Embarrassment Plus Compassion Equals Policy Shift

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We’ll take a couple thousand of these, thanks

“It hasn’t changed my thinking,” said Gov. Phil Scott at his Tuesday briefing. The subject was the state’s emergency housing program. Immediately after he said that, he went on to make it pretty dang clear that his thinking has changed and is continuing to change.

For that, a lot of credit goes to the intrepid band of advocates (including Tweeters-In-Chief Josh Lisenby and Brenda Siegel) camped out on the portico of the Statehouse. The needle has definitely moved since their protest began almost three weeks ago. The conversation has shifted from “We need to end the program soon” to “We’ll keep it running a while longer” to “We want to avoid throwing anyone out on the street, if only because the optics would be bad.”

(That last bit is the quiet part out loud.)

This isn’t enough for the advocates, who continue their stakeout. But it’s substantial movement nonetheless.

At this point, Scott doesn’t really have a position. Until now, he was dead set on ending the program at a date certain. The date kept shifting backwards, but there was always an end in sight. Now, it’s not clear that there is. The governor sure avoided any talk of a deadline at the Tuesday presser.

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Is It Blind-Squirrel Time?

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This week’s gubernatorial Covid briefing had a different feel to it. There was, dare I say it, a bit of hope in the air. Not because Gov. Phil Scott’s Covid policies are finally paying off, but because vaccination for children ages 5-11 will soon arrive to pull his fat out of the fire.

So that was the message, repeated ad nauseam. The children’s vaccine is coming! Any day now! Please get your kids jabbed ASAP!

The message was hammered home by guest presenter Dr. Rebecca Bell, president of the Vermont chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics. She delivered a thorough, well-supported endorsement of vaccines in general and the Covid shot in particular. The development and testing process, she said, had produced “safe and effective” vaccine regimens for children. For parents on the fence about kiddie jabs, she noted that the uncertainty isn’t with the vaccine; it’s with the virus.

The only downbeat note came from DFR Commissioner and Statistical Soothsayer Michael Pieciak, whose crystal ball was once again pretty damn foggy. “Things could potentially improve significantly,” he said, before adding “They could get worse as well.”

Gee, thanks.

Scott and his minions laid out their plan to immediately vaccinate as many kids as possible. If federal approval came tonight, they said, vaccinations could start as soon as Thursday. (UPDATE: It appears that final approval will come tonight. The CDC’s vaccine advisory committee voted unanimously in favor; CDC director Rachelle Wolensky is expected to follow suit.)

There’s good reason for all the haste. Kiddie-vax may be the key to finally bringing down case counts to acceptable levels and, dare I say, actually turning the corner on the coronavirus.

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Old Veepies Never Die, They Just Get Stupider (UPDATED)

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Note: Second item has a significant update. Press WILL be admitted to Winooski/Enosburg soccer game.

Oh, you thought you were done with this, did you? Yeah, my awards for stupidity and/or obtuseness in the public sector have been on sabbatical lately — it’s been harder to see the funny this fall, mostly due to the ongoing pandemic. But here we are again! On the docket: Noblesse oblige at the homelessness protest, barring the media from a soccer match, an especially stupid Covid rationalization from Team Scott, and Bennington Justice rears its ugly head.

We have multiple awardees for the It Was Quite Literally The Least We Could Do Award. The recipients include Gov. Phil Scott, House Speaker Jill Krowinski, and Senate President Pro Tem Becca Balint. Brenda Siegel and Josh Lisenby, advocates for restoring the full emergency housing program, held what VTDigger helpfully called “a small rally” on Monday at the site of their Statehouse protest/campout. Apparently Siegel and Lisenby have cooties or something, because neither Krowinski nor Ballnt attended in person and Scott continues to resist meeting with them.

The Speaker and Pro Tem did issue a statement for Siegel to read, in which they endorsed full restoration of the program. Which is interesting since, as the governor points out on every occasion, they agreed to the springtime deal restricting the program. Nice of them to belatedly come down on the side of compassion. And while Scott could really use a spark of humanity, he refuses to meet with the advocates. But hey, as VTDigger put it, “they were granted an interview on Monday with Sean Brown, the commissioner of the Department for Children and Families.” Wow. “Granted an interview.” How noblesse oblige of them.

Brown reportedly said the administration would consider reopening the full program when/if (climate change, y’know) the weather gets really cold. Which tells you the administration sees this first and foremost as a PR problem. They want to be as stingy as possible, but they could do without pictures of freezing protesters or homeless people with hypothermia.

Onward and downward…

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What’s Eating Philbert Grape?

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This is fine.

Another week, another series of disappointing Covid numbers. Not only the high daily case counts but also hospitalizations, deaths, and a test positivity rate that’s creeping back up toward 3.

Still, I fully expect Gov. Phil Scott to come out swinging at his Tuesday briefing. I’d be shocked if we don’t get a rehash of carefully selected statistics, bland assurances that everything will be just fine anytime now, and denials that any policy changes whatsoever are in order.

After all, Scott spox Jason Maulucci told the Boston Globe on Friday that mask mandates are off the table. His… shall we say… creative reasoning? A mandate would undermine public confidence that Covid vaccines work.

Oh, you want it in his words? Here you go.

“We’re promoting mask wearing, but we don’t want to do anything that would damage the public belief that vaccines work.”

Wow, that’s a stretch worthy of Rose Mary Woods.

(Globe story is paywalled, but I was able to access it via one of the many retweets it got.)

After a very good performance for the first 15 months of the pandemic, Scott’s response to the Delta variant has been stubborn, unyielding, and dismissive of all criticism. He has also, as far as I can remember, failed to express any sympathy or concern for those who have died or become seriously ill or their loved ones. That’s uncharacteristic of him. Would a brief call-out at the top of every presser be too much to ask? Perhaps even a visit to a hospital or a grieving family? He should be capable of that, and it would be a powerful reminder of the essential humanity that’s made Scott an appealing figure to so many.

So what’s going on with our Nice Guy Governor?

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The Curious Case of the Single Intolerable Word

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Gather ’round, children, and you shall hear… how Vermont’s biggest health insurer has gotten its knickers in a twist about one single word in a Green Mountain Care Board decision. The word was so objectionable that Blue Cross Blue Shield of Vermont appealed the decision solely because of that word. It did not object to any other part of the ruling.

When the appeal was denied BCBSVT took the case to the Vermont Supreme Court, where it awaits action. Seems like a whole lot of time, trouble and billable hours for a single word, but what do I know.

Let’s go back to the beginning. On May 7, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Vermont filed a request for 2022 insurance rates with the Green Mountain Care Board. The Blues asked for a 7.9% increase on individual policies, and smaller increases for group plans.

The request meandered through a lengthy series of briefs, filings, hearings and testimony. (All can be downloaded from this webpage.) On August 5, the GMCB issued its decision, knocking down the rate hike on individual policies to 4.7%. In its decision, the GMCB characterized the 7.9% request as “excessive.”

There. That’s the fatally toxic word. ‘Excessive.”

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Ah, Leadership

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These images were proudly trumpeted by the official @GovPhilScott Twitter account. Great, huh? Now I know why the administration wasn’t upset about an unmasked Education Secretary Dan French attending a meeting of the mask-denialist Canaan School Board. Scott is out to prove a point: Masking is now optional. I mean, get a load of our number-one public health official grinning like an unmasked idiot.

(By the way, an image from this staged photo-op appeared on the front page of Wednesday’s Times Argus under the caption “Leadership By Example.” Not on my planet.)

Unsurprisingly, I’m noticing more and more Vermonters who forswear masking in indoor public spaces. Some still don the mask, but many do not. I was in a pet store today, and the next three customers who entered were all above retirement age — the high risk demo. None of them wore a mask.

The only exceptions to this trend: Public spaces that mandate masking. Hospitals, clinics, my local food co-op. Otherwise, meh.

The governor opened his Tuesday Covid briefing with a mention of a just-completed conference call with federal officials including Dr. Anthony Fauci and CDC Director Rochelle Walensky. He made it sound like he and the feds are singing from the same hymnal.

What the governor did not mention is that his own masking policy is at odds with the CDC’s.

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When Dr. Astroturf Comes Calling

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The person pictured above, who bears a striking resemblance to a morality crusader in a TV detective show who’s eventually revealed as the killer, is Michael Shively, PhD.

Shively is a researcher on sex trafficking for the benignly-named National Center on Sexual Exploitation. In the past two weeks, he has appeared before the Montpelier and Burlington City Councils to speak against proposals to decriminalize prostitution. Proposals that, in his words, “would allow any home, any apartment, any nail salon to become a brothel.”

His appearances and affiliation have been duly parroted in media accounts of his “testimony,” which in each case amounted to two minutes during public comment time.

Well, let me fill you in. But first, in case you thought I was unfair in my description of Shively, here’s Levi Beecher, morality crusader slash murderer from an episode of the CBC series “Murdoch Mysteries.”

Yes, that’s him, officer. Now, about the NCOSE…

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I Don’t Think You’re Happy Enough

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It was yet another Covid briefing full of same-old, same-old. Carefully chosen statistics, evidence-free optimism, whistling past the graveyard, vigorous straw-man punching, self-pity, and not a lick of policy change despite the fact that new cases and hospitalizations continue to be distressingly high. Rather than trying to find a new theme in today’s performance, here’s a collection of random notes from a dispirited observer.

The question of the day came from the Vermont Business Journal’s Tim McQuiston: “Why should we care about kids getting Covid at all?”

Lest you think I’m unfairly plucking that out of context, here’s the rest of his statement (only slightly abridged):

There’s been a lot of difficulty in child care and finding workers for child care. The parents have to stay at home. Now with cases in schools, kids might have to be quarantined and stay at home. … Why should we care about kids getting Covid at all? It’s creating a lot of disruption for them. It’s obviously disrupting the economy. Cases and their symptoms are very low, but there’s a lot of effort still going on, still a lot of disruption.

Eesh. McQuiston works for a publication that caters to business, but that’s approaching Ebenezer Scrooge territory. Gov. Phil Scott replied that we have to keep cases down among children because they might spread it to more vulnerable people.

And then Health Commissioner Dr. Mark Levine said something that shouldn’t have been remarkable, but it was. He actually mentioned long Covid!

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The VPA Engages in Some Emergency Ass-Covering

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Funny thing. A couple weeks ago Jay Nichols, head of the Vermont Principals Association, didn’t seem terribly concerned about reports of racist language at a Winooski/Enosburg high school soccer game. Nichols said the VPA might investigate if it received information about such an incident, but for now the Enosburg district was handling it. He gave no indication that the VPA would take an active role.

Since then, we’ve heard of at least two other incidents of hate speech at high school games.

And now, he’s announced a list of (bland and unconvincing) actions in response to the incidents. In doing so, he said “We have plenty of racism and sexism and stuff like that happen every single day.”

Huh.

Two things. First, “stuff like that”? Really?

Second, if this “stuff” happens every single day, why in Hell didn’t the VPA have a process before now?

That statement is bad enough. But when you actually read the list of actions, it’s clear that this is nothing more than a beleaguered organization trying to cover its ass while actually doing as little as possible.

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Scott Preaches ‘Personal Responsibility,’ Refuses to Accept Any

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Even by the usual dismal standards, this was a doozy of a weekly briefing. Gov. Phil Scott acknowledged that his policies haven’t been effective against the Delta variant, he had no idea why, yet he would keep doing the same things he’s been doing and just hope it starts to work. Definition of insanity, anyone?

His opening remarks were heavy on “personal responsibility,” which sounds like good old Vermont plain talk. But the underlying message is that it’s our fault his policies haven’t worked. If only we’d all take personal responsibility, everything would be just fine and his genius would be revealed for all to see.

Pushing vaccination was the sum-total of his policy. Vaccines and boosters. Boosters and vaccines. No hint of a fallback policy if we never achieve herd immunity because even in Vermont, some people are anti-vaxxers or Covid skeptics and some will never become eligible. Good public policy doesn’t depend on every single person being personally responsible; it tries to make up for and/or rein in our weaknesses and misbehaviors. I mean, if everyone took personal responsibility, we wouldn’t need prisons or police. Or laws.

That’s why vaccination plus a sensible masking policy has worked so much better than vaccination alone. It would work here too, but Scott is too stubborn and/or beholden to business interests to even consider any mask mandates or limits on travel or public gatherings.

His administration proudly trumpets the percentage of eligible Vermonters who’ve gotten at least one vaccine shot. It’s now an impressive 88.9%. Which obscures the fact that the percentage of all Vermonters with at least one jab is more like 70%. You never, ever hear that figure at the Tuesday pressers.

In fact, a recent tweet from Scott’s official account completely obliterated that key difference:

That, children, is what we in the business call “a lie.”

Meanwhile, take a gander at this map from the New York Times.

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