Guv ducks martial law enforcement question

Guy Page

5 years ago

by Guy Page

At today’s press briefing, Gov. Phil Scott was asked by Vermont Daily: “Governor, there’s a lot of social media buzz that Qanon, one of the groups supposedly planning these State House protests, predicts President Trump will declare martial law. If he does, will you and the State of Vermont police cooperate?”

Gov. Scott answered: “I don’t believe President Trump will be declaring martial law.” Vermont Daily said, “Okay, say he does?” Scott replied: “I don’t want to play that game, because I don’t believe it will happen.”

Also, Gov. Scott confirmed that no cases of Covid-19 have been traced back to the bus trip that took more than 50 Vermonters to and from the January 6 Washington D.C. rally that culminated in a fatal riot in which protesters stormed the U.S. Capitol building. A reporter asked – as have many other media and social media commenters – whether apparently lax Covid-19 social distancing and mask measures on the bus have resulted in any Covid cases. Gov. Scott answered: “I don’t believe that we have contact traced anything back to the bus trip last week.”

In other news, Health Commissioner Mark Levine said he doesn’t know the vaccination acceptance rate among Vermont health care providers. “We don’t have more than anecdotal information right now,” he said when asked by a VPR reporter. He believes vaccination of residents at senior care facilities is high, but regarding staff, “we don’t have the numbers to give you.”

Levine noted that in some parts of the country, as low as three in 10 health care providers have volunteered to receive the vaccine. The rest “prefer to wait,” he said. In other regions, nine in 10 health care workers have received the vaccine.

“It seems regional, and challenging to get to true data,” Levine said.

Gov. Scott also said he is as committed to not raising taxes in the coming years as he’s ever been. “I believe we can get through this without raising taxes,” he said. “What we need is more tax payers, not more taxes.”