(bright music) - [Announcer] PBS Utah presents the Governor's Monthly News Conference, an exchange between Utah reporters and Governor Spencer Cox.

(regal music) - Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome.

It's great to be with you again.

It's hard to believe another month has flown by.

It has been, I guess, 101 days since our administration was sworn in, and it's been an incredible honor over the past 100 days to serve as your Governor.

It has not been perfect, but we have an incredible team, and we're very proud of what we've been able to accomplish over the past 100 days.

Now, as always, we want to talk about the Coronavirus and our COVID response and vaccinations.

But before I do that, I do want to give a little reminder on a different topic.

It was just 13 months ago that we were reminded that Utah is also earthquake country.

And preparedness works, and this year is no different.

So please don't let the experience of the past year go to waste.

Our state needs you to continue preparing.

Just take it one step at a time.

We want to encourage people to start, if you haven't, storing some food and some water.

Keep it in your pantry or under your bed if you don't have a lot of space.

Remember to, this is the important thing, to drop, cover, and hold on if and when that shaking starts.

So the great Utah Shakeout is a day that we set aside to encourage you to do your earthquake preparedness wherever you are.

You can register at shakeout.org/utah.

That's shakeout.org/utah.

And join over 700,000 people in this drill every year.

Just a good and helpful reminder.

Now, we want to talk a little bit more about vaccines and vaccine eligibility.

This is a little bit of a change.

We are no longer discouraging individuals who have tested positive for COVID-19 within the last 90 days to wait to get their COVID-19 vaccines.

We do have enough supply as supply continues to grow, and as more and more people are getting vaccinated now to allow for this change.

So the verbiage which outlined this recommendation will be removed from the Governor's Vaccine Distribution Plan Executive Order starting today, April 15th.

Individuals should wait to get vaccinated until they don't have any symptoms from their COVID infection and once they've been released from their quarantine or isolation period.

If a person has had long-term symptoms of COVID-19, we would encourage those people to talk to their doctors before getting the COVID-19 vaccine.

So again, that is a change.

We have been encouraging people to wait at least 90 days.

That was in part because we know there is some immunity that is conveyed from having the virus, and not having enough vaccine.

But we we are no longer discouraging people from that wait.

I also want to update you on our equity plans and the successes that we've been able to see.

You'll remember a little over a month ago, I think it was around March 4th, that we talked about our vaccine-equity efforts, that we were going to be working very closely with local communities to help our multicultural communities to get vaccinated, because there had been some disparities and gaps there.

I'm pleased to report that since then, since March 4th, we have been successful in closing those gaps.

Now, we still have a ways to go, but I want to share just a few numbers that I think may be of interest to you.

So, since that March 4th announcement, white and Caucasians have increased vaccinations at 262%.

So again, across the board we are just seeing incredible numbers of vaccinations.

So whites at 262%.

Now, I also want to say that the one area where there was not a gap, in fact there was a gap in the other direction, was with our Native American population.

The federal government together with state governments had made an effort from the very beginning to reach out to our tribal leaders to get vaccines out there.

So, San Juan County led the state in vaccinations.

And I think still does.

They're in the top three.

Because our Native American population got vaccinated first.

And so they have had an increase since March 4th of 223%.

So very similar to the white and Caucasian population.

But here are the other numbers now that I want to share.

The Asian population has seen a 459% increase since we launched our equity efforts.

Black and African-American population at 345% increase, the Hispanic or Latino population a 463% increase, and our Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander community at 432% increase.

So that gap is closing.

I can also share just, if I have them here, some of those raw numbers.

So 6,900 Asian adults have received at least one shot in that time.

Now up to 31,500.

18,700 Hispanics or Latinos had received at least one dose.

Now we're up to 85,800.

Sorry, that first number again 6,900 Asians had received at least one dose on March 4th.

Now it's 31,500.

And then our, our Black adult population 2,400 had received at least one dose on March 4th.

Now we're up to 8,400.

Also again, our numbers with our elderly population continue to be some of the best in the nation.

When you look at our most vulnerable groups, ages 65 and over, now 85% have received at least one vaccine.

70 and older, that number is 87%.

So that's going to help us continue to drive down hospitalizations and drive down our death rates here in Utah.

The transmission index, just as we keep you updated on that, we have three counties that have moved from moderate to low: Kane County, Miller County and Washington County.

That is very good news.

All of our counties continue to be in moderate or low, which means that there are very few, if any restrictions.

We continue to get questions about restrictions that are out there.

There's still a lot of misinformation out there about restrictions that actually don't exist.

But there are many private entities who continue to place restrictions to keep their people safe, and we fully encourage that.

Of course, we've seen that with masks now.

We have gotten questions around mass gatherings.

There are no limitations anywhere in the state on the number of people that can gather together as long as they wear masks if there are over 50.

That is the only restriction that is in place still in those orders.

We've also had questions about religious organizations, churches or temples.

There have not been any restrictions on gathering in churches or temples since I think October at all.

So religious organizations have continued to put those restrictions in place voluntarily to protect their congregations and others.

But there are no restrictions on religious organizations in the state when it comes to gathering; including the mask restrictions, those do not apply.

The 50 and over do not apply to religious organizations.

Although again, most of them have voluntarily continued to encourage their congregants to wear masks to keep people safe.

That's where we are with regards to the vaccine rollout and eligibility and some of the great things that are happening.

I will just say, it's been incredible to see our partners come together.

It's been wonderful to see people getting out and getting their vaccines.

I will tell you immediately after this, I'm headed down to get my second dose.

It has been 21 days since my wife and I received our first dose of Pfizer and we're headed back to get our second dose.

We're excited about that.

Excited to join the ranks of the fully-vaccinated.

I will say that when I was sworn into office there were only 305 Utahns who were fully vaccinated.

And now just 101 days later, we are at 741,819 Utahns that are fully vaccinated.

I will just note that we have now administered over 1.8 million doses, total, first and second doses.

This is a daily increase of over 40,000 doses since just yesterday.

A week ago today our total doses administered was 1.6 million first and second doses.

So this is an increase of 204,969.

We're going to round that up to 205,000 doses in one week, which is once again a record.

That is our biggest week yet here in the state of Utah.

So thanks to all of you who have gotten your your vaccines.

For those of you that have not, there are appointments available, please, you can go to coronavirus.utah.gov/vaccines and look for appointments there.

Or vaccinefinder.org is a great place to go and find an appointment, whether it's at one of our public health facilities or with the local pharmacies in your neighborhood.

And with that, I'm happy to answer some questions.

- [Ben Winslow] Governor, legislative leaders tell me we may be three to four weeks away from terminating public health orders under the COVID 19 endgame law.

We've met the thresholds for case rates per 100,000 hospitalizations with ICU specific to COVID patients, vaccines are catching up.

What do you think about that?

Is it too soon?

Is it not too soon?

How do you feel?

- Well, I don't think it's too soon.

I think it's great news.

I think that's exciting.

And the reason that that metric, which again I think was a much better metric than the mask metric, I wish that we had followed those two together, but again we we've talked about that a lot.

What I like about this one is that the vaccine number was included.

And that's the important one, more than anything else.

We've said that from day one.

Nothing matters more than getting vaccines into arms.

And so the metric that was chosen by the legislature there is a good and laudable one.

So getting those doses, getting them out there, getting people vaccinated, and getting people fully-vaccinated is our number one goal.

The more people we do, the fewer restrictions we will need at all to keep people safe.

So we feel really good at that.

We had anticipated early on that by June 1st we could get there, if the vaccine numbers kept up.

Of course, we've had a little blip with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine that I'm happy to discuss if you have any questions there.

But our ability, and I think as of yesterday, we were as high as fourth, I think yesterday we were eighth in the nation for percentage of vaccines available to the states that had actually been administered into arms.

And so we feel really good about that.

If we can hit kind of a mid-May timeframe and get that many vaccines into arms, then we're in good shape.

- [Ben Winslow] Do you think we're going to be able to reach herd immunity?

Right now we're at 30% fully vaccinated, but you got to hit 70 before everything's truly, supposedly okay.

- [Governor Spencer Cox] Well, supposedly, right.

There is no definitive answer yet on what herd immunity, what it will take to get herd immunity.

We've heard 60%, we've heard 70%, we've heard 80%.

The medical community has not come to a consensus on what it will take to get herd immunity.

The best numbers we're seeing right now are coming out of Israel.

Israel has been ahead of any nation, although the United States is top five.

But they've been the closest to getting the most vaccines out.

And it does look like they're getting close to some sort of herd immunity out there.

Their numbers continue to drop.

And their, I think, most, if not all of their restrictions have gone away in Israel.

So we're watching them very closely.

I do think it is close to getting herd immunity.

I will remind people that there are other ways to get to herd immunity, and it's not just vaccines, but there've been a lot of people that have been infected with this disease who do have some immunity.

We don't know how long that will last, but we do know that it is a combination of those things.

We certainly think that that's why one of the reasons that the numbers continue to drop here in the state of Utah, it's a combination of people who have already had the disease plus people who have been vaccinated.

And then again, it's not just about herd immunity.

It's also about driving down hospitalizations and deaths.

And because we focused on the most vulnerable, and other states have not, we believe that that's been a major part of our success here, even though we still have cases, they flattened out a little bit.

We've seen some reductions the last couple of days versus last week.

Yesterday was a very good day for us.

Today was another good day of decreases.

I think we're down about 30 or 40 cases versus last week.

But our hospitalizations are coming down, and most importantly, our deaths are coming down.

That's, the big one, right?

And so we're really anxious to get our most vulnerable vaccinated and get them fully-vaccinated and then we don't have to worry quite as much.

- [Brian Mullahy] Governor, is the Johnson & Johnson vaccine an inferior vaccine, and what do you think?

How should the state proceed in terms of administering it going forward?

- Well, it's a great question about the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

It's definitely not an inferior vaccine.

We're so fortunate to have it.

In fact, in some ways it could be argued it's a superior vaccine because of the one dose that is needed as opposed to the two doses.

And it has become the vaccine of choice for many people.

Younger people tend to like Johnson & Johnson, again because it's one shot.

It's been very helpful in reaching out to some of our harder to reach communities.

And so it's frustrating, to be honest, this pause.

I understand the reasons for doing that, although I don't necessarily agree with the reasons for the pause.

As human beings, we are really bad at understanding and evaluating risk.

And if you look at the numbers, the numbers with this clotting issue that they're concerned about, the numbers are minuscule compared to so many others.

And, of course, I'm not the first person to point this out, that I had, probably a better chance of having a car accident on my way to this interview than than I would by getting the Johnson & Johnson vaccine and having a blood clot.

And, when you compare it to the odds of somebody contracting the virus, getting hospitalized, or dying from the virus, it's not even in the same zip code.

And so there are times I will admit that I wished that during this pandemic, that the medical experts would also include the human experts, people who understand human behavior, and understand these risks, and that there was a more collaborative approach to these things.

And the reason I say that is, I am fearful that this will have seriously negative connotations with people who are hesitant to get the vaccine in the first place, who are looking for a reason not to want to get the vaccine.

And that more people will die because of this decision to push pause on the vaccine than would have been impacted by the the repercussions of this blood-clotting issue.

So all of that being said, though, I'm not a medical expert.

And so we will continue to follow the guidelines as put out by the CDC.

There is disagreement amongst many in the community over how, and how long, and whether this pause should have started or happened, but it did happen.

And so what we're going to do is do our very best to use the other vaccines that we have available right now, get them out to everyone, to give people the best information possible so that they can make that decision.

And we sincerely hope that we can get through this pause very quickly and move on.

One of the big reasons for the pause, in fact, the major reason for the pause was so that medical doctors could be instructed on how to respond to this condition in the very, very, very, very rare case that it actually occurs, how to treat it, because it is different from the way that you would treat other blood clots, and they wanted to make sure to get that information out.

That is happening right now.

So we're hopeful that we can, again, we can respond.

If there is an issue with a subset of the population, we know that again, all six of these cases were women between a certain age, between the age of 18 and 45.

If it's the case that we want to pause with that subgroup for awhile, and use this for other populations to move forward, that would be great.

But what we need to do is we need to help Utahns and Americans understand that the risk of the virus is so much greater than the risk from these vaccines.

We've had no deaths in the state of Utah.

And we've had, you know well over 2,000 deaths from the virus right now.

So, I just hope that this does not cause people to not get vaccinated.

- [Katie McKellar] Will the Johnson & Johnson pause disrupt the state's projections for getting to 1.63 million- - [Governor Spencer Cox] It shouldn't disrupt us much.

The Johnson & Johnson vaccine, because it's the newer vaccine, has been a fairly small percentage of our vaccinations over the past couple of weeks.

We're looking at less than 5%.

So it should not slow things down much at all.

However, it is an important piece.

Where it could slow things down is in helping to close some of those gaps that we talked about in harder to reach communities, and I include in there rural Utah.

Where we've been really successful is taking these clinics out to what I call, not just our rural communities, but our frontier communities.

So our hardest to reach communities, go out there and do a one-day clinic for everyone in the community.

Where you know, you don't have to schedule it, we're there from early in the morning until late at night.

Anyone can come at any time and get that vaccine.

And it's a one-shot vaccine, and then we can be done in those communities.

So that's where I think I'm most concerned, and most governors are concerned, that it will hurt us in those areas.

But the good news is that we have so much Pfizer and Moderna coming into the state.

Those have been very steady, continuing.

In fact I think there was an announcement yesterday that Pfizer will actually be able to increase their production.

And so we still feel really good about the numbers coming into the state.

- [Brian Mullahy] So just to play back here, you disagree with this pause?

- [Governor Spencer Cox] Yeah, I do.

Look, again, I'm not a medical expert but I think there is so much that we have to weigh in the balance here.

Again, I understand why they did it.

By the way we saw the same thing with AstraZeneca in Europe.

And if you look at the European numbers, now they've taken the pause off of AstraZeneca, but what happened is, there was one country that didn't pause, and that was the UK.

And my understanding is that vaccine hesitancy in the UK didn't change at all with this issue.

However, in most other European Union countries, after the pause, they saw an increase in vaccine hesitancy because of that.

And so, while I understand, and look, it's important to get these right.

Safety is critical because if the vaccine's not safe people aren't going to get it.

But, is there a better way to do this?

Is there a way to say, "Hey," you know, again, fully transparent to the public by saying, "Hey, look, this is an issue.

It's something we're concerned about.

We know this is happening."

Again, women in a certain age, so let's maybe pause there, and have them get the other the other vaccines and continue to use Johnson & Johnson for other things.

So that's what we're evaluating here in the state.

It's unlikely we'll do anything different than the rest of the country.

Again, this is a national effort, this vaccine effort.

And the truth is we do still have some of this Johnson & Johnson here, but additional doses aren't coming into the state until the vaccine pause is over.

- [Brian Mullahy] So, do you have the opportunity, do you have the ability to go it alone if you decided to?

- [Governor Spencer Cox] Only with the vaccine that we still have here in the state.

- [Brian Mullahy] So going forward, any new vaccine coming in you would have to abide by CDC guidelines?

- [Governor Spencer Cox] Well, they're not sending any more Johnson & Johnson to the states - [Brian Mullahy] I see.

- until this issue is resolved.

Now, we had a conversation with the White House.

We've talked about this.

They're very hopeful.

In fact, Dr. Fauci said that this will be minimal, we're going to push really hard to get this resolved get all of the information that we can on this so that we can resume with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine as quickly as possible.

We anticipate that it will be a week or a little more than that, but we're not talking months.

So, again, I do think it's important, and we appreciate our media partners to be able to put into context what we're talking about.

That I think is the most important thing, is I think if we give people good information they'll make the right decision.

When you realize that you're far more likely to get eaten by a shark or struck by lightning than you are to develop this very rare blood clot issue, then people will realize that getting these vaccines is good.

And to point out right now that, again, we have two vaccines that we know do not have any of these issues.

And so, please, please, please go and get this vaccine.

Don't make that decision based on a concern that is being addressed.

- [Moderator] Okay, we'd like to go to a remote reporter right now.

Bethany Rogers with Salt Lake Tribune, go ahead with your question.

- [Bethany Rodgers] Hi, Governor.

I was just wondering if in light of the parent protests demanding that the mask mandates be lifted immediately in schools, if, you know, you're considering changing that date or if you expect to stick with that until the July 1st deadline.

- Yeah, so we're going to continue with where we are right now.

Again, we're constantly evaluating and re-evaluating things, and I've spoken to this issue many times, but to those parents and those students, I understand this is so hard.

I would like nothing more than to be completely done with masks everywhere.

That's our goal.

That's what we're driving towards.

We're so close right now, though.

And so my encouragement would be to stick with us, let's finish this out.

We're not going to come back with masks in the fall.

We're going to be done with this.

We're excited to be done with this, and we're getting there.

We're very close, but just hold on.

If we were to take mask away right now there are a whole bunch of kids who would not be able to come to school.

And we want kids in school.

I was talking to a school administrator yesterday and he said, "You know, it's really interesting for the first time, in a long time, we have teachers from other states who are flooding into Utah because we've been able to keep schools open."

We've been able to keep students and teachers safe.

We've prioritized teachers in vaccinations.

And we've been able to keep kids playing sports.

That was all because of our testing protocols and on our mask-wearing in schools, which kids have been so good at.

Our kids are showing us, by the way they're a lot better than parents, they're showing us that they can do hard things, that they're willing to do hard things to get us through this.

It's been inspiring to see.

And so we're going to stay the course.

We're almost there.

And we encourage people to just hold on for a few more weeks.

- [Moderator] Okay, Emily Means with KUER, go ahead with your question.

- [Emily Means] Hi, governor Cox, this past week, we saw threats against business owners and their employees for trying to enforce their mask policies, and you've asked people to be kind and to be respectful.

But there's still a risk.

So, what can the state do to support these businesses now that the statewide mask mandate is over?

- Well, we're working very closely with those businesses.

I will say that there are a lot more to both of those stories than were originally shared.

These were individuals who have had problems in the past, and the problems weren't weren't as tied to mask wearing as were originally reported.

So we will continue to support.

But this is what I've said.

That type of behavior is unacceptable, by the way.

You don't get to threaten people.

The businesses have the right to make these decisions and we will hold you accountable.

We will prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law.

If you threaten people.

It's unacceptable and we won't allow that here in the state of Utah.

- All right, thank you so much, Governor.

That's all the time we have for our television broadcast, and join us back here again next month for the Governor's Monthly News Conference.

- [Announcer] This has been the Governor's Monthly News Conference.

For transcripts, full video, and more information visit pbsutah.org/governor.

(regal music)