This commentary is by Jill Krowinski, speaker of the Vermont House of Representatives.
In the last several days, we’ve received some good news and some bad news regarding the pandemic. Yesterday, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced it has granted Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccination full approval, which will hopefully add more confidence for those that were unsure of the vaccine’s safety and effectiveness. However, research has shown that with the infectious nature of the Delta variant, vaccinated individuals can have “breakthrough cases” and transmit the virus, often without knowing they are infected. Vermonters that are eligible to get vaccinated should do so as it is a critical step in protecting yourself, your family, and your community and lowers the likelihood of having serious health complications. At this time, children under the age 12 are ineligible to be vaccinated, and with schools opening up and community spread across the state, I am calling on Governor Scott to take additional steps to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 and protect Vermonters.
Since the start of the pandemic, Vermont has been leading the nation in our response to COVID, and Vermonters have stepped up heroically, steadfastly, and let evidence-based science guide our policy response. That’s why I am concerned that the Governor’s change in strategy is failing to keep Vermonters, all of us, safe. We need to be more proactive in following guidance from the CDC and ensure that we are doing everything we can to mitigate the spread of the virus. Students, teachers, and staff are returning to school this week, and all Vermonters should be confident that everything is being done to protect everyone in these congregate settings.
Over the last few weeks I have heard from Vermonters asking questions that we should have answers to including:
- The CDC is recommending that all people, no matter their vaccine status, wear masks when indoors. In addition to Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico, there are five states that currently have some type of mask mandate; they include Hawaii, Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico and Oregon. What number of new infections or ICU cases will it take for Governor Scott to issue a temporary indoor mask mandate?
- Our teachers and parents are calling for a statewide strategy for school districts in light of the transmissibility of the Delta variant and the growing number of infections among children not yet eligible for vaccines. They are deeply concerned about the lack of a unified strategy that would keep everyone safe from COVID in school environments. What is the plan for addressing their concerns?
- School officials have stated that they need more guidance on how to respond to outbreaks in school. Will the Agency of Education be providing more detailed information for school administrators so they have all the information they need to keep students and teachers safe?
- New York City and other cities and towns across the country have announced that they will be requiring all public education employees to be vaccinated. We know that vaccines are our first and best strategy to prevent COVID hospitalizations and death, has the administration explored a vaccine requirement for all Vermont state employees and teachers?
It is encouraging that our case rate appears to be declining compared to two weeks ago, but Vermonters have consistently asked why we aren’t doing more to prevent the spread of the virus. We have the tools available to protect ourselves, and any step we can take to prevent someone from being hospitalized or succumbing to this virus is worth taking.
Throughout the pandemic we have responded and adapted our strategy based on the guidance of scientists and medical professionals. Now at the start of a new school year, with infections in younger Vermonters rising, as well as breakthrough infections impacting the vaccinated, this is not the time to depart from listening to the experts and making the necessary health and safety decisions to keep our communities safe. The pandemic has taken a toll on all of us, and we should do everything we can to support those that have been leading the response, especially the individuals in our health care workforce that have been critical to keeping us healthy and safe. If we want to continue to lead the nation in our response to COVID, and do everything to keep Vermonters in all 14 counties safe, we must lean in to making changes that will mitigate the spread of COVID-19 across all Vermont communities.
Follow what our leaders do. They know exactly what is going on with this virus. Narcistic and self absorbed, they wouldn’t do anything to harm themselves. Do as they do.
This post is from a health teacher that quit her job because of what the public school system would like to cram down the throats of the ignorant public
Thank God we have enough people up here that are intelligent enough to see through the propaganda from the left.
The first thing one needs to do is read the box that the mask comes in… That explains it.
Anything beyond that explanation is hoping the fear from the government met you cave in to their every demand.
I can remember a Vermont when every one of these liberal do-gooders would have been told to kiss their butts and we would have sent them home.
We have rinos in our republican party and left he’s just waiting to sell us down the road to joe biden’s destruction of America.
Just say hell no to all of this false propaganda…
https://www.facebook.com/100069630234783/posts/134065945591079/
However trite the rhetorical question IS now, in these times of technofascist:medical tyranny, Ms. Krowinski might want to look in the mirror and ask – let alone own that this is – what SHE would’ve done in Nazi Germany when the intelligentsia, the artists, the Roma’s, the Jews, the gays, and anyone else who was inconveniently pointing out the tyranny THEN, was forced to wear a yellow/pink/etc star for identification for the shipping to the extermination camps where they were medically experimented on (Nuremberg Code), tortured and gassed (MURDERED) – in what is a perfect reflection of what is happening in Vermont today – wear the star/mask or you are an extremist of great danger to…the oligarch mafia in charge.
ALL legislators, front line workers, and government officials need to be called up on charges for violation of the Nuremberg Code – because you know – we kind of owned 75 years ago that we can’t be allowing tyranny without consent.
You know – what REAL freedom tastes like – risks and all.
Fourteen days to flatten the curve. Take the vaccine, no masks and gather away! Eighteen months later, wear a mask, mandating experimental gene altering concoction, cases exploding, don’t look at the unvaxed, untested foreign invaders being flown in all over the country – don’t look at photos of Obama and Nancy partying it up maskless while Rome burns. Awake yet?
Really??? If this jab is so effective at keeping you from catching this virus, why? 80% of Vermont has been jabbed. They said that would achieve heard immunity. Another untruth. The immune system that God gave us is our best protection. Let nature do this.
Masks do not work, the true science is out there. I’m absolutely dumbfounded that people are not opening their eyes about all the lies being perpetrated.
Perhaps the author will have a few minutes to read this article destroying what her CDC guidelines suggest: https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/08/24/study-surgical-and-cloth-masks-filter-roughly-10-efficient-at-blocking-aerosols/
Once again, political posturing and pearl-clutching from the liberal left.
This is an attempt to bait Phil Scott, nothing more.
As evidenced by news reports and video of events held recently, the political elite DO NOT
wear masks- only those serving them are required to mask.
Krowinski, in true liberal fashion seeks to create publicity for herself by restating liberal talking points,
stirring up fear and division in Vermont.
I agree with all of you that commented. I for one will NOT be jabbed. I am a free woman and I don’t comply with socialist fools. Especially Jill Krowinski, she can darn will go back to NY…
When I saw the nurse on the news that had the covid shot die just secs after having the shoot on the news that made me determine not to have the shot.!!! It was live on TV, they gave her the shot. she said ” I don’t feel good, she turned and dropped dead. PEOPLE are dying from the shot.
It is our right to decide if we want the shot or not. The last time I knew this is AMERICA and we are FREE. Our Grandfathers, Fathers, Uncles, Brothers, Husbands, and Sons fought and some DIED so that our country could be free… I will be damn to have some socialist idiot tell me what to do… These fools think they are the boss, got news for them they aren’t the boss we are.. I don’t fear anything or anyone. If the good LORD wants me he’ll take me, and the devil doesn’t want me, I heard he has a restraining order against me..lol
I’m an 8th generation Vermonter I would love to have the Vermont I grew up in back…
The latest revelation from the CDC – if one dies within 14 days of receiving a shot, it counts as an ‘unvaccinated death’. How can anybody trust these people?
No, let’s not follow CDC guidance.
Let’s accept the fact that the CDC has been captured by industry and works to serve the needs of industry. The CDC is playing the command/control game of the great reset people who want to manipulate us for ‘the greater good,’ which ‘good,’ coincidentally, meshes perfectly with the good of the very largest corporations and with the good of insane people (like Gates and Schwab) dazzled by control through ever-more-powerful technology. We’ll have no say in this new order.
The CDC has a jackboot on ivermectin. That says everything we need to know about whose interest the CDC is really serving. If we all start taking ivermectin and vitamin D and zinc and quercetin, etc., the fear porn stops. If the fear porn stops, people can’t be herded. It really is that simple.
It’s not about getting well. It’s about being herded into a wonderful, beautiful, built-back-better great reset (Schwab told us: we’re never going back to normal.) But, you won’t be in control of your life then; you’ll be told what to do, and it’ll be for a greater good that you’ll have absolutely no say in.
https://www.bmj.com/content/350/bmj.h2362
Before you write you should do some fact checking.
The Pfizer COVID VACCINE WAS NOT GIVEN APPROVAL BY THE FDA. Read that again.
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/mainstream-media-fda-approval-pfizer-vaccine/?utm_source=salsa&eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=62651064-d048-4c3f-8cf5-bbe1920c707e
As per usual they are trying to slip this one past the American public. Thank you MSM for out right lying to the public and for being a faulty primary source for Ms Krowinski. Talk about misinformation. If the above article is not thorough enough or credible enough check out what the scientist who created the mRNA has to say about this switcheroo. Shameful
Exactly Jennifer, every lame azz media outlet reported it as approved
per the political message of the ignoramuses in the Washington.. Same as they don’t report deaths of people who have been vaxed but make headlines on any that were resistant to the vax but died from the crud.. None of the alphabet agencies work for us, they all work for the swamp… they should all be burned to the ground,,,, fbi, nsa, cdc, cia, nhs, etc etc etc..
They also seem to hide the fact that ivermectin is a huge success in India who was having alarming death rates before moving to it. Now their numbers are showing a huge difference the ours using the vax’s only. But the ivermectin can be had for a buck a dose so the drug lords here wouldn’t make any money on that.
They are trying to scare people off Invermectin by calling a livestock drug, which it has been used for and I give to my horses after fecal checks, but they neglect to look at the origins. Invermectin saved the men in an African village that were going blind due to parasites. This was so pervasive that children were raised knowing that some would have to take on the responsibility of leading these men around. Ivermectin was developed and the parasites were knocked out and blindness has all but disappeared. God forbid they mention that.
Typical, Vermont’s version of Nancy Pelosi. You get what you vote for and in some cases even not what you vote for like 2020. These people don’t read anything except what their liberal staff hands them. And King Phillip abides. Beam me up Scotty, there’s no intelligent life here under the Golden Doom or behind the curtain over in the Pavilion Office building, top floor. Mask your face, take the poison and shut your mouth, that’s our leadership. Personally, I’m for Freedom!
What about ivermectin? What about other early treatments for Covid-19? Why are our health authorities putting the jackboot on these?
Has it not occurred to those who are all for mandates that the prime way tyranny can take hold in the US is through supposed ‘medical necessity’? What’s the difference between a medical police state and a regular police state? There’s no difference at all; only the justification differs, but the effect on the population is exactly the same.
Just stop. Anyone who wants to ‘stay safe’ is free to wear four masks and a body suit and gloves– or stay home. Your choice. For God’s sake, leave the rest of us alone because we are not ‘all in this together.’
Tell you what, I will donate my dose to anyone who needs a double, to be REALLY sure !?!?
i like what the Australian people are doing about mandates
My wife and I are about to spend our entire savings to send our 2nd grader to a private school because the abusive practice of masking little kids goes against our values. We are not the private school type. We are the barely scraping by type. 80% of our property taxes go to fund the public education my child is entitled to. But because of people like you Ms. Krowinski, this new segregation is seeping into Vermont schools. Segregation that forces us to pay into an apartheid system in which we are not given the education we pay for as taxpayers, and treats us as second class citizens. To reiterate, Ms. Krowinski what you are calling for is a 2 tiered apartheid system with 1 set of laws for one group of people, and 1 set of laws for the other group of people. Step down Ms Krowinski, Segregation has no place in VT.
Pimpin’ for the New World Order is so passe.
We need change, this old dog won’t hunt anymore.
Nobody has told those in Montpelier, same old tripe. Do we have to eat tripe again?
We’ll be lucky to find Tripe, when these FOOLS succeed in destroying every school and business in the country…..
We DON’T have to TAKE THIS…….
Go ahead Phil……China is watching you closely….and so are we…. DO IT. DO IT.