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

- Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.

It's great to be with you this morning.

We appreciate you being here.

I'm going to start with just a couple announcements.

First of all, I want to just recognize that it is National Rural Health Day.

And I want to send out a special thanks to all of our rural healthcare providers who have been doing just incredible work over the past 18 months.

And, and always as a rural guy, myself, I'm very appreciative of everything that they do.

Now just a couple of things.

I want to start by talking about booster shots.

Under current CDC guidance and the FDA emergency use authorization, all individuals 18 and older who live or work in high risk settings are eligible to receive booster doses.

Now there has been a lot of confusion over who is eligible.

We understand there may be an announcement from the CDC and the FDA coming tomorrow, that hasn't been confirmed.

We're hoping that that will be broadened, but in the meantime, as we wait for the CDC and the FDA, I want to note that because of the elevated COVID-19 cases right now in the state of Utah almost all Utahns currently reside in a high transmission county and therefore are at high risk of contracting COVID-19, especially the Delta variant.

So effective tomorrow, all Utahns are, we are asking all providers to provide boosters to any adult in the state of Utah who would like to receive a booster since we are in a high risk situation.

So based on the timing of their first shots, the following people could receive their booster doses if they have not already.

Anyone age 18 and older who received their second dose of either Pfizer or Moderna vaccine more than six months ago, or anyone 18 and older who received their first dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, more than two months ago.

Now several states have made that change.

We add Utah to that list, again, starting tomorrow, if the CDC and the FDA make a decision, obviously that won't change anything, but we are encouraging people to get their boosters.

And we're also asking vaccine providers to proactively reach out to anyone over the age of 65 as well as those with underlying medical conditions to encourage them to get a booster dose.

Unfortunately, the whole booster discussion has been very confusing to most people.

It's been estimated that nationally about 90% of adults qualify under the recommendations of the CDC and the FDA right now.

But it's so confusing that no one knows if they qualify.

And so we just want to make it very simple, especially as we're heading into the holiday season, we know that families are going to be together, especially with higher risk grandparents and others, and we want people to be as safe as possible.

So, again, we encourage people to get their boosters and to continue.

And those who have not been vaccinated, obviously to get vaccinated.

So again, due to high transmission levels in our state, all individuals 18 and over who are fully vaccinated should consider getting a booster dose now.

And I want to just update you a little bit on where we are with vaccinations since two weeks ago, as you know, we were able to start vaccinating children ages five to 11.

I'm very pleased to announce that over 44,000 kids in that age group have already received their first dose in just two weeks.

So those are mind-boggling numbers that again, a year ago would have blown us all away.

I think we get a little used now to the fact that we've delivered millions of vaccines in the state, but to get 44,000 kids in just two weeks, by the way, that's 12.1% of those that are eligible.

So we're very excited about that.

We are also continuing to do well with our 12 to 18 year olds, 228,000 kids in this age range have received their first dose, that's 61.2% of those eligible.

Overall, we are now over the 2 million mark of Utah residents that have received at least one dose at 62.4% and fully vaccinated at 55%.

And again, that fully vaccinated number will go up pretty quickly.

Now that the five to 11 category, once they start to get their second shots and are fully vaccinated.

We're also excited, we've been receiving information and you've all been reporting on information about antiviral pills that we expect will soon be available.

So in addition to the booster doses that are now being available, these oral antiviral treatment options on the horizon appear to be highly effective and will be an incredible tool in our arsenal as we continue to work on protecting the lives of our citizens.

Both drug manufacturers, Merck and Pfizer, have developed antiviral pills.

And so this is again, think of Tamiflu, something like that.

But for COVID, people who test positive can take to hopefully prevent severe disease.

So these medications will initially be limited in supply and reserved for those most at risk for hospitalization and death.

They will also require a prescription and a visit to a provider's office.

So these drugs that are both pending EU emergency authorization from the FDA, which we expect will come in the next few weeks.

In fact, our understanding is that those trials were cut short because the efficacy was so high that they have an ethical obligation to present those and move them forward.

We are currently developing a statewide distribution and access plan, much like we did with the vaccines to make sure that we get them to the eligible population, as soon as they are available here in the state.

I also just want to give you an update on monoclonal antibodies, which act in a similar fashion, but are much more invasive than these pills that are being developed.

We have a very robust statewide system now for administering monoclonal antibodies, and that will continue to play an important role in treating people who have the virus and protect them from hospitalization and death.

Just this last week alone, we were able to provide more than 1,000 treatments across the state.

If you've tested positive for COVID-19 and it has been less than 10 days since your symptoms began, you should visit coronavirus.utah.gov/MAB.

So for monoclonal antibodies, MAB, to find out if this treatment is right for you, and if you qualify for the treatment.

But I want to emphasize and re-emphasize over and over and over again, that vaccination is still the best way to protect yourself and to protect those around you.

If you or your kids have not been vaccinated, I would encourage you to get vaccinated now.

And if you are vaccinated and you are an adult, please consider getting your booster right away as we head into this holiday season.

The last thing I just want to mention is this week, we're excited to announce a new grant for small businesses.

And the purpose of this grant is to help small businesses pay employees for time off so that they can either receive the COVID-19 vaccine or recuperate if they experience any side effects after their vaccination or so they can use it to take time to get their kids vaccinated as well.

We've got $500,000 available through the new Small Business Employee Vaccination Grant.

This program is managed by the governor's office of economic opportunity, began accepting applications on November 16th.

And the response has already been very enthusiastic.

Dozens of companies have already applied, but there are still funds available.

To be eligible, businesses must have fewer than 50 full-time Utah employees who work 40 hours or more.

So 50 full-time employees who work 40 hours or more.

It must have fewer than 50 full-time employees that work 40 hours or more.

The grant reimburses employers who provide paid time off for employees who are otherwise not eligible for paid time off.

So these are typically non-benefited hourly workers.

The grant may be used for both full-time and part-time employees to get their own COVID-19 vaccine to take a dependent child to receive a vaccine or for the employee or their dependent to recover from a vaccine should they experience any side effects.

The employer must pay for the time off before December 31st and employers have until January 20th of next year to submit applications for reimbursement.

To learn more about eligibility and what documentation you need and how to submit applications, you can visit business.utah.gov/SBEVgrant.

So we hope that more businesses will take advantage of that.

Finally, with Thanksgiving only a week away, we really hope that everyone who is not yet vaccinated will get at least one dose of the vaccine and that people will get their booster shot.

We hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season.

I'm so grateful for the goodness of the people, the state, and as we move into questions, I will just note, I brought my parents, it's bring your parents to work day.

They're here with me, and it's just a thinly veiled ploy to make you be nice to me today.

So you won't like my mom if she gets upset.

So with that, we'll open it up for questions.

- Governor, you previously said that bills that would interfere with a private business' attempts to impose a COVID-19 vaccine mandate would be issued.

It would be met with a veto.

So why did you sign the bill that granted some exemptions to this and carve some holes in that?

- Well did that for a couple of reasons.

So one, we had a very robust negotiation with the House and Senate.

I did say that I would veto any bill that had an outright mandate prohibition.

This did not have that.

I will say that very instructive in these negotiations was our experience with higher education.

So many of our universities in the state issued vaccine mandates with a religious exemption or personal exemption.

And we've seen some very good numbers as they've been reported to us from presidents of universities, including right here at the University of Utah on the campus where we are today who reported that it helped increase vaccination significantly, and they had very few people actually utilize those personal exemptions.

So I felt that this was a good way to take some of the tension out of the room, still encouraging people and businesses to have vaccine mandates, but to allow for some exemptions for strongly held views.

And we're not, you know, we're not accomplishing anything with the fighting that's going on.

This is a way to really get more people vaccinated, but to eliminate some of the fighting and make sure that people can still work and provide for their families.

So I'm hopeful that businesses will see something similar to what we're seeing here at the University of Utah, where we've had reports in many areas, upwards of 95% of people getting vaccinated, even with the personal exemption, those are great numbers.

And if we could get something close to that, we would be much better off.

- But does this create more problems for private employers trying to enforce a mandate?

- I don't think it creates more problems for private employers.

I think it helps private employers.

In fact, we had lots of private employers say to us, this is great.

It allows us to put a mandate in place while still giving, you know, a handful of our employees who just so strongly believe in this, that they're not willing to get the vaccine and we can move forward.

So the feedback that we've gotten from the private sector has been overwhelmingly positive.

They would not have supported an outright ban on any type of vaccine mandate.

- Governor, last week you and I spoke about Izzy Tichenor's death in Davis County.

And this week we heard from the Davis School District a little bit about their plan to address racism and bullying in the wake of her death and also the Department of Justice report.

Two questions for you.

One, is the Davis School District doing enough?

And number two, should the superintendent resign?

- Yeah, let me address both of those.

So this has been a really powerful week for me.

I had, again, this is just an awful, terrible tragedy.

I had an opportunity to meet with Izzy's mom, her grandma, and the rest of her family.

We spent some very tender moments together.

And Abby and I, our heart is broken for that family.

We love them.

We express the love of the people of Utah, and they are feeling that love from every corner of our state.

It was a powerful moment.

I had another meeting that was also a powerful meeting.

And that meeting was with the superintendent of Davis County and some of the other leadership of the county.

And we talked about things that they have been doing over the past several months and about their plans going forward.

And I left that meeting with full confidence in the superintendent and in the direction that they are moving to address this.

A couple of things that are important, these issues, especially around suicide are so incredibly complicated.

And by the way, anytime we talk about suicide, and I know you've all gotten very good at this in your reports.

And I hope that, you know, with your social media is you're all tweeting out right now that you'll please let people know that if you are feeling or thinking about suicide, that you will reach out for help, again, and we encourage people to use the Safe Utah app, the suicide hotlines, and all of those resources that are available, but suicide is very complicated.

As I've talked to the experts here in our state, and we have a very robust process where every suicide is investigated and especially every suicide with young people.

And what they tell me is that in almost every case, there are multiple factors that brings a person to choose to die by suicide.

And so we, that process is important and that process is sacred, and I hope we'll allow space for that process to happen.

However, in the meantime, and this is what is unfortunate.

There are some great things happening in the school district, and when the attorneys get involved, nothing great ever happens.

And their ability to share some of the things that they're doing has been compromised by attorneys who are telling them they can't talk about it because of the Department of Justice Investigation, all of their communications actually has to go through the Department of Justice.

And then there are privacy laws that prohibit some of the things they can share.

And that's all okay.

And so what I want to communicate today is that even though there's some things that they can't share yet about what they're doing to address the Department of Justice Investigation, that they are doing even more than has been broadcast out there and more will be forthcoming.

And so I have to tell you that superintendent of the Davis School District is one of the best superintendents we have in this state.

He's an incredible human being, one of the most empathetic and passionate people I've ever met.

He cares about every student.

He has been one of the best to stand up when there is bullying and when there have been racist incidences and I have full confidence in him moving forward.

But I think it's important to say this, Daniel, and that is that just because we have this Department of Justice Investigation in Davis School District, it's really easy to point the finger there, and assume that that's the only place where we have problems, and it's not.

These issues are not just Utah issues.

They are issues in our country, and it is incumbent on every single one of us to have a conversation with our children.

You may not know that your children is being a bully, and you may not know that your child is being bullied.

Sometimes the bullies have been bullied by someone else and they're just reciprocating that behavior on others.

I've been very open about my own situation when I was younger about being bullied, suicide ideation that I experienced as a young man, and this is happening.

We have to be able to talk about race, and we have to be able to talk about bullying.

And we have to be able to talk about disabilities and treating each other with love and respect.

I appreciate the First Lady and her initiative around unified sports and working with our state's most vulnerable children.

And so every single one of us has to do better.

And Davis is going to lead out and help us in that effort.

- Governor, I want to ask you a question about Utah's homeless and specifically the students in Salt Lake City.

There's 524 unsheltered students.

About 10% of them go to Mary W. Jackson Elementary, right near North Temple.

Salt Lake City just announced that there's going to be another shelter, that overflow shelter that's going to be opening up right near that school.

I'm guessing some of those kids may end up going to that elementary.

We're heading into Thanksgiving and the holidays.

What's your administration going to do for these unsheltered kids that really need the help?

- Yeah, Jason, thank you.

It's an important question.

And we, as a family, we've spent a lot of time at the family shelter in Midvale.

So by the way, those unsheltered children will not be going to that shelter.

We have a family shelter, and that's where our unsheltered children go.

They don't end up mixed with adults in the adult shelter system.

And so, we have special processes in place for those families so that they're, for example, kids that are bused from the shelter to schools, they are the first ones on and the last ones off, right, to help with the stigma.

So that other kids don't know that they're homeless and don't see them getting on the bus.

But more importantly, getting them sheltered is the big thing.

And so we are significantly increasing as most of you know earlier this year, with the help of some legislation, we appointed a homeless service coordinator for the state of Utah, former Senate President Wayne Niederhauser who's working with every one of our cities and counties and our homeless resource centers and all of our homeless services to get services to these kids and to these families.

I don't have the latest numbers in front of me, but I was talking to Pamela Atkinson the other day who told me that we have sheltered, I think it's close to 200 families this year, getting them into homes.

And that process is continuing.

There were some reports that came out that we're spending more on homelessness now than ever before by an exponential number.

But homelessness is very difficult.

So our focus is on preventing homelessness from starting in the first place, especially with families and then getting people sheltered as quickly as we can.

I would point out, we were talking about Izzy, one of the things that hasn't gotten reported is that the Davis School District helped them to find housing and to get them into housing in Sugar House.

And so we are working with our school districts to do this as well, because they have that direct tie with the students.

Sometimes we don't even know, right, that a family is living in their vehicle or in a van somewhere, that they don't have housing.

And the schools are the place where they can find those things out and notify us, and then we can, we have resources.

It's just getting the resources connected to the families.

And our first priority when it comes to housing is always, always, always families with children who are unsheltered, and that's where our resources will go this holiday season as always.

- Okay, we'd like to go to a remote reporter right now, Chris Reed with St. George News.

Go ahead with your question.

- Thank you so much.

And Governor, one of the bills you signed last week was a name change for the university here in Southern Utah to Utah Tech.

I just want to get a sense of what your line of thinking was the moment you signed that bill concerning the name change.

And what would you say to those in Southern Utah who were pretty adamant about the university retaining the Dixie state name?

- Yeah.

Thank you, Chris.

We've been talking about this for a long time, right?

I mean, this has been for a couple years now, we've had bills in the legislature about a name change we've had this process has gone, a public process.

Then there were multiple decisions along the way.

So there was a local decision by the Board of Trustees that went to the Board of Higher Education in the state that then went to the legislature.

And so at every point along this route, we've had these recommendations that have come.

Again, absolutely a very divisive issue.

I've talked about when we changed colors at Snow College and how divisive that was.

And this is that times a thousand, right?

So you asked for my thought process and what would I say?

So my thought process was, this has been incredibly divisive.

It's been a very, very long road.

So many people have worked hard to try to get this in the right place.

And so I think there was a little relief from everyone that at least that piece of it is over.

And my message is this, that I hope more than anything, that there can be some healing now as a community, as people come together to rally around the institution, which is an incredible institution with an amazing history.

The campus, one of the compromises was that this will be the Dixie campus.

And that, again, the name change, one of the issues too, was this name, is this the right name?

It's one thing to say, you know, we're not going to have the old name, so it's really a two-fold decision.

We're not going to keep the old name for reasons that have been well documented, but is this the right new name?

And my hope is that this will be an exciting new era for that school and for the people there that it can actually start to now reach its mission and reach of the people it's meant to serve.

And for the future as the plans are to grow, we know that Washington County is one of the fastest growing counties in the entire country.

That more and more kids will be able to get a high quality education.

And that will lead to what to great things for years to come.

So I'm very excited.

I'm excited to have Utah in the name.

I got asked all the time, there was so much confusion around why we would have a school that's a nickname of a nickname?

It didn't make much sense.

And so I'm really hoping that this will be a chance for people to come together, Chris, thank you.

- Governor, can you explain your reasoning why you signed the redistricting maps?

There's criticism that especially the congressional map is gerrymander.

Why were they better than the maps put forward by the Independent Commission?

- Well, whether they were better or not isn't the discussion.

There were some good things about the Independent Redistricting Committee's maps.

There were some good things about the maps that were put forward by the legislature.

I've said this many times, I'll say it again.

The constitution of the state of Utah says that the legislature draws the maps.

That's what it says.

It doesn't say the governor draws the maps.

It doesn't say an Independent Redistricting Commission draws the maps.

It was clear that the Redistricting Commission, all they could do is make suggestions.

That's what they did.

They made those suggestions, the legislature chose not to follow those recommendations.

And they passed overwhelmingly.

And so, and I've said before, if I got to draw the maps, they would've looked differently than that.

But that wasn't the choice before me, the choice was, do I accept these maps or do I veto those maps?

We had robust discussion.

We talked about it and I decided to sign those maps.

And those maps are now the law for the next 10 years.

Maybe some challenges we've heard.

I think you've reported that there may be a potential lawsuit over those.

I'm very familiar with the law around redistricting, I feel confident that there were no laws violated with those maps.

And so we'll let that process play out.

- That's all the time we have for our television broadcast.

Join us back here next month for the Governor's News Conference.

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

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