Cornu moves into a new phase in the pandemic, which the governor has named beyond the blueprint. So all of those colors, those tears, the yellow tear that we've been celebrating the last six weeks all go away tomorrow. And most of the business and industry guidances also will go away. Many restrictions will be lifted, including capacity limits, physical distancing limits and requirements, and some face covering requirements, especially for vaccinated people. So vaccination has really changed the course of this disease. Santa Cruz County is one of the best performers, the least impacted by disease in the state right now. And California is one of the best performing states in the nation. And again, thank you to the dedication and cooperation of this community. We're much safer from COVID-19 than we were at any other time in the last year. We've been living under a shifting set of rules for a long time. And there's many lingering beliefs about what the rules are. For example, sometimes we still see appendix A up in store windows and that has not been in effect for many months. I was out and around throughout the county this week with out of 10 visitors. And I saw lots of signs that said that, for example, drinking fountains were closed or bathrooms were closed by order of the local health officer. And that is not at all the case.  We've been aligned with the state throughout the process, but with no additional orders for many months. And the state is aligning with the CDC. So we're hoping that in the coming days and weeks and months, the message will be clearer as we've learned more about this virus. But unfortunately today, the messaging is still somewhat confusing. Just prior to beginning this press conference, Governor Newsom sent out a tweet saying that he would be placing an executive order on Thursday that would place the Cal OSHA workplace guidance in effect on Thursday. We don't know which version of those Cal OSHA emergency temporary standards he is planning to put into place. There have been three different versions in the last two weeks. So time will tell. So today we're not going to be able to say a lot about workplace guidance other than the Cal OSHA guidance that's been in place since December. So the emergency temporary standards from December are currently what's in place and that will be in place at least for the next two days. That's all I can tell you about that. California Department of Public Health has posted their new face covering guidance. They posted that toward the end of last week. It goes into effect tonight at midnight. And in addition, there's a posting about California Department of Public Health moving beyond the blueprint. And it does reference several other guidances, including travel guidance that's been in effect since April 2nd. And that will remain in effect for the foreseeable future. That travel guidance says that vaccinated people may leave the state and leave the country and return without quarantining, fully vaccinated people, that is. Partially vaccinated or unvaccinated people are still required to quarantine for a full seven to 10 days upon returning home. Seven days if you are testing and 10 days if you're not. So that's for unvaccinated or partially vaccinated people who've left the state or the country. So we're going to continue to monitor our local disease transmission and our testing numbers. But the tier system will go away. So we will no longer be having tier Tuesdays. I hear we're still going to have one tomorrow where we will get our metrics just kind of to to close that loop. But we've been in the yellow tier now for six weeks, not expecting that to change. And we're seeing no indication that our numbers are trending any differently than they have been, which is happily very much downward. Some limited restrictions remain with the blueprint beyond or beyond the blueprint guidance from the state. These are mostly around what the state calls mega events. So that means for indoor settings, crowds larger than 5000. And I don't think we have any indoor settings in Santa Cruz County that can hold greater than 5000 people. So that would apply to if our residents were to travel to other jurisdictions that do have those. For example, the Monterey County Convention Center does hold over 5000 people. Outdoors mega events are 10,000 people. So that includes things like marathons, endurance sports, concerts, other festivals, fairs, those kind of things. And I'd refer you to the CDPH website if you want rules around mega events. With the exception of workplaces, face coverings are no longer required for fully vaccinated Californians in public settings, except in certain circumstances. So those include healthcare settings, including skilled nursing facilities, long term care facilities, any building with healthcare offices. In addition, public transit, so airplane ships, ferries, buses, taxis and all those terminals, transportation hubs, all require face coverings worn by vaccinated and unvaccinated. Homeless shelters, emergency shelters such as fires, cooling centers, and any detention facilities, so jails, juvenile hall, prison settings. Indoor in K through 12 schools in childcare settings and other youth settings. The CDC will be updating its guidance in this area, and school guidance will be updated over the summer. For now through summer school, K through 12 schools and child care are required to follow current industry standards. In the settings where masks are required only for unvaccinated individuals, operators of private businesses can do any of the following. Number one, they have the option of asking patrons to verify their vaccination status. That would be a picture of your vaccination card or the actual vaccination card, or another document from their physician. They also may inform individuals of the rules and ask vaccinated patrons to self attest their vaccine status or they might require all patrons to wear masks. A very important point of the new face covering guidance is that no person can be prevented from wearing a mask or be made to wear a mask as a condition of participation in any activity or entry into a business. So those who feel more comfortable wearing a mask regardless of vaccination status, they may do so in any setting. Some businesses and organizations may continue implementing infection control measures, including masking. In most cases, at least for now, employees will be required to mask whether vaccinated or not. And we're asking everyone to please respect local businesses that choose to continue taking these additional measures, including asking vaccination status or requiring masks. It's their choice to do so. And as I mentioned, the current workplace rules from Cal OSHA that went into effect in December are in effect at least until Thursday, perhaps longer. And so anything that you're doing at work now, you're still required to do. And then I also want to take a moment to remember the 207 community members who have lost their lives to COVID in Santa Cruz County and to their families and loved ones. And also to the many people who lost their livelihoods because of the pandemic. We've all been impacted. It's changed all of us. Recovery will take many years. We especially need to remember our children, a year and a half of interruption of normal childhood development, all of the rituals and milestones that they missed, the educational opportunities, the social support for our children. This will take a lifetime of recovery. We need to approach this process with the same principles in mind that we use to navigate the pandemic itself. Respect, kindness, compassion, health, equity, and justice. Thank you all as we continue to work to move through this pandemic. And at this point, I'd like to ask Dr. Gilarducci to give us an update on vaccinations. Thank you, Dr. Newell. And this truly is a turning point for us, a real milestone in this devastating pandemic that continues to rage across the rest of the world. I'll talk briefly about our vaccination progress. And just to point out the importance of that is this is really the reason why we're here right now. Because if it weren't for vaccination, we wouldn't be having the success that we're having right now. We're certainly not out of the woods yet. I'll talk a little bit more about that. But we're making some great progress in it. And I think we should be proud as a county on how well we're doing. So with that said, some brief statistics here. This is a remarkable number. 73 and a half percent of Santa Cruz County eligible residents have received at least one dose of vaccine. And that's just a tremendous number. Essentially, three quarters of our county hasn't had at least one shot. When you count full vaccination, that's either two shots of the mRNA vaccines or one shot of the Johnson and Johnson. We're talking 60 percent fully vaccinated. And that makes a huge difference in terms of our ability to control this going forward. That said, there's still significant pockets of vulnerability in our county, particularly in younger people who have not yet either had the chance to get vaccinated or those who are not yet eligible to be vaccinated. And those pockets do represent some risk for us going forward, particularly we think in the fall, that we may see some clusters of cases and continued disease and death. As far as the pace of vaccinations go, one of the things we track internally is our seven-day rolling average. And at our peak, we had hit over 3,200 doses per day on average back on April 20th. That's when we were at our top peak. Now we're at about 912 doses per day. So that's a third, less than a third of where we were. That's to be expected, of course, that the people that were most eager to get vaccinated, that group is done at this point. And we still have some work to do. There continues to be an equity mismatch that those who are the least advantaged in our community continue to have lower vaccination rates. Although I will say in Santa Cruz County, we've made some tremendous progress in trying to get some equity there, but statewide that continues to be a problem, especially with younger people who, you know, children and young adults who may not have ready access to health care. So we're continuing to make great progress. It has slowed down. We still have a lot of work to do. We still have pockets of vulnerability. And I'll mention this as well. And including the most recent death that we had over the weekend was in an unvaccinated person. And so what's happening now is we really have kind of two worlds we're living in. We have the world of those who are vaccinated and more protected who can take their masks off, who can really start to live their lives in a normal way. And then we have those who haven't been able to get vaccinated yet for whatever reason. And the risk to that group, that second group, is really going up because now they're living in a world where people aren't going to be wearing masks on a regular basis. And there's going to be gatherings that we haven't had. And so their risk of serious illness and even death are now higher than they really have been before. And that's despite the fact that we've had lower case rates. So we're going to continue to push the message that vaccination is good for you and it's good for people around you that you love. And we'll continue to be working on those groups that have been harder to reach. So I think Director Hall may have a few comments, but I'll leave my comments at that. Thank you, Dr. Gilarducci and Dr. Newell. I wanted to, at this point, it seems like every time we join you, we say we're at a new place that are a new point in the pandemic. And today, we're looking behind us with all of the success that we've had, but also the loss that we've experienced and we're looking ahead. So one of the things that I wanted the public and the media to know is that our work definitely isn't over. There are many, many more months of work for us to do. And when you're facing an epidemic or a pandemic, the responsibility of public health is to protect everybody. And as you've seen over the last 18 months, the way you protect everybody in a communicable disease pandemic is by protecting the most vulnerable first. We've done that throughout the pandemic. So as we look forward to the next 18 months of the pandemic, we have a lot of work to do, and it might be even more difficult work than the work that we've done so far. As both of our health officers mentioned, we have clusters of unvaccinated people. And those clusters are unvaccinated people aren't spread randomly. They're spread in geographic and social and cultural clusters. And because of that, they create spaces, spaces of vulnerability. So we know that going forward, even though most of our population is protected, we're going to continue what Dr. Newell mentioned was the focus on equity, the focus on justice. And we really need to focus on eliminating these spaces of vulnerability to COVID. I wish that after 18 months, we were at a place where we could say the pandemic was over and it is not over. What we've done is we've dampened it so that we're not continually being turned upside down, trying to find resources to take care of people on the back end in the ICU or in the hospitals. But this is not the place that we want to live forever. And with variants emerging, having the potential to burn our vaccines less effective or ineffective, it's really, really important for us to continue the work that we're doing now. So I guess that's my message to everyone, is that it's so hard. The reason we have these pockets is because of decades of racism. Decades of racism and inequity have driven people of color to poorer neighborhoods, lower paying jobs. We can't undo that in a year. We can't even undo it in a decade, I don't think. But when it comes to the pandemic, I think that we can all work together to continue our focus on equity and eliminating inequity. And it's not going to be an easy road, but I know that we're all up for it because that we know that when we have pockets of disease anywhere in our community, it's a threat to everybody. And again, back to why public health exists, we're here to protect everybody. And the way you do that is to look out for those most in need first. So that's just my message to our entire community going forward. Thank you, Director Hall. We're going to move to the question and answer portion of our press conference.  It looks like our first question is going to come from Tony Nunez.  Hi, my question is for, I guess for everybody, where are we seeing these pockets of disease and what has been our approach so far to address these pockets? Yeah, Tony, this is Mimi Hall. When I speak, I'm speaking from a national perspective, we often look at what's happening across California as well as across the nation. And many other counties aren't doing as well as Santa Cruz. And it really doesn't matter if Santa Cruz is the best or the top 10, because we don't exist in a vacuum. And pandemics are population wide diseases. And so what the trends are telling us is that the maps of vaccine vulnerability or lower rates of vaccine are kind of overlaid across those lower income and more vulnerable communities in the healthy places index lower portals. And so, you know, it's funny because one of the things that the pandemic has taught everybody to pay attention to is data. And I know that sometimes people get very, very focused on the minutiae of the data. One of the things that I want to remind everybody is from a public health perspective, we also step back. And we look at the 20,000 square foot view because we also want to see the trends. So I can have the health officers talk a little bit about what's happening here. But I think it's pretty clear that our last couple of deaths, our deaths are happening in unvaccinated people. And what I predict is that in the future, should we have pockets of disease kind of circulating in vulnerable areas that because people are unvaccinated, what we're going to see is should we have children who are infected? And should we have hospitalizations of young people or unvaccinated people? I'm going to predict that the trends of those will continue marrying the trends prior to vaccination that it's going to be in our Latinx population. It's going to be in our lower HPI zip codes, which is so when I speak about data, it's not because right now today we have some crazy data showing us, although we do have some indicators, our equity gap is increasing a little bit. But it's just the trend that we know it exists. And it's a force that we have to continue fighting at the local level. We can't give up. We can't say, oh, we're done. We've done a great job. It's really a continuous effort. I'll give Dr. Jere, Dr. Noll, do you want to add anything or should we go to our next question? Well, I want to remind folks that vaccine for the win is still in progress. And it's not too late to get your vaccines, to get your $50 gift card and have a chance to win a lot of money in upcoming raffles. So if that's a motivator for you or if you know folks who aren't yet vaccinated, remind them they can still get their $50 once they're fully vaccinated and have a chance to win along with the rest of us who are vaccinated in the upcoming raffles. I was just going to thank you. That's helpful to know. I was going to add and welcome those on the call to take a look at the state website on vaccination progress. And you can see the, as Director Hall mentioned, the single greatest predictor of vaccination status is your health equity. And that's a composite of lots of factors, but including income and crowded housing. Even the number of trees in your neighborhood, oddly enough, all of these are a composite measure of inequity in our society. And so that's the greatest predictor of vulnerability pockets. Great. Thank you all. Let's go to Mallory Pickett. Mallory, go ahead and ask your question. Hi. My question, I think, is for Dr. Newell. I just wanted to clarify some of the new guidelines. What, so my understanding is there's no rules on sort of private gatherings like weddings and funerals. I'm not sure. I mean, assuming those are under 5,000. And then also what are the situations where children who are under 12 can't be vaccinated yet, that they should be wearing a mask? Obviously in school, but other things in the public society. Right. So, unvaccinated folks, so weddings and places like that, if there's indoors, unless everyone is verified as either all attendees, as either vaccinated or have been tested in the last 72 hours, then unvaccinated people must wear face coverings at weddings. And it's still recommended that if there's going to be music, singing, that sort of thing that they, that face coverings are worn indoors. So some specific things are still in place around that. But right, no limit on size of weddings and those kinds of events and private gatherings. And then it is recommended that anyone unvaccinated, including children between the ages of 2 and 12, 11 that not yet eligible for vaccine, wear face coverings as any other unvaccinated people will. And that includes all of the K through 12 settings, any kind of youth activity settings and childcare. Thank you, Melissa Hartman. Why don't you go ahead and ask your question. Thank you, Jason. I was wondering if you guys had heard anything from business owners that are worried that have had issues with building their workforce? That's been something that we've been hearing statewide nationally. And in terms of how this new beyond the blueprint may invite more people to come out that haven't been shopping or eating out? Like, have you heard that as a concern that there won't be enough staff? I have. I was out in the county a lot this weekend. I had visitors from out of the area. And so I took the opportunity to speak to employees and employers, business owners when I could. And many of them plan to continue to require face coverings in their businesses and largely to reassure their employees that they're working in a safe space. And so I think that's part of the labor shortage considerations is that employees themselves want to feel comfortable in the workplace, especially in a tourist based community like ours, where people are coming from all over the world to enjoy our area. So I think that we're going to see many businesses continue to require face coverings. And that is their option. Our next question comes from Tony Eunies.  Hi. Yeah, this is about mask wearing and about, I guess, enforcing that. I think Dr. Newell, you said that businesses can, according to the new beyond the blueprint, either ask for someone to provide proof, have them self attest or that they can require everyone in the business to wear a mask. I think shortly after that, you said that a person can't be denied entrance to a place with a mask. So I think I'm, I think I misinterpreted that, but maybe it's just confusing the way it's written right now. Can you go over that one more time for me? Thank you. Yeah, so a person who wants to wear a mask, a customer who wants to wear a mask cannot be denied entrance to a business or cannot be given any kind of special treatment if they remove their mask. So there have been reports from all over the state, not so much in Santa Cruz, but in some of my home areas in the Central Valley and other places, there have been businesses that will not admit a person who's wearing a mask or they charge them more or won't give them a discount if they're wearing a mask. And so the new face covering guidance, which is legally binding for the state of California says that businesses are prohibited from doing that. So they can't in any way penalize a person who chooses to wear a mask in their business. And then private business owners can choose to implement the face coverings in whichever way they want to. They can require documentation of vaccination for mask status or social distancing status. They can do it by self attestation or they can require everyone to wear a mask, any of those options. Or no one, either way. I mean, they can also just let the customer be honest enough to do the right thing. Does that clarify it? We'll see. Let's go to Mallory Pickett. Mallory, go ahead and ask your question. My question is about variants, which we haven't talked about in a while. I was curious what sort of results you have, if any, from the state and UCSC lab, if there's been any new variants detected locally, especially the Delta variant is one that people continue to be concerned about. You want to take that, Dave? Yeah, I'm afraid I don't have the statistics on how many we've seen, but we have not seen the Delta variant that's otherwise previously referred to as the India variant, the 617. There's another one I believe it's Epsilon. It's a 617.1 and the Delta is the 617.2. That one has been a concerning one. We're seeing at least continued outbreaks in the United Kingdom due to the Delta variant. And there's some evidence that it does have more transmissibility. That is, it's easier to pass from person to person with a lower dose of virus being transferred and also maybe some more severe illness. One thing from a vaccination perspective that I found very interesting coming out of the UK was that a single dose was not very protective at all from the Delta variant. And I think it was 38%. And then once you had the second dose, it went up into the high 80s.  You're not there yet unless you've gotten that second dose. So we're concerned. We haven't seen it here yet. We know it's in the Bay Area. It's probably just a matter of time, but it is concerning. Most of the variants that we've seen here have been the B117, which is also the Alpha, I believe now. Is that correct? Alpha variant is the B117 previously known as the UK variant. And that's the one that we're seeing most commonly here besides the West Coast variant, which is, is that now? I've forgotten which one that is. Sorry. Yeah. Likewise. I had a chart, but I don't have it up. So, and that's been all that we've seen in the past several weeks. We've only had the B117 and the West Coast variant. Thank you. Why don't we go to Melissa Hartman? Melissa, go ahead and ask your question. I was wondering a lot of the instructions that we're hearing around the new face mask mandates now are primarily like the conversations about indoors, because that's, that will have such a big effect. But I'm wondering if there are any for like outdoors for highly trafficked areas like the boardwalk, the wharf, is there really any risk of, you know, transmission, like any, anything that would worry you guys going forward into the song? It is so difficult to transmit COVID-19 outdoors. We know a lot more about this virus now. It's very difficult to transmit outdoors unless you're in very close proximity for a long period of time. So we're not too worried about outdoor transmission. It's, it is recommended in mega outdoor mega events or other very crowded settings and then required in transportation hubs, even outdoors and the other settings that are listed but in general, we're not worried about outdoor transmission. And my understanding is that children in school settings will not, do not need to wear face coverings outdoors. And I think that the only thing I would add is if the Delta variant becomes predominant, that may change things, you know, because there is a chance that it is more transmissible. And of course, you know, your time at the boardwalk is not entirely outdoors. You know, there are indoor aspects, the eating areas, the arcade and so forth. So it's hard to characterize something as purely outdoor or purely indoor, you know, those kinds of interactions can happen. Thank you. Why don't we go back to Tony and you just tell Tony, go ahead and ask your question. Yeah, my question is about mass vaccination centers and testing centers. I'm wondering, I think around Watsonville, we still have the one in downtown at the old city hall in terms of the vaccination centers. And then we also have, I believe the testing center over at Ramsey Park. I was wondering how long are those going to stick around? And I think I did see that the at least the one run through the county, the drive through vaccine center at the fairgrounds is no longer in operation, although if it is, you can correct me if I'm wrong there. But how long are those other centers going to stick around for? Thank you. Our contracts with OptumServe, which is a service provided by the state for testing and vaccination has been extended through October 31st. So those should be sticking around for a number of months more. Yeah, and as far as mass vaccination at the fairgrounds, yeah, we're just because of the slackening of demand. It doesn't make sense to do that. But our efforts now are directed more to targeted groups. So we have pop up clinics in certain areas like the swap meet at the fairgrounds is one example. Also, I think generally speaking is we need to get to the point where these kinds of activities are then taken up by our healthcare system. Like, you know, other types of healthcare. So we will be, you know, as time goes by transitioning more to the traditional healthcare system to do that, with of course continued emphasis and focus on those who have limited access to the healthcare system. And Tony, I just wanted to throw up because we really didn't stop to commemorate the decommissioning of that mass vaccination site at the fairgrounds.  And about 20,000 residents ended up getting vaccinated at that site. So I just I want to reach out and thank everybody that was involved in planning and executing that. That was a tremendous effort. Mallory Pickett, why don't we go to you for our next question. I wanted to just follow up on a couple of things that we talked about earlier. The, if the B117 is here now, that's new since we had last heard about variants. So I was just sort of curious when it first started showing up and kind of what proportion of cases it is now. And then finally, just a clarification on Tony's question way back at the beginning, I think he asked about if there were clusters of disease here in the county. But I was curious because I think Director Hall had been had also talked about clusters of unvaccinated people. So since there aren't really geographic clusters of disease right now, are there any geographic or demographic clusters where the vaccine hasn't reached? So sorry, they're two very different questions, but I hope you can answer them. Mallory, I'll provide some clarification on my statement for your second question. We're not tracking exactly who's unvaccinated in every census tract for zip code, but what I was referring to is what we know from a public health perspective is that it's not random. And there are things that drive vaccination status just like other things. And those are the social determinants of health. So our anticipation is that we know that there are still people unvaccinated. And we're drawing some conclusions based on what we know about health behavior and other diseases that these don't exist in single little individual spread everywhere that they likely are mapped, overlaid with our healthy places index with our most vulnerable communities. I can maybe add a little bit more about pockets of unvaccinated looking at our demographics. And it's interesting, you know, we had a huge focus on South County for a long time, making sure that there was adequate access to vaccine there. And when we look at the, I would say like the 40 year olds and above, we're essentially equal across all three sections of the county, North, Mid, and South. And that's fantastic. But what we're starting to see now is more of a mismatch in the younger group. When you get to the 39 and below, roughly countywide, roughly 50% of that group that's eligible has not yet had a shot. But when you get to the South County, that goes up to 60 and 70% who have not yet had a shot. So we're seeing some equity mismatch, mismatch, at least geographically South County down there. And so we're going to need to continue to work with pediatricians and family physicians on making sure that kids get vaccinations for COVID. There, of course, are other vaccinations that have been held off over this past year that we also need to catch up on and things like measles, mumps, rubella, polio, et cetera. And so all of those are super important that we get people caught up. We have some catching up to do from just the regular stuff. And I'll add that one of the things that we've been doing to target that young adult group. So we're looking at the lower vaccination rates in those 20 year olds, those 30 year olds is working with employers and offering employer based vaccine pop-ups. It's something that we think is a win-win for the workplace to keep your workplace safe. And if you're one of those employers that tend to have a lot of those younger adults in their 20s and 30s working. So when Dr. Newell or Dr. Giller-Jucci talked about pop-ups, that's one of the methodologies that we're using and employers can look on the county website to register for one of those. And I'll just jump in and give a plug for that. So if you're an employer and you want to set up a workplace vaccination clinic for your employees, just email hsac19vaccineclinics at Santa Cruz County dot US and just give us the name of your organization, your preferred contact information and the number of employees. Why don't we go to Jeremiah? Jeremiah, go ahead and unmute yourself. Yeah, thanks. Dr. Giller-Jucci said earlier that it's only a matter of time until we start to see more variants circulating in the community. And I guess I wonder what license you have to impose restrictions again if there are outbreaks, maybe even among vaccinated individuals with weaker immune systems. And if there's a threshold there for what would have to happen before we return to some of the restrictions that we saw earlier in the pandemic, if they're necessary. Yeah, thank you for that question. You know, it's hard to imagine that sort of countywide or even statewide restrictions are going to have much effect on pockets. Really what we're going to need is a more targeted approach going forward. That said, and I'll use the UK as an example again, is they found the need with the resurgence of this Delta variant kind of being coming widespread. They're actually overtaking the B117, the alpha variant, that they needed to impose some, you know, population-wide restrictions again. We hope that's not going to be necessary here. The UK did have a different kind of vaccine rollout than we did. This is the reason I mentioned the one-shot, two-shot effectiveness against the Delta, is that the UK had tried, everybody get a one-shot burst and they'll worry about the second shot later strategy, which could make sense. But in the case of the Delta variant with the low effectiveness, with just a single shot of keeping people out of the hospital or keeping them from dying, unfortunately, I think that strategy probably wasn't as good as our strategy in the US where we wanted to get people completed in their vaccination series as quickly as possible. Yeah, hard to predict. I think that any local restrictions that do happen are going to be in conjunction with state guidance and state orders because what happens in Santa Cruz is likely happening elsewhere. But Dr. Newell is ultimately responsible for that, so I should allow her to elaborate if she wishes. Well, California Department of Public Health leadership has indicated that we would likely move back into the tier system. So either the very same system or something very similar should the need arise. So, and they're watching disease rates closely and the things that they look at are things like ICU availability. So if we were getting to the point where hospitalizations increased and our ICU beds would once again become close to capacity, those would certainly be indications that we needed to be more restrictive again. And it would be something similar to a system where we've been in the last few months. Thank you. Why don't we go to Melissa Hartman? Melissa, do you have another question? Go ahead and ask it. Yes, thank you. I was wondering whether we had had any unvaccinated or I'm sorry, vaccinated, not unvaccinated people pass away from COVID-19 or related conditions since vaccine access became widespread. I know that we've talked, I think at least the last two or three were unvaccinated people. So I was curious. I kind of wanted to get that background. Yes, I'm happy to report that we have not had any hospitalizations or deaths in people who were fully vaccinated in Santa Cruz County. And Melissa, I think there is an NBC did a big story about while there are people still dying and showing up in hospitals, by and large, they're all unvaccinated. So get vaccinated. Mallory, do you have a question? Yeah, I just wanted to follow up. It was my fault for asking a multi-part question, but on the B117 variant, when did that first show up and what's the sort of proportion of cases if you have that on hand? Go ahead, Dr. Noll. We saw our first B117 variant as soon as we started checking for whole genomic sequencing. So I believe that was probably back as far as March. Is that about the time when we started doing genomic sequencing here in Santa Cruz County? And other than the California variants, which I looked it up, it's Epsilon. So the two in India are Delta and Kappa. And the West Coast or United States variant is the B1427 and 429. That's Epsilon. We've had a lot of those, as expected. And then just a handful of B117s. And I believe we had one P1. And that's it. No Deltas or Kappas yet. But I did read that it's expected that Delta will overtake Alpha as it has in the U.K. over the coming months, two to three months. And I think, Mallory, you'd asked if there were pockets of these variants. And that's difficult given the low case rates that we're talking about and kind of small sample size of those that actually go on for genomic sequencing. So I can't say that we've seen the variants show up in any particular social groups or geographic groups at this stage. The numbers just aren't big enough for us to make that kind of analysis. Other jurisdictions have. So Marin County and Santa Clara County each had a significantly sized group of folks with Delta variant. They included people who had recently traveled from India. Tony Nunez, do you have another question? Please go ahead. Yeah, I just wanted to get some just to make sure I heard the right thing from Dr. G. I think you said that 60 to 70% of those 39 at Nunder in South County have not had their first shot. And I just want to make sure I heard that correctly. And then also I saw that the Chief of Public Health, Jen Herrera was on the call as well. And I was wondering if I could ask her how or now that we've had, I think maybe a month of the pop-up shops down here or not shops, but locations down here in South County and farmers market, farmers markets and so forth. Are we seeing success there in our people coming around and getting their vaccines at those pop-ups? Thank you. Yeah, Tony, as far as the percentages, yeah, I'm just looking here. So when we get to the 12 to 20 year olds in South County, we range from 27 to 44% have had at least one shot. And then if you go to North County, for example, those numbers go up to my computer's refreshing, sorry. Those numbers go up at least 10 points higher in both categories. So there's definitely a mismatch in those younger groups between North and South County. And regarding the pop-up clinics, I would say that they have been successful. With pop-up clinics, neighborhood-based clinics, tailored vaccine immunization programs, it's multiple names for the same thing. It's basically being really targeted or specific with how you focus the vaccination effort. And part of the goal at that point, when you're focused on a very specific population, is not so much throughput. Of course, we want to see many numbers of vaccinated, but it's also engagement with the community and the individuals who are getting vaccinated. So from that perspective, it's been very successful. It's been a way to engage with the community, answer their questions about vaccines, especially in South County, where we're hearing a lot of misinformation and just lies around vaccine efficacy and safety. And to be able to have a presence in areas like the slot meet and be able to talk with people one-on-one in an informal setting and answer their questions around vaccinations has been really helpful with promoting vaccine, building vaccine confidence. In addition to that, we have been seeing a study number of individuals getting vaccinated at those sites. We learned today that the UC system will move forward with requiring vaccination of all of their students, faculty, and staff, and contractors, anyone who will be on campus at all for any reason, regardless of the emergency use authorization. So they are not waiting for full FDA approval. And so it's hoped that the CSU system will follow suit and other employers as well. We have another question from Melissa Hartman. Melissa, go ahead. Thank you. Mine is just a follow up to Tony's question. Do we have a ballpark figure on how many people have been vaccinated at the pop-up sites? We don't right now because we are not the only organization who is doing pop-ups. We are certainly connected with other organizations, other healthcare systems that are doing pop-ups. But at this very moment, I don't have that number off hand on hand. Excuse me. I will say that at the fairgrounds, the slot meet clinics, we've been doing approximately about 40 vaccinations every Sunday since we started and we started on Mother's Day. Great. Thank you all. Seeing no more questions, I think we're going to conclude the press conference. Thank you for joining us. Good luck, everyone, tomorrow. And thanks once again for your persistence and patience and cooperation throughout the last 16 months or so. Thanks.


He's taking Israeli citizens hostage, Hamas reporting dozens of Israeli civilians kidnapped into the Gaza Strip, while they continue, the terrorist that is, continue to get in and out crossing the border. All of this under massive hours-long barrages of rockets targeting the south, the center, the east of the country, thousands of rockets fired so far, numerous direct hits resulting in casualties, great damage, of course. At least 40 Israelis confirmed dead, number likely to rise, as hundreds are injured, currently being treated in hospital, dozens of them in critical condition. The entire country under complete lockdown in a state of war, apocalyptic scenes that do not begin to describe what is unfolding in recent hours, Israelis being slaughtered in their own homes. The IDF still working this hour as well to conquer back Israeli towns. Reservists have been called in. The head of Hamas Smelter Wing, Muhammad Def, announcing a beginning of a war, urging Arab Israelis, West Bank Palestinians, Palestinians in East Jerusalem, and armed groups in Lebanon to all take up their arms and join the fog of war, creating a whole lot of confusion. And this is why we want to stay, to stay clearly at the beginning of this broadcast. There is a lot of information, misinformation, disinformation circulating at the moment on social media, some, if not all, containing extremely difficult visuals and content. We are aware of it all. We're getting it all from all sides, and yet we will be reporting here only verified information. And in this respect, after long hours of speculation, we have decided to show you a tiny portion of milder documentation published by Hamas Terrorists, live streaming their activities on social media, showing Israeli civilians kidnapped into the Gaza Strip, where they're being held hostage, captive by Hamas Terrorists. Unprecedented, unbelievable scenes, it's a Saturday morning, a Saturday afternoon rather already, October 7th, 2023, a day and 50 years after the Yom Kippur War broke out and today Israel once again under a surprise war. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convening the security cabinet earlier today. Let's take a listen to what he had to say. Citizens of Israel were at war, not operation in war. This morning Hamas launched a murder of surprise attack against the state of Israel and its citizens. We've been at it since early morning. I convened the heads of the security establishment. First of all, I instructed to cleanse the villages of the terrorists who have infiltrated. This operation is being carried out during these hours. At the same time, I ordered an extensive reserve mobilization and a retaliatory war with a strength and scope that the enemy had never known. The enemy will pay a price he has never known. In the meantime, I call on all citizens of Israel to strictly obey the instructions of the army and the instructions of the home command. We are in a war and we will win it. And we're crossing now live to Lieutenant Colonel Richard Hack, the IDF International spokesperson joining us live. Thank you very much, Lieutenant Colonel Hack, for speaking with us this afternoon. While we discuss the how come and what next, what is the current state of affairs, Lieutenant Colonel Hack? So a very severe day for the IDF and for the state of Israel. As you heard the prime minister say, surprise attack with multiple rockets and also a ground invasion, basically that came in with also from the sea, also from the air, and also from the ground. As we speak, I contemplated on doing this interview, but because we're in the same, we're fighting as we speak. There's soldiers risking their life, as the prime minister said, we've mobilized forces down and we're fighting in all these communities to take care and take out these terrorists. We're going from house to house is very complicated and chaotic, but the IDF will win this. Lieutenant Colonel Hack, how many active scenes are there at the moment? So there's multiple active scenes, I think you're covering it, Zikim, Kerem Shalom, Zderot, Ares Crossing, Nakhal Oz. These are scenes where Hamas terrorists are currently at Israeli territory. Again, we're engaging with them, the infiltrated into Israel, and our soldiers are fighting. We've mobilized a lot of our special forces that are very, very professional in these kinds of a battle, and they're right now engaging with these terrorists. Lieutenant Colonel Hack, what can you tell us on the amount, the status of of of Israelis kidnapped being held hostage by Hamas terrorists? So we can't talk about the numbers right now, it's something that we're still learning. We will come back to you with that data. The numbers are quite substantial of people that have been harmed from this horrific inhumane attack. Right now our our goal is stage one to with our special ground forces to get control back on all of these places. And we'll be planning our response in a very, very focused and precise manner against Hamas. Yes, before we ask you what is to be expected next, Lieutenant Colonel Hack, we cannot ignore the horrific chilling symbolism of this day, 50 years and a day after the Yom Kippur War broke out five decades later, Israelis still debating the element of surprise back then. And today I need to ask you the same, Lieutenant Colonel Hucked, how come Israel was so surprised in that scope and scale? So I think it's not the time to talk about big historic narratives, and also not to give the Hamas the credit of the Yom Kippur War. Let's get the situation under control.  Let's respond severely against Hamas and Gaza. And then we'll talk about the narratives, the Yom Kippur, etc. It's not there's not time for that, I would say. And Lieutenant Colonel Richard Hucked with me here in studio, our Middle East correspondent Ariel Osiron. Yeah, just a quick question, Lieutenant Colonel Hucked. Thank you for your time. We appreciate everything you're doing today. Can you just confirm we're getting reports of 50 hostages being held currently and the kibbutz of Baeri on the border, and that IDF soldiers are currently engaged with terrorists there? Can you confirm that? We are engaging in all these locations where there's terrorists. I'm not going to go into the nitty gritty of the tactics and the battle. And once we have our control back of the situation, we will update you. Lieutenant Colonel Richard Hucked, the International Spokesperson of the IDF, we genuinely appreciate your time and the information you have provided us, sir, we will touch base with you later on. Lieutenant Colonel Richard Hucked, thank you very much for this. All right, we're moving on now to I-24 News correspondent Hamda Selhout, on the ground down south in the southern city of Asderot, Hamda Selhout, what has been happening in Asderot since the early hours of this morning. It is hard to comprehend what is the current state of affairs now there, and what more can you tell us about what unfolded in the past hours? Right, it's been several hours. It appears that we have some connectivity issues as we have been experiencing all day long since Vasta, our chunks of Israel south are experiencing power outages and other connectivity issues there on both sides of the border. We are now joined in studio by I-24 News senior defense correspondent Jonathan Regive, I-24 News and Middle East correspondent Arielle Osseron and Mr. Olivier Raufowitz. Security and defense expert, thank you gentlemen for joining us. Jonathan Regive, it is perhaps challenging to dub it as such, but the little information we had in the early hours of this uncomprehensible day, we still don't have much. We still do not know much. You just spoke with a man who provides us with the information, that's the idea of spokesman for international media, and there's not a lot of information coming out. It might be confusion, it might be the fog of battle, it might be many things, but the bottom line is that ten hours into this terrible event, practically almost all of the information that we have is from the other side. First, judging on past experiences, I tend to believe them. I tend to believe what they're saying. I think if those of us who have not learned it up until this morning should learn to respect the other side a bit more, they're not, if in the past Israel would use to look first at Arab armies and then at Arab terror groups as farmers running away without their shoes, that's not the case. They're well organized, well trained, and if Israel will continue to look down at these organizations it will keep paying such a price as Israel is paying today, again and again and again, and same as their media, a lot of their information usually tends to be correct. So the numbers, I have to say that the numbers that they're saying, they're terrible, and there might be true. And this is also a consideration that Israel will have to look at. If there are tens of Israelis alive inside the Gaza Strip, that will be a problem when the next stage of the war will come and it will come, in which Israel will want to strike hard against Gaza to let them understand that this is unacceptable. This is something that cannot happen and will have to come with a terrible, terrible, terrible price. But doing this with tens of Israelis who may be alive in the Gaza Strip, that may be a serious consideration. The worn-out phrase of changing the equation will now come to test, to a large extent. And Jonathan, before we get your take, Mr. Afovic, Jonathan, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin is now isolated to speak with American President Joe Biden in the coming hours, maybe the coming hour. The defense, the U.S. Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin already vowing the Pentagon will work to assure that Israel, all it needs to defend itself, what does it mean in practice? I think we're looking mainly at funding for Iron Dome interceptors, to keep the Israeli mechanisms going. Constantly going, because if this escalates into a conflict that also comes along with the northern border with Hezbollah, with its 100,000 or 150,000 rockets, those rockets need to be intercepted. And in order to intercept them, you need a very large number of interceptors. Those of course, they cost money, they need to be produced, and the United States is vowing to do everything that Israel needs in order to go past successfully. This battle, this war, we know that there's friction between the current Israeli government and many of its Western allies, not on this issue right now. It's quite strong backing from Western governments towards Israel. All right, before we get back here in studio, and it is important to mention that while we are here analyzing what may happen, what should happen, what could happen, barrages of rockets from the Gaza Strip towards Israel continue constantly. Heavy barrages of rockets while Israeli troops are still fighting to regain control over Israeli territory down south. So you want to turn now to our 24 News Correspondent, Pierre Kloschendler, in the southern hospital of Baselah in the city of Ashkelon. Pierre, we're talking at least 40 Israelis murdered, confirmed, hundreds injured, among them dozens in critical condition. What can you tell us? Well, I can tell you what's going on in Ashkelon itself. Less than an hour ago, there were three very loud explosions, and it seems that one of the rockets managed to infiltrate the barrage of the Iron Dome anti-missile missile system and exploded nearby the hospital. There was a very loud explosion, and shrapnels flew over the pediatric emergency ward of the hospital. Luckily, the young patients are in protected areas of the hospital, so no one was wounded. But we saw a wounded woman from shrapnel in the head and on the chest that was evacuated here a few moments later. And you can see here there are stretches that are on the ready to carry hospitals to the emergency ward. There is an ambulance just next to us, an ambulance truck actually, and there are many paramedics that are waiting, that are on the ready in case of further hospitalizations of wounded. Right now there's about at least 200 wounded from that chaotic war on Israel, and 60 of them are in critical condition. Some are fighting for their life, really, literally. And at this moment, no one knows what goes on in the community villages nearby the Gaza Strip. No one knows exactly, but there are rumors of hostages, of kidnapped soldiers, female male and civilians. Chaos reigns Israel this hour as well. Pierre Kloeschendler with the I-24 News team there down south. Thank you very much for this. Stay safe. Much more from Pierre throughout the evening, of course. And we're staying in the southern city of Oshkelon. Ophel Tene, resident of the city, is joining us now by phone. Ophel, how are you? Well, first of all, we woke up to a terrible day in which numerous terrorist attacks, innocent citizens. And really, I never remember this kind of event in the magnitude like our generation have never experienced this kind of thing. And I want to say that my heart is with all of the injured and the families, all who died during this sad event. And of course, we support the law enforcement, the army and the police. And it's really, really shocking this whole day. Yeah, shock is an understatement to describe what we all feel this day. Ophel, describe to us what you've been through in recent hours. I assumed that you have, you did not leave your house as much as possible, but communication among your neighbors probably ongoing throughout the day. Currently, by the way, I live in Moshevnik next to Oshelon. It's village. And we woke up like in 6 a.m. with many, many rocket alarm. And the rocket alarm never stopped. And around 12, we heard gunshots, lots like like a range of gunshots and screaming like I think like half a mile, mile from our house and it was very, very frightening events. And we're with the kids, of course, in the safe room, but for the kids and for me, we're never encountered this kind of activity. It's never happened. And now all of the army and law enforcement are here. But we had like a couple of hours that we felt very frightening with minimum, minimum police that we saw, but they came few hours after this. And this is obviously something that will be discussed in length. Those hours were during which many southern residents felt stranded, no other way to put it with the lack of responsiveness from Israel's security forces there. Ophel Teneb, before we let you go, we all need every dose of optimism and togetherness and brotherhood on this day. If you would like to conclude with a message to all Israelis. Yeah, I think that in these days, all of Israel unite together and support each other. We got many calls from friends that said friends and family and said that maybe you can stay with us for a couple of days. And this is really in this time, you can see the Israeli nation together. And I just say that it's really a shame that in the other side, in the Hamas, all they try to do is to kill and create death. And in the last several months, we thought that we had more optimistic side. And every day we had like Arabic come from Gaza Strip and work in Israel. And we thought that we're going into some kind of peace. But apparently they just want destruction. So it's it's very sad. But the Israeli nation unites under this kind of thing. So this is some some kind of light in this all chaos now. Ophel Teneb in a community in a village near the southern city of Ashkelon. Thank you very much for speaking to us.  Thank you for this. Back here in studio with us, Colonel Raffovic. What are we to expect in the coming hours while security forces are still engaged in the battle to conquer back Israeli territory? Yeah, you are right. And it's a catastrophe. The first time since 1948 that Arabs, Arab armies, Arab terrorist group are capable to conquer Israeli territory. The last time was in 48. Then we were in full control. And we knew all the time to transfer the combats within the enemy territory.  And we know that we talk about hundreds of wounded and maybe maybe hundreds. Of dead people, still not very clear because the number is still in the figure are not very clear for now. So first step, we have to continue to fight, to fight back to conquer these villages, these kibbutzim around the Gaza Strip and to put them back, that number one. Then there will be the stage number two to continue to strike within the Gaza Strip. And I believe that this time, the goal is not only to strike back, but the goal is to my analysis, to my opinion, to destroy, to eliminate. Totally, as a strategic decision, the Hamas regime within the Gaza Strip. So we're talking about the possibility of taking back the Gaza Strip under Israeli control? This time it is a possibility because, as you know and you know it very well, because you are here for a long time now. Every time that we fought Hamas, we did not finish a job. Again, we were facing a new round of confrontation with the Hamas movement. This time, I believe that we cannot continue to play according to the rules of the game fixed by Hamas, this time as well as to change the rules of the game. And the rules of the game this time, really, would be to radically transform the situation, maybe to bring back, maybe to bring back Mahmoud Abbas in the Gaza Strip, to eject totally the Hamas regime. And I know that from Egypt, we got the message during the day, the Egyptian government decided to cut the relationship, the links with Hamas. And it's a kind of message sent to Israel, like, we give you the green light. To do what you need to do. To do what you have to do. Now, Qatar, the Saudis, the Emirates, the Egyptians, the Georgians. Also responding, yeah. I think that we have to do it because the result of what's going on today, what happened today, is unacceptable in any way for the state of Israel. The citizens in Israel will not accept, in any case, that we will continue to be again facing Hamas after so many casualties, so many dead people. And we don't know the exact numbers. And I think that the numbers will be very, very high and terrible. We're nearing the end of this broadcast, obviously, we were continuing our live coverage all throughout the day. Ariel Serrana, Jonathan Regev, Ariel, to an extent, do you think that Hamas was surprised as well by the, quote, unquote, success of its operation? On their part, I would imagine so. They're not saying that. But indeed, with all their pendants on social media specifying how easy the entry to Israel was. And I want to stress, again, a la ISIS documentation that we're seeing. Yeah, the convoys of trucks with armed militants coming out, and also the treatment of Israelis dead or alive that also bears parallels to ISIS. Now, as again, as we're talking, we need to remember two things in mind. One, there are constant barrages of rockets towards southern Israel. Even since I started this sentence, there's been another alert of a rocket barrage towards southern Israel. There is continued fighting in southern Israeli communities. And Israel is carrying out nonstop strikes in the Gaza Strip, according to health sources there. At least 160 Palestinians killed and over 1,500 injured. Now, if we're looking at what Hamas is saying now, the number two deputy leader of Hamas, Saleh al-Rouri, seen as the mastermind of these latest escalations and acts. He's, well, he's in Lebanon most of the time. But this morning we saw him in a video with Ismail Aniyah, the leader of Hamas, watching live Al Jazeera TV as smiling before praying. He's saying that all possibilities, he's telling this to Al Jazeera, the same Al Jazeera that they watched the infiltration take place from. All possibilities are expected and we are prepared for any ground invasion of the Strip. He's saying this is the best outcome for the Palestinian resistance, given the high level of casualties in the Gaza Strip. I don't think he should be calling it a success, but saying that they captured large number of Israeli civilians as well as Israeli IDF officers. They're claiming senior Israeli officers. We tried to get an answer from the IDF spokesperson. No answer as to the identity and quantities. But indeed they're trying to project an image of immense success. Ariella Saran, colonel of Olivier Raffovich, Jonathan Regev, thank you for joining us for this broadcast. We continue our coverage, of course, nonstop throughout the day. Stay resilient. Stay strong. Stay strong.


You're welcome back. I did tell you that we're going to be talking about something else, not what INEC is doing right now. We're talking about the seeming, continuing war in the PDP as PDP suspends presidential rally in rivers. Wike versus Atiku, that's how we're just calling it. And to talk with us today is Opunabo in Kotaria. Welcome to the program, Opunabo. Good morning. Okay. We're also expecting Chidi Lloyd, Chairman, Emoja, local government area of River State to join us. But until he does that, we're going to be talking with Opunabo. I keep saying Opunabo. I don't know why. Well, the PDP, or River State rather, has always been a PDP state and a very strong state for PDP. And if not for the population, at least for the finances, PDP has always relied on River State for a lot of things. But now, like Chino Achebe would say, things fall apart and the center cannot hold. Is that a sign of what is to come that we're seeing from what happened in River State? What's really going on? It should be told.  I mean, let's take on that vibe as the so-called advocacy for equity, internet, and trust so that our next peers will have a rudimentary grasp of what it's all about and to us to realize that the so-called, first-founded issue of equity, internet, and trust is for the software industry. The real issue has to do with losing the presidential tickets. And the comments made by IU, when he held the sub-state governor who stood down for a people that eventually led to the emergence of a people as the hero of the state. I was described by the national election or convention took place. We see that the presidential election is a convention private. And at that convention, he also imagine the geometry. The successor was from River State. Gold removal of River State is not a conjecture. He said so on several occasions. It was an exception by the governor of River State. And he also imagined. Now, that preceded the presidential election. And so, notwithstanding the measures of George IU, the delegates who went ahead to vote for active government. What does that tell you? They are not really bothered about where the German and the presidential candidates come from. They are more interested in the bigger picture. Somebody with the gravitas to win the election. Somebody with the clouds to win the election. And so, where the national general comes from, as far as we were concerned, was immaterial. It was inconsequential compared to the tax ahead. They failed to minimize the maximum and maximize the minimum. Because the issue of where the national general comes from and the presidential candidate is maximizing the minimum. The maximum is how to win the election. And after that, the governor of River State had said that he was going to support whoever emerges as the candidate of the government. After that he said that there was no candidate. There was no vote. He did not say, I will support a candidate on this condition. He did not say that. And after that time, as people was in the race, people that said, he is not on a matrix, then the national general must step down. Those conditions were not given. He just said, believing he was going to win at the personal problems. Even after he was bested at the priorities. When he got back to River State, he said to River State people, in addressing the state budget, we could all tell them that notwithstanding the outcome, notwithstanding the shortcomings, as a party man is going to support the article of UBACA as the presidential candidate of the meeting. So the best question is, what then changed? Now, why is it at all of a sudden you are talking of equity, fairness and justice? In terms of equity, even if you do it, you say, you must go. Going by the critical constitution, it is somebody from that zone that will succeed that. So in other words, what you are saying, which you have also said, is that you must have a self-analyzing. For you to have a self-analyzing as a presidential candidate, there has to be a convention. The question there is, do you have enough time to conduct another convention? Or are you going to go extra-constitutional, which is illegal? So say, you start another, please, start another, come. Without a convention. Is that what you are going to do? So it is reactionary, inexplicable. For you to say a self-analyzing as a presidential candidate, is committee like that? No, not yet, but you have to land. For you to say a self-analyzing as a presidential candidate, how will a self-analyzing like that? It's not possible. There has to be a convention. Unless you are going to dig up with the constitution. And you know there are procedural obligations if you have to do that. So I want you to consider the time. You don't have the luxury of time to show me. The target is winning the presidential today. After that, you can table all your privileges and the party will look into them and base on the merits and trust them. But you say, no, you must go. You have bonded with several officials that you have been the one responsible for the removal of the other chairmen. And do you think that your fellow governors are equally happy? What point are you trying to make?  You said you have spent so much. You have been denouncing the party. Peter deleted the nasty party. But Peter deleted never got it. The man you said should go. He just said you are a founding member of the party. I think you are a founding member of the party. Again, this is a party that has done so much for you that you can never in your lifetime pay back. Because it was on this platform you became a local government chair. Chief of staff, minister and government. It's like you saying to your father who trained you from Nautilus to the university?  And now I have been sustaining you without any worry about you. You are only trying to show gratitude that's best. And because you are so far so close to expulsion the fact does not mean everybody should be tied to your responsibilities. Can we move on from this? And because you must go according to your facts you are saying you must go. That is where you have to go. That is exactly where we are now. Of the population. That doesn't depend on justice. Like I said. Who was the last presidential candidate or who was the last president of the country before Muhammad Mubarak? Can I just air my concerns now? Let me express my concerns now. Can you hear me well? I don't know if you have a fan on or something because there seem to be some noise but we can get you tolerably. If you can hear me well. My concerns for this discussion today did not really focus on Wiki. Yes, he is the protagonist or antagonist depending on where you stand in this whole thing. It is more on what the PDP stands to gain or to lose by the seemingly inability, the seemingly inability to resolve the issues within. But in your talking you raised a lot of things that sounded like PDP is only or usually only thinks about the end as something that justifies the means no matter what it is. So I'm asking simply when you were writing your constitution were you writing for the party or for the good of the country? I tell you why I ask this. Now if APC for instance has a candidate from the north and PDP comes and they say because they want to win and there's a candidate from the north and then after that they lose again to the APC and the candidate of the APC comes from the north and it comes back to PDP because it is not it is not you who fielded a candidate you still go back to the north. It doesn't concern you that even though the party that fielded a candidate that is leaving the office is from a particular region if you take that same region to be your candidate or the president from your party it is going to worry the people of Nigeria. Was it just to get the gains of winning an election or you hurt the people of Nigeria in mind? Because that's a concern for us. Okay, okay, okay. Okay. Well I guess that we're going to the fortunes of the past like the right decision. Now, let me state this I'm not a member of PDP I'm a bit of a policy party so I try to I'm voting for candidates across party lines depends on your dissidents and your perception my perception of you Now I will state this every party has its own constitution every party has its own modus operandi now as at when the PDP I strongly believe that they did not say if a candidate is from the north the next must come from the south whether that president was from another political party or not that couldn't have been the reasoning why I said that couldn't have been the reasoning it's simple you have a candidate from the north contesting on the platform of let's say this you also have a candidate from the north contesting on the platform of the PDP at the same time simultaneously if after that time they not on that for example have just succeeded the sitting president is from it is from and you have the PDP man who the last time was the south and needed to fill that out I even say oh no because they not on that if it is by the south it's otherwise you go to the south you not on that from the PDP don't contest you're not going to say that because if you don't put into consideration other political parties you did not that is number one number two in this particular instance only the south east it's only the south east that have not produced a candidate around the country and what was the agreement they formed a committee a zoning committee that a zoning committee was in place and I think to myself if it is zone to the south east I will not contest because it will be very offensive but if it is not going to be zone to the south east I will contest but every other zone have produced a president which is correct the whole thing was if it is such a only have to leave the party and it does not zone to the south east and the other committee that was formed now let it open which was the very effective government let it open and when you leave a ticket open you are saying everybody is qualified to contest and so if a candidate makes it from that contest it should not be a problem if you have been a problem you can accept no not a mess to contest and somebody because he is obdurate because he is obstinate decides to contest and wins you said no I decided when you thrown it open I said you thrown it open everybody is qualified to contest so the fortunes of the party now because whether article is a not a mess and not a not a mess as far as the PPP is concerned the last man who ruled before the war I don't like the word ruled because it is a singular technology the last man who ruled is a predecessor so he is also an equity candidate and justice no south turner to live in a test to contest if you have to go by that if you allow somebody from the south to contest it must be micro zone to the south and not the south side because good blood Jonathan is from the south side so if you be micro zone to the south so all those who from the south side who is equally contested I am clearly somebody from the north who contested but let us micro zone it to the south I have heard your argument so let's go to the fortunes of the party because you know no matter what if you have a stubborn child for instance in your family like our people say you cannot throw the child with the bat water so now that it seems PPP is not able to resolve their issues what are the fortunes of the party just briefly so that we can wrap up this segment the truth about it is of course whether you like it or not at risk of in politics it is not a good sign, it is not a good domain because politics is all about major Italianity so every good especially people every good will have and so if you argue reduction in number it is a minus but the question is is it a minus except the fortune of the party I can tell you categorically that even in riverside that people look at your you saw the last turnout when the people were there even in their way in other states you saw in their way the only difference is that the governors who are members of the G5 did not form a but their vice even came out their vice and I'm going to tell you that those ones who are not going to vote for article they are not going to have the support of two votes the only difference is that in riverside for example the votes might be divided because some who are actually loyal to the governor will not want to vote for article but I can tell you that even some who are working with him and those he thinks are even loyal he will still vote for article he might eat as people who have had 100% in riverside he might have 60 to 70% in riverside but that's the difference but that is going to win river people are and generalised for article I can tell you is going to win but probably not the number that you will be able to deal with but in this way it's going to win okay okay open up thank you so much for both giving us a historical background to what is happening and giving us this optimism that you have told us about the PDP it's good I would only say good luck to the PDP everywhere else not just riverside thank you so much for being a part of the program my pleasure thank you okay we've been talking with open up and he was telling us what is happening in riverside we will take another break when we return we will be joined by Olutayo Iratiola author, youth advocate and patriot stay with us