uh but we'll make some changes to um 1b tier 1 that'll go into effect on monday february the 8th specifically as i have indicated we were likely to do we're going to be lowering the eligible age for receiving the vaccine from 70 to 65. we'll also add a few other smaller groups including some election staff for the march and april elections some members of the unified command group and state covid 19 responders and some local emergency response personnel as well and you can see that from the graphic that's being presented as you will recall the initial guidance from the advisory committee on immunization practices that was adopted by the cdc asked us to start with a priority that included age 75 and above at the beginning of january however when we got to that particular group we in louisiana went to age 70 and above and that was because our data in louisiana showed that that was really the line of demarcation and as people were 70 and older their chances of having a very serious outcome poor outcome with with cobit 19 requiring either hospitalization on the one hand or a hand or resulting in death on the other was significantly higher we have always said that we would make every effort to follow the federal recommendations while also making whatever adjustments were necessary to take into account what was happening here in louisiana with the greatest emphasis on preserving hospital capacity and saving lives that is why we started at 70 instead of 75. towards the very end of the trump administration i want to say that it may have been the week the last week the cdc changed the recommendation to include those 65 and older that recommendation has been maintained by the current white house under the biden administration and the current cdc as well because supply of the vaccine doses to our state has also increased i feel much more comfortable about going down to age 65 and above and we've already had several weeks where individuals who were 70 and above were uh able to to make appointments if if they could get through and we we do know and are well aware that to this point demand for vaccine doses has exceeded supply going to age 65 and above i believe is in line with what about 29 other states are doing including i believe most of the states in our region and as i mentioned before it is also consistent with our rationale for prioritization since the beginning because we know that people over 65 are much more likely to die from covid than those who are younger and in fact data from the cdc shows that people 65 to 74 are five times more likely to be hospitalized if they contract co-bid 19 and they are 90 times more likely to die and and this is relative to individuals who are in the 18 to 29 age group lowering the age to 65 will add about 250 000 people to priority 1b tier 1. we know that not all 250 000 are likely to sign up to take it although we hope they would that would be a great outcome but uptake is never 100 um and let me reiterate that this expanded eligibility goes into effect on monday february the 8th so not today not tomorrow not saturday not sunday but on monday additionally and as mentioned earlier we're adding some election staff ahead of the march and april elections some unified command group members state covid 19 responders and some local emergency response personnel last week we also added the american sign language interpreters and support service providers because as you can see when they work they can't wear a mask and they're working in community and clinic based settings and with clients who are both deaf and blind we have also opened it up to all law enforcement and first responders whereas initially it was limited to those who would be administering vaccines and rendering health care for example in jails and and so forth in total including the 250 000 or so in the age group of 65 to 69 it's about 275 000 additional people that will be adding to the priority group whose eligibility starts on monday this is important we are not only just managing the current cabi covit case load we're also concerned about a fourth surge that could be driven by the new variants um particularly the b117 variant the uk variant which is present now in 35 or more states and in multiple communities here in louisiana we know that it's at least 50 percent more transmissible and i believe that the most recent data suggests that this variant can produce more serious outcomes as well so it is important to get as many people in the highest priority groups vaccinated as soon as we possibly can it's also important for emergency response leadership to be well so that they can help us to manage the crisis and yes because i've received this question a number of times up to now i am part of the unified command group and so i will be receiving my first dose of vaccine next week and we'll let you know more about when and where that will happen essential workers in the priority one by the way i'm pretty excited about being able to do that i'm looking forward to it essential workers in the priority 1b tier group i'm sorry tier 2 group are next in line for their covid vaccines and we can't tell you today when that's going to happen we don't know when pfizer doses and modernity doses are going to increase again we don't know yet when the next vaccine may come online potentially the johnson and johnson single dose vaccine we know how important it is for these individuals too to be vaccinated and it's important for everybody to be vaccinated and we put them into the priority where they are because we we know that it's important and in that context i know there's a lot of discussion around schools and making sure that they can remain open for in-person instruction and i did want to take a moment to thank our teachers for the incredible work that they have been doing and they are in that next order of priority when we can get to it but our schools in louisiana for the most part have been open for in-person instruction uh going back to labor day uh and so that's a testament uh to to their commitment and we also know and the cdc has recently confirmed this that the school setting uh when the mitigation measures are properly adhered to principally around masking and distancing which requires less density uh in the school building with respect to to the number of students there uh staying home when you're sick and that sort of thing that there's not a lot of transmission that occurs in that setting and that's and that is a good thing but we do want to get our teachers vaccinated as soon as we can they are in the next order of priority and i think that reflects the the fact that we all believe that the work that they do is essential right now our hands uh are tied because of the amount of vaccine that we are receiving uh the good news is and i'm gonna get to this in just a moment it is increasing it's increasing however slower uh than we would like uh and it remains the limiting factor in the number of people that we can get vaccinated uh and how quickly we can vaccinate them but we are making uh progress as of today's update more than 534 985 total doses have been administered and we're right at received both first and second doses we obviously have a long way to go and a lot more work to do but it is exciting having been managing this public health emergency now since i think march the 9th of 2020 to see the development and in the in terms of the vaccination program and getting the majority of louisianans vaccinated is incredibly important because this is how we're finally going to put this pandemic behind us we do want to remind everyone that it's going to be a long process it's going to be measured in months not days or weeks but there is good news and that the federal government has again notified us i think it happened on monday of this week that starting next week there will be an increase in the doses that we receive by five percent that five percent increase will come from moderna vaccine doses and the other thing is we have a little more clarification on the three weeks of visibility that we're going to have so that our opportunity to order plan communicate coordinate with all these providers will not be limited to just two or three days the way it has been up to now and so that should that should make things much smoother and allow us to to better plan and schedule things and then make sure that that individuals in the community know when they are eligible for getting the vaccine but also know how and when to contact the which provider so that they can actually receive the appointment to get it something else that we're very excited about is that louisiana will participate in the federal retail pharmacy program you heard this announcement come out of washington this week it's going to increase our vaccine distribution initially it will be 56 walmart pharmacies statewide and that program formally begins on february the 11th and when that program begins the doses that they receive which we believe will be around 14 000 per week will not come out of our allocation so we're excited about that we're actually going to have these stores 50 50 657 57 walmarts next week uh receive doses that we are going to allocate them so that they can all get started and test their systems with a with a smaller number of doses uh and and so we're excited about that as as well we're allocating those 5700 doses to the stores next week out of what would have otherwise gone to the long-term care partnership with walgreens and cvs because these doses weren't needed for them to meet their scheduled vaccinations next week in addition to those 57 hundred doses that we're transferring uh to these 57 walmart stores an additional 10 000 doses were clawed back from the long-term care partnership program because they weren't going to be needed next week and all together next week we will have 408 enrolled providers and all 64 parishes administering 86 550 first doses that's my math if your math is different you could tell them in a minute joe but um and and i'll give you those numbers to let you know we are we are making progress it is lower than we would like obviously but we are making progress and it requires an awful lot of work and i want to thank everyone uh whether they are at the department of health and the office of public health their the enrolled providers which include hospitals and clinics and parish health units and pharmacies both both um chain pharmacies and independent pharmacies and we our footprint is all over the state of louisiana and we're closing in on 2000 enrolled providers and for a state our size that is just tremendous work that has been done and will allow us as we receive more allocation of doses to very quickly get those out and into uh people's arms as i mentioned for the first time a couple of weeks ago we have been looking into the much more information around the individuals who are receiving vaccinations including uh their age uh and and race the race data was was uh not complete you remember a couple of weeks ago we were showing that 56 percent of the people being vaccinated in louisiana their race was either unknown or other and obviously that was incorrect and it prevents us from having a clear picture of the the folks who are receiving the vaccine ldh has begun to do the hard work necessary to clean that up and we've gotten that number down from 56 percent to about 35 to 36 which means we still have work to go to do but we know now from that 16 percent of showing up as african-american 47 percent uh as white uh and the the number of individuals in that 35 to 36 percent unknown or other is still you know much greater than it actually is so the percentages of both african-americans and whites is higher than we currently show it but we don't know exactly how much higher but we're going to continue to clean up the data that we already have for individuals who've been vaccinated and do a better job going forward collecting that data on the front end and i can tell you we have discovered this is a problem all over the country and to tell you how much of a problem it is i believe the 35 percent that we're showing as not knowing uh the race of the individual being vaccinated is actually lower than the national average and that's not not making an excuse we're not happy with with the information we have we're going to continue to develop it today we're reporting 2758 cases of covid19 on 39519 tests we're also reporting 1295 hospitalizations that is down 91 from yesterday and thankfully it is down about 800 since january the 8th when we went well above 2000. we have 162 of those hospitalized patients on mechanical ventilators that's down from 180 yesterday very sadly we are reporting today 38 deaths from cobit 19. yesterday we marked the grim milestone of surpassing 9 000 covid 19 deaths since the start of the pandemic here in louisiana as of today that total is 9044. and i want to give you a number that's really startling to me over the last three weeks we've had a thousand covid19 deaths in louisiana and there is no doubt but that surge in deaths are attributable to the increase in travel to gatherings into activities related to the holidays um and and that is really sad we can't fix what we did yesterday or what we didn't do yesterday but going forward we can all decide that is an unacceptable cost to bear especially when this is largely preventable and as we approach super bowl on sunday a time when traditionally there are lots of gatherings with people indoors and as we approach mardi gras we should all be mindful that gatherings that travel that activities especially indoors for prolonged periods of time they cause more people to contract covet and when that happens more people go to the hospital and more people die we've seen it here we've seen it all over the country and and i am asking everyone to double down and and let's make a better effort individually and collectively to make sure that we don't have another surge as you all know deaths are a lagging indicator of the disease burden so that you can actually start showing improvements in your percent positivity and we are you can show improvements in number of people in the hospital no i'm sorry number cases that you're getting and we are and the number of people in the hospital and we are but those deaths are stubborn and and we're still having way too many deaths each day in fact nationwide january was the deadliest month of the entire pandemic here in louisiana it was the second deadliest the the month with the most most deaths was april of last year and that was after mardi gras largely seeded the virus widely and deeply in the greater new orleans area at a time we didn't even know it was happening well shame on us if mardi gras 2021 looks anything like mardi gras 2020 with the number of people with covid in our state and across the country this year as i've just mentioned our numbers have been improving relative to percent positivity cases and hospitalizations but the baseline is still very very high i haven't asked dr cantor what he's going to share with you today but i think he's going to tell you that all 64 of our parishes remain read for having a high incidence of new cases relative to population that is more than 100 cases per 100 000 over seven days so we still have a lot of covid in louisiana too much cobit in louisiana and we have new variants out there and in fact the uk variant is projected to potentially be the predominant strain of the coronavirus spreading in by march okay at this point i'm going to ask dr cantor to come up and share some information with you i'll come back uh in just a few minutes to close out and to take your questions as we always do if you've got questions for dr cantor please ask him while he's up here good afternoon everyone thank you governor thank you for your leadership throughout all of this just as the governor predicted i'm i'll start off by by reminding folks that kova is is widespread continues to be widespread throughout the state of louisiana we uh have some semblance of of good news in that it's clear that we've peaked in terms of cases after the christmas and new year's holidays and now for the past week or two we've been slowly coming down to the side of that peak but we're awfully high we continue to have what's ranked by the cdc as the highest category of incidents new cases that's over a hundred new cases per hundred thousand residents over a seven day period that's the case for all 64 parishes that's the reason if you want to look at the map right now as the governor mentioned it's read throughout the entire state so the risk of community spread remains exorbitantly high fatality counts as the governor said are a true lagging measure and we continue to see increased fatality counts for a number of weeks after you peak and start coming down there so we reached that grid milestone of 9 000 deaths yesterday the past three weeks have been particularly costly to louisianans i think we should continue to expect to see those increased discounts for a couple more weeks lagging from the peak um that we seem to be recovering from slowly right now um there's still a lot of people hospitalized even though that number is thankfully going in the right direction and um again the risk of being exposed to covid through normal daily activities in all 64 parishes is extremely high it's been extremely high for the past four to six weeks it remains extremely high now that's that's that's the most important message to convey as it has been the past few weeks that people need to take precautions it's still very very risky out there i will um want to remind folks that one of the tools we have is the covet defense app which is a exposure notification tool it's 100 free you can get it from the iphone app store you can get it from the android app store no cost at all completely confidential completely anonymous it's a really good way to know if you have been exposed to covid just through daily activities or at your work site you know of course the only works of both parties are using it um we've had it out now for about a couple weeks we've had over 30 000 downloads of it i think it's going quite well no one's obligated to use it i don't want to give that impression and it doesn't track anyone's location it just uses a bluetooth radius of about six feet but it is a tool and as we still have high transmissibility and as we look at what might be coming ahead and i'll get to that in a second i want people to avail themselves of everything that's out there so i would encourage people if you haven't done so yet download the covet defense app it's pretty easy to find cover defense louisiana and it's easy to set up and again it doesn't cost anything to do it speak a little bit about where we are with the vaccine and i'll give you some some numbers in a second i think we're doing quite well and as you compare us to other states we continue to rank amongst the top category of states in terms of how much vaccine is administered as a per capita of how much we receive and a per capita of what our population is so i'm very encouraged by that i think you know we owe really all the credit to our vaccine providers across the state and these are hospitals these are clinics these are pharmacies and now some parish health units as well they're really working hard it's been challenging circumstances up until now they've not gotten a lot of forewarning or time to prepare when they get doses allocated to them um that'll change going forward but it's been it's not been an easy task and they really have stepped up in in a big big way and that's why we're doing so well with the vaccine we were thankful to receive a little bit more in our allocations for for next week from operation warp speed and i'll kind of go over that right now so at the conclusion of this week after the amount that had been transferred over to the long-term care partnership program was taken into account we will have and this is just first doses 411 850 doses available for in-state allocation next week we were being allocated for pfizer 29 250 doses and for mordarna 41 600 doses which is a small bump from the week prior for which we're thankful for in addition to that as the governor said we will be doing two maneuvers we'll be clawing back so to say are taking 10 000 doses that we had previously allocated to the long-term care partnership because we were required to by the cdc they're now giving us allowance to sort of say claw those back so we'll be clawing those back and adding them to our in-state allocations and distributions we're also going to be seating so to say the retail pharmacy partnership program with walmart with an additional 5 700 doses taken from the long-term care partnership program bank all told that's going to give us at the conclusion of next week i'm projecting you know a week week or so down the road right now a total of 492 700 doses available for our allocation plus 5700 doses for the retail pharmacy program plus whatever the feds match that with which we believe is going to be somewhere in the vicinity of 14 000 doses we just haven't gotten confirmation about that yet um we also now are getting some additional predictability from operation warp speed um of what we should receive a couple weeks down the road it's relatively flat um for the next few weeks which is what the federal government has told us to expect um but we'll be communicating that to our providers and hopefully give people a little bit more time to prepare which we've all been excited about um i do want to uh unfortunately it's been a couple weeks since i've updated you on vaccine loss um i do have some new um some new news to share about that we had a couple sizeable losses that i do want to let people know about and it really does pain me to go over this within the past week or two we've lost 133 doses this was at a hospital in the shreveport area due to a temperature mismanagement issue and then a miscommunication with moderna when we discussed when the provider discussed what the proper course was additionally 200 doses were lost in a pharmacy in the region for lafayette area i'll tell you so that brings the total loss for the state up until a date of 548 doses which every every drop pains me um i can tell you that all of these have been honest uh air human error of some sort for each of these that are sizeable we go back and do what's called a root cause analysis and get into about what what could have been done better what could have prevented that try and learn from that we'll be putting out some hans or health alert notices over the next few days to address some of the temperature issues um and and one of the points of confusion that i'll clear up is um when doses arrive from our uh subdistributor from our state distributor those are not to be re-frozen and that be one of the points that will be re-clarified in a han coming out and i'll keep you up to date you know as those things go on again it's um it's not a happy thing to talk about vaccine that was lost and could have gone to someone and that's that's not lost on anyone um looking forward i'll tell you what what what we are nervous about is this variant and uh you know it's it's it's hitting us at just the time when we are recovering from this very big spike the largest spike we've had in the pandemic over christmas and new year's and the nature of this is that our ability to detect the variant pairs in comparison comparison to how widespread it probably is you know as a country we don't do a lot of what's called genomic sequencing we don't do a lot of sequencing of the actual uh virus itself some other european countries do do much more of it so we know that when we do identify cases like this that it's a tip of the iceberg scenario there's much more out there no doubt than we're able to identify at this point in time um you know this week we've been able to confirm two additional variant cases both of those were in the region five the greater lake charles area that takes the total confirmed variant i'm talking about the b117 or otherwise known as the as the uk variant um total confirmed cases right now in the state is five we have an additional 20. that are pending confirmation in the cdc the cdc is now getting so many of these pending confirmation requests from states that they're not able to keep up with it and they've indicated to us they might not be sequencing all of these suspected cases that's a marker for how widespread the variant is becoming in the u.s so we know even though i can tell you this five confirmed and 20 pending confirmation in state without doubt there are many many more variant cases in the state that we just don't know about and also don't be mistaken to think that the variant is just in those two areas regions one and five where the both the confirmed and dependent cases are the reason why that appears that way is one of the ways we can pick up on a suspected variant is one type of pcr testing platform the type made by thermo fisher is called attack path can spit out a detailed report that can be suggestive of the variant not every pcr platform in fact no other one besides that attack path one that we use in the states does that it makes it suspected of the variant there are big testing operations in region five and region one that use that tack path the thermal official platform that's why these suspected cases are coming primarily from that there are other surveillance networks that cover the rest of the state that have not yet picked up a variant doesn't mean that it's not there doesn't mean that it's not there we should assume that the variant is is out and about and circulating in louisiana so what does that mean for us and i think you know the cdc has said as the governor mentioned that they expect nationwide on average the variant's going to be the dominant strain by mid-march now when it actually becomes a dominant strain in louisiana i don't know but there's a good likelihood that we will have a second excuse me an additional surge or spike before we're able to achieve herd immunity and i think people need to be prepared for that this variant is more transmissible it's it's possibly more virulent the uk certainly found that it's putting more people per capita in hospital than their previous surges did so that this is likely what's going to come ahead for us and unfortunately i think it's going to hit us before we have enough vaccine available to us to administer and achieve herd immunity it's somewhat disappointing news i think none of us eight months ago would have thought that we would still be having surges at this point in the game and certainly not not happy about that i don't think anyone is but i think it's important to be honest and to know know what's ahead one of the aspects of that is doing what we can now to best prepare during our last search the the christmas and new year's surge we were disadvantaged because we did not get our cases low enough in the interim and so we went into what we knew was going to be a high transmission error period we knew that thanksgiving christmas and new year's were going to set us back and we went into it with a pretty high level of community transmission that's like taking a pretty large bonfire and then throwing some more gasoline onto it i think we can do better this time around we know that this this variant is going to continue to spread we likely are going to have another surge we're going in the right direction now and so we need to gain as many yards as possible before that happens the more that we can suppress transmission now the better prepared we'll be to deal with a surge from this variant if and when it comes nobody wants to be talking about another thousand deaths over a three week period the more that we can suppress transmission now the better we'll be prepared to weather that storm which is likely headed our way i'll take a pause there i'd be happy to answer any questions for any sam um can you talk about uh so you guys have talked about in the past when you move to the next group or expand the group uh it's when you see slack and appointments i know you cited the additional doses we're getting but are you seeing any slack in the uptake and specifically do you have any areas of the state where uptake is lower than other areas it's relatively it's relatively even throughout the state we we keep up with our pharmacy providers our clinic providers and our hospital providers fairly regularly and as of a few weeks ago we were hearing across the board that just very long wait list and still much much more demand than supply and i i don't mean to suggest that supply and demand have completely leveled out because they haven't but we have begun over the past week to hear providers say there's some daylight in their waiting list they're not as busy and so that was a signal to us coupled with a couple other things coupled with what the experts in the country are advising which is to go down to 65 and being cognizant of the severe loss of life that we've weathered and knowing what it means in terms of mortality prevention to get down to 65 motivated the decision to go forward yeah what's the difference i think earlier in the week the department of health told us that you guys were pulling back like i want to say 15 600 doses from the long-term care nursing home program why are you saying 10 000 doses today what happened it's both it's just split into two parts so we're taking 10 000 doses from the long-term care bank which was 93 600 and moving them into direct allocation which means that we disburse it out to the normal network of pharmacies in addition we're taking 5 700. i had told you 5006 is actually 5 700.

5700 and move them from the long-term care program into this new retail pharmacy program so they're both going to enter the state and the reason why that's important for us is because the retail pharmacy program doesn't technically start until february 11th we began supplying these 57 walmarts this week we didn't want there to be a gap in services we wanted them to be able to do continuously um well it's i mean we're anxiously trying to get to frontline essential workers uh because we know that what what their job puts them towards and so that's likely going to be the next phase and when we're able to get there and as the governor said is an issue of how much vaccine is available to us and i can tell you right now what the state's going to be guaranteed two or three weeks out it's essentially flat each week plus what the uptake is of the current eligibility phase and it'll be the same process it'll be talking to providers understanding what the supply demand mismatch is nobody is interested in just telling someone they're eligible if it doesn't translate into access to vaccine that doesn't help anyone yeah what's your response go into other states like mississippi to get vaccinated if they don't meet the criteria for louisiana at this time i mean i think if you look at the numbers we've administered a greater percentage of the vaccine available to us than mississippi has so i think there's probably more daylight in the vaccine available in mississippi i i can't comment on what what their state's policies are and i you know i i can't i guess fault anyone for trying to get vaccinated all i would ask is for people that are getting vaccinated in louisiana be honest be a good neighbor and and don't be in the system yep sam uh you guys have obviously laid out what tier two is going to look like in terms of the people eligible do you feel like that's set in stone are you still making tweaks and might adjust that by the time it comes around i don't think anything is set in stone i mean ever on this i think we continue to listen to national experts we continue to look at data and data continues to come out so i think i think it's a good idea of where we're headed but i would never say that we're not going to listen to some new piece of information that might become available yeah thank you everyone i do um wish everyone well and again we're while we're moving in the right direction i think the message really needs to be to families let's leverage those games let's let's make the most of those gains so that if if cases do go up in the future which they very well might we're as well prepared to weather that as possible thank you you know one one of the reasons why follow-on priorities may change is the asic recommendations may change in terms of cdc looking at new things whether it's a variant or something else and saying hey we need to make an adjustment that's what happened two weeks ago but also we could make a change in the next priority group if we have a new vax income online and the data around safety and efficacy and so forth suggests that it's better suited for certain people than others we may have to make an adjustment of course we will have the benefit at that point of an asap recommendation that that is approved by cdc before we ever receive it and so it underscores what dr cantor just said none of this is written in stone um and it's a novel coronavirus that means it's new we learn things every single day and then the vaccines are new and we're learning things every single day and i did want to point out that no one should believe that the long-term care partnership is going to administer doses slower than they otherwise would have because we took a total of 15 hundred from that partnership this week we only did that because those were first doses they were going to receive that they were not gonna administer this week and we're not gonna slow down uh that program uh so i i wanna make sure that people understood that obviously and i've alluded to this already this is carnival season super bowl is on sunday let's not repeat the problems that we created for ourselves over the holidays let's certainly not repeat what happened in louisiana following mardi gras 2020 unfortunately most people's super bowl activities look a lot like a holiday meal where people from multiple households gather in one place indoors for extended periods of time it's just not safe and i'm encouraging people to not do that this year also encouraging people to find a way we're creative people in louisiana to celebrate mardi gras but to do it differently this year to do it safer to to have due regard for your neighbor but also for those health care professionals those heroes who've been working so hard since march of last year so enjoy the creative house floats please remember to wear your mask press practice social distancing avoid crowds let's protect those who are most vulnerable to this disease let's remember outdoors is always safer than indoors and more than just being general statements about what we should do i want you to know that i and the public health officials here are very concerned about what we're seeing already are relative to the crowds on bourbon street and other large gatherings that are taking place elsewhere quite frankly it's irresponsible it's selfish we're better than that we need to do better i have no doubt it will lead to another surge if we don't get it under control very quickly and the way this variant works because it is more easily transmissible something that previously might have had a minor risk of transmission associated with with it and now it's going to have an elevated risk and we just need to be very very mindful of that we need to be more vigilant if you plan on watching the super bowl um you know i'm not that interested because the saints aren't in it to be honest with you but if you if you happen to be please do it safely uh from your home with your immediate household and if you need to be able to talk to your friends there are ways to do that now you can talk real time you can both be watching the same game in different locations and you can be speaking and carrying on and having fun you can have a beer and they can have a beer so enjoy mardi gras enjoy the super bowl but let's do it safely there's not much enjoyment when you find out that someone contracted cobid at one of these gatherings and then there's even less enjoyment the next time you gather and that individual isn't there because they're either in the hospital or they're dead and that is not just some theory of things we lost a thousand people in three weeks in louisiana because of gatherings and traveling and activities related to the holidays so with that i'm going to take a few questions now sam governor by the way these are kansas jayhawk basketball yeah that's even worse actually but pelican socks are great but kansas jayhawks okay go ahead