 Well, good morning, everyone. Today, Commissioner Pichek will present our latest data in modeling, which will show continued low prevalence of COVID-19 here in Vermont. As Dr. Fauci said on Tuesday, Vermont is a model for the country on how to suppress this virus. You should all be very proud of your hard work to keep each other safe. It's put us in a position where we've been able to methodically reopen the economy. And we've had kids back in schools for two weeks now. And we also have had college students back in Vermont for a month. But as Dr. Fauci also said, we can't let our guard down. We must continue to do the things that got us here, like wearing a mask, staying physically distant, washing our hands, staying home when sick, and being smart with gathering size and travel. I will continue to echo Dr. Fauci's call to remain vigilant. We don't need to look any further than the sad milestone we're approaching here in the US, with nearly 200,000 deaths due to this virus. The Northeast was hit particularly hard with about 65,000 of those. In Vermont, thankfully, we've not reached the death rates of other states, but we've sadly lost 58 Vermonters. And we'll honor them tomorrow on the 19th, as we have each month since April. Again, I only say this as a reminder of why we've taken the steps we have, and why we've got to remain vigilant. Our collective good work to date has let us open just about every sector to some extent. And we've been able to steadily move forward, not back. On Tuesday, Dr. Fauci emphasized that our least low case prevalence is why we've been able to do this, saying, when you have a test positivity of 2-tenths of 1%, you are starting with a game on your side. So as we continue to see low case counts, and as we've learned from our experience with lodging and indoor dining over the last few months, we're updating our guidance. Effective today, with physical distancing requirements in place, bar seating in restaurants will be allowed, meaning food and drink service can take place at the counter if the restaurant has one. But there needs to be a minimum of six feet between parties, and a lexian barrier between the customers and the staff behind the counter. As well, we're allowing lodging facilities to rent all their rooms, as long as guests comply with all other requirements. The mask, physical distancing, and our travel and quarantine requirements are still in place, as are limits on dining and gathering size. I know some may worry about whether this means we'll see a flood of people from other states, so I want to remind everyone that our campgrounds, arenas, and cottages, which are now closing for the season, have been at 100% capacity all summer. And Commissioner Pichek will share some data on the level of travel we've seen, which is down significantly from 2019. As well, as a reminder, we have a travel policy in place, and the lodging industry has been doing a very good job helping us to enforce it. This policy allows people from counties that are like Vermont with low rates of the virus to come without quarantine. But all others must continue to quarantine if they're coming into the state. So while we look forward to welcoming all who are following those travel policies, if you're from a county in the red or yellow, please follow the quarantine guidance or stay home. To help make it easier for travelers to comply in lodging facilities to help them do so, we're also moving our travel map update and modeling presentations to Tuesdays. This will give folks a few more days to see the latest map and adjust their travel plans to comply. Now, we're entering all foliage, so we will be seeing more visitors. As Dr. Fauci said, we're starting from a really good place. And if we all do our part, both for monitors and visitors, we can continue to safely open up the economy, put people back to work in order to provide for their families, and prevent our local small businesses from closing their doors for good. We can take these steps forward and continue to see low case counts. We've proven that since late April when we first began reopening. Again, by turning this spigot a quarter turn at a time, we've been able to reopen and do so safely and will continue to take this approach. I also want to be clear. I know this is not enough to soften the economic blow to our hospitality sector. And we're continuing to work with the legislature to support these businesses that were hit the hardest in order to help save the jobs and revenues they create. So in other news, I'm pleased to announce we've launched another initiative to support small businesses today. We now have five organizations across the state offering new technical assistance programs, which provide free expert advice on how businesses can navigate this pandemic. Vermont small businesses and nonprofits interested in learning more or want help should visit accd.vermont.gov. And Secretary Curley is here to answer any questions you may have. I'll now turn it over to Dr. Levine to talk a little bit more about these changes as well as provide an update on the cases at two local schools. Good morning. I want to begin by recognizing that September is Public Health Lab Appreciation Month. These incredibly hard-working Vermonters put in the long hours, many working without a day off for many weeks or months at a time, to process, analyze, and report out on the test samples taken from so far more than 153,000 people in the state. And they do this within days, sometimes hours of receiving the samples. Work that is meticulous and must be performed to existing and exacting specifications. So to everyone associated with our Public Health Lab, the people who put the test together for distribution, the lab techs, our tireless lab leadership, the microbiologists, and many others who work to support this tremendous effort, you have not just my thanks, but the appreciation of every Vermonter whose health and well-being you work to protect around the clock. And speaking of those test results, you'll hear more extensively from Commissioner Pechak this morning, but our total case count in Vermont is up to 1,706, with two being added last night. We remain at a total number of deaths, 58, with no deaths in the last 51 days. And as of this morning, there were two patients hospitalized with COVID in the state. And if I heard it correctly, none under investigation. I don't have much to add relating to the few cases reported in the two schools that we've discussed previously, except to say that many members of the CrossFit Brook Middle School community were tested at a health department pop-up on Wednesday. The good news is that thus far, all tests have been negative. Anyone identified as a close contact is, of course, quarantined. I'm happy to announce that on the Vermont Department of Health COVID-19 website, you can now link to a school-based COVID-19 transmission table of current recovered and total cases. As the governor stated, on Tuesday we had the honor of hearing directly from Dr. Fauci, someone who history will record as one of the great public health heroes of this pandemic. It was a moment for me to pause and take pride in our collective efforts. Vermont continues to have the lowest percentage of test positivity and rate of new cases in the country. And to paraphrase Dr. Fauci, our successes thus far have been a matter of what we did or did not do correctly. And I agree when he said that, from the numbers he's seen, Vermont has done it correctly. This is why we can continue to open carefully, including the governor's announcement today regarding lodging capacity expansion. People staying in these facilities are safely limited to their own space, just like they would be at home. Gathering spaces within these establishments will still be restricted to prevent crowding. The key here, whether we're talking about a lodging establishment or a bar, is to prevent milling around, prevent a breakdown in social distancing, and prevent crowding. But while Dr. Fauci praised our prudent reopening, he also noted our good work cannot allow us to become complacent. With changes in the season and the onset of colder weather, we will be moving indoors, and that will have an impact on our cases. We have to prepare for keeping each other safe, both in the fall and the winter. We'll be living and breathing closer together for longer periods of time, sharing space and germs, exactly the environment in which COVID-19 thrives. This makes it imperative that we keep up our core prevention practices to avoid illness. One thing we have learned is that most of the time, people aren't going to work or school or to gatherings when they have symptoms. And yet the virus can still spread. This means people are out in their communities carrying the virus when they don't have symptoms and don't yet know it. There's no better reminder than this to keep us to continue wearing our masks, keeping a distance from others, and limiting riskier activities like social gatherings indoors. I want to close by thanking the schools and the district administrators who are the experts on their operations to know they have our support when they have to make hard decisions, such as moving to remote learning, so that when there are cases, they have time to get a handle on the situation and to make sure that their students, staff, and teachers who may be affected can be contacted and appropriate steps for their health and isolation taken. So let's keep up the good work and keep Vermont the national model for staying healthy and open that Dr. Fauci said we are. Now I'll turn over to Commissioner Peachett. Thank you, Dr. Levine, and good morning, everyone. This morning, we'll start with a overview of the national data over the last couple of weeks and then turn to Vermont specific data before giving a K through 12 and higher education update then closing with a regional data and travel map update. So turning first to the national data, you can see over the past 10 days or so a dip down in cases followed by a spike back up in cases. We're watching this closely across our region and across the country. It's attributable largely to four things. We don't know how much or to what degree. But the fact that over Labor Day, there was a slowdown in testing in some places. There was also potentially an increase in transmission based on people's behavior over Labor Day. And then of course, like in Vermont, the rest of the country is opening up K through 12 and higher education institutions as well. So we'll continue to watch that closely and see if that develops into a national trend. But the good news is that the hospitalization rates across the country continue to go down and the death rate, although too high, continues to level out over the past few weeks. If you look at the regional data, the census data, you can see that no particular area of the country really stands out. Actually, all census areas appear to be going up slightly after Labor Day. Again, one might think that's attributable to all of those areas having a slowdown potentially in testing over the Labor Day weekend or based on activity over Labor Day weekend. So we'll keep a close eye on that, like I said, but we are seeing increased cases in basically every census region across the country. Turning now to the map that shows the prevalence of the virus on a per capita basis across the country, we expanded this out to a 30 day period. You can now see really the entire time when colleges were restarting across the country, when K through 12 was restarting across the country. And as Dr. Fauci reiterated when he was here on Tuesday, you can see really that the numbers are on Vermont's side. You can see how low the prevalence of the virus is in the Northeast, particularly in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, and how that's really helped us be in a position to successfully reopen K through 12 in higher education as well. We'll point out a few other states that opened up higher education in a minute that were from a higher prevalence area and show you what the results were in those locations. Turning to our Vermont data, you can see we increased our cases this week by 46 up from the pretty low week last week of 29, but we continue to maintain that lowest positivity rate in the country, the lowest per capita prevalence since the start of the pandemic, and then the lowest prevalence over the last seven days as well. So all of those top line metrics are very much in Vermont's favor still to date. Turning to our forecast, you'll see that we have a pretty similar forecast from last week. We are anticipating maybe a tick up of one or two cases as we get to later September into October. Again, now this forecasting incorporates all of the increased mobility from K through 12, from higher ed, from parents returning to work, potentially from parents being more mobile themselves as their children are in school, and our case trends as well. So that's all being picked up in the model. And again, even with a projected increase, we is not giving us concern based on the level of that increase. It's something within the capacity of the health department to continue to do their good work in contact tracing. So that we'll continue to look at closely, but that is a rather favorable forecast at this point. Turning to our four restart metrics, we'll just highlight these very briefly. They all are in a good spot. Syndromeic surveillance continues to be very low. The viral growth rate continues to be very low. And our positivity rate, as we mentioned, continues to be the best in the country. In terms of hospital capacity, we still have plenty of ICU space and traditional hospital bed space as well. And as Dr. Levine said, only two people in the hospital as of today, which is certainly good news. Turning to a K through 12 and higher education update, I first wanna show Northern New England and the cases that have been reported across Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. As you can see here in Vermont, we've reported three cases in two different schools, Maine, pretty close to Vermont, with about six cases, and then those impacting four different institutions. And New Hampshire currently reporting 23 cases through their K through 12 system, impacting 14 different schools. So again, all pretty much in a similar position, Vermont, on the better end of those results as of now, but something that we're gonna continue to look very closely at both in Vermont and across the region to assess how K through 12 reopening is going. Turning to the college data, you see that we conducted over 12,000 tests here in Vermont for higher education institutions this week. And turning to our cumulative numbers, you see that that's now 54,000, close to 55,000 tests since the start of the college reopening for 42 positive tests in total, so a very low positivity rate. So that's something certainly that we should be very proud of as we continue to progress along the fall semester. We also are providing the individual college data as well by test and positivity number. I should note that almost all of the colleges have public dashboards or public information. They've done a very good job of communicating with their communities and with us as a state about where they stand in terms of their reopening, but now we will have a link on our website that has all of those dashboards easily accessible, as well as weekly an update on each of the institutions as well. So encourage anyone that's interested in looking at more data to go either to our presentation or to our website to find those public links. Turning now to a national analysis, we'll go through this very briefly, but we wanted to demonstrate what Dr. Levine has been talking about and what Dr. Fauci has been talking about with taking a sample of nine states. The three states here in New England, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine that have the lowest prevalence in the country, and then looking at three states that have more of an average prevalence, and then looking at three states that are really on the other end of that spectrum. They've had the highest case counts for the last 30 days, so that period of time when they were opening up their higher education institutions. You can see Vermont averaging about 47 cases per 100,000. Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine that is. You can see 381 across those three middle prevalence states, and then 786 across those higher prevalence states. So when we look and see what the results have been to date in terms of college reopening, again we see Vermont, we heard data on Vermont, but New Hampshire and Maine similarly having very successful reopenings when you combine our positivity rates across the region. We're at 0.10, a very low positivity rate. New Hampshire has the most cases in higher ed. They added about 30 this week. Many of them are true to the University of New Hampshire, but still they, Maine and Vermont doing very well and are reopening. When you look at those middle states, North Carolina, Indiana, and Virginia, again when you look at their total number they're really quite larger than Vermont, but when you look at their positivity rate similarly significantly higher than we're experiencing here in Vermont and New England with an average of 2.94%. Not necessarily concerningly high, but certainly not as good as we're seeing here in the Northeast. And then last when we look at those high prevalence states, again you can see their case counts are quite high and then when you look at their positivity rate over just over 6% in terms of the positivity rate. So much higher in those high prevalence states in terms of what they're seeing on campus. And that just proves the point or shows the point again that Dr. Levine and Dr. Fauci have been talking about low prevalence areas. You're much more likely to be successful in reopening your schools or reopening your economy as well. And again, here's the national map just identifying where those states were that we pulled from and that visualization of what the infection rates were during the last 30 days. So you can see North Dakota, Iowa, Alabama much higher infection rates than Indiana, Virginia and North Carolina. And then the Northeast having considerably lower infection rates over the last 30 days. Turning to the regional data, just a quick update here. We did see an increase in new cases across the region up 25% to about 12,000 new cases this week. That's the first time we've been over 12,000 since the beginning part of June. When we look at the individual states and also Quebec, we do see that there are cases tied to higher-head reopening. There are cases tied to K through 12 reopening. So it's something we're gonna look at closely. Testing is also up across the region broadly. So something we're gonna look at closely and continue to monitor. But at this point, nothing in particular stands out to us. And still, the amount of cases that we're seeing in the region much lower than cases that they're seeing across the rest of the country. Flipping ahead to our travel map update. Again, I just wanna very briefly point out, as the governor said, we wanted to show data about the 2019 in-state tourism business compared to the 2020 in-state tourism business. This map here shows that difference between 2019 and 2020, all out-of-state visitors into Vermont. You can see that the numbers are down quite significantly. And when you look at 2019, you can see that the next four or five weeks are really the last opportunity for the tourism industry until it drops off quite a bit in late October and November before ski season picks back up. So this is a good opportunity for them to get increased occupancy in their establishments and hopefully make some economic gains while doing that safely. When we look and talk about doing it safely, and the governor mentioned this as well, crediting the lodging establishments and individuals as well for not coming to Vermont when they're in a place that has a high case count. This is mobility data showing a period of time from just after 4th of July through the beginning part of August and looking at counties that were always green during that period of time. And you can see there is a reduction in travel year over year, but it's relatively slight. At worst, it's around 15 to 20%. But then we did the same thing on counties that were never green during that same six-week period of time. And you can see that the reduction in travel from this year compared to last year was significantly higher. So that again tells us that people are following our quarantine requirements, that lodging establishments are enforcing them. And again, for monitors themselves, they're following them when they travel out of state as well. Lastly, before doing the map update, just a little bit more specificity. We were talking about all out-of-state visitors now looking at out-of-state visitors to lodging establishments. You can see 2018, 2019 quite similar year over year, but 2020 down significantly. So the lodging industry really hit hard as a result of the pandemic, which I think all of us are familiar with. And they are making gains throughout the summer, but still down considerably from previous years. And like I said, when looking at travel from out-of-state to those green counties that have always been green to lodging establishments down about 50%, but from those places that were always read down over 75%. Again, giving us a good data indicator that lodging establishments are enforcing the quarantine and out-of-staters are following it as well. Getting out to the updated travel map, you'll see here, both on the update and if we slip ahead a slide on the comparison of where places turned, that we did open up a number of counties this week. Last week, 5.5 million people could come to Vermont without a quarantine. This week, it's 7.4 million. So even though the region did see cases go up, the number of people that are eligible to travel to Vermont without a quarantine went up by about two million cases. That's because a number of high population counties did see cases decrease. A number of them are right at that 400 threshold, but they did decrease and they're eligible to come to Vermont without a quarantine, particularly some of the counties in New Jersey, New York and Connecticut, as well as New Hampshire as well, their most populous counties all flipped to green. So with that, I'll just remind everyone, as the governor said, that we will provide an update on the travel map on Tuesday and do that on Tuesday every week going forward. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Pijek. Always very interesting data. Now, before we go into today's questions, we had a question on Tuesday from Steve in the Northeast Kingdom that challenged the credibility of our beloved Vermont treat, the creamy. So we couldn't let it go. We needed to make sure that in the minds of Vermonters, there was no doubt that creamies are a dairy product. So I've asked Secretary Tevitz to make it clear. He's on the line now and he's done a little bit of research this week. Maybe you could fill us in. Well, thank you, Governor, and good morning all. I'd like to talk about the Creamy or in some regions it's called soft serve. But where we stand, it is the Creamy headline. It's dairy. There is cream in Creamy. Now, Creamies, they can come in many flavors. There's vanilla, chocolate, maybe black cherry and perhaps the most iconic one is the maple Creamy made with Vermont's maple syrup. You can even get a swirl of maple and vanilla and the combinations are endless. So how is the Creamy made? Well, it starts with Vermont dairy. Our extensive modeling shows Vermont Creamies are made with a base of milk, cream, sugar, and natural stabilizers. Again, not too complicated, milk, sugar, cream. This point, I would ask Dr. Levine, he might want to look away. The next statistic may make the docs cringe a little bit. A high butterfat content is needed to reach the desired consistency. Most Creamies are made with a six to 7% butterfat. So that's why it's smooth and Creamy and good. Dairy plants can make the mix. For example, Kingdom Primary in Caledonia County, the milk from the Michele Cowles and Hardwick is made into a Creamy mix and it's distributed throughout Vermont and the Northeast. So where can I get a Creamy? Well, just about everywhere in Vermont, they are essential. There are more than 670 frozen dessert licenses on file here at the Agency of Agriculture Food and Markets. Creamies can be found in just about every corner of Vermont, from Vernon to Bershia, from Burlington to Bennington to Browderville and beyond. You'll find them in Vermont villages, the downtown, hills, mountains, and valleys providing us comfort during this pandemic. And you can have confidence. A Vermont Creamy is made with Cream from Vermont Cowles. Creamies run in Vermonters' veins. Thank you, Governor. Well, thank you very much, Secretary Tevez. That'll put everyone at ease, I'm sure, after last week. So with that, we'll open up for questions. Kevin? Thank you, it might be for Secretary Curley. So you mentioned that we are launching this new way that businesses can find answers. I'm wondering what sort of questions they'd be answering. Who will be answering these questions? And if there's not more financial help on the way, what does that still accomplish? Yes, so early on, we understood that employers were going to have to be nimble and arguably change the way they do business. And they were expressing interest in having technical assistance. And it might be for creating more of an online presence, for example. It might be the layout in a restaurant. It might be just navigating what our environment is right now and what our current guidance provides and requires them to do. So it's a group of folks who responded to an RFP that we put out, or a variety of organizations. I am happy to say that all five of them were excellent. And what they brought to the table was the ability to serve broadly around Vermont in all regions, but definitely some expertise in a variety of sectors as well. So we chose to fund all five. And so I have great confidence that these employers, these businesses that need help reimagining how they will deliver a service or create a product. Now we'll also carry in, once we are, once this is in our rearview mirror, hopefully they will have made an adjustment that will enable them to be, once again, nimble if we do hit another setback like we have experienced. At any rate, it's a free service to employers. I just wanna mention, and there's more information as the governor mentioned earlier. It's on our website at accd.gov. And we're happy to help answer questions. Thank you, and Governor, just a quick follow-up. So the federal judge threw out the GOP lawsuit against the mail-in voting. I'm just hoping to gather your thoughts. You said earlier this week that it'll be interesting to see how it plays out. I'm just hoping to gather your thoughts on that. Yeah, well, first of all, just to clarify, it wasn't a GOP, I don't believe, lawsuit. It just happened to be filed by Republicans. So I don't think it was an effort by the state party. But again, you know, we need to move forward. The election is not too far away. We wanna make sure that everyone has an opportunity to exercise their right to vote. So this makes it clear that we'll continue. The Secretary of State will continue to mail ballots and put those into place. So at this point in time, it's in his hands. He has maintained confidence that this can be done safely and effectively. And so we'll rely on him at this point. David? This week, well yesterday, it has voted to override your veto of the global warming bill. Wondering, you know, what your concerns or thoughts are for the state going forward? And also, you know, do you hear a message or anything like that you take on it? Well, again, it wasn't surprising from my standpoint that the House decided to override the veto. It still has to go through the Senate. It's not over at this point. They have to do so as well. So they'll be doing, as I understand it, they'll be doing it next week. You know, I think I've tried to be clear on this. I don't, I believe climate change is real. I believe that we do have to take steps. We've been taking a number of steps over the last few years, but their, you know, their technical problems with the bill itself, a constitutional question that I believe, and my general counsel and others believe is concerned in a lot of respects and will be, you know, have an effect on how we do things in the future. Advocating your position or your authority is something that is unconstitutional when you do it across lines. So when I say that, you know, I think some are looking at the wrong question. When I question the constitutionality, the legislature can abdicate their authority, but they can't abdicate the governor's authority. So there's no mechanism there for the governor to okay whatever they put forward. So they have this 23-member board. 15 of their members are their picks. So they can have anything they want go through. And then it becomes law in effect. So I still have concerns about this. I'm hoping the Senate will see the wisdom in trying to take a step back, address the concerns that I laid out weeks ago and the legislature ignored, and then move together, move forward together because I still believe that we need to address climate change. We can do it with some of the provisions they have in the bill, but the technical aspects are the problem. Sure. And some of those concerns, constitutionality concerns and the possibility it sounds like of unelected officials to create law in the state, do you think there's room there even if the Senate does vote to override to continue to fight this bill? Well, somebody will, I would assume somebody is going to question the constitutionality of the bill, which again, I think they're on firm ground in doing so, so we'll see. And then, you know, let's not forget some of the timelines they put into place within the bill are going to be difficult to achieve. And I feel as though the legislature just wiped their hands clean of that because they didn't want to make the tough decisions that will need to be made over the next four years. And this unelected, unaccountable board will be making these decisions. So, you know, again, let's not forget this is going to be very difficult and very problematic for Vermonters and without that accountability, without the oversight, without the okay from the legislature, this plan should go back to the legislature and it be approved. And then it should have some oversight from the governor to make sure that it's the right approach for Vermont. But we'll see what the Senate does this week. Gotcha. Lastly, regarding hospitality, hotels, restaurants, that sort of thing. I know they've been desperately trying to make back a little bit of business over the summer and it sounds like this coming week, trying to get a sense of, you know, we saw in the PCHEX modeling how important it is. How much is it safe, I guess, in the next few weeks for lodging and hospitality to try and make back some of their needed business? Yeah, they'll never make back the gain or the losses that they've experienced at this point in time. We can only help in some respects. You saw on the travel map that some of the data that Commissioner Peejack had laid out, you know, our amount of travel into Vermont has been in some respects mimicking 2019 but about a 40% decline since then. But it goes through the highs and lows in the same trajectory. So we'll see a decline in the not too dear and not too distant future in terms of travel. So we're hoping that they can make enough to hold on but we still have to provide assistance to them because this is going to be a long winter. Thank you. I'll go back to the veto. Is this way more politics than it is than it is actually environmental policy because you're talking about Democratic housing Senate. The Attorney General came out with a letter saying that or saying that he upholds that it's constitutional. There have been several fundraising letters that have come out from Democrats including your opponent criticizing your veto. I mean, how much of this is actually for the good of the... Well, I want to defend the Attorney General in some respects. I know he came out and said that it, from his standpoint, passed the constitutional question but they're asking the wrong question. Again, the legislature has the authority to abdicate their own position. They can give up their authority but and that was the question that was asked of the Attorney General. I don't know as anyone has asked the Attorney General whether the legislature has the authority to abdicate the governor's position regardless of not just me, any governor. So I think this sets a dangerous precedent. I think it is suspect being in an election year to put something like this out. It does give the legislature a pass in some respects not to have to make these tough decisions not to have to go out before the people and pass anything that they might feel is necessary to address climate change. These are going to be tough. This is going to be really difficult. And again, I think it's a dangerous precedent and I do think it has political overtones. And, Doug will be the, or you, Governor, the very small amount of cases in the K through 12 especially, bodes well it seems for us going forward with the plans. Do you see an acceleration of these schools going to more in classroom? Well, again, I'll answer part of that. From my standpoint, I certainly hope so but it's up to them. We've given that flexibility for them to provide some certainty to prove ourselves in some respect to see what was going to happen. Two weeks maybe isn't enough for them to make a decision to go to more in-person instruction at this point. But I think it helps. And the longer we go with the low number of cases the better off we're going to be because we know based on all of the experts that have come before us and been in these press conferences we know what's best for the kids. In-person instruction is best for the kids. So the sooner we get there, the better off they're going to be. I'm sorry? Oh, okay. I can ask Secretary French to weigh in on this as well. Yeah, thank you, Governor. Yeah, I would agree. I mean, as much as we're paying attention to the data which seems to be positive, I think as you alluded to the other dynamic is school districts need to get more comfortable actually implementing the guidance. And that's an assumption that we make when we publish guidance but the actual practical application of the guidance needs to be implemented. And I think I would expect us to get more comfortable with that. We'll see more districts move to in-person because I think there are compelling educational reasons why we need to do that. And I know all educators believe strongly in the practice for in-person instruction but really a function of them just getting more comfortable as a school, as a school district system and following the health guidance. Thank you. The only thing I'll add is that the health guidance is already there and it's in place and it's available. It's a matter of following the data and the comfort with the schools as to where they are now and where they want to get to. In terms of guidance regarding more congregate settings like cafeterias, pizzed classes, things of that sort. So the foundation is already laid and it's just a matter of seeing how these few weeks go. Just briefly, while you're there, do you have any sort of recommendations as far as a dosage of creamy for our members? You know, since Secretary Tevitz did begin this, begin this, I will say that I believe that moderation in everything. So one can have wonderful time with creamies but too much of a good thing can be sometimes too. All right, we'll move to the phone starting with Mike Donoghue, the Islander. Thank you, Governor and Secretary Tevitz for that creamy opportunity. Just for the record, Governor Dean is on record that Allen Holmes Farms in Grand Isle County has the best maple creamies in Vermont so I just wanna put a plug in for Grand Isle County. And Governor and Secretary Tevitz, thank you for releasing the specific breakdowns on COVID testing for university and colleges much like you do for the towns and cities. It's important for monitors to know how kids are behaving in light of what's going on even as close as Blacksburg and Hanover. And I did notice that you had to make an adjustment in the previously announced numbers but I'm glad we're moving forward. Governor, on another transparency issue, there's a new directive from your administration that blocks Vermont State Troopers from their long standing routine releasing of information about juveniles that are killed and injured in car crashes that are victims of homicide, drownings, subject to amber alerts that they're lost while feeding or hunting. This temporary order goes against your own policy that you signed off on and we've heard from State Troopers in the field since the directive came out it's kind of blocked last Friday night that they're concerned about the lack of transparency to taxpayers now at a time when public is clamoring for more transparency by police. Commissioner Shirling did roll it back a little bit about amber alerts I guess yesterday but no other Vermont Department has adopted it. When might we see the State Police go back to a transparency agency? I know Commissioner Shirling is on the line I'm going to let him fill us in on some of the details. Mr. Shirling? There's a link yesterday. This is a temporary hold as we do a legal analysis there was, as we discussed, there was an event that raised some concerns by a couple of different attorneys including a prosecutor and a private attorney on compliance with a variety of potentially conflicting laws as it relates to juvenile records and we're just doing an assessment so that as you're aware this is a temporary hold as we do a legal assessment. But there's never been an issue before I mean I can appreciate a defense lawyer who's getting paid by a family the driver who killed the two people down in Charlottes and by being on the wrong side of the highway trying not to have the names put out even most of them put out Vermont policy based on that family or could it be based on the fatality of the situation? It should be based on the existing legal standard and what we're trying to assess is whether there are conflicts this wasn't an advocacy position taken by one person prosecutors office weighed in as well and attorneys within state government are taking a look at it to try to ensure that we're in compliance with the law. That prosecutor's office is the one that arguing for no bail on people and the prosecutors office is the one arguing for no bail to let everybody out without bail. Yeah as I indicated yesterday I haven't taken a deep dive our legal counsel indicated it's coming from prosecutor's office and I'm leaving it in the attorney's hands for now and we'll work on it as quickly as possible as I have a resolution as soon as that work is done. Getting back to my original question governor when might you lift that policy and not leave it up to maybe the commissioner? Well you know I want to rely on my experts the expertise of my team and I'm relying on the public safety to advise me on this as well. So we want to resolve this just as quick as we possibly can. And if it's safe to do so we'll go back to what we were doing before but these are you know when we set a precedent in this manner from a legal aspect we could be affecting future cases. So we just want to make sure that we're on the right side of this. But under the order if a person is killed on the side of the car crash or whatever the policy or the directive now says their names won't be released even though their name will be on the obituary the next day on the paper. We need to see the little, okay. Yeah, yeah again, yeah, this is a two. Yeah, these are juveniles we're talking about here. And again, we just want to make sure we get this right. And we'll get this resolved just as quick as we possibly can. Anytime you bring lawyers into any dispute it takes a little time. Okay, and one quick follow-up yesterday high schools have been gearing up to begin play next week and the state pulled the plug on that long standing goal. And one reporter told me this morning that his news outlet had been told both the health and education department said to them that they never really thought that would happen next week. I'm just wondering what has happened either through education or through health that made all this box that student athletes and parents, classmates, fans were waiting for sports to start as a great distraction to what is going on. What is the real deadline for high school sports to resume? Well, I don't know if there's a real deadline. I think there were goals and hopes established but Secretary French do you want to describe what it transpired earlier? Yeah, hi Mike. I would just start to say that we see sports as essential through academics and the social emotional growth of students with something we're very much perfectly interested in supporting. I think there was some of this communication or guidance I think was pretty clear that was intended to examine what we call transition from step two to step three at the end of this month and pretty much after the first two weeks of school. And we started that process this week for the Department of Health. Apparently some school districts that are interested that can actually have scheduled games begin next week. It was not our intention. So it's something we're actively working on and we just had alerts of folks to that conversation moving forward essentially a schedule. So when might you give them a green light to start scheduling a game? I mean, obviously they must have done some discommunication from the agency that they went out and scheduled these games and got the bus rented, buses rented and everything like that. Where is some of this information? Yeah, it's part of the challenge I think we have in this emergency because I have one here to try to foreshadow our decision-making but sometimes I get misinterpreted. So I think, you know, clearly something we need to work on but what we signaled to superintendents yesterday is that we intend to pick up this conversation next week and endeavor hopefully to identify a specific date when we make that transition. So folks, we'll have a week to plan. I mean, it also is important to note that that transition we felt set through to set three as implications for school operations as much as that's loaded. So there's some aspects particularly around using cap to reduce the school that requires us to give about a week's notice of the food service folks who starts preparing. So I think next week we'll have more information on this. All right, we gotta move to our next question. Justine God, justine God at Stephanie High School at Mrs. Communication with your agency, that's the only thing. Mike, you can take a look at the guidance and the wording but we gotta move to our next question. The guidance lays out the wording so you could see it for yourself. Kat, WCAX. Hi, this question is likely for Dr. Levine. Following up on our question that we posed to Dr. Fauci on Tuesday about rapid testing. The doctor indicated newer rapid tests are more accurate. So what role is rapid testing going to be playing in Vermont's COVID-19 strategy as we move forward? Thank you for that question because that's under intense discussion at the health department right now. As you know from our experience with antibody testing which is a different set of testing, we had convened a panel of clinicians and public health experts and laboratory medicine experts and infectious disease experts to examine that and they provided us with a report. That same working group which is now under the rubric of the term Scientific Advisory Committee is preparing a further report on these rapid tests and will be forthcoming I think in the very near future. To get down to a little bit of forecasting about what that will show, we clearly know that the rapid antigen tests have a definite role in acute care settings where people may be presenting in the first five days with COVID-19 symptoms. The federal government has recently launched an effort to send a lot of antigen platforms to long-term care facilities throughout the entire country as well as another form of rapid test that's done on a card around the country. And the guidance regarding those is just happening as we speak this week and next week to give a little more guidance as to the appropriate role. The concerns we have are using those in settings where people are asymptomatic but they're being used for what I would term screening. Just surveilling that population, usually of workers or residents in such facilities and seeing if there's any infection present. That's where there's more controversy in the role but it seems that if one does this on a repetitive basis at regular intervals, whatever those intervals might be decided to be, that you increase the reliability of using those tools in these settings. So that's the kind of feedback I wanna get back from not only the federal government regarding their guidance but also our scientific advisory group. So I don't think it'll be long. Certainly during the month of September when we'll be very clearly articulating, most likely through a health alert notification to the clinical world, how we perceive the role of those tests in Vermont. So would they play a role then at all for members of the public to enter facilities like you mentioned of long-term care? Would it be a type of thing where a family could get screened and then if they come back negative is it? Or is that not something that's health department is comfortable with the accuracy of yet? Yeah, that one I can't answer clearly right now. That remains to be seen. Because that's again screening an asymptomatic person one time as opposed to screening the population of that facility on a regular basis. Those are the kind of answers we're looking for. So I won't answer your question directly just yet. Thank you. Sure. Greg, the county courier. Good afternoon, Governor. I was gonna ask you about the BSD memo that Mike Donahue brought up, but a little short sighted I guess on my part that I might get a scoop on the journalistic legend for a month. On a side note, the person that told me about it was also pretty worried about transparency. And a note about Secretary Tevitz's statement on creamies being essential, that might come as pretty exciting nose to many Vermonters in the case of the economy has to shut down again. Anyway, moving on to my secondary question here. A follow up on what you were talking about in the beginning here. Your administration is counting a two-tenths of 1% positivity rate, but we're testing a lot of people. And in some states, they're only testing symptomatic people. So I'm wondering if your administration is doing any sort of assessment to be able to compare apples to apples with the states that are only testing asymptomatic people and what the positivity rate is in Vermont for symptomatic people? I'm gonna ask Commissioner Pichek to weigh in on this one. But again, from my standpoint, most, I mean, we're testing both symptomatic and asymptomatic people. And I think most states are, I don't know of who is just testing symptomatic, but Commissioner Pichek. So we're not familiar with any states that are testing at this point only symptomatic individuals. There could be a state or two out there, but when you do look at the national level, there is still a pretty high level of testing going on across the country and the national positivity rate is pushing closer to 5%. So that decrease positivity rate over time, although ticking up nationally in the past week or so, is indicative of considerable amount of testing that went on during college restarting and potentially K-12 restart across the country as well. So we think it's a pretty fair comparison when you look just at the positivity rate across the entire country. And then of course, if you look at just the aggregate number of cases as well on a per capita basis, where clearly lowest in the country on that measurement also. A quick question. I don't know if it's for the governor or Commissioner Harrison, showing that the unemployment level was dropped again. We're hearing from employers that are concerned that there's still no job search requirement. And I talked to one employer, actually I talked to an employee of an employer that they're actually having to track people in from out of state to fill the roles in their job. When can Vermonters start to expect to see a job search requirement again? Yeah, well again, as I stated earlier, when we get to a point, I think we have about 35,000 unemployed Vermonters at this point between unemployment and the PUA. And I would comment on the recent news about the lower unemployment and so forth. Unfortunately, the formula that has been utilized and to determine these factors doesn't rely on the reality of the times. And I don't believe it's accurate considering the pandemic. So we'll work our way through that. But until we get to a point where we have more jobs available, and again, we're getting there every time we take a turn of the spigot, there are more opportunities. But for those, the vast majority of those on unemployment, there aren't jobs available for them. But again, every time we take a turn of the spigot, we get closer. So I would expect if we continue down this path, we'll be able to implement those work search programs within the next two, three months. Facebook page, she couldn't make her bills. She was unemployed. And when somebody commented, hey, you can go work here, you can go work there, her comment back was, well, I wouldn't scoop to that level. Isn't it a little short-sighted to think that with 35,000 people without employment, that we could maybe get down to 25,000? No, I believe that we will get there eventually. Again, we've come a long ways from over 90,000 we had not too long ago. So we're making gains. And again, we want to put people back to work, get them off from unemployment and get them back into the jobs they even previously held. But the hospitality sector is problematic in a number of ways. And we've talked about that a lot over the last few months. But turning again, opening up lodging a bit, we'll hopefully put more people back to work and looking for other opportunities as well. So we'll continue to take these steps. And when we get to a point where we see more jobs opening up and we'll put the work search requirements back into place. Another day, I guess what concern was is that having to take jobs that they don't want just to take a job and I'll leave it at that. Okay, thank you. Hadley, the Valley Reporter. Hi, Governor. I had also planned to ask about Mike Donahue's Times article regarding releasing the names of juveniles in accidents. But since he already mentioned it, I'll move on to something else. So here's a question for Dr. Levine. As we know, two students that crossed the Brook Middle School in Duxbury tested positive for coronavirus last week, which led to a school closure and then contact tracing and testing of over 20 other students and staff. And then earlier today, you mentioned that all tests done as a result of that contact tracing were negative, but then looking at page seven of your slide deck that you showed earlier today that shows weekly cases per county. We see that in Washington County, where CrossFit Brook is located, cases jumped from 10 cases a week to 30 new cases a week. So my question is, why are we seeing a spike in cases in Washington County if all tests related to the CrossFit Brook closure were negative and where are those, where's the increase coming from? I have either Commissioner Pichek may weigh in as well, but I'll ask Dr. Levine. It's actually not my slide, it's Commissioner Pichek's slide, so I'm gonna let him explain that aspect and then I'll be happy to handle more about that. So I think the slide that you're referring to, we didn't talk about it publicly today, but it's in our full presentation and it looks at the county by county numbers for the week on a per capita basis, not on an aggregate number, so it's not 30 new cases this week, but they might have 30 new cases per 100,000, for example, this week. The health department does include that county by county data on its dashboard, so I encourage you to look at that. I will just add to that that those who chose to attend the pop-up, which does not mean every contact and were tested at the pop-up were negative. If there are any individuals that actually develop some symptoms and have gone through the healthcare system to get their test, we may not have that result yet, but through the best of all knowledge, all the contacts who got tested through our pop-up are negative. Doesn't mean that they should not have done what they did, the quarantine is the essential item. The test is nice for us to have a handle on, but the quarantine was the essential action. Okay, so there's no other Washington County outbreaks that you know of that could be responsible for the rising cases in that county? No, because again, we're not talking absolute number of cases, we're talking a rate per 100,000. And it doesn't take much in a small population to have that rate vary, which is why the travel map changes sometimes because it may not take a huge change to actually have an impact on that. And just to be clear, the 30 was the rate, not the number of cases. The 30 is the rate, not the number. The number of 30. Yeah, we only had 46 in the state for the whole week, and clearly 30 were not in Washington County. Gotcha. All set, Cat, Hadley? Thank you. Okay. Yeah, I would just like to reassure everyone, I watch these numbers every single day and I know that the Secretary Smith does as well because he sends them to me about 2 a.m. So if there were 30 cases in Washington County, the county I grew up in and live in, I would take notice. So there were not 30 cases, 30 new cases in the last week in Washington County. The Rutland-Herald? Six to unmute, Keith. Hi, Kevin. Yep. Yeah, go ahead, Keith. Okay, thank you, Governor. So last week, I believe it was reported that the head of the Rutland area, NAACP, had decided to leave her home just months of racial harassment. This would be probably the second time that I'm aware of that the prominent Vermont Black leader has effectively run out of town by racial harassment through the internet, other places. I am wondering, besides maybe some statements I've seen that say that's horrible and shouldn't be happening if there's, is there going to be any concrete action to prevent things like this from happening? Yeah, you know, this is a problem, as I said before. We're not insulated from this in Vermont and we have to do better. And so we put together our racial equity panel. We have listened to many of the findings we're hoping to move forward with that, but it's going to take all of us pulling in the same direction to make this happen and really face that we have a real issue on our hands as a country, but as a state as well. So every single one of us has to do our part. I think you can expect that we will continue to take steps forward. Again, not just me and our administration, but the legislature as well in the coming weeks and months. So we'll, again, we all need to do better and face the reality that we're not insulated from racism. Do you have any sense of what we might be doing or rather than later? There will be, I think we're going to release some of what the racial equity panel has put together. And that should be released, I believe in the next week or so. So you should see some of their issues that they'd like to bring forward and suggestions. Thank you. Thank you. Erin, V.T. Digger. I have a question from the governor about some recent news more, how do you fill up a bill, how do you fill in my bill? This time it's the marijuana tax and regulate bill, which is going to be hanging to your desk next week. It includes many of the provisions you asked for, like provisions for town investments, drug prevention, education measures, but it doesn't include a lot of testing for police without a warrant, which you said you'd want if you were to support the bill, how do you feel about it now? Are you planning to veto or do you want to let it become law? Yeah, we'll see. I haven't looked at the bill. It has been my top priority. Obviously a priority for the legislature and legislative leadership. So it's been passed. I will give great credit to those who I don't believe had any thoughts of meeting some of my concerns, but they've done so. They move forward. And as I reflect on the Global Warming Solutions Act and the difference between the two bills and them addressing the concerns I had with the marijuana regulation and taxation bill versus the Global Warming Solutions Act, it's a stark difference. Even the panel, they created a panel and maybe advocated some of their position there, but it's coming back. Any suggestions by the marijuana panel that they put into their bill is going to come back to the legislature and they're going to vote on it and they're going to consider that. I mean, that's the way to do things. So they come a long ways. I'll be considering that over the next one. We do receive the bill. We haven't received it yet, but I'll consider that. And again, they come a long ways and we'll see what happens. I know there are some groups that I hadn't heard from before have voiced their opposition to this over the last couple of days. And I don't know if they went to the legislature with their concerns and testified over the last week or two. But again, I just saw an uptick in some organizations coming forward that I, who I hadn't heard from before. Okay, thank you. Another thing that's been in the news lately is current Hattons getting its license with ECF-OLT because of allegations of sexual misconduct at fault. Would you support the state court of education pulling its license to operate as an independent school? I'm gonna ask Secretary French to weigh in first, but then Secretary Smith might have some updates as well. Secretary French. Yes, thank you. Yes, we are reviewing the situation. We haven't formulated a recommendation to the state board yet. But the state board is very interested in the status of the school. Particularly with ECF revoking its credential that essentially precipitates the necessary consideration of their ability to operate as an independent school. But it's also important that we get all the facts that give the school an opportunity to address the concerns to our satisfaction. Okay, thank you. I think Secretary Smith said that Secretary French had covered all the details he was going to bring forth. And one last question, the model presentation has three cases. I just want to confirm that at schools, like K-12 schools, I just want to confirm the most current data that they're having many cases in like the past, you know, two or three days or something like that. It is still at three cases, like K-12? Yeah, not that we're aware of. Those are the only three cases that we know of at this point in time. Okay, thank you. Joe Barton Chronicle. Hello, Dean. One of my coworkers told me that her son was in a position where he needed to be tested. He had to take a week off from work. There was no problem there. He went and had a test. And this was over a Labor Day weekend, but it took, I think five or six days for the test result to come back, fortunately, was negative. But my coworkers said that they had to repeatedly get in touch with the facility where the test was done. It was a hospital. And they finally got the word that it was negative, but never received a written report. And I realized that I and probably a lot of people have no idea of what to expect from the process, even now, with all the testing being done. And I wondered if you could clarify that. We'll have Secretary Smith. Joe, thanks for the question. And obviously, at some point, I'd like to follow up with you because what we're seeing are, we monitor these testing turnaround times by labs pretty regularly and pay close attention to them. Obviously, the state lab is the fastest, but there are other labs out there doing testing as well. And the prior week, our average turnaround time is 2.1 days. Prior week was 1.9 days. The largest facility that does testing outside of the state lab is called the Broad Institute. Their average is 1.9. But it does vary depending on what labs you have. But again, our average turnaround days is about 2.1. And again, with the state lab, it's quicker than that. There were, the total tests in the last seven days are 23,000 tests. So there's been a lot of testing going on. I would like to, I'll make sure my office calls you because we would like to follow up on that and just find out what's happening. We've instituted, this probably went through a hospital. So it probably was a sort of different sort of lab than what normally in a pop-up site we'll use. So we'll try to find out what's going on. Thank you very much. Tim, for more Business Magazine. Hi, Governor, both, and the unemployment rate, both you today and Michael Harrington, press release today indicated that they felt that the census was inaccurate. And I was wondering, because the numbers are so dramatically lower from the July numbers, August report, is this something that you are concerned goes all the way back to April? Are all these numbers perhaps inaccurate going back that far? And what might be the real accurate number for the unemployment rate, the labor force, a dramatic decrease in total number of employees also? Yeah, Commissioner Harrington, do you have any thoughts on that? Sure, I'll also point out we have our Chief Economist on the line, Matthew Barowitz, who may want to chime in as well, but it's not necessarily that the data or the numbers are inaccurate. The problem that we see in the numbers that are being reported is that when we calculate the unemployment rate for the state or the labor force number, that is based on a household survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau. And it really asks the question of whether or not people are actively looking for work and able to accept work if offered and determines whether individuals are attached to the labor market. And unfortunately, what it does not take into consideration is the number of people who are actually filing for and receiving unemployment insurance benefits. And so for the first time in a long time or in recent history, the number of people receiving unemployment insurance benefits is actually higher than the number of people who are detached from the labor force. And so from that perspective, again, it's not that the numbers being calculated or miscalculated is that one number being calculated is not truly representative of the world in which we're living and the climate in which we're living. So our rate shows based on the survey that there is only 4.8% of the labor force is unemployed when really we know there are 30 plus thousand for monitors who are actually receiving benefits. Matt, did you have anything else you wanted to add? Yes, good morning, commissioner. Thank you for the opportunity and I appreciate the question. I think what this comes back down to is that historically people look to the unemployment rate right or wrong as a universal metric of overall economic health. And so when you see a sharp decline in the unemployment rate, most people think that the economic conditions are improving. And what we see here as the commissioner correctly pointed out is it's really a definitional distinction of how the federal government defines what it means to be quote, unquote, unemployed. And so by not being required to do a work search, if people are saying they are not currently actively seeking and pursuing work, they are not considered to be part of the labor force. As a result, when you see this unemployment rate, 4.8%, you would think that on balance, that must mean that the employment levels are high and correspondingly so. But that is not the case where we know that the labor force is contracted, employment is down. Even though business is our reporting, employment is increasing. But from the household standpoint, this data just paints a much different picture than what a traditional 4.8% unemployment would reflect. And to sort of following from that, why would there be such a dramatic change from July to August, in this case? I assume they've been doing the same survey all along. That's a good question. They have been doing the same survey all along. This survey, again, is administered by the U.S. Census Bureau. It is done in partnership with my federal partners, the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And the two of those organizations came together early on and agreed they would not change definitions. They would not change methodology, even in the face of this global health pandemic, such that the data would be comparable over time. But I think what the commissioner and the governor expressing is just frustration with that this global health pandemic does not align with traditional economic downturns. And as such, when you see these sharp declines, you know, what happened here is the way the methodology is done, there can be one or two things. One, the models are meant to not be overly reactive. So even when we saw the initial response in April, or it could be March, some of March and most of April, the model takes a little while to acclimate. It's like turning a boat. It takes a little bit of course correction and then it's on its way. And so what's happened now is we've had several months in the history showing downward pressure on both employment and recently unemployment. And the model has kind of caught a little bit of speed in this and as such is accelerated in this month. And so even should a work search be reinstituted, these numbers will not just magically return around again. Like a boat, it takes a course correction and the model will slowly acclimate to the new reality. All right, great. Thank you, Matthew. Avery, WCIX. Governor Scott, as I'm sure you've heard, Burlington High School is closed for at least the rest of the semester building because of PCB contamination. And we've heard from viewers that are maybe worried their school also has this type of contamination since it was widely used in the 60s and 70s when a lot of them were built. So do you think this is the time for another study on PCB statewide? Yeah, you know, this is concerning, especially for those in the Burlington community and for the school itself. But it seems as though there's a narrow point in time when some of these construction materials were used back in the 70s when this school was built. So I think we can narrow down what schools may be affected and what schools aren't. But we need to pay attention to this, obviously. And this is something in some respects new. The PCBs were established as being a problematic over the last few years by the federal government. So this is again uncharted territory, so to speak. But I would agree we need to pay attention to this. And what is looking into something like this, be something that they would help with funding or would you think that is something that local town would take a local tax pay? Again, too early to tell. I think there'll be a conversation. I would imagine there'd be a conversation with the legislature over the next session. These aren't easy tests to put into place. It's quite extensive, quite expensive. So we have to make sure that we narrow it as best we can. But too early to tell who and how it's going to be paid for. Thank you, Governor. Liam, the VPR. Hi, this is a question for Secretary Smith. I'm just wondering if you could provide an update on the outbreak of COVID-19 among the Mississippi inmates. I think we can, Avery. Yes, I can report very good news with the Mississippi inmates. We currently have what we prior, we had total prior positive tests at Mississippi of 179. That's about 84.8% of the total population. We have 178 in recovery today. I mean, one is going into recovery today. Recovery means that we're starting to move them into the general population because we see that they're recovered. We have one that is still in quarantine and is isolated. We have 28 that are a negative test and four that through the whole process refuse to take a test. We treat them as positive, excuse me, for the purposes of this. And they're quarantined in different sections. But pretty good news. We don't have anybody in the hospital. And we don't have anybody, I believe in the infirmary as I speak. So it sounds like the majority of the folks that have tested positive are now in recovery. I mean, at what point would you consider this over? I guess it's hard for you to measure. I think we're pretty much looking at it as over. Do you have, what's the next time you're gonna be doing mass testing? I mean, you know this, you weren't testing before. I know that now the facility is part of the rotation. But how are you gonna ensure that this doesn't happen again? Well, we will be testing the Vermont inmate and that facility on September 28th. We're still in discussions with Core Civic on making sure that we don't have spread from other parts of that facility. And we are also linking, video linking to that facility. So we have 24, seven eyes on that facility from a video purpose. But we will be starting system testing on a rotation basis, just like we did with St. John's Ferry, I think, this week, where we had Northeast Correctional Facility had zero positives out of the 258 staff and inmates that we tested there this week. We're gonna put Mississippi in that same rotation process. And their first up is September 28th and we'll continue to rotate them through regular testing just like we do the other facilities. And I will just be testing the Vermont inmates in Mississippi, not the others that are in this facility. I mean, there's a lot of folks that are there. Yeah, you gotta remember the way that it's set up down there, we're in separate pods. We just gotta make sure that those pods are kept clean in terms of the virus spread. And the corrections department is working on that right now to make sure that that doesn't happen. The best way would be that Core Civic tests the entire facility on the same basis that Vermont does it. But that gets complicated with other states inmates as well because there has to be some sort of coordination with other states. But the best way to do it right now is to keep our pods that are there. And I think we have three pods that are there clean of the virus. And right now, we have that cleanliness within those pods. Just remember, most of our inmates down there have had the virus. And so we really have to protect them in the future and the ones that have not tested positive down there. And finally, are you expecting to reduce the contract with Core Civic? I know that that is gonna be coming up soon. Yeah, I think the governor has said this and I've said this in the past. We're putting different provisions in there to safeguard against, to make sure that we have testing and eyes on the ground down there with video. But I expect that we will probably be renewing one year only that contract. I also expect that we'll probably, we have gone from 219 to 211 just recently. We have eight inmates that have returned back to Vermont. I will think over the next fiscal year you will see that number continue to decrease as we move forward. And as we figure out how to sort of reconfigure our facilities up here as in this COVID environment, what has prohibited us in this COVID environment and bringing more people back is that we needed quarantine space. But also we've had sort of low case counts because during the height of the pandemic the judicial system was virtually shut down. Thank you. Guy Page. Two questions for the health department commissioner. Tuesday you asked Dr. Fauci to discuss COVID vaccination. Some Vermont opponents of mandatory vaccinations say pharmaceutical companies will enjoy legal immunity from damages if the vaccine proves unsafe. Is this true? And if so, what protections do Vermonters have in the event of personal injury from an unsafe vaccine? So from the beginning, there's no talk of mandatory vaccination just to take that off the table at the moment that that has not been anything, anyone nationally or in any state yet certainly not in Vermont has been entertained. So people are concerned about Americans reluctance based on surveys that have come out recently to trust the vaccine, but that has much more to do with the politicization of the process. With regard to indemnity and all of the other questions you asked, those are questions really for the legal team. And I can't answer them for you here. We can certainly bring them to the legal team and begin those discussions. Clearly that will go way beyond Vermont. That what you're describing in terms of scenarios would be a national issue. So I'm sure that there would be some anticipation of this because we don't want to get in the way of delivering in a rapid fashion and efficacious and safe vaccine to the population. Last thing we need is concerns that like you raise. So I will bring it back to my team, see if there's any awareness of what's going on nationally. But that's as much as I can give you today. Okay, thank you. Also your website says that there's a quote on there that no single person or group of people are more likely than others to spread COVID-19 and cautions against stigmatizing them. I was a little baffled as to what you were talking about. Are you referring to stigmatization of an individual or a group of people and if so, who? Yeah, so it's a very real phenomenon which is why we're always very, very highly interested in protecting confidentiality and patient specific data because it turns out whether it's ill intended or not ill intended when people find out a certain person or a certain group of people or a certain facility has had COVID, it does sometimes lead to what we're terming stigmatization through no ill efforts of the people who were afflicted. Like they intentionally got infected and tried to spread COVID to others. They're just unfortunate at that point in time. As we say, it's the air we breathe and we all breathe the same air together. So we just are very concerned about that. And as it comes to our reporting, whether it's a school or a childcare or a hospitality sector facility, words matter and it's almost never the fault of that facility or that person that COVID ended up there. And it doesn't mean that they forever have a black star and can't be gold star again. It's just an unfortunate circumstance that they get through. And so I think that's what we were trying to emphasize. We're not pointing at any specific group or anything of that sort. Some of it is just unfortunate human nature. So has that happened? Are you saying in Vermont that has happened? Actually, yes. Okay. Is it a, are we talking ethnic groups or our facilities or give me a little bit more direction as to who's suffered this? Individuals and facilities. Okay. Thank you. Can you hear me? We can, Steve. Great, thanks. Just as a reminder that cheese with is really supposedly a dairy product and Slim Jim's are made from meat but the former isn't really cheese and the latter isn't really solid. And I know the standards of ice cream good when they tried to open an ice cream plant down in Hardwick. There are strict standards regarding the term ice cream and on top of that, there's an air factor too which is why cheap ice cream at the grocery store weighs so much less than the more expensive stuff. But anyways, I wanted to thank Anson Tibbets for the clarification. If it says Bob Surve ice cream, it's got to be ice cream. But anyways, Dr. Levine, you'd mentioned that this is lab appreciation month and he said that the lab workers protect us. Should we bring them a casserole or something to show our appreciation? Maybe a creamy, a maple creamy. And regarding honoring Dr. Fauci and calling him a hero hasn't like even the contradictions and I know it's been a learning curve for everybody involved with this virus since the beginning but there have been so many contradictions in what he said and then a lot of what he says is qualifiers in them like might and maybe and could. I just wonder, you know, if calling him a hero and it is elevating him to some kind of sink foot. God forbid I would do that. With regard to your first comment, please send cards and letters expressing appreciation if that urge strikes you. Where's the address? We can get it to you. Oh great, great, that would be great. With regard to Dr. Fauci, I don't want him to be confused with the branches of government that have been confused, that have been accused of the kind of wavering that you're talking about, you know, thinking about things like masking where the CDC initially came out saying we shouldn't mask, later came out saying the data is now improved and we should mask health and human services, you know, there are actually sectors of the federal government that you could probably justly accuse of what you just did. I'm not aware that we can accuse Dr. Fauci of waffling on things or providing a misrepresentation of any specific COVID related topic. I think he's been a pretty steady hand and when he's been allowed to speak, he's been very consistent. That's all I can say. Yeah, I do remember when he came out and said that we don't need masks and then, you know, later on we were told by him that we do need masks. Yeah, and we need to be concerned on the masking issue. There was a time when we were told you don't need masks because healthcare needed the masks. Not that the masks weren't effective, but healthcare needed the masks, but we could use facial coverings and that would be fine. Versus masks actually don't work and now they work. So two distinctions there to make. Okay, great. Thank you, Dr. Sure. Governor, you mentioned the travel rate and I was wondering how we've been compiling these travel rates. Is this reporting data from different businesses? Do we still have people? Do we still have state employees checking license plates? Could you tell us how the travel rates are compiled? Yeah, well, first of all, I just want to make sure they were clear on the state employees checking license plates. It just really was about what states they were coming from. So there was no recording of the information. We don't do that anymore. We have an automated type of counting device at all the ports of entry that we collect the data from for some of what we do. I may ask Commissioner Pichek to, because there's some other methods as well for collecting this data that has been really fascinating in some respects. Great. Yes, Steve, thank you for the question. So that mobility data comes from a third party company that aggregates mobility data as a cell phone mobility data. So they aggregate it and anonymize it, and it's all user-consented. So the things that you download on your phone and say, you know, you can track my location. So they aggregate, anonymize user-consented data, and they've been providing that to academic institutions and to states and municipalities and other government entities free of charge during the pandemic for policy implication reasons. I see, great. And one quick one for the Governor, if I may. Governor, regarding this global warming bill that you'd vetoed, I know that they keep saying that the transportation is the biggest polluter or whatever. But right here, I'm right on the border and just north of us, like 85%, I believe, Quebec keeps with electricity. And then on this side of the border, it's like 85% of us heat with oil. And on a date when there's an inversion layer or whatever, you can smell the fumes from the oil burns, even the efficient ones and everything. And is this really subtle science? I mean, I've heard people say that some of this climate change can be attributed to the Milankovitch cycles and other things. Yeah, I think that the scientists have all concluded that this is climate change is real and that carbon emissions certainly attribute a large portion of what we're seeing today. So the sooner that we can reduce our carbon emissions, the better off we're going to be, or the future generations are going to be. And besides that, I mean, you think about the just the pollution aspect of that, the carbon emissions and so forth. I mean, think about having your vehicle and putting it in a closed facility in your garage and leaving it running. Bad things happen when you do that. When you think consider the envelope we're in throughout the world, we're just adding to the pollutant nature of the carbon emissions. So again, the sooner we can transfer to something that's carbonless, the better off we're going to be. Yeah, I remember when hydrogen was all the rage, but... Well, it still is, by the way. It's still, there are still many companies working on hydrogen. That could be part of the mix in the future as well. Right now it's electric vehicles, but hydrogen is still being worked on. All right, Steve, we're going to have to move... Sorry, we still have three in the queue in only five minutes. Okay, I'm sorry. Thank you very much. Malia, Burlington Free Press. Hey, can you hear me? We can. Okay. My question is for Secretary French. I just wanted to circle back to the my daughter's question regarding school force. My colleagues and I were looking back at some of the guidance that went out prior to the school year, and we know that it says the schools have to undergo at least two weeks in step two, but at the time it seems like it was applied better things as well. They could start scheduling games for next week. So one of my first questions is, is why were there a miscommunication between the state and some of the schools? Since many of them ended up scheduling games and started to postpone them for next week, and will this rule out games that were scheduled for next weekend, the 25th and the 25th? Yeah, so you have to say this further. You know, we worked very closely with DPA, particular, you know, as you might be aware, the Vermont Principal Association regulates teachers' league play. They were very involved themselves and our guides. So, you know, I think we were very clear all along that we were optimistic, perhaps that's our fault, to try to convey that optimism. Conditions remain positive that we would seem to take that decision. But we were unaware that folks had thought, as far as they had in terms of scheduling games, that's no doubt part of the positive that's been covered. But I think even the other aspect of this is not just it examinates the conditions, it's also us being comfortable that schools are comfortable implementing the GECC, or once again, there's other implications to the step movement that we have to beyond athletics. And I'm hopeful next week that we'll be able to provide some additional clarity on how to proceed. But I can't really predict how that will unfold, but Dr. Dean and his team and our team get together early next week and hopefully provide some additional clarity on this. Okay, so there's no yes or no yet on next weekend? If we're able to provide that next week, I hope that we might be able to, but at this point I don't have any further access. Okay, and then I have one more follow-up. What are some of the specific metrics that are standing in the way of schools moving into step three, and where do they stand in terms of steering those metrics? Yeah, in terms of metrics, as I mentioned, you know, certainly one thing we look at is the overall conditions in the broader society. And I would say when we developed our guidance back in June, there was a consensus among our health experts that schools at that point could open to step three. So we decided to open to step two because we wanted to make sure that the school district would be able to implement the guidance. So that sort of point of looking at the data, I guess we can confirm that we still have very high degree of depression, the virus, and we're comfortable with that. So it's early, you know, school just free open, so we want to be sure. But then the second aspect of school districts being comfortable, successfully re-infoing the guidance, that's the other consideration, and that's something I continually call super tenancy principles on. But ultimately our measure, that is the metric of that, will be the public health information. So if schools are successful in implementing guides, we'll see that manifest itself in the broader educators in our society. Great, thank you so much. And you said that we're expecting some further guidance next week. Yeah, Dr. Levine's team and our team are going to meet next week to discuss this issue. And that basically was just of our announcement the other day that caused a lot of concern. We were just warning people that we are starting as predicted and previously conveyed that we would start this conversation somewhere around the second week of school opening. And we basically shared that with folks the other day. So we'll meet again next week to review the data and assess the situation and hopefully provide some clarity on that issue. Great, thank you so much. The answer, Traladonia record? Yeah, thank you. Good afternoon, Governor. Kingdom Trails, the mountain biking network here in Eastburg announced this week they would have to cancel an annual race that was slated for next month. In doing so, they cited uncertainty of the active 50 jurisdiction on the trail systems and the status of the reform efforts. Can you just outline your position on how you think trail systems should be governed going forward and your reaction to the reform effort as it pertains to trail systems at this point? Yeah, I mean I think we've been quite clear I've been quite clear over the last number of years I think that the trails should be exempt from act 250 and this was our initiative from the very start one of the major components of act 250 reform from my standpoint. So that appears at the very least to be included although it's not permanent. It really just lays it out over I believe it'll be revisited in a couple of years. So it's not everything that we want obviously but it seems to be included in the Senate proposal. So we'll see what happens in the legislature. I just can't tell you whether they'll be moving forward with this or not. Better question for them. Okay, thanks a lot. Okay, I'm Davis. This is a question to the governor. Governor you've taken a very strong leadership role in this whole COVID problem and you can get credit from that from your opponent that doesn't happen every day. What I'm curious about is whether you could say something briefly about what kind of a role leadership role you think you need to play in the overall question of health care reform in Vermont. That issue is not as immediate but it is a huge both medical and financial issue and it is extremely complicated and controversial. So I'm curious where you see, I think it's fair to say that your leadership has not been as outstanding as it has been in COVID. What do you think about that? Yeah, you know, I was when I came into office we had to make some choices about where we moved forward from the Schumann administration. There was a pilot project with the all-payer model. I was, you know, a little apprehensive about that but I decided that we needed to move forward with Secretary Gobey and proving ourselves and we did that over a couple of years and it proved to be effective. We have some work to do though with the all-payer model. It's got some challenges. We just received a letter from the HHS on this and we need to step up. So again, this has been an issue for us over the last two or three decades over numerous administrations but we have to provide a secure, effective, efficient and affordable healthcare system and so it'll remain a focus for us and Secretary Smith might have some details he could elaborate on. See, I can just get a follow-up before hearing from Mike, Governor. This is a narrow point but one of the major players in the whole reform sphere is the Greenmount Care Board and one of the strongest players in the whole reform area is Jessica Holmes, one of five members of the board. Her term on the board expires in 12 days. You've sent a letter to the Goodney Selection Committee asking them to re-appoint her, send her name to you for re-appointment. The problem is that there is a nine-member committee and there's only two members in that committee and neither you nor the Speaker of the House nor the President Pro Tem has filled out the committee. You don't even have a committee operating there. Do you see that as a problem? I would see that as a problem but I'm not sure that's accurate him but I'd be happy to look into it because I believe there's enough members for a quorum on that committee but let me look into it because I just don't know. Well, I may be wrong. But we'll look into it and get back to you on that but I would ask Secretary Smith to weigh in. Thanks, Sam. Your question is timely because I just have recently this week asked my team to bring to me a complete plan for rebooting the all-payer model and the operational aspects of the all-payer model. I've mentioned to the Governor that we need to do this. He's given me the green light to look at sort of rebooting this project. The Vermont all-payer account of the ACO model agreement that we have, the Vermont all-payer accountable care organizational model agreement that we have has been named as innovative of state-based healthcare reform but that's in theory and we need to be better at operationalizing this model. We need to face the challenges in reality if we're going to realize the potential of a statewide payment and delivery reform system. Our healthcare providers are heroes and they showed that during COVID and still show that today but that doesn't mean that the system is perfect and it needs to operate on better I think as we move forward. We need strong partners in this effort and we need solid data and we need facilitation to make the system work better for them and for Vermonters. So I would suspect you're going to see something in the next 40 to 50 days on a plan to look at how we operationalize what in theory is been really lauded as something that we should achieve at but operationally we have we're at the midpoint now we need to sort of change look at our direction and make sure that we're efficient in how we're administering this model and by the way I just want to say this during the height of the pandemic when we were all worried about the healthcare system this model, the all-payer model allowed us the flexibility to move money to places where we could shore up the healthcare system so it's more than in theory it can work we just need to operationalize it better That's it Okay thank you very much for tuning in we'll see you back on Tuesday