an issue now of scarcity, it's an issue of supply.

They are working as hard as they can, the Biden Administration, not only to provide clarity and visibility, for which we are grateful, but also to stretch available resources. Let me be specific we're moving from five doses in the Pfizer vaccines, to now being able to extract six doses. That's a 20 percent increase, that's encouraging. We're all trying to be more resourceful with the limited resources. We're looking forward to Johnson and Johnson getting emergency use authorization. If Johnson and Johnson is successful getting emergency use authorization that will substantially increase supply. We hope that happens at the end of the month, but we do not have clarity that that will indeed happen. Of course emergency use authorization doesn't mean a hundred plus million vaccines arrive overnight, it will take some time.

So we have to level set in terms of what we're trying to achieve and what we're trying to promote here today. This is an exciting announcement, because we are designing a system, which you all now, won't, know. We'll will provide capacity up to 15,000 doses a day, subject again to supply. State of California doesn't have supply banks. State of California receives those supply. State of California is an intermediary that helps support the distribution and the allocations to a provider network that totals thousands and thousands of providers, large-scale vaccination sites like this, PETCO Park, where the Padres play, where the Dodgers play down in Los Angeles, larger sites like the Cal Expo, or what we'll be doing in partnership with the Biden Administration where the Oakland A's play, those are part of this larger network of distribution for vaccinations throughout the State of California.

Pfizer and Moderna are the two vaccine regiments that we have. Johnson and Johnson, we hope as soon as next month, to see those single dose vaccinations be made available in the state. Now let me just update you briefly on some good news. One month ago today, on January 9th, we had over 53,000 reported cases of COVID. Today just over 8,000. 8,251 reported cases. fifty three thousand cases one month ago eight thousand cases today. One month ago today 14 positivity rate, today the seven day positivity rate has dropped to 4.8 percent, 14 to 4.8 percent. While deaths continue to be devastating, and heart goes out to every family member that's lost a loved one that's been torn asunder because of this deadly pandemic, we're also seeing over the course of the last few weeks, our 14-day average now decline. Still remarkably high, just shy of 500 lives a day that we are losing to this deadly, deadly disease, and so good and encouraging signs, in terms of trend lines and directions, including hospitalizations down 33.5 in the last 14 days ICU's down 26 in the last 14 days. All encouraging signs. Vaccinations now averaging just so i have 175,000 doses being administered on a daily basis. That's the seven day average doses that we've now been administering, and i remind you that's more than double where we were a few weeks ago, more than triple where we were three to four weeks ago.

We recognized we have a lot more work to do and in closing in this particular case a focus on equity. You can't talk about mass vaccinations, you can't talk about the distribution of the vaccines, unless we are talking about the issue of equity, and on the issue of equity, we have a unique responsibility and obligation to do more and do better. today working with the Biden Administration, we are now more clear on some of their efforts to partner with the State of California that include an announcement we made a week ago, which is the direct allocation of distribution of vaccines to our pharmacies. One million doses will be coming into pharmacies directly from the federal government. About a million or rather 100,000 of the million will be coming into the State of California to pharmacies directly, and we're looking at an equity lens in terms of that distribution. We also receive word today that the administration will be phasing in direct allocations of the vaccines to community health clinics, directly putting allocations into that clinic network, all throughout the State of California, which will also advance the cost of equity in terms of the distribution. We of course announced the partnership not only where the A's play up in Oakland but also down at Cal State LA, with the Biden Administration partnership with FEMA and office of emergency services, that's focused on equity specifically.

And finally, we also announced over well close to 20 million dollars to over 110 community-based organizations last week, focused on peer-to-peer communication strategy, focused on trusted messengers, focusing on safely getting this vaccine into communities that are underserved and under-represented. Again a framework, a commitment, a focus on equity. Next week or rather later this week, uh just two previews, uh we'll be putting out the details of our contract with Blue Shield and Kaiser, as it relates to this party administration that we will be implementing next week. We are on schedule to move forward with that implementation. We also will be announcing uh the details of the contract with those two providers at or near cost. We'll be putting out demographic, if you have a question about demographics, we'll be putting that data out as well, later in the week, and it will show what we all knew it was going to show that we have a lot of work to do, in terms of addressing those gaps and those disparities, as it relates to that equity lens, thus my emphasis on equity every day, not just today in terms of these announcements.

We also are making progress on sports seems appropriate, when you're here uh Levi's Stadium. Everybody including my wife, including myself, as a parent of four young kids, young athletes want to know when our kids can safely get back to competitive sports, safely get back to competitive sports, we've been negotiating the details of that real progress is being made, but we are mindful that that's part of a larger conversation that includes final words. Schools, and i am of the firm belief that we can safely get back our children, youngest children get them back safely into schools in small cohorts, k to two, k to six, we can get this done, and we must get it done. If we care about equity, we care about diversity, we care about the values we preach, then we have to get our youngest kids back into instruction, in person environments, where their social emotional needs are being met, not just intellectual and academic needs are being met, and so we are working overtime, late last night with the legislature to land some remember on a package, and we are hopeful that we can focus on a 6.6 billion dollar allocation of resources to address learning loss, incentivize safely reopening our schools, to have a plan that's a plan not to open is not a plan. We need a plan to safely reopen this school year, our youngest kids kids with special needs, foster kids, homeless kids, people with intellectual and physical disabilities, those youngest kids that do not have the advantages of the older kids of being able to utilize distance learning and technology as effectively and efficiently. We believe this is foundational fundamental, consistent with the Biden Administration, the CDC's guidelines. We can get this done and we have some work still to do with the legislature to advance that cause later this week as well.

So, good news terms of vaccination, good news in terms of the diminution of transmissions of this disease, and forgive me i know i said that was the last word, but i'd be remiss if i didn't bring up the one caveat, the one variant, and that's the issue of mutations, that's the issue of a west coast mutation in variance, issues of South African, Brazil, as well as United Kingdom. As many of you know, we have in the State of California, identified three different variants, we've identified 159 cases of the UK variant, we've identified it here in and around the bay in Alameda County, San Mateo County, disproportionate number of those variants have been identified down in Southern California, but increasing number of counties and forgive me if i'm off by one or two, roughly nine counties in the state, we've identified through our genomic isolate tests. We've identified that variant. No variance of Brazilian. No brazilian variant. No South African variant, but there are over 1200, 1203 to be exact West Coast variants, and they're two different variants that we've identified as West Coast variants that we're monitoring very, very closely. So i say all of this with that caveat, which only reinforces the importance and imperative of non-pharmaceutical interventions as we fast-track the distribution allocation administration these vaccines, to continue to where your face coverings, continue to socially and physically distance, continue to be mindful and vigilant during this very, very challenging extended period of time, but we do see light at the end of the tunnel. We are seeing real progress and we are looking forward uh to working very, very closely with Santa Clara County's health officers and organizations like the San Francisco 49ers and the bay area for Santa Clara 49ers, i'm mindful of everybody's bias, and we look forward to beginning a new, these partnerships that will allow us to scale, as we get more vaccine here into the state. With that, honored to be here of course happy to answer any questions.

Moderator: if you want to raise your hand, and uh we'll start here with mercury news.

Media: Hi Emily Durie, with the Mercury News. This actually comes from our sports desk, based on you and your staff's recent conversations would let them play advocates, What is the most likely path to getting lower tier higher contact sports back on the field? What's the timeline on any action on that? and How has the growing outcry from parents impacted your decision making?

Governor Newsom: Well that includes me, as a parent and my wife, so it was only reinforcing, but we've been negotiating including conversations last night, not just with that organization, I want to applaud their strong support and advocacy but many others that are advocates for getting new sports, including myself. So we want to see your sports open. We don't have a deal yet, as i just noted a moment ago. We're making real progress, and i can say that confidently, knowingly, and over the course the next few days, and we recognize, we have a few days to give some clarity on schools and on youth sports.

Media: Governor, Carla Maranichi, with Politico. I have a two-part question. Forgive me. um the first, is on these mass vaccination sites, uh why the residency requirement? Doesn't that penalize uh people in counties that don't have their stuff together as well like rural counties, etc? and Each thought of opening these up to all residents of California? The second question, is the public frustration with the pandemic and vaccinations and school closures has taken a hit on your approval ratings in the polls as you know there's a recall movement that says it's about to qualify with 1.4 million signatures? your thoughts uh or or comments on that recall movement and whether it's going to distract you this summer from your job here working with the pandemic?

Governor Newsom: let me just take that out. I'm not focusing on that at all. I'm focusing on increasing the administration of vaccines, getting these vaccines out of the freezers and refrigerators and into people's arms. That's my mandate, that's my focus to get our schools safely back into in-person instruction, focusing on our youngest cohorts and to start to reopen this economy safely with the modifications that are required to do so until we hit herd immunity in the state, that's my focus, that's where my energy goes, and that's what we are accomplishing here in the state, and i say accomplishing, because we made great progress last week on an eviction moratorium, getting 2.6 billion dollars out to help people that were on the verge of evictions, we're very prideful of the fact that yesterday we closed out the second round of grants for small businesses. Yesterday i was down in San Diego with a small business owner, owns an ice cream store, recipient of a fifteen thousand dollar grant, is able to keep forty employees because he has a hun, another a few units of this store uh employed because of that grant. uh We're mindful of the need to do more for our small businesses, and we're working with the legislature and we hope as early as this week, as late as next week, to get a new round of money approved so we can get hundreds of millions of dollars more out into the pockets of our small business men and women, up and down the State of California. We're working on a proposal called the Golden State Stimulus to get direct checks to 600 in the hands of millions of californians over the course the next few weeks, to land that deal as well with the legislature great progress is being made in that space. We put out a detailed proposal on safely reopening the schools, the legislature is working with us through the weekend, late last night, we're hoping next few days to get to inclusion, get to a place where we can announce the details so we could safely reopen the schools here in the State of California.

As it relates to geo-fencing around large vaccination sites, this is an issue that's pretty important to people particularly in communities that are underserved, that are frustrated, when people come from outside those communities that are more resourced, that are wealthier, more connected, perhaps more technically savvy, and find out about information get ahead of the line and that hurts the communities of which these sites were located, and so that's the dialectic, as it relates to what's that right balance. I'll be specific when we announce the partnership with FEMA and California Office Emergency Service, our focus is on equity in and around that census tract, not just zip code, in and around the community in Oakland to address the issues of our low-income communities. I don't want folks coming from all over the bay area that are well-resourced, that have vehicles for example, that can get ahead of the line literally not just figuratively, to take advantage of that, and you'll see when the equity data comes out, the demographic data that that's a real concern, and so while i appreciate, we want to open up to everybody in the state, we're trying to geographically place these loc, these sites in a way that can address the underserved and under resourced in a very strategic way, and we're just starting that process at a different scale and pace but again the only limiting factor is going to be supply. Central valley is a big part of this conversation as well not just here in the large urban centers out on the coast. So we want to accommodate for everybody, we want to prioritize our seniors, we want to prioritize our teachers, we are and prioritize our ag and farm workers, but at the same time, we also want to be mindful of those demographics which are foundational.

Media: Emily Turner with KPIX 5. You talk about getting students back in the classroom by mid-month, and yet the California Teachers Association, as well as several bay area school districts, have said absolutely not, no way. What is your message to those teachers?

Governor Newsom:  I'm committed to their safety, i'm committed to our kids education, and i believe best education is in person education, and i believe for our youngest kids, it's essential particularly, black and brown kids, particularly kids with special needs, disabilities, physical as well as mental disabilities. I think our foster kids are best served in person. I think our homeless are best served in person. I think there are millions of kids that are not getting educated as they otherwise would, because not the any reason, except for the pandemic, but that safely can get educated in person, if we effectively and efficiently invest in those safety measures, so my commitment is providing real resources 6.6 billion dollars of early action to help support that cause, and to put out a blueprint that allows the flexibility of the counties recognizing each county is uniquely positioned, as it relates to this pandemic, but to provide those supports and guidelines that are not hurdles, that are not achievable, but opportunities of supports that can get our kids safely back in school.

Media: Anser Hassan, ABC 7 news. On Friday, the Supreme Court ruled that California can no longer continue with its ban on indoor religious services, what's your reaction thoughts to that? and the plan going forward?

Governor Newsom: well we put out a new plan going forward. we put on new guidelines a few days ago that will allow uh for that to be accommodated. We obviously are concerned about that decision. We're not surprised by decisions consistent with the decision that came out of the State of New York. It's inconsistent with a previous supreme court decision, uh well defined by Justice Roberts in a 5-4 decision, but the court flipped. Elections have consequences, new supreme court justice, court flipped so their attitudes flipped. Law didn't change, i think Justice Kagan's dissent is a master class, and i'd encourage anyone who cares about public health to take a look at her dissent and how detailed it was and how resonant certainly was to me and to all the health officers, i believe, up and down the State of California. But it was caveat, the decision by the supreme court had a caveat on singing, and we thought that was wise and considerate, but we respect religious liberty. I have great respect i went to Santa Clara University, just down the block, at Jesuit University, grew up in the church of deep reverence, for the church, i just want to keep people safe, keep people healthy, and this state has really led in that respect, particularly in those environments, but the supreme court is the final word, and we will abide by it.

Media: Chris Sanchez NBC bay area. Piggybacking off the public education conversation, are just our counties are doing things differently, our teachers unions are asking for different things, everybody seems to agree that it might be good to get teachers vaccinated to make them comfortable, to make families comfortable in going back to school, but counties are taking different approaches at the local level, is there anything that you can do to standardize that response to the teachers and the teachers unions about vaccination, so that we can get our public school kids back in class? i speak to you as a public school parent.

Governor Newsom: That's exactly what the legislative package is all about, that's what the statewide plan was all about, that's what this 6.6 billion dollar framework is all about, that's what we're negotiating specifically to create a baseline of standards, expectations, transparency, on testing cadences, on appropriate levels of ppe, ventilation protocols to the extent, we'll provide flexibility in that space, on spacing protocols, providing flexibility in that space, on making sure we have a cadence of staff testing, and when we can provide more ample and robust testing of our students, different testing modalities, the pcr antigen tests, pulled tests, genomics tests. We're trying to provide flexibility. We're also putting out 4.6 of the 6.6 per learning loss, that will allow an extended school year, would allow extended school days, would allow for more intensive instruction support for wellness, mental, not just physical health, provide that flexibility but with a standard expectation that would allow for collective bargaining, will allow for localism, but at the same time set up expectations that our default and our priority is to get our kids safely back into school. And again, my humble position is consistent with the CDC's position, consistent with President Biden's position, that we can safely do that as many schools have safely reopened in the midst of this pandemic, and went through this surge very effectively and safely, we can do that before every single person in that school is vaccinated. I would like every single person in that school vaccinated, absolutely, and that's why we've prioritized our teachers, and we want to provide as many many vaccination opportunities we possibly can of course, but as i noted when you're receiving less than 600,000 first doses a week, and you start to do the math, if that's the prerequisite, then we need to be honest with people just be honest and let them know, parents millions of us, myself included, that it's very unlikely that we'll be able to accomplish that very idealistic goal before the end of the school year, because of the scarcity of supply in vaccinations, unless we took them away from the vast majority of others, our seniors and our most medically vulnerable, and that's the unfortunate position we're all in.

Media hi Governor, Stephanie Sierra with KGO. It's great to see these mass vaccination sites launching across the state, but top epidemiologists and health experts across the state criticize this should have happened months ago, when we knew the vaccine was coming. It's been almost two months, to date, as you know, since Pfizer's vaccine was approved for emergency use, so my question is, why did it take this long? and If you had to do it all over again, what would you do differently?

Governor Newsom: well the vast majority of vaccinations are not done in sites like this, the overwhelming majority of the vaccinations are distributed thousands and thousands of smaller providers in very culturally competent settings and communities, very similar, for example these are not the sites you'll see operationalized when we distribute some 19 million flu shots, which we do on an annual basis, and so building a system like this gives people a false sense of what you're doing. This is additive, this is important, this provides throughput this is very symbolic and substantive, but it's not exclusive. Now this site is a new site, and we're very, very proud of the site, and very very thankful to the leadership here in Santa Clara, but there are many other sites that were up a couple months ago. I was down in San Diego, at one of those large-scale sites at PETCO Park, Dodgers a few weeks back. You'll see large sites like Cal Expo up in Sacramento, uh over a month month and a half ago, organized and planned, but again, the backbone of this distribution strategy are thousands and thousands of local providers, including now pharmacies, themselves, community health organizations, and of course those networks that are well defined if you're in Kaiser or Sutter, some of these other hospital settings, uh and in your doctor's office, and so that's the backbone. And i want to encourage you not to be misled by these sites, as these being the exclusive sites for that distribution network.

Moderator: Governor thank you very much everybody. Thank you.

Governor Newsom: That's it? Great! Thanks all.

[Press statements from the podium in Spanish, Vietnamese, Chinese, and Tagalog]