It's just after 10 and we still have a few people logging on, so we'll wait just a moment more before getting started. Difficulty here for a moment, but I think we're all ready now. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us on this snowy Friday morning. This week represents another milestone in our long battle against COVID-19 as we will be lifting the mass mandate that has been in place since December, and the mandate will expire on Thursday, March 3. This is confirmed this week after a discussion with the city council, the administration did not propose extending it and the council concurred with that and it took no further action. This seemed like a good moment to convene another of these briefings that we have done so many times together over the last couple of years. We're joined again today by Dr. Tim Leahy from the University of Vermont Medical Center, the director of clinical ethics and infectious disease physician, and Dr. Leahy has really been a great local voice of caution and wisdom throughout this period and we're really excited to have you back with us, Dr. Leahy. We also have here with us this morning, Megan Tuttle, our planning director and our COVID response leader and really the head of this team that has been focused on data and analytics and best practices throughout the pandemic and has once again really provided the city a strong basis for making decisions and we're going to start today by turning it over to Megan to really walk everyone through the data and the rationale behind the lifting of the mandate and then after that, Dr. Leahy, I are going to have a little bit of an informal discussion about where we go from here and what this means for our lives and what resources and tools remain in place for continuing to manage the virus, particularly for individuals that are at high risk for COVID infections and serious impacts. So with that, Megan, why don't I turn it over to you. Okay, good morning. Thank you. Can you see my screen, Mayor? Dr. Leahy? Okay, great. I'm going to start by sharing some information about the key metrics that we have been monitoring throughout the pandemic and specifically looking at where we are today at statewide and at the Burlington level. So starting with the number of cases that have been reported across the state as of the last, well as of yesterday, we saw 206 cases reported on Thursday and we are now seeing a seven day average of cases of 198 across the state. This is down almost 90% from the peak at the beginning of January. I think that peak number that we saw was around January 10th. So we've seen a daily decline in the number of cases reported every day of about 90%. One thing that I did want to note here, typically in these briefings, we would share county level data. We tried to bring this a little closer to home and share what was happening across Chittenden County with the increase in cases that we have seen as part of the Omicron wave. You can see in the chart this green section of each of the bars. These represent cases for which a county has not been able to be assigned. So we have started to really pivot and look at both the statewide data and the city level data more closely than we have the county data for the past several months. When we look at what's happening here in Burlington, we have also seen a significant decrease in the cases reported on a weekly basis here in Burlington. We have seen just over an 83% decline since January 10th in the number of cases that are reported here in the city. We've also seen a similar trend in the detection of the virus in our wastewater monitoring. This kind of zooms into the period of time just before we detected the Omicron variant in our wastewater treatment plants to the most recent results that we received just last night actually. And we see that the level of virus that's been detected in our wastewater plants is down over 90% since, again, that peak around January 10th. I think it's important to just note that we have not received data for the North Plant as of this week, but we have been continuing to see those trends trending down across all of our wastewater treatment plants. And again, this is an important indicator for us because we know that our case data is limited to those folks that are actually getting tested and reporting an official result. So this just gives us an extra layer of information to understand what's happening within our community, within the city of Burlington, even if people are not getting tested. We've seen at the statewide level a decline in hospitalizations and particularly folks in the ICU. Hospitalizations are down about 70% from the peak in January. And I believe that the governor's team shared earlier this week that the number of Vermonters that are in the ICU is one of the lowest rates that we've seen since the end of the summer going into the fall. And I don't know if Dr. Leahy or anybody would like to talk later about what's happening more locally at our hospital. Another important piece of information that we've continued to watch is the progress on vaccinations at the statewide and local level. We now see that 93% of residents over five years of age in Chittenden County have received at least one dose of a COVID vaccine. And 66% of residents five and older in Chittenden County are what we call up to date on their vaccines. So this means they're either fully vaccinated or fully vaccinated with a booster if they're eligible for one. The reason that this matters and in particular why this has mattered during the Omicron wave is is just quite simply because of we've talked about this a lot on these briefings because we know vaccines work. And particularly during the Omicron wave, I think it's important to focus on this. As we've seen such an increase in the number of people that have contracted COVID-19, it's important to look at the impact of vaccines in terms of helping us prevent some of the most severe outcomes from a COVID infection. This is information that is shared by the state's from Department of Health about outcomes for for monitors that have been infected and whether or not that resulted in a hospitalization. So we know that from the first six weeks of this year, adults who were not fully vaccinated had a seven times higher likelihood of being hospitalized than those who were fully vaccinated and had a booster. And we also know from CDC data that vaccines in particular are effective against the most severe outcomes of COVID, which is is the results in death. It was noted in CDC data that in December of last year, unvaccinated into adults had a 41 times higher rate of death from COVID than people that were fully vaccinated with a booster. You know, we know that through the Omicron wave, unfortunately, we have seen a number of remonters still pass away from a COVID infection. But we also at the same time have seen, you know, the number of remonters that have died as a as a total percent of cases in that time period significantly reduced. And that is because of the impact of vaccines on those infections. So that's what I have to share, Mayor, in terms of where we are with those key metrics we've been watching. And I'll turn it over to you and Dr. Leahy to continue talking. Great. Thank you for that, Megan. And I thank you for bringing in the National CDC data on that last slide. If you think sometimes it's been great how much local and statewide data we've had throughout this ability to be able to understand what's going on in Vermont. I do think sometimes, particularly during Omicron, just sometimes the dramatic effectiveness of the vaccines that message got a little bit muted sometimes by just looking at the Vermont numbers, given how highly vaccinated Vermont was. And the fact that we have kind of a population that is somewhat older than many other states, I think Vermont data could look a little bit different than the National data that last slide there really brings home just how dramatic, really miraculous these vaccines have been. And that's, I think, an important message to stay with folks as we go forward from here because we're likely to not be completely done with COVID and vaccines are going to remain a really key strategy going forward. And we'll maybe talk more about that with Dr. Leahy in a second. Let me just summarize the Burlington Indoor Mass Mandate. Again, it will expire next Thursday. This was first implemented in December in anticipation of the Omicron wave hitting the city and concerns about not just public health. We were hopeful that by the time we put the mass mandate in place that Omicron would not have as great public health impacts as in earlier times in the pandemic because of the high level of vaccination, but we're still very concerned about disruptions and disruptions. We're welcoming the hospital and we did face a very challenging period in many operations, city included, but at this point it's really clear from the data just that Megan just went through that the Omicron wave has receded and the justification for putting in places no longer there. I want to be clear that cities, the city's policy does not directly impact what the Burlington schools decide to do. They have separate state guidance on schools and the superintendent has communicated that he does not intend to immediately lift the masking requirement in the Burlington schools when schools reopen from the specification week that goes into next week. There will still be the masking rules in place when the kids initially come back, but that may not last. He's going to continue to look at data and how that transition goes and raise the possibility that it would be lifted later in the month of March. Importantly, the way the state guidance and authority works, businesses, organizations operating public spaces can continue to have their own recommendations or even requirements regarding masks. So if the public sees businesses that they're going into continuing to post rules, they should follow those guidelines. Dr. Lady, thank you again for joining us. How are things going at the hospital? And we have a number of questions we wanted to get to. How are you thinking of the stage of the pandemic and how kind of the average Burlingtonians should be going about their life as we come to the end of February 22? Thanks for having me and good to see you again. I think the reality in the hospital is similar to the picture that the data that you've been discussing show that things are better. And the numbers of not only cases, but people who are really desperately ill from COVID have improved. And so I think that's something that we should celebrate. And yet the work is not done. We do still have dozens of people hospitalized currently. And we care about them. And we know that there still are vulnerable people who we care about in our communities who we want to take care of. And so I think it's this mixed message that we're all getting used to being measured about. We should celebrate our successes until grateful that we're in a state that is one of the best in the nation in terms of its vaccination rates, one of the lowest in the nation in terms of its hospitalization rates, one of the lowest in the nations in terms of its death rates. That's awesome. But that's because we pulled together as neighbors and we took care of each other. We trusted that vaccination would work against this illness that has against others. We invested in wearing masks, whether it was a law or not. And I think that saved lives. That kind of neighborliness is something I felt incredibly grateful to be part of. And as you said, we're getting into this better place in the pandemic. But it's not over. And so we need to shift into this phase of saying, well, how is it now? What do the numbers look like? Can we relax a little bit? Or is this one of those times where we need to amp up our responses? And I think throughout a really key theme I've been thinking about is how do we protect not just ourselves, but also the neighbors we care about who might be a little bit more vulnerable. That might be the grandmother who lives down the road, whose medical illness or age makes her susceptible. It might be members of disenfranchised populations, a BIPOC population. It might be people who are immune compromised who maybe can't make as good a vaccine immune response. And so how do I, as a person, behave as a good neighbor so that I'm living my life and I'm enjoying it? I'm not in a continuous state of emergency. But also I'm not forgetting that I want everybody to be okay. And so it's been, I guess, a piece of good fortune for all of us to be living that reality here where our society is thinking about that or our leaders like you were thinking about it. And I think that's saving lives. Well, what strikes me is that we do have different tools at this point to answer that question. How do we protect ourselves? How do we focus that question now that so many of us are vaccinated and as those data slides showed are at much less risk than when we were both because there's not as much fire circulating right now and because the risks to people who are vaccinated and boosted and we should just continue to know there's more work to do. It is given how there really is a difference between the outcomes of people who are boosted versus simply having the vaccinations. It is a concern of mine and I think others that still have a pretty big gap between the 93% of the over five population that is fully up to date versus only about 66% that has just gotten the initial course so the vaccine has not gotten the booster. So that sort of remains out there as I think something that we should continue to message and people should, if you haven't gotten the booster yet, if your kids are eligible and haven't gotten the booster yet, you should do that. But beyond that, it does strike me that it's a much smaller part of the population that is at serious risk at this point and that we have greater tools for helping to protect those people who remain vulnerable and can you walk us through what you see as those main tools because sometimes I have emerged during this Omicron wave and maybe haven't gotten as I think enough attention to really understand how this is, there are different decisions that people have now and different opportunities. So let's walk through them. Yeah, happy to help with that and I think the slide hits the high point so I can sort of give a little bit more color commentary. So absolutely agree about making sure that we all get the vaccination that we need and people who are at higher risk by virtue of being immunocompromised might get more doses of a vaccine, but making sure that you've got the number that you need is I think number one priority. It keeps our most vulnerable people as safe as we can get them and it helps people who don't feel hugely medically susceptible, still protected from bad luck, which happens. I do see 20 year olds in the ICU because lightning struck and if you have an easy, safe way to protect yourself from that, that's great. Master are of course really important inside with people outside of your own household and I think we're getting into this phase where different people are going to sort of weigh those risks differently. I think some people are going to say because of X, Y, and Z, either medical fragility or just risk aversion, I'm not going to eat in restaurants or I'm not going to do that stuff. I'm not going to go inside with crowds unless I have a mask. Other people may decide to do that, but having good masks available for those who decide to wear masks or in places where it's required is really important. It's quite clear now that cloth masks are not nearly as good as other masks and that the more high quality KN95 and KF94 masks that you can get now are a little bit better than surgical procedure masks. I figure if it's right to wear a mask, wear a mask that works and for me, I find actually a KN95 from a reliable source is a little more comfortable than a surgical procedure mask. I tend to wear that but I make sure it's from a trustworthy supplier. Dr. Lee, before I move off masking, I think maybe one important element that it is a shift and when we, you know, I think it's sometimes a challenge in this pandemic as the science and as the tools shift, the public, you know, it can be jarring to the public when the communication shift, but also can be correct and I think this is one where the message is different now and the tools are different now. Throughout much of this pandemic, we've been focused on, you know, as the mask mandate was sort of an embodiment of the importance of kind of collective masking of everyone masking. As we lift the mandate and as we, you know, kind of move into this new period, I've heard a lot more discussion about kind of one way masking and that there's really a clear recognition now that people who are vulnerable can have, can protect themselves through the use of masks in a way that doesn't just depend on sort of collective action, that this one way masking is effective. Is that the way you see it? Yeah, I sort of think of there being three scenarios. One is the scenario in which it's really up to each person. You know, you're in a context, the grocery store or something like that, where it's going to become up to each person to, you know, decide what their level of risk tolerance is and what their level of risk is and mask accordingly. And it is true that wearing especially a KN95 does provide excellent protection from somebody else who's unmasked who unwittingly has COVID. It is better, of course, if they're both wearing masks, but we found in healthcare settings that if the healthcare provider is wearing a mask and maybe the patient is too sick to put on their mask, that the likelihood of that healthcare working getting infected is extremely low. So that's information that you can use in the grocery store, particularly if you're at high risk. I think there still are going to be certain settings in which we want to, you know, we don't want to sort of throw away the idea of communal masking, particularly in indoor crowds.  And there was a big crowded indoor space during a lull in the pandemic. It was before the Omicron surge and we wore masks and would have worn masks even if we didn't feel any risk to ourselves because it's so high risk in that context. So I think we're going to continue to sort of feel out situations like that. And then of course there are the highest risk circumstances, you know, I'm providing care, hands on doing intubation or something like in the hospital for somebody with COVID and which is remains required and I'll stay like that for a good long time. And so I guess that's the thing I wanted to point out is that even in this time of anticipated loosening of some of these rules will have places like hospitals where the rules are going to be tighter because the risk is higher. And so I think there are reports in other setting where you're kind of thinking continued. I mean, I think it's still a federal rules are still in place there. Those have not been lifted yet. And for, for good reason, I hear a lot of people saying, you know, we may never go back to flying without, without a mask on it. You think about things that way. We'll see, you know, I think, I think that that's definitely something my crystal ball hasn't brought into clear yet. So I think we need to be able to feel out what is lost, not being able to see a full facial expression and how much risk we're reducing. And if at some point we get to a place where the risk of transmission within the hospital gets close to what it was before we ever heard of COVID, then I think we should be able to get back to taking our masks off, but it's going to have to be that level of assurance of safety because our patients need to know that they're safe when they come to see us. Rapid tests are a tool many of us have become familiar with really just in the last couple of months. Now they feel like they're much more ubiquitous and, and feels like they're going to be kind of part of the landscape for some time. How, as, as Omicron recedes, how are you thinking about using rapid tests? Yeah, I do think these are an incredibly important recent tool. Many of us use these to make seeing family and other loved ones over the holidays safer. This is particularly true, I think for intergenerational connections or when you have somebody and your family or friends who's medically fragile and you don't want to endanger them. It's a way to get together inside and a cold day and enjoy it, but feel like you've got hours of protection.  And you'll probably be like, yeah, I tested. All right. Good. What's up? What's on the, what do you think of that game last night? So I think that's going to be still part of our lives, but a bit more strategically used. Excellent. And finally, and here, I really do feel like this has gotten, this is a really significant change that has gotten less attention than it needs to. And that requires the public to understand it. I think for this, for this new capacity, you know, for this new tool to really be fully effective, people need to understand that there are treatments out there because they require to be effective. They require acting quickly. So can you, can you speak to that and what these new treatments are and what the public needs to know about them? Yeah, this is probably a good moment to pause and give some gratitude. You know, I think one of the big challenges through this pandemic is that the news is bad and we hear lots of really scary numbers. And also we are witnessing true miracles. Like it's ridiculous. The number of tools that we have now available this quickly. And so when I think, okay, we've lost 593 of our monitors. We've lost 943,000 Americans. We've lost almost 6 million people around the world. And those are surely under counts. I also think that is bad news by also think, thank God we have over 10 billion vaccine doses delivered so that we didn't lose more. Thank God we have rapid tests. Thank God we know about masking and thank God we have so many effective treatments now that is difficult for people who are not reading about this two hours every day to even remember their names. It's ridiculous. So I can get into the details, but just, but I feel so thankful that I'm able to help people stay alive and get back to the lives they cherish because we have tools like this. So it turns out that over the last basically year, but especially in the last several months, we've just had sort of a panoply of new and proven effective treatments become available to our patients. And, you know, a new one came online just last week. It's just one after another. And those are treatments that people can take if they want to be protected from getting COVID and they're super high risk. There's a monoclonal antibody that can be given to immune compromised people called heavy shell that they take if they're not infected and they're not exposed to keep them protected when their immune system is not strong enough. There are also a handful of treatments that I can give to people who have COVID. It's clearly diagnosed and they're at high risk of getting severe disease or death, but they're not sick right now. And so they just don't want to get sick. And so I can give them, there are two pill options and two, three IV options. Even hard to remember the numbers because it just changes every week, but three IV options that I can give to be able to keep them at home with their family and doing the stuff they like to do. All safe, all proven effective. And the good news is also that with increasing availability of those drugs and reducing case counts, we went from having to ration those things, just like you mentioned that the hospitals were under huge strain and we were really having a hard time hospitalizing enough people that needed to be hospitalized. We also did not have enough doses of those medicines until just a couple of weeks ago to be able to give them to everybody who needs them. We now have enough doses to be able to give them to people who need them. So if somebody is high risk and does develop COVID, I really want them to contact their primary care doc and say, Hey, can I get one of those treatments? And those processes are in place. Even if somebody is unlucky enough to not only have COVID, but also to end up in the hospital, maybe needing oxygen or other supportive measures, we also have proven effective treatments like Remdesivir and steroids and other immune suppressant drugs that also have been proven to work.  And this is just a couple of years into a pandemic that nobody had ever heard of back in December of 19. And so COVID has not been defanged. It's still got some bad fangs, but we do have some tools we can use to fight it. Thank you for all that, Dr. Lady. And it is hard to keep up with how, I mean, some of what you just mentioned is really quite new. And so just to make sure I'm getting this right, some of these interventions, the pills you mentioned, are most effective if they are taken within the first three to five days, I believe, of infection. Is that right? There is a premium on if people are feeling deeply ill of reaching out to their provider, as you suggested, to know if that is appropriate treatment for them. Time matters, right? Yeah, that's right. The details of how long into your illness you could be to be eligible sort of vary by treatment. But I think that's the right message is to say that if you have symptoms, it makes sense to get a test because you want to know, and if you're at high risk of getting severe disease and you have COVID, call your primary care physician because they can talk you through, you know, you were in that eligibility window and can they either prescribe that pill for you or refer you for the IV therapy as appropriate to your situation. So yeah, get tested and make sure that your doctor knows. This is another good use in sort of thinking how these strategies work in combination with each other. So another reason to have some rapid tests around so that if you are having some symptoms, you can quickly determine whether or not that's likely COVID. That's right. And one of the little subtleties of this is that if you have symptoms that really fit COVID and you get a rapid test and it's positive, that's COVID. And so call your primary care physician if you're at high risk. You know, if you're not at high risk and you're, you know, you're safe at home, you don't have some reason to come in for medical care. Okay. Then you know just to isolate and keep others around you safe. But if you're at high risk of serious disease, yeah, now's the time to call and get that support. If you have symptoms that fit COVID and your rapid test is negative, you know, they're not perfect tests. And so that's, that's a time that you may ask, you could go into one of the state sites to get a PCR test or you could ask your PCP to get it done just to make sure you could retest with a rapid antigen. It makes sense to have in the back of your mind that if you have plausible symptoms, a rapid antigen test might be something you need to build another layer of certainty into that. Okay, great. We're going to open this up to, we're fortunate to be joined by a number of people today. Appreciate you joining us. We'll turn it over to you in a second. One last question for me. There are many parents out there that are continuing to kind of. Modern news asked the question when, when will vaccines become available for children under five? Is that something you're anticipating soon? Yeah, it was, we all had a bit of a disappointment. About a week ago, we, the FDA was planning to review Pfizer's new vaccine for kids under five, which has been a long awaited development. You know, parents of kids under five have not been able to relax to the same degree because they can't get their kids vaccinated. And so we're all waiting to hear the news of that hoping that perhaps we would have the vaccine in March or April. Sadly, the FDA canceled that because they felt that there needed to be better data for the review to occur. That builds on a inclination from the early studies that the dose may have been a little bit too small or that kids might need a third dose of that age to get really good protection. And so what's happening now is that they've gone back to do additional studies before they bring their portfolio back to the FDA for study. That adds this delay and I think the hard part is it really depends on how long does it take for them to go out to those studies, give additional shots to the kids in the study, I suspect, and then see how they do and then come back. So I don't know for sure when they're going to be able to come back with those, that information, but I'd be a little surprised if we hear more in the next coming months. So it's probably not going to be until late spring or summer that we get a vaccine for kids that young, and then we're going to be able to get a vaccine for them. And then we're going to be able to get a vaccine for them. Which is a disappointment. Right. Right. Okay, well, let's. Let's. Mayor, if I, if I could, I just had a one final question for Dr. Leahy. You know, I really appreciate the way that you opened this conversation by saying, you know, we have had a lot of success in the state and, you know, there are a lot of things that we need to continue to pay attention to. And I think one thing that I was just curious to get your attention on is we're starting to hear people talk a lot more about this idea of living with COVID. And I'm curious if you could say a little bit from your perspective, what that means. And I think a lot of what we've talked about today is sort of the kind of thing that we can anticipate, you know, the types of measures or the types of kind of measured decision making that we would envision under, you know, a life living with COVID, but I just wondered if you could say something more specific about that. Yeah, it's a great question. I sort of hear it Megan from, from two levels, you know, partly there's the, you know, what can we as a community expect from COVID. And then there's also just, you know, how can I be a good neighbor version of it? And how can I be a happy person in that scenario? I think as a community, you know, what we can expect is that COVID's not gone and it's not going to go away. And there probably will be peaks and valleys like we've experienced. The hope is that because more and more of us are vaccinated, that those peaks and valleys are going to be easier than prior surges. And so we'll have more time to enjoy life that's closer to normal. But that there may still be times when we see an uptick in cases and have to deal with that. So what I think that means is that as a community, we're going to sort of need to fold COVID into our lives. We can't just forget about it. It's not gone.  So I think we'll just need to be sort of sort of literate in what it's like in that particular season and adjust accordingly. And I suspect we'll just get more and more used to it, just like best analogy I've heard to this is just like you go, oh, it's raining. I'm going to ring an umbrella. We're just going to be like, oh, it's one of those, those times when bummer, but I have to wear a mask a little bit more than I usually did, but it'll go away soon. All right. No big. And then I think there's sort of like that individual personal level. I mean, I'm sure I'm not alone in this, that this has been an incredibly stressful couple of years. And I think part of the stress has been just the constant information overload in the sense of, you know, these woeful numbers and the political strife about this. And for me, I think a lot about community trust. And I think, yeah, how will we remember these years? And what I really want is to feel that, you know, these were difficult times, but that we pulled together. We helped each other. We were amazed at the ways our neighbors helped each other. We were proud of what we did. We were impressed by the science and felt increasingly reassured. And so I kind of think, okay, so what's my role? Is there a way that I can be the kind of neighbor that people expect will just be kind of nice and considerate. And wear a mask when it's appropriate or ask questions. Would you feel most comfortable if I wore a mask? You know, I think that's the basic, the basic decent stuff that we expect of our fellow drivers or people waiting in a line in a store, that kind of stuff. And part of that for me is sort of trying as much as possible to avoid political divisiveness. There's so much snarkiness out there. And I think that undermines the success of our efforts to keep everybody safe. So as much as possible, I think it's good to sort of say, hey, people are going to disagree and that's cool. It's how we get to the right decisions. We're all here with good intentions. We're all dealing with uncertainty. We're all doing the best we can. And the more we trust each other studies show, the better the outcomes in COVID-19 are. And so another reason to feel grateful we're here. Thank you for that, Dr. Lady. Well said. With that, why don't we check in with our members of the media and see if there are other questions. Okay. And I'll go to the microphone. I was Jordan. In the background there. I think that came through a little garbled, but just as you've done before, people do have a question used to raise hand function. And that will enable the microphone. And. If not. Mayor, if there while we're waiting to see if there are any questions, I was wondering if Dr. Leahy has just one more minute. You know, I'm wondering if there is anything kind of, that we can share about what it means for us to kind of move from considering a virus to be a pandemic to an endemic. And not sure if Dr. Leahy has any advice for us on how we, you know, how we know when we have kind of reached that pivotal point. That's a really challenging question. It's a great question. So, you know, when something is epidemic or pandemic, as you know, it means that the rates of the disease are higher than they used to be. So of course, you know, when there was no COVID, and then there became COVID, that was an epidemic. And since it was widespread, it was a pandemic. Once something becomes endemic, that means that the rates are sort of at a relatively stable baseline.  So every year we have. Our SV respiratory sensational virus cases and kids in particular.  And so that's considered endemic. That's still, you know, particularly scary for the parents of those little kids who end up in the hospital for that.  The hope is that COVID will sort of over time settle down into something that's closer to RSV or closer to influenza where we have cases each year, but it's not such a dramatic number. What that number will sort out to be as we transition from endemicity to endemicity is not known. You know, I think that's the hard part is that we're in this kind of transitional state. And I figure the way I think about it is that I know that we're, we're in this phase where I anticipated is on average going to be better because of immunity. I know that you can't trust immunity 100% because variants can emerge that can be a little bit less susceptible. So I know that we still have to kind of count the numbers and watch to see what the cases look like and act accordingly. And I suspect that over time it'll slowly progressed toward sort of getting to a, it'll kind of go like this and then get toward a level that's a little bit more stable. And at a certain point, we'll kind of arbitrarily say, boom, we're going to call this endemic, but it's still going to go up and down a little bit within that. The difference between this transitional life where we're just kind of getting used to the highs and lows and that endemic life are pretty trivial. Because at the end of the day, we're going to say if the case counts are higher than we like, we're going to do a little bit more than we think. We're going to do a little bit more to protect ourselves from it. And if they're nice and low, like we like it, we're going to live our normal lives. That's still going to be true. Thank you. I'm not seeing any hands from the media. There are a couple of questions we're dropping the chat. I think we can just address quickly as we wrap up here. Will the vaccine mandate be lifted or changed? Just one question. I'm not 100% sure what the, what is meant by that, but it is worth noting that we did have this sort of exception to the mass mandate in Burlington that institutions that were requiring everyone who entered to show proof of vaccination did not, masking was not required in those settings. That rule is going away with the mass mandate. In terms of Burlington, perhaps the question is about what is Burlington doing as an employer? Certainly Burlington is keeping its rules requiring vaccines or a testing option in place. At least for now, we will continue to require unvaccinated employees to get tested that could, that could change if the numbers continue to go down over the course of the spring. But I do think, you know, to the point that we've come back, circled back to a number of times here that COVID is not going away. It's likely to be here. I certainly plan, I think organizations should continue to think about vaccination rules for their employees. I think schools should be thinking about vaccination, adding COVID to the list of vaccinations that are required for children to attend school like we have for many other vaccines. I don't think the vaccination, knowing how miraculously effective these vaccines have been, I don't think the conversation about rules regarding vaccines is going away anytime soon. And then finally, our PCR tests completely phased out. The answer to that is no. There continue to be PCR tests available for free every day. I think every day, right, Megan? Or just about at various locations in Burlington, including the Pine Street location that has been in the city has been happy to help support. That could change at some point. I have noted that, you know, England announced recently they were phasing out that broad free testing. You could, you know, I guess hopefully we will reset a point where we can comfortably do that. But there, I've not heard any specific plans for that. Have either of you. I'm not in the state now. Yeah. Okay. I think with that, well, thank you again, Dr. Leahy for joining us. It's great to see you. Thank you again for everything you've done. I think you've been one of the, one of the reasons that the community has come through this so well. And that I think, and I really appreciate how you captured it. I think there is much for this community to be proud of and how we've gotten to this point. And that work is not over as we shift to a new phase here. And, and, and we can all be gentle and kind with each other as we navigate through these changes will be better off and appreciate your reminders of that today. Thank you. Good to see you. Thank you for your hard work, Megan, getting us to this point. And I hope everyone has a great weekend. See you soon. Mayor, thanks, Dr. Leahy. Thank you.


What kind of world do I want to live in? I think about this question a lot. For our generation and for specifically my group of people, which is refugees, the circumstances might dismantle any vision of the future that we have. You're trying to rebuild, you're trying to make a future for yourself, and then the climate-related disaster comes and you start again.  The first step to understand is that we're all a part of it. None of us are going to be left out by the crisis. We're at a stage where if we don't act now, really there won't be very much left. There are generations that will never see certain things that we grew up seeing in real life. We have to start treating this like the emergency it is to achieve the 17 sustainable development goals. We have to go from an intention to a serious commitment. Business leaders really need to rethink how they conduct their business and invest in creating systems that are climate-friendly. The action I would like to see is accountability. Structures being put in place where countries aren't just asked to do something, but they're kept accountable to the decisions that they make. There has to be that strong collaboration between government, between corporations, between youth activists to drag change forward. The world I would want to live in is a world where imagining the future is not a privilege. I want to live in a world where people do not give up on hope. Hope that a positive change is possible. The fact that you're listening today means that you are willing to make a change. Hello and welcome everyone to today's session. Today's session is all about trying to answer a question of what does it take to scale innovations toward a circular carbon economy? And with my distinguished panelist this afternoon or morning, it depends on where you are. We are going to discuss why pioneering innovations and technology is a key solution to tackling climate change. One observation I'd like to make, because the title of this session is Meet the Pioneers. In my opinion, we're talking about action years. What's common between my panelists today is that they are both founders of businesses after spending sufficient amount of time pursuing an education or a doctorate degree in science and engineering. They were able to demonstrate how robust engineering and science can be translated into an innovative business that was able to scale and show results. So without further ado, perhaps we could start with Jennifer. Jennifer, can you please tell us why did you start your business and a little bit more about how you think your business has role in fighting climate change? Thank you, Ennis. We this company, what it does is it takes waste carbon emissions, hydrogen and CO2 and converts those to ethanol and then we use ethanol to make fibers, plastics, jet fuels, sustainable aviation, fuel, et cetera. So what we're trying to do is we're trying to show that you can make everything that we use in our economy today from conventional fossil carbon with waste carbon. That could be directly or captured CO2, like Jan will talk about later, or it could be plastic waste that's floating in the ocean. So we're trying to substitute for today's petroleum based economy. We started the company 16 years ago, have raised over $500 million. So the way to really think about it is that's actually what it takes to scale hard tech to commercial. Thank you, Jennifer. So Jan, same question with emphasis. Tell us what do you do to CO2? Sure. Yes. Welcome very much from my side. And it's Jan. Well, and what we did 12 years ago together with my co-founder, Christoph, I founded the company, Climeworks. And what are we doing at Climeworks? It's it's easy to explain in one sentence. We are building machines that captures CO2 out of ambient air. Now, while we've been doing this for for 12 years, our 150 people in the meantime have raised something like 150, 160 million US dollars over the past years based in Zurich in Switzerland. And well, why? Why are we doing this? Just very simply speaking, if we listen to climate science, what they tell us today is if we want to have a chance to reach the goals of the Paris Agreement, limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, it is not enough to only reduce emissions. We have to reduce a lot like the majority of the task is reduction. But on top of that, we need to remove something like 10 billions of tons of CO2 or even more than that from the atmosphere every year by mid of the century. So that's that's quite a big task. And that is where we are fully focusing on with our business model. And maybe that's best to explain with what we've just recently done in Iceland. Just two weeks ago was one of the most exciting days in the history of our company. We were in launching our plant called Orca in Iceland near near Reykjavik, which is the worldwide largest direct air capture plant combined with underground storage. So we take with this plant about 4,000 tons of CO2 out of the atmosphere every year. And this is then handed over to our Icelandic partners. They're called Carp Fix and they inject the CO2 underground where it is actually turned into stone. So within two years, the CO2 turns into carbonates in these basalt rocks. Many of you might have seen these lava rocks in Iceland. And that's a very nice way of easy to understand and safe and permanent way to store CO2 over millions of years, basically. So that's what we're doing there. And we are offering to our customers the service of removing CO2 for them from the air, mostly to corporate companies, but even to private people. So there's there's a subscription model. And well, very happy that many large corporates over the last year have started taking action. So you were mentioning the the topic of action. So two or three years ago, still a lot of hesitation. Is this really a business today? Big big corporates like Microsoft or Stripe, Shopify, just to name a few have decided. Well, we do have a net zero or even net negative agenda. And there are not many solutions around that. And this methodology of using technical solutions to take CO2 out of the air can be something really meaningful. So that's where we stand today. Still a huge scale up ahead of us, four thousand tons today, talking about billion billions of tons in the future. On the other hand, we started 12 years ago with milligrams. So we've done already quite a quite a number of step ups and scale, but but a couple of more to follow. So I'll leave it with that. Thank you very much for like, you know, telling us just a little bit about the journey for moving from capturing milligrams of CO2 to tons to the journey ahead, which is looking at the scale of billions. This is exactly the type of scale that we need to be working at to really tackle climate change. And what I can only imagine that this journey, and I'm sure it's for Jennifer as well, is is not an easy one. And there are so many challenging a along the way that could stack from technical risks, challenges to raise funding and and so on. We heard about why you started the business. My question is, and it's it's really for both of you, and it would be very good to share your perspective with our audience. Why there are not many others like you who are prepared to go through a journey like that. Of looking at starting a heart tech business and scaling it and do what it takes. Jennifer, would you like to start? I think you're on mute. Yeah, I have apologies for that. Yes. So, you know, I don't think it's that there aren't people that are willing to do it. There's so many people that are doing it. It's just that it's a long journey, right?  What I think is truly encouraging is there's so much intensity now around this climate issue. And people are understanding that, as you call the tough tech is critical to solving this problem. And I'm seeing more investors, more entrepreneurs, more people who are really willing to do this. I think the only thing and the most important thing is we have to be super careful to remember that to get from zero to a million tons or whatever the right number is requires a lot of steps and a lot of care. And I think that's really important. I think we put a lot of pressure to skip steps. And when you start skipping steps, you fail. And so what we really need is the patient investors. We've had a tremendous number of patient investors who understand that before our first commercial, we needed 15 years, not five years. So I see the environment changing, but we still need more people willing to understand that it's a journey, not a very short. We're just going to get this done and then we're going to be done and everything will be fine. Jan, would you like to comment on this? Well, Jennifer, thanks a lot. I don't know how I could have explained it better than you did. So I'd like to echo everything you said, maybe to add a personal note to that that demonstrates quite nicely how things were back in the early days of Climeworks. When I started Climeworks and when we were thinking of the first financing rounds, there was really like we were looking at other startups, say startups from the rather tech business, which where I mean like rather the software tech business or like the typical that's that's called and the typical Silicon Valley startups. And it was all about, many people ask us, hey, there are these nice venture capital companies and you should really talk to them and that's how we did it. And those are really good partners and kind of we quite quickly established something like a rule, very simple oversimplified rule, but this rule was venture capital equals fund, equals fund lifetime of seven years, equals three times too short for what we are doing. So we can't do it, we need to go a different way. So this was really a formula which we applied during the first years of Climeworks. And I think in that time or like in the like five years, 10 years ago, when really a lot of ideas came up on like hardware ideas, if I can call them climate tech ideas, then the world on the investment side was rather characterized by the big boom that we had observed on the software side before. So many structures, processes, groups, vehicles were really designed around the timeline of software innovation and it's really just a factor of two, three, if not an order of magnitude difference in terms of timeline. So fully echo what you say, Jennifer and I believe, I see change now. I've been speaking to many institutional type of funding parties or our investors recently where they had a completely different view on timelines than what I would have observed five years ago. So that's very encouraging, but I think that's a vital element to get more ventures like ours on the ground and survive the first couple of years and really make it up until large scale. So are we saying here that there are no shortages of innovations, there are shortages of funders who would support scaling these innovations or the time has changed to a point where we will need to find mechanisms to fund more and more innovations to scale because we are motivated by one target and that is climate change in the pace that it's coming at us. What do you think, Jennifer, in terms of like, do we have enough innovations out there or we need more innovations? No, so actually you said it very well when you asked about funders. So let's talk about what it takes to scale and new technology of this type, right? You have to build your death. So you're building bigger and bigger facilities, each of which takes longer and more money. There's lots and lots of ideas, I believe, feeding the funnel. Okay, so at the very beginning, lots and lots of ideas. What we need funding for is getting the pilot scale, getting the demo scale, getting the first commercial because even the first commercial has a risk associated with it. And to do that, we need funding of that scale. Companies in general need funding of that scale. What is different today, I think you said it very well, is the urgency of climate change. We could have waited for these types of technologies to scale and diffuse, replicate, et cetera, 30 years before, right? The iPhone, it didn't really matter that we transitioned to a mobile phone in two years or 10 years. Now we need to compress the timeline because climate change is such a crisis. So what I really think needs to happen is we have lots of ideas in the pipeline. They can fund it. I think in the early days, you see a lot of funding for early stage ideas. But then it takes too long to build a pilot. It takes too long to build the demo. And that, I think, relates to financing, access to funding, especially by startup companies. Because by the time you add the risk factor, it's very hard to find people who will fund, 100 million dollar first commercial facility. And going to a bank, the risk adjustment means the loan rate is so high. That's why it's so wonderful now that you're seeing people realize that and seeing funding for later stages. And that's what we need to push. That's what we really need to push. So we compress the timeline from idea to success. And by the way, there's nothing wrong with failure either. You want to compress the timeline to failure as well so that these entrepreneurs and these people can then move on to the next one. Nothing wrong with that failure is just the time to success, the time to failure that matters. Absolutely. I totally agree with you on that point. And maybe just like a follow-on question to Yan, do you think that focusing on quick wins to nurture further progress is important or we should think about maybe a different strategy which is probably spray and pray to fund as many innovations hoping that a percentage of them will make it and that will be enough to address a big of a problem that we are facing. I would find a quick, but not the wind. Let's put it like that. So definitely quickly. I like the, let's fail quickly that I agree. So we need a certain volume of ideas and concepts and ventures and startups to come. So that's just, and that hasn't, like if I look at our domain specifically, capturing CO2 from the air for 10 years, there's been three companies around basically or say five companies around now. Suddenly new startups pop up on the horizon, which is cool, which is great. And certainly not all ideas will make it to the thousands or even millions of tons scale. So we need to be quick and we need a certain amount, but I don't think we can win quickly because it's just, it's hardware tech. So just like we win in the long-term, but we have to have many quick steps on the way there to understand what works and what doesn't work. That'll be my take. Yeah, I agree. And I think the fact that you have today or in the past two years, especially like since the start of the pandemic, funds that have launched to specifically focus on net zero technology or scaling net zero businesses, this is something that we haven't seen before. And it's quite impressive and encouraging to see. I mean, we usually talk about climate change in a very negative way, where we just talk about the threats, but also it's very important to highlight and say that actually if we look around, there is some progress that is being made. We need faster, we need more, but there are changes that we haven't seen, like that happened in the past two years, we haven't seen before and that's quite encouraging. Now on that point, climate change, our beast, the biggest challenge of our times, we've heard that I think about fifth of corporates have set net zero targets worldwide and a lot of governments have a net zero targets, but they're all talking about 2050. 2050 is way too far. And the challenge and the threat actually with putting target that is as far as 2050 is that if things did not work according to plan, they might not be like a process to correct on the way to 2050. And that's where we could fail and fail massively. Do you think that we should start thinking about a different mechanisms whereby we set a very rigid or a very defined set of metrics and say annually we would want to report on progress and see where we are from 2050. And if we think we can get to net zero or not by what time, what do you think about a mechanism like that or alternative mechanisms and where do you think your businesses could play a role in that? Jennifer. Yeah, so thank you for that. So first of all, I'm seeing tremendous progress away from just 2050. Used to be, I would say a year ago, two years ago, everybody was talking 2050. Now I'm seeing 2030 targets. I'm even seeing 2025 targets. So to your point, that is absolutely critical because you cannot measure how much progress you're making if the target is too far in the future. I think this is a good thing. I think the ability to make change happen both on scope one, scope two, scope three emissions is also really important. I think that's some of what Jen is talking about is the fact that corporates really are now talking not just about scope one emissions, direct emissions, but also scope three and their indirect and their supply chain and everything else. And so I believe that a basket of solutions that helps every type of emission reduction matters. How are we contributing to that? Well, we are allowing corporates. So for example, we have started to make fabric for companies like Lulemon. We have started to make perfume ingredients for companies like Cody. We have worked with Mabel actually in Switzerland and they sell a floor cleaner that uses our recycled carbon ethanol. We're also making aviation fuel from recycled carbon emissions. So we believe we're on a journey to enable supply chains to use the same products outside of the fossil carbon. And a fresh virgin fossil carbon, as far as I'm concerned, can no longer be the feedstock that we use every day. And so what we're allowing people to do is to see that you can make all the same stuff from recycled carbon. So I do believe we're part of that story. And more importantly, I am seeing tremendous interest in short-term targets. And you're right. Without short-term targets, we will absolutely fail. We'll never get this done. Thank you very much. Jan, where do you think your business could score high on metrics? And do you think we should really try and adopt a model that works for your company with others and see how we can implement it to a wider community of businesses? Yeah, well, speaking about metrics, maybe just to put a few numbers behind this timeframe of 2050 and then see where we can come into the game there. Just so in general, I think thinking on a 2050 timeframe is good because it's necessary and it's needed. So let's just think one second what... So we are speaking about... If we're speaking about carbon removal, and I speak in very general, not only climate works, not only direct air capture, but also other approaches and whole industry with a handful of technologies. So if we say by 2050, we need to be at a billion tons per year scale. So let's just, for simplicity's sake, a billion tons to take, to remove CO2, to remove from the air by 2050. And let's look at other industries. Let's look at solar, PV or wind industry. I think they have shown good scale-up curves we can use as comparables. Those technologies have scaled somewhere between 20, 25, 30% per year over longer times, over decades or a decade at least. If we take that as an average, say the average between wind and solar PV, we are at a 10x scale-up within a decade. So 10 times larger within a decade. And if we do a back calculation, and that's why I think it's needed. So we wanna be at a billion ton in 2050. So we need to be at 100 millions in 2040. So we need to be at 10 millions in 2030. And we should have been at 1 million in 2020. Maybe in the beginning, you can have a bit of different scaling loss. But that's really what we have. So we have to think that long-term, and actually even if we think that long-term, this imposes very stringent and quite challenging goals, not only for the next 10 years, but also for the next year and the second next year. And what I would wish to see is big corporates who have set their agendas, realizing that and translating that into action they need to do today, next year and two years and three years, and understand really this law of exponential development. And what I often observe today is that when eventually it comes to making economic decisions on where to invest and where not to invest today, many still apply metrics that are rather relevant for 2040 or 2050 to the situation today. So if we think of, if we apply new technologies like Jennifer or our company is developing, we shouldn't forget that we're still doing that at relatively low absolute numbers. So the metrics in terms of how much per ton CO2 avoided should a special solution cost that applies in 2040 at a global rollout scale is not necessarily the same that should apply in 2021. And I see some companies understanding that and saying, hey, it's really important to invest in solutions today where we would rather not look so much at relative numbers. So how many dollars per ton avoided, but rather in absolute numbers, how many millions or billions do we need to invest in the next say five to 10 years to scale these solutions or this industry by a factor of 10. So this is, so maybe if you ask me for metrics that I would like to be applied, I have very strong arguments for rather thinking of absolute figures in the next few years to apply to get to the next scaling level than too much thinking of relative figures which are rather relevant maybe in 10 or 20 years down the road. That's a very comprehensive answer. We have a question in the audience which I really think is a very topical one and it's really worth discussing or spending a few minutes on. So the question is we need to set a price tag on carbon. What is the best way to achieve this? To have it being adopted at scale. And if you think that carbon tax will play a major role to scale the sciences U.S. projects, what do you think, Jennifer? No question. We've got a surprising externalities. If we want to move quickly and we're not prepared to actually pay for what things cost and the impact they have on the environment, it's just going to take too long to get here, to get to where we need to go. There are two approaches, you know, tax or incentives. I think you can use both, right? But we absolutely have to think about incentives or approaches that really quantify the impact of the damage that we're causing the climate. Otherwise, we won't go fast enough. We won't go fast enough. Jan, do you think we need to set a price tag on carbon? Getting back to what I said before, I do think yes, we need, but we rather need that to the full extent in maybe 10 years down the road. Today, we'd rather need something else. Look, there's something tricky about a, let's assume a CO2 tax. And let's assume a CO2 tax that is like, it's discussed in many countries today. It's a low value today and rising, rising slowly over the years. And so, but it's always thought as something for the whole amount of CO2 emissions we have up there. So a tax, low value today, say $20 today, rising $200 or 200, whatever over the next 20 years. This is an applying to all CO2 emitted. That's a typical model that is being discussed today. On the other hand, we have technologies which today have a much higher cost of carbon avoidance, but addressing only a very small volume. So they have high cost, small volume. And then as volume goes up, they go down. But those two don't match, don't match all the time. And at some point that the curves might cross and then it doesn't match. So there's just one single moment in time where the two match and then before and thereafter they don't match. So there's a fundamental concept mismatch if a tax on carbon, as it is currently discussed, is used to think of is thought to be something to further scale technologies today. We need it in the long-term, very important, importantly because there needs to be a perspective, but it is not the instrument which will help scaling most of the concepts that are out there today over the next five years. That's the tricky part. And there we need additional concepts on top of the concept of such carbon project. Jennifer, I don't know what's your take on that, but that's- I don't know, you're right. Actually, it's interesting because I've seen people talk about tax the opposite of what you just described that initially they do have to be quite high and then they can go down. But I agree with you, Jan. What we need is every mechanism out, we need every technology out there. We need to try them so we need every mechanism. So we need grants at the beginning, we need loan guarantees, we need tax incentives and we also need carbon taxes. I know that seems like too much and the basket is too big, but it isn't. If we need to go fast, we need to incentivize early stage, middle stage, later stage and diffusion. That's a very good point to try and conclude the session with an action. So what do you think is the biggest takeaway action that you'd like to, in a limited number of words, you'd like to leave the audience with? Jennifer, here you go. Oh, gosh, I was hoping you'd go. I can as well, I see one. Yeah, come here. Well, very simply, from my end, call for action to all the experts out there, but also private people. Think of, what's your favorite climate solution you wanna invest in today at a small or large level? Don't look so much at the price tag, rather look at the impact that could have for yourself and for others in five years down the road or 10 years down the road. That's the filter I would apply. And you say something I would second, so I agree, thank you, Jen. The only other comment that would make is, we have to disrupt our fossil fuel economy. We really do, we have it everywhere, right? I don't think people realize it's not just power, it's not just fuels, it's also everything we wear, everything we use, everything we do. And until we choose a different way, this impact that we're having in our climate will not end. And we just have to rethink our carbon economy. I'll leave it. Thank you very much for your appreciated thoughts, ideas and sharing your journey. And I really hope that the audience enjoyed listening to how the action years of the carbon, circular carbon economy can look like and how hopefully we can see more and more of these in the short term. Thank you very much for attending the session. Thank you very much for our panelists and I hope you have a good day. Thank you.


Oh hoi hoi and welcome back to another SCP game. Wait, really? Look at this. We're definitely in an SCP Foundation facility. And that's definitely Dr. Sumerian, or at least some version of him. Look at this. What is this? I don't know. Ugh. It's an interesting game though, isn't it? I think most of you, anyone familiar with GTA, fair enough. I think anyone who's particularly familiar with GTA V will actually recognize this for exactly what it is, GTA V. But I, you know, you got so much character customization. Nope. Nope. Nope. Not right now. Do a mantra. I've actually had a lot of opportunities to... I did... This is like the last major property I bought in this game, but I didn't realize how close it was to the SCP Foundation as a, like, style. But pretty cool stuff going on here. Unfortunately, I don't have much else to show you, because I just bought the base facility. But, uh, let's see. Let's leave. Alright. This is GTA V. I've been playing a little bit. The only reason... I'm only going to play it once for as a video, unless there's some sort of strange, like, overwhelming outcry of people wanting to see more of it. But, um... Teleporting to my apartment in Los Santos. Uh... I'm going to play it a little bit. Talk about why I got banned from all contests ever. That seems like an appropriate game for that. I actually did this once before. No, hold on. Why not? So I actually played through this a little bit on a previous one, and I realized that this microphone right here... Let's screw that guy. I realized that this microphone right here is actually, at least for what I'm doing right now, until I get a lapel mic. It's probably... It not probably. It's certainly so much higher quality than that, that I decided to re-record everything. But, uh, yeah, we're going to do a little bit of cash farming, until the battery goes dead on my camera, which also happened last time. So, we'll try to keep this in the 20 to 30 minute range, because I only recently bought it, and I haven't purchased backup batteries yet, which I'm going to do on the first when I get my Patreon money. The important part is that this microphone here will work for this in a pinch, for what we need it to do. So, first of all, let's start on actually making some money today, because apparently, there's some bonus cash for the... one of the types of missions that I do today. So, we're going to do that, but even when I did it normally and grinded out cash that way, it was actually still pretty profitable. But yeah, there's a lot of SCP-themed stuff in... Oh! Ah, that was the one other thing I wanted to show you. Actually, my desktop background. That's not what I wanted to show you. Hold on, I'll get there eventually. All right, come on. All right, there we are. No, wait, that's the bank. That's not my apartment. Hold on. We'll figure this out. All right. So, if you look at the vehicles, you can see the SCP logo there on the side. I actually chose this crew, because they had the SCP logo that I wanted, because there were other crews that had an SCP logo with a white background. And that felt kind of wrong somehow. This used to be my work course for running missions until I was able to run enough missions to afford that thing back there. Well, to afford a nightclub, then a terabyte, then that thing back there, which was quite a lot of additional costs. Anyway, that's not important. Oh, if you wanted to add me as a friend, I suppose that this would be the name you need to look up? I don't know how that works. Yeah, that is my whatever. Anyway, let's talk about why I got banned from all contests. Well, you know what? We'll talk about that in just a moment first. I wouldn't want to do that. That would definitely not be advertiser friendly. I turned off all the music in this game, too, so that I could actually do this without getting copyright struck. But what I ended up doing last video was going through the comments, because I still have manageable comments robbing bank robbers. Yeah, there's never one on the Great Ocean Highway. Thank God, I hate going all the way out to Route 68. I'm only going to do like one run through here, because I only have about 20 to 30 minutes. So this will be the only time I do this mission. Hopefully it's in Del Perro, which is where most of my stuff is. Nope, that means it's in Vinewood? I think it is. It's never in some of these. Palomino Avenue with Spoochie? I think it does sometimes show up in Spoochie Boulevard, but I could be wrong. Regardless, it's in Vinewood, I guarantee it. Yep, there we go. So what ends up happening is I looked through all the comments of my last video, and obviously, since it was a face reveal, even though I never hid my face in the first place, people had a lot of comments about my face. First of all, these black circles underneath my eyes are not from a lack of sleep. I've had them since I was a child. They just... It's just me, man. It's just me. What... It doesn't matter how much sleep I get, they do get worse, much, much worse if I don't get enough sleep. Oh, you completely forgot. I was going to say, that light actually makes them not as bad, I think. If there's no shadows going on. I completely forgot to turn my lighting setup on, because I'm an amateur, apparently. I'm still getting used to this. But, um... Yeah, so... There was a lot of comments about my appearance, about as many of them as I thought would be, like, oh yeah, you don't look anything like I thought you'd sound. You don't look anything like you sound, which I don't really know what that means, but I mean, it's one of those things that you just kind of know. And since I don't just kind of know, it's kind of... Alright, now that we triggered that, we'll get the Minigun guy to come outside. There we go. Minigun guy is gone. Well, he's not gone, but he's dead. And so now we can get into this bank. Yeah, don't worry about it. So anyway... Yeah, um... You know, I actually bought a Dr. Sumerian... Well, a black shirt. A black button-up shirt, long sleeves. Uh...  Wait, no, this is gold, so I just have to wait. The problem with the gold is that it could be going anywhere. I thought this was diamonds for a second. Anyway... But yeah, my... I'm not really all that bothered by most of it. That's not... Let's be completely and totally honest with ourselves here. When someone says that I look terrible, it does bother me. But it's not something that like... I find particularly important throughout the day.  Somehow that makes me more uncomfortable. But, uh... It's because I'm used to, uh... being... I'm used to a negative self-evaluation. Let's put it that way. Regardless... Let's talk... I got about 10, 20 minutes. We can talk about the, uh... I'm gonna have backup battery soon, so this will not... I won't be like running on a timer here. But yeah, let's talk about the contest ban. So, about one or two years ago, it's really difficult for me to remember. It's... It can have been more than a year ago, I would think. I mean, it can have been more than two years ago, longer than one year. So somewhere in that area. Yeah. Alright. Hold on. Let's get this going. Alright. But, um, about... There was a 72-hour jam contest, which, uh... I won. But... My tactics were not exactly approved by the contest runners. Well, I should say runner. Half of the contest runners were fine with it, it seemed. There's a whole story behind that. The other half of it were enraged that I had ruined their contest, because I sent several hundred personal messages over Wikidot asking people to read my article. Not telling them how to vote, not asking them... Not even asking them for a vote. I think it was just tell me what your feedback is. Because the contest rules had specifically asked for as much feedback as we wanted. So that's what I did. There we go. So, I asked for as much feedback as I could possibly do. And me and another guy were doing the exact same thing, actually. We were both sending messages directly to people, asking them to look at our articles. And I won, and the other guy placed second. Except the contest runners, despite us doing absolutely nothing against the rules, decided that he was just going to make a fiat decision. Which essentially means that no contest really means anything if they can just change the rules halfway through and go, you're disqualified. But they don't see it that way. And I'm sure that people that end up winning probably don't see it that way either. The problem with that is that I disagreed with it on like a core basis. I thought that the ruling was silly. I thought everything about it was silly, to be honest with you. Because I had actually talked to the other contest runners. I talked to the other half of it and they actually just asked me for like tips and tricks on how to do it.  It wasn't like, aha we caught you. You've given us all of your secrets. No, this person legitimately and honestly wanted to know what I was up to. And it gave me the inclination that whatever I was up to was fine. But when the guy contacted me, I was like you know, I don't know. I even said I was like, listen the, okay yeah, you say stop, I stop. That was that was literally the extent of the conversation originally. The other half of the contest owner was like, I don't want you doing that anymore. So I was like, okay, then I won't. And his response was, okay, cool. And then and then things escalated because as they always do, are you going to make this difficult, man? Just die already.  All right, really only one solution to this is to wait out the police and then, yeah. So what ended up happening was the other contest runner got mad at me for something different or I should say something separate. And because of that he decided I don't think it was like a conscious decision on his part.  You know what that other thing he did originally ruin my contest was not something I'm willing to brush off and just say stop doing it and don't do it again. And he essentially escalated it into a actual disciplinary issue.  Yeah, believe it or not I'll probably get a disciplinary thing on my record on the SCP Wiki itself. Does that seem strange to you? Then welcome to my world.  And when two assholes run into each other sometimes things don't go well.  I've had to do this before.   He banned me from the contest, disqualified me from the contest, and then nice. And then I thought that was going to be it. Well, not yet. And then he gave me a contest ban of seven contests. And in fact, because I wanted things to be fair originally, because the guy messages me, one of two people doing the exact same thing and says I can't do it anymore. Now we're in an actual contest of wills. We'd been joking around for days about how, you know, one of us is going to crack and one of us is going to stop first. And I was like, oh, this doesn't seem fair. And he's like, well, we haven't got any complaints about the other guy. And I'm like, listen if you're going to make it against the rules you should at least warn him so that he doesn't end up in, you know you're going to tell me to stop. Somebody else is doing the exact same thing. Probably let him know that it's no longer okay. But the other guy but the contest runner thought that that was me being like I'm innocent. Look at this other guy because I guess that's how children act and they just expect everybody on the wiki to be acting like children which I say, you know it's one of those things when it comes to the SCP wiki that is pretty much a guarantee if there's a 15 year age requirement and a lot of the SCP wiki staff are actually pretty young and they do tend to treat most people as though they do not have the sense that God gave an onion after it was all said and done with I remember I said at the time I didn't know exactly how many how many messages I'd sent and I just took a wild stab at it and said I think I sent 650 and that just became the number and later I was like no I I've looked a little bit closer it's closer to just a few hundred like no no no every time it shows up it's 650 now which is hilarious and so I was banned from seven contests the other dude ended up getting banned too which I thought was just as unfair as me but probably less because he did less message sending than I did but I think they got this idea in their heads because they're I was gonna call it I was gonna just say a bunch of fucking morons because they were misunderstanding what I wanted and thought that I was trying to get somebody else in trouble they decided that that meant that they couldn't let him go that the point of my thing was that you know remember I mentioned the point of my thing was I just want this to be an even keeled thing because at the time I thought I was still gonna be in the contest so if I can't send messages nobody can send messages that seems fair they took that to mean if I get in trouble the other person has to get in trouble because that's fair I didn't think I should get in trouble I definitely don't think if I if I don't think I should get in trouble why do you why would I think anybody else get in trouble that was the most or anything about it to me because loyalty is important to me and the idea of just like the idea if I didn't know and I should have thought about it because the thing is that's not what I want to do self promotion on the wiki is barely tolerated by wide swath of of scp authors and staff I mean it happens they acknowledge that it happens they not just going to continue to happen but they just barely tolerate it and so when you push it they're like no self-promotion is bad we're not professional writers here nobody here wants to be professional writers we're all hobbyists by the way marketing your work is like incredibly important skill for you to learn if you want to become a good writer some of you people even though I don't do writing advice videos anymore I still like to give it every once in a while and that's important for you to understand you have to learn to market yourself that's why the first one of the first or second things I teach people about about beginning as writers on the wiki is how to pitch your article ideas but anyway we're getting off track here point is I'm sitting here thinking okay well I'm ahead we're both going to have to stop that's the end of it I won then I guess probably more people complained one of which ended up doing the exact same fucking thing the next contest which and he didn't get in any trouble for it because he managed to get enough plausible deniability on board but um yeah die everyone alright so they're alerted to me now but half of them are dead last time I did this I just decided to go in guns blazing and didn't die at all but this time around I'll probably end up getting hurt I got some missiles again now that I docked this and stocked up I think they're probably only killed one of them there's another guy oh no they're both over here good I mean there is nothing to deal with alright that worked out well come on I have to get on this is the one bad part about this uh what fucking rocket bike which I love it to death but it all it has that one issue where if it flips over you cannot get on it until you flip it back over alright well so at this point I'm thinking I've got a seven contest band to go through and I believe that I would have been eligible for the 5k contest but about six months ago the idea that I was not sorry for what I did and that I didn't think that what I did was wrong was treated as evidence that if given an opportunity I did do it again and again this comes back to treating everyone on the scp wiki like they are children which maybe that's an effective method most of the time but I really feel like it's kind of an overly simplistic way to treat your player or your user base but um what ended up happening was they just like I said they decided if you don't think you did anything wrong we can no longer allow you to participate in any contest whatsoever until you acknowledge that what you've done is wrong actually I don't even know they said that they just said you have a universal ban for forever because you can't acknowledge you did anything wrong there's an implication there that if I were to be like yes what I did was incorrect and against the rules even though they weren't against the rules and wasn't incorrect that I would see I can't do it I just can't fucking do it and people will be like I can acknowledge when I am wrong because I'm wrong about a lot of stuff I'll tell you what I was wrong about despite the fact that I don't think it was wrong I should have immediately understood and at the time I guess it was just my own stupidity but I did not understand just how hostile people were to the idea of self promotion and that's on me because regardless of what I think reality should be it is what it is really god damn it yeah regardless of what I think I always say this to people is like I thought I could get both at the same time it should not be as hard as it is this is not a difficult puzzle in fact this is the easiest one I think um it's not even a puzzle it's just timing I'm not gonna risk it we'll take as long as we need um what you end up learning is that people feel a certain way and you have to respect that regardless of whether or not you think they should feel that way and us sending those messages we thought would be taken in the spirit that it was given of just all those silly guys they love their self promotion but no it was taken in the spirit of you guys have no respect for anybody other than yourself now I think that's silly and I think that's stupid but also it is what people believe and it wouldn't be too much of a logical leap from people's previous behavior for me to expect them to believe that so it's on me to understand what other people are gonna how other people are gonna react to the things I do and say not up to them to understand what I really meant so what I learned is like I said before that really the people in the scp wiki will always treat people as though they are children because when it comes to down to it like for most people on the scp wiki that's the best possible option that's what comes from having quite a lot of people and staff and on the side as young as they are a lot of people who believe if I think it should be this way and it isn't this way I'm gonna flout the rules until it is that way which is their main reason I'm banned from all contests ever because they can't conceive of the idea of someone thinking that say I might not think that alcohol no that's a bad one I think alcohol should probably be illegal but I might not think that it should be legal but it doesn't mean I'm gonna go out there and use it I'm trying to use vague terminology so I don't get demonetized here you know what I mean it doesn't mean just because I don't think it should be legal means I'm gonna go out there and pretend like it is because I'm an adult who understands what consequences are a lot of people have told me before too that if you just apologized everyone they would you know they'd be fine with it and I'm like yeah but I mean I would not be honest if I did so and to be fair I don't think that would change anything anyway because they know I wouldn't be honest about it if I said I was sorry right now they'd know what I mean because I'm saying it to you and I've said it to other people before I'm sorry that I'm sorry they felt that way that is such a terrible thing to say that is the worst way to apologize that's why it's not an apology it's not an apology I'm sorry they felt that way that's a terrible apology I'm not apologizing just because you're used to people saying that they're apologizing that way I'm not, I'm not apologizing I didn't do anything wrong my only mistake was making other people's wishes not in the actual actions itself what I should have done was realize that despite there were no rules against it and despite the fact that the behaviors itself were perfectly fine that me and somebody else were engaging in that a contest runner actually talked to me about it and was we were joking around about how it was such an effective tactic and how do I do this in the future if I'm ever in a contest not just running one what I should have taken from that is that he had no idea what I was doing there's no way he's such an insulting thing to that person right like they had no idea that you what you meant was exactly what you said they thought you meant something else fucking people man but yeah the reason why I am and I'm gonna have to phrase this carefully because I already phrased it poorly once and I'm gonna have to edit it out the reason why I'm banned from all contests is because I'm an asshole and I met someone else who is the same as me but with slightly more power and influence and that meant that I lost doesn't mean I was wrong it just means that somebody else got their way anyway let's pick this up and get the fuck out of here I think I'm gonna keep playing this later today but I actually streamed this on my discord on a pretty regular basis so if you're interested in watching that let me know well not let me know show up on my discord and watch when I'm streaming in the meantime thank you very much for watching I appreciate you listening to me rant about contest entries head on down and hit the subscribe button hit the notification bell next to that so that you're notified when I upload new videos and finally head on over to patreon.com everybody here on the screen already has and if you want to see me play more games give me some suggestions of what you think you would like to see me play I mean I'm not gonna play this again because it's not an scp game but unless there's like I said a huge outcry about people asking me to play it and even if I did I would probably just be doing this the entire time so it's not really not really worth more than one episode but but I could go back to the escapists if you guys would like me to do that even though that prison that I played in was just scp themed in the name it seemed that's why I didn't play it again this week or I could go back to some other scp actual scp games like scp containment breach secret laboratory what's the other ones oh the unity remake I might actually play that next time around because I think there's a patch that's gonna make it more stable I might actually get it and play it and see how it works out yeah I think that'll be my next thing thank you very much for watching let me know in the comments down below of any other scp games you'd like me to play or scp themed mods for games that already exist and thanks for letting me know that I'm not alone out here I'll see you all again on Tuesday