 Good morning, everyone. We have just a brief update today, and then we'll go into questions. I wanted to reiterate that I understand how difficult this has been to all Vermonters. We're a little over three months into our response to this global pandemic and almost two months into our efforts to reopen in a measured way so we don't lose ground on the good work to slow the spread. As I've said many times, we know the virus is still here. It didn't magically disappear. It's still among us, which is why we must continue to place restrictions on in order to smother the embers that exist with COVID-19. So we don't have to put out an out of control fire and have that erupt. It's important to remember how far we've come since marriage and our ability to manage and contain it. As I said last week, staying home in March and April just didn't flatten the curve and save lives. It also gave us the time to learn more about this brand new virus, growing our testing and tracing program and supply chains, build our PPE and ventilator stock, and put health and safety procedures in place across all sectors. We've all learned the small things each of us can and must do to limit the spread, including keeping physically separated, washing our hands a lot, wearing masks and more. The knowledge we've gained and the tools we put in place will help us avoid the drastic actions we had to take in March, allowing us to continue reopening and use tracing and testing to contain outbreaks. And let me be clear, we're going to see new cases and outbreaks will continue to happen. It's the nature of this virus and we need to remain vigilant until there's a vaccine or other treatment available to everyone. But I know we can do this and we've already proven just how strong we are and Vermonters have shown tremendous commitment and we need to continue because we know the economic impacts have been severe. And even as we've taken significant steps to restart our economy with over 40,000 Vermonters still out of work, there's still so much more to do. So I thank all of you for what you've done over the last three months and I ask you that you don't let up now and that you keep looking out for each other. That can mean checking in on friends and family who still may be home to stay safe, shopping at your local stores, going to or ordering from nearby restaurants, or exploring Vermont with a staycation at one of the hundreds of great lodging facilities in all parts of the state. You'll be amazed at what you might find right in our own backyard. It also means giving each other the benefit of doubt and believing the best in others. In many other regions across the country, the response to this virus has become polarized. So as we've done in so many other ways, let's set the example in Vermont, continue to get through this by coming together now pulling apart and save our energy to fight against our common enemy, COVID-19, because Vermont is strongest when we pull together with neighbors helping neighbors and uniting around common goals for the greater good. So I thank you, I'll turn it over to Dr. Levine for a health update at this point. And I hope that all of you who are either watching or tuned in are doing that in air condition comfort and being extra vigilant on these very, very hot, humid days. My message today simply is that though the sun is shining, the weather is hot. It's summer vacation season. The state and the country are actively engaged in reopening the economy and life as we once knew it. The novel coronavirus has failed to take notice of any of that. It is here and it doesn't seem to be going anywhere. Now to be fair, the Northeast with declining rates of growth of viral infection is having a better time than the entire southern half and west coast of the country. But as this week began, there were 90 or so countries and half of our states that were reporting increased cases and spikes. In fact, the world increase in one day reported by the WHO was 183,000 cases, which is the largest ever. And 12 states reported new records for numbers of cases in a single day. Interestingly, the demographic with the largest number of new cases is ages 18 to 44. Many attribute this to Memorial Day and to other large mass gatherings, though not amazingly to many of the demonstrations and protests that have been occurring around the country and state. The protests that I've seen both within and outside of Vermont have shown that protesters have great willingness to comply with public health guidance and prevent viral transmission from person to person. But overall, the explanation for why the states with the largest spikes are having them is widely acclaimed to be a breakdown in the willingness of the public to adhere to the simple precepts of avoiding mass gatherings, hence an inability to physically distance and to wear facial coverings. Quite a few weeks ago now, I spoke of what our new normal was going to be, the state of affairs that would exist between now and when we have a vaccine or an easy to administer vaccine antiviral treatment. I spoke of a time when we would need to continue to live in a state and country and world where there remained four rules of thumb for daily living, no matter how sick of these we got. Stay home a fill, wash your hands like crazy, physically distance, and wear facial coverings. Well, that is where we are. The only difference is the difference in compliance when you've been ordered to stay home versus when the state is reopened. So that is the message I'm here to once again deliver. Our lives are getting better every day as we restart Vermont, though I know many are still suffering economically and spiritually, but we can't lose track of the fact that the virus hasn't gone anywhere and we need to continue to be vigilant, cautious, and protective of the most vulnerable in our society and in our own families. With no current hospitalizations and no major growth in our deaths, we are showing what our state and its citizens are truly capable of, but we can't let up. And in public health, as we've said many times here, we expect we will see outbreaks. So our new normal is to quickly respond to new cases or small clusters and prevent them from ever turning into widespread community transmission of virus. Today our state numbers are 1,163 cases, 926 recovered, 56 deaths. The Winooski, Burlington outbreak numbers have increased only ever so slightly with a total case count of 110. Median age continues to be young at 24, 65% adults, 35% children, and only 30% reporting symptomatic illness. A cumulative total of 126 contacts have been associated with the outbreak. 19 contacts have gone on to become cases. We are also involved in several small investigations throughout the state, in Rutland County and Wyndham County predominantly, and have set up pop-up test sites to accommodate local needs. We've also been able to demonstrate the wisdom of our very aggressive protocol surrounding new admissions to facilities where vulnerable populations are housed. We began this in long-term care facilities where it continues to function. We expanded it to correctional facilities and over the weekend we had weekend testing that allowed our correctional facilities and psychiatric institutions to be further aware and protected regarding their vulnerability when someone new is admitted to the facility. Those are my comments and I'll just introduce Secretary Smith to pick up on a few of those themes. Thank you, Dr. Levine. As Dr. Levine said, the agency of human services has six departments, one of them being health and the other another one being the Department of Corrections. I wanted to give you an update on the Department of Corrections. There's been some new updates that I want you to be aware of. A new positive test came in from an inmate, was detected at the Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility on Saturday. This again was a new intake and as Dr. Levine had mentioned and as I had mentioned on Friday, our vulnerability is on when people are entering our facilities and making sure. That's why we're testing upon entry into the facilities. Contact tracing is underway at that facility. The Department of Health and Corrections are coordinating on a mass testing of the Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility. The inmate did have contact with staff and some other inmates, but not the general population. To give you an update on Marble Valley in Rutland, the Marble Valley Regional Correctional Facility in Rutland was tested over the weekend. All staff and inmates other than the one that traveled from Florida that we talked about last week, all staff and inmates at Marble Valley were tested on Saturday. All tests came back negative. Staff and inmates will be tested again today. Next week, the 29th, Monday the 29th, this will follow the enhanced procedures and protocols that Dr. Levine talked about. We'll be doing multiple testing of these facilities when we find a positive like we did in both Marble Valley Regional Correctional Facility and the Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility. Just to give you an update, I mentioned it last week on Friday that we are restarting the independent investigation into corrections that we began last February. That was suspended for the health and welfare of the inmate population during the COVID-19 response. I suspect that that investigation will be up and running within the next 14 days and we'll use all protocols, testing protocols to make sure that the inmates are safe with visitation of the various investigators. That's the update on corrections. Thank you. With that, we'll open up to questions. Governor, on Friday the Vermont House cast a $120 million in economic stimulus including there's some, I just kind of want to get your thoughts on that, but then also there's some $20 million for hazard pay as well, which I know originally has some concerns about just putting together your thoughts on those. Yeah, the concerns first of all, the concerns with hazard pay was whether they would be able to be utilized through the guidelines that the Treasury has outlined. So that's still the case. Just want to make sure that we're able to administer that without the clawback and asking for them to return the Treasury to return the money. As well, they're moving in the right direction. Obviously, it's just a house. We have to make sure that we understand when we see the headlines that the house passed something, that's only halfway. They need the Senate to come in and put their thoughts in place as well. I'm still a little concerned about the capacity. The package we put forth was simple, broad, and tried to put the money out as quickly as possible into the hands of those who need it desperately. They're still short if you take the whole amount of money in aggregate. They're still short money that we had proposed and they put in some guidelines that make it a little more complicated, so I'm concerned about that as well. But again, moving in the right direction, we'll see what the Senate does at this point. And then my next question is just for Commissioner Herring to this piece on. He's not on the line today, but if you maybe pose the question, we can get the answer for you if we don't know them or I don't know them. I can just follow up. I guess this is the last follow-up question then. So, Dr. Wilby, you mentioned investigations in Holzer Bindum and Rutland County. I guess what order are you investigating at this point? So anytime there's a positive test result, that's an immediate connection with someone and an investigation is launched. So we're investigating one worksite in Rutland County and one residential community in Wyndham County. And what kind of residential are they? Automated housing or public housing? I really don't have details on that, to be honest. I mean, just curious, could you all have ski areas and other recreational places that are starting to open up for their summer time activities, whether that's mountain life rentals or gondola rides, things like that? Curious of any specific guidelines that have been provided to those types of recreational businesses, especially in other season shore, back in parks for the ski season, to help them get moving faster and make sure that those big tractions are doing so safely? Yeah, some of the same measures, basic measures that we've talked about a lot. You know, just making personal hygiene, washing your hands a lot, keeping physically separated is important. Mask, if you can, and avoid congregate settings. I think Secretary Curley might be on the phone as well. She might be able to elaborate on some of the conditions with the recreation aspect. Secretary Curley? Yes, Governor, I'm on. I could tell there was a question about the options. Yeah, it was more about the ski areas and the regulations put in place specifically for them and anticipation of them ramping up for the winter season as well and what this could mean. Is that right? Yes. Yeah, currently under the guidance on the website, I would encourage you to go there to check that out in terms of what it will look like for the winter. We aren't specifying right now what winter would look like, rather we're trying to get everybody open. Obviously, we said that it's going to be a long time before it looks like we did when we completely shut down but we're working toward that. And if you want to talk more broadly on that, feel free to take it offline. But again, there's guidance on our website and outdoor recreation and ski areas certainly can be operating now as long as they follow all the guidance. It's really about the how. We want to open up every sector and it's just about how you do that and how you keep people safe. Where to the phones? Mike's on here, the islander. This is for the governor, commissioner, the free food distribution program during COVID-19 is an important program. But like any government program, there's ways and fraud. It appears some people got free food and turned around and tried to sell it to make money. A reader from Brompton shared a screenshot with me with one person showing the food she was trying to sell. Another person on Facebook called her out and she claimed she had no place to store the food and somebody suggested donating it to the food shelf. I'm wondering what the state is seeing in the way of fraud or food getting into the wrong hands in this important program. Yeah, Mike, I had not seen that and that's really unfortunate. This is a program that many Vermonters need and that's why we want to make sure in the hands of those who need it the most. I'm going to let Secretary Smith talk a little bit about the food program because we've been trying to highlight that where we saw the lines that had evolved when we opened those distribution sites up and we're concerned about the people who weren't there, those who didn't have vehicles and so forth. So Secretary Smith, do you want to elaborate? Sure, Governor, and thank you very much, Mike, for the question. Obviously, we'll look into anybody that is committing fraud in these food distribution program. This is a great program. The Farm to Family program that you've been seeing is a great program. I do have a few concerns with the program from my perspective. There's four solid reasons to find a better way to distribute food than the current system. First, there is the public safety aspect of this. People waiting hours in cars, especially those with small children and older Vermonters on hot days like today in the summer is just not safe. Second, people have been frustrated by the long waits, especially when the food runs out or they simply turn around discouraged by the lines. And then third, we need to get those, and I've said this from the podium before, we need to get those in need onto sustainable programs, food assistance programs, SNAP or three squares as we call it in Vermont. And fourth, we need to give those in need some dignity in how we distribute food to them. So the registration, we put in place just recently a registration program that has three fundamental goals. It makes distribution more effective and efficient without the long wait. People will not be frustrated or discouraged. In fact, the registration system has not resulted in any recent reductions in participation. It's also safer for the participants and it allows for the distribution of more sustainable program information, three squares, for example. Beyond that, just so that all Vermonters know, we'll continue to help with the distribution as appropriate. But we need to get the Farm to Family program, which again is a great program by the way, and I thank our partners in the food distribution network, food shelves in particular, back to our normal food distribution channels at the local food bank level, where there's more predictability and sustainability. We, the state and the guard, which you've got to call out the guard here, they've done an amazing job, can assist where there are gaps and will continue to assist where there are gaps. But the quicker we can get back to our existing food distribution infrastructure, the better and maybe eliminate some of the things, Mike, that you're bringing up in your comments. None of this food distribution, and this is important, none of this food distribution on a statewide level couldn't have been done without the dedication and coordination of the state and guard in partnership with local food banks and anti-hunger advocates. Our goal of getting food to people in need is demonstrable and mutual. What's the level of fraud you're seeing? What's that? What is the level of fraud you're seeing? We have not been aware of any fraud at the moment, but we certainly will look in based upon what you have raised. One follow-up for the Governor from Friday, we had asked you about police accountability. There was another just timed up case over the weekend of one public involving a Vermont State Police Lieutenant. I'm wondering as Governor, what your personal belief is as to whether it's overdue for bad behaving troopers to be treated like municipal police, county sheriffs after the Glenmore open and not hidden behind doors like SPAC has for 40 years? Well, again, we need to be more transparent to give the general public our constituents' faith in the process. So we'll see where that all goes. I know Commissioner Sherling had laid out different proposals to the legislature for consideration and body cameras was one of those considerations that I think we should move forward on, but we're willing to have the conversation across the board. I'm talking more about the actual discipline when somebody does do something bad. Yeah, again, willing to have the conversation and I believe we're going to have more conversation. It won't be just in this legislative session, but I would suspect ongoing even in the next legislative session. Would you personally favor more transparency than what's been going on for the last few years? I'm not going to comment on what's been going on. I just believe basically and fundamentally in more transparency. I think that we need more faith and trust in government and you do that by being transparent. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Avery, WCAX? Senator Scott, can you give us any indication about what big a turn we might be expecting Wednesday or Friday? We'll see a little bit more. I want to get up as you have seen. We've gotten up to 50% capacity in many areas and we'll watch the data, watch the number of cases continue to come in possibly this week to make a final determination, but I want to get us all to a 50% level by July 1. So I think you could expect if things continue to move similar to what we've seen over the last couple of weeks that we could open up most sectors to 50%. Andrew, can you make a record? Yes, good morning. Thanks again for taking all of these questions. This is for Dr. Levine. I'm curious about the status of community transmission versus known exposure in recent weeks. I know the Northeast Kingdom has seen only about seven cases over the last three weeks and non-reported in Essex County in over a month. While the risk always exists, can you determine if certain reasons are actually experiencing community transmission or not? Sure, thanks for that. Community transmission to our best analysis right now is not a major factor in what's going on in Vermont. Even when we look at our largest outbreak, the majority of what we're seeing is within households, within the community and easily traceable contacts within the network as opposed to widespread transmission of illness across each of the communities involved. Similarly, you heard earlier today about a case here and there in the correctional facility. We're not having anything more than that in those facilities. We're not having anything widespread in long-term care facilities and the couple of new clusters that I've mentioned really are I would call them confined in a very small way as opposed to lots of activity around. I think in support of all of that is the fact that when you look at our number of daily new incident cases, most days that remains very small and single-digit numbers. When you look at the percent of our tests that are positive on a given day that continues to be well below 2 percent and often below 1 percent. We would see some of those concerning indicators really starting to move in the wrong direction if there was community transmission occurring. We're pretty comfortable with that now, but again, we have our guard up all the time and that's why I'd like Vermonters to also have their guard up all the time and make sure that these phenomena of hand-washing facial coverings don't just drift away because they really are the reason for this success. For all of you, you were starting to touch what advice would you give to people that are allowing fear of the virus to interrupt plans that might otherwise be allowed by the state guidelines? Do you see a point where a healthy caution develops into something that is excessive? So I like fear to be appropriate fear and not inappropriate fear so when I've talked about those who are of older age or have some chronic conditions we are not telling them to do nothing and I've tried to emphasize that very, very clearly. But to be very measured in their approach and to choose wisely not to choose something that might put them at higher risk because of the size of a gathering or their inability to really physically distance in that setting but to choose something that they'd be able to have more control over themselves but still be out and about in doing things that they enjoy to do in Vermont. So I'm not hearing that fear is playing a tremendous role in our population right now and so I wouldn't want people to get overly carried away because I've said the virus is still there and you're going to encounter it. The reality is the virus is still there but you don't have to encounter it if you try to play your cards just right and do all the things you want to do in a controlled way that I've sort of emphasized. The state has opened up a lot but certainly when you compare our reopening to many many other places it's been very very measured and done in a very phased way and looking at data and people can feel comfortable that if we're making a move it's because we've looked at the data from the previous weeks and really haven't seen a reason for concern or a reason to interrupt the progression of what's going on and what's getting restarted. So they should take comfort in that that we're being very compulsive if you will about the process that we're using so their fear would not be well founded if that was why they were concerned. Thank you very much. Hi Governor I've fallen up from what Dr. Levine just mentioned about opening up a hypothetical way and states that are opening up more rapidly on spikes in new cases even though they're pretty far away you know we've seen that being made from Florida come here bring the virus with them would there come a point where even if the region were doing well we'd have to put the brakes on reopening the Vermont economy because of what's happening even farther away in the U.S. Tim we certainly hope that's not the case but as we've said in the past we'll do what we can to protect Vermonters we've been doing this slowly methodically measured and opening up the region I think you'll see more of that we're seeing some good news and some of those hot spots like New York City New York in general as well as in Massachusetts New Jersey and Rhode Island so Connecticut as well we're seeing some good news and so in the future we'll continue to expand the Northeast possibly to other states as well so that we can enjoy some more tourism and guests here in the state to get back on track to where we should be we'll see what happens with the other states where you're flying in but certainly at this point in time that goes in a drivable distance to Vermont we want to encourage in any way we can to take advantage of our beautiful state you comment on the racial incident that happened last night I know that NASCAR something followed quite closely and it's been a very big news story today yeah really disturbing and concerning but I will say this NASCAR a leader on this front Bubba Wallace with the 43 car who who's been also an advocate for not allowing the Confederate flag on the premises of any NASCAR event and was successful in doing that NASCAR followed suit they will get to the bottom of this this was a very close contact area not many people were allowed into this garage area so they know who they are and I have no doubt that they are working feverishly to put an end to this it does highlight the fact that just by this regulation doesn't mean the the situation goes away we have so much more work to do collectively as a country to make sure that we put a stop to this racial inequity and we listen to one another and we listen to the the black community in particular so the good news is they are taking this seriously they will get to the bottom of it of course the concerning news is that it happened at all but it shows just how far we have to go to put an end to this I would like to start by asking for an update on the USVIS layoffs or furloughs and any other government sector furloughs or layoffs they understand that health and border protection jobs may be next but they have seen a pretty significant loss in revenue I have not had any further updates from what we gave you I think on Friday or maybe it was Wednesday but have not heard anything more obviously we are concerned about it as well reached out to the congressional delegation as well as to the federal government to tell us a little bit more but we have not heard anything back to my knowledge okay thank you and for today's question here beginning on Friday and lasting for most of the weekend the town of Montgomery and Sheldon at least and maybe some other ones in there saw pretty substantial outage by consolidated communications for telephone and internet which also happened to affect the AT&T towers in the area so many people were also without cell phone coverage spoke to one business who after struggling to get through the shutdown was not able to even process credit cards over the weekend so they were very limited to just cash your administration has proposed tens of millions of dollars in federal carers money to be spent on high speed internet and you have likened this to the Rural Electrification Act in 1936 of course electricity only works a few hours a day and you never knew what hours it was we would not really rely on electricity to make review today so how is your administration going to make sure that this money is being used to build out infrastructure that's reliable yeah well first of all we have to see what the legislature does with their proposal building this out what we're proposing isn't going to go far enough either we need a congressional act in some respects a federal action as a result of this I think it highlights the need throughout our country for high speed internet broadband as well as making sure it's reliable I think that that's important as well maybe even more important so we'll continue to advocate for that I don't believe I have anyone on from the public service department to comment on the consolidated issue that they had on Friday but I will certainly ask the commissioner and ask her to give you a call for comment on that that'd be great and just one more quick question that I've been hearing the last couple of days from people in the area on this two years ago high speed broadband was a major talking point to campaign and pledges were made by Christine Honclas to expand broadband throughout the state is it fair to say that Vermont would have been more technologically equipped for this pandemic had she been elected in 2018 I have no idea and the money still has to come from somewhere my issue in that respect I think everyone agreed that we need more higher speed more accessible broadband throughout the state but it was a question of where was the money going to come from the question is still there without federal action without spending hundreds of millions of dollars we won't have it so we received this CARES money we are proposing to use part of that for higher speed higher capacity and more widespread broadband and I think that the legislature feels the same way but even that money doesn't go far enough it's just not enough to satisfy the need so again that's something that I don't know how we would determine that but what would we have done without had we spent hundreds of millions of dollars for high speed broadband over the last two years and we have moved forward our department of public services has done a lot in this regard with more of the community initiatives that we've put forth and again utilizing some of the money that we're receiving from the CARES Act would be appropriate but we need more federal action for this to be significant Thank you, Governor Joe, the Barton Chronicle given the apparent lack of more COVID cases after significant numbers of people out in the streets for the demonstrations is this information going to be factored into decisions about opening outdoor events more than have in the case so far and is this useful information? Yeah, I would say so I've said this from the start it might tell us something about the spread of the virus it might tell us something as well about the number of protesters that we saw exercising their First Amendment rights and being masked while doing it I think that tells a lot so if we can do this safely we're not trying to punish anyone but we're utilizing the information we have available to us at this point we had to first reduce the congregate settings the number of people getting together but it does somewhat tell us a story and if we can prove that we can have more people which we've done, actually we've allowed for more people to get together this might be something we'll learn from this Dr. Levine, anything you want to add in that regard? He's shaking his head now It's 150 Yeah, we're up to 150 at this point and this might tell the story about how we can open it up further which is our intention is to continue to expand in a methodical way Thank you We've heard many times of these updates the phrase until there's a vaccine available How confident are we that a vaccine will be effective and how much of our state's planning for the future depends on having one Well, we're not you know we want there to be a vaccine that's developed How soon that is, I'm not sure that anyone knows I know there are a lot of different entities working on this and I have confidence that they'll come up with something but it has to be effective it also has to be widespread so that we can distribute it to a large amount of people and so we'll see what happens in the future In the meantime, what we need to do is deal with reality and that's why we talk all the time about physically distancing ourselves hygiene washing your hands a lot wearing a face mask when you can I mean those types of things simple things that we're doing are effective so we can't just wait for the virus or for the vaccine to be developed we have to deal with the reality of today Dr. Levine You know, in the scientific community you rarely see the kind of optimism that we're seeing about vaccine right now because a number of the vaccine candidates as they're called have already reached phase 2 and on the verge of phase 3 trials and considering the virus has only been here since February you never see things go that fast and things get advanced to that level of vaccine development that quickly it's also felt that the sort of spike proteins that are on the coronavirus that you see every time you see a picture of the coronavirus make excellent antigens if you will for a vaccine to be effective with though I'm not with the truly I won't call it a fringe in but the community that feels that before Thanksgiving we're going to be all vaccinated I think that's a bit overzealous I'm certainly in the group of people who feels that we are in an advanced pace of vaccine development so something that normally might take 18 months or 24 months maybe we can cut that 12 months to 18 months something of that sort so I would be optimistic about that with regard to how dependent is the state no it's really not the state it's the world how dependent is the world on the vaccine development because the bottom line is most of the models that are now being looked at for what's going to happen in the future they talk about the resurgence in the fall and maybe that persisting longer but a lot more people now are talking about what we're seeing today around the country and around the world is the future and this is the way it's going to be kind of just a prolonged bout with the virus trying to contain it every time we can find the ability to do so when we encounter it so just using that approach constantly all the time which again then means all of the things the governor just said and that I've said earlier today about what we have to do ourselves personally in terms of our own responsibility to really continue that because without a vaccine assuming the viral activity remains the way I've just described where it's here and it's not going to be quiet it's going to have punctuations of noise that we have to try to suppress that's really determining what we do with the future whether there's a vaccine or no vaccine it's not the vaccine possibility sort of guiding us it's just the fact that this is how we have to contend with the virus given the back and forth that we've seen with serology testing and some of the concerns about the accuracy of rapidly developed medical technology what do we need to see in a vaccine before the state would endorse it as something for monsters should get on a large scale yeah so clearly when a vaccine becomes available we have to number one believe that it has the efficacy the benefits that it's touted to have so that it's been through the appropriate trials and shown how protective it is so that we don't falsely reassure people you get the vaccine and you're invincible get out there without a mask and live your life we want to know for sure that it works in a large percentage of people equally important is the safety aspect and that's why the earliest vaccine trials are not actually directed to how effective it is as much as is it going to hurt anybody in a big way so we need to know that for sure because like any medication a vaccine not that it's a traditional medication there's always that potential for it to have harm even though with most of the vaccines we use nowadays that's a very very minor percentage of what happens and then lastly we want to know it's been studied on a large enough population that some of those more unusual side effects would have come out then because when anything new comes on the marketplace that's medical and that's a treatment it's studied in a limited number of people and we hope that what we find in those studies we can extrapolate to the general population but we really need to know that it had been studied in a large enough population that it would be safe for the population at large to benefit from and that segments of that population it would benefit so not just middle aged males or college aged males who tend to be enrolled in trials of medication but women but children the elderly if the list goes on we want to make sure that each of those populations has had a sample in the bigger trials so that we know that it's safe and effective in those and then lastly to finally answer the end of your question you need to have the capacity to be able to deliver the vaccine to the population that's one thing to say we've got something that works and then you don't have the needles you don't have the syringes you don't have the supply of the vaccine you don't have the refrigeration capabilities all of that so that's why we've stood up an entire working group already with this in mind for the future so that all of these I'll call them logistic but they're much more than logistic considerations can be taken care of because we want this to turn out like PPE turned out in March for the country or testing turned out in March for the country if there's a vaccine and it works we want people to benefit from it and by the way we want Vermont to get as much of it as it can early on and make sure that we get it because we've demonstrated we have the capacity to deliver it to the whole population in a methodical way that we've thought out already and planned for so does that mean Vermont is already acquiring supplies like those needles refrigeration technology syringes things like that or is the working group working on where would those come from still? Yeah the working group is really developing their entire process task list supply needs everything we figured this is way early enough we're here in June and if we have this together in a couple of weeks we'll really know what we need to be accessing just like with the PPE you know where everybody's hypothesizing about a need in the fall well we've been planning for the fall for a while now and we're still planning for the future in terms of making sure we have more than enough not less. Good afternoon I'm just wondering if if you can say what factors define a cluster and and trigger a pop-up testing site? Sure so obviously you don't know anything until you have one case so that presumes that either clinically someone's determined someone has COVID or through a test site for whatever reason person was symptomatic not symptomatic or needed to get a test for another purpose whatever but they've turned positive or maybe they and other members of their family have turned positive or other members of their work site what have you so you quickly assess exactly what are the characteristics of the couple of positives you've seen and then that's when the work of interviewing and what we call contact tracing occurs it's easy enough to connect with the first couple of people give them instructions as to isolation and what they need to do and how to work with their healthcare providers medically speaking but then it's really a matter of determining what the risk level is for those who surround those people so if we're going to call something a cluster it generally means there's a couple of index cases if you will and we feel that there's sufficient risk that a pop up site would be appropriate so that those who were at risk don't have to jump through a lot of hoops to get tested it's made very easy for them bringing the testing to the door so to speak so it makes it much easier to early on identify who's at risk who may actually have contracted the virus and who is just at risk but would be at high risk of developing illness and then giving it to others so that we can manage their isolation appropriately so when a pop up site is set up it's because we have a concern about the greater community it doesn't mean we know something special and we expect hundreds of people to be infected it just means we want to make sure we can work in a very expeditious fashion to help people understand their own risk help them get tested and identify anybody who might need to be isolated and I was wondering if more information will be made public about what inspired the sites in Butler County and Linden County yeah so obviously these are very early and in epidemiology everyone has got accustomed to us characterizing cases and what's going on on the ground so to speak but every time we do that it means we've done investigation so epidemiology a big portion of it is detective work and like a good detective in the public safety sector you don't talk about things that you don't know anything about yet or that might actually mislead people so just because we know of a few cases we don't know the whole story so if we're not releasing a lot of information in the first day or two it's because we actually want to know what we're talking about have accurate information have characterized the nature of that cluster or outbreak or whatever we're calling it at the time and don't want to mislead people with false information so that's where we're at at this point thank you Colin, BT Digger Hi, thank you all very much I have some follow-up questions about the case in Chisholm Regional I guess those are probably best directed at Secretary Smith I was wondering when the case was identified first Thanks Colin the case was identified on Saturday Part of the normal routine of checking inmate into the prison basically That's what happened the test result of an intake revealed this positive My understanding of the policies is that inmates wouldn't be sort of contacting other inmates until this test had been conducted or did this contact happen before the test? The contact happened they did have contact with staff and some other inmates they didn't have contact with the general population we're trying to figure that out right now Colin could you repeat the question? You mean you're trying to determine how they came into contact with other inmates? Yes I think you might either I don't know if you're done or you're just breaking up but we can't hear you here Can you hear me now? Yes The prisoner also entered outside today is that right? I don't have the information on the entry I know that it was detected and I'll get that I'll follow up that information when the entry actually happened but it was detected at the facility on Saturday that's the information I have right now Who came into contact with this person or being isolated now? I believe that's the case right now but Colin I will double check on that as well they're certainly being tested Just one question for Governor Scott sort of following up on something from last week you mentioned you might follow up with your people about having CREF conferences again that don't necessarily focus on COVID-19 I was wondering if you had a chance to explore that any further? Yeah, I haven't looked into that more I think we have broadened some of the scope of these I mean we're not talking about just COVID cases today or on Friday or last Wednesday so they have broadened but we're taking under advisement as to whether we reduce the number per week We'll go to Kevin at BT Digger Good morning, this is a question for whoever would like to answer it I'm here in Brattleboro I saw the pop-up testing and then drove about 10 miles north on Route 32 a very popular swimming hole where I counted about 100 out-of-state calls or out-of-state cars and trucks none of those people were wearing masks and likewise when I was interviewing people in terms of did they understand Vermont's quarantine guidelines or Vermont's travel guidelines pretty much they all said no or they felt that because it was just a day trip across the border that they didn't count. I guess I'm sort of hearing similar stories in terms of issues with swimming holes during the T wave and likewise is is there a reaction or response to that kind of a story? Yeah Kevin we did, I did see some stories revolving around Lake Champlain and some other opportunities where people were getting out this weekend and not wearing masks unfortunately sometimes the masks and water don't go hand in hand and so that's been problematic but it is concerning the trend that we're seeing in some areas some are very proactive wearing masks in other areas not as much I would in terms of the quarantine you might be able to tell me this but most of of New Hampshire and Maine and part of Massachusetts and a good share of New York have qualified in terms of our 400 cases active cases per million threshold so we have opened up to some of those bordering and bordering communities bordering counties around Vermont so maybe maybe you could were they outside of those counties? They were a lot from Boston New York City, Connecticut you know when we looked at the masks they were definitely either yellow or red zones and again partly they just didn't know they had not been on the state website had not seen anything in terms of the news but then in some cases the feeling was well I'm just here for the afternoon so I don't qualify for difficult to get the message out to everyone and we put up signage along our roadways and so forth about quarantines and to check before you come to Vermont and it's clear the other way as well New Hampshire, Maine as well as Massachusetts and so forth have those requirements throughout the Northeast it seems like all states have some sort of quarantine that people just aren't aware of so it's a communication problem I don't have the answer we're doing the best we can and getting that out and I know you are as well in the media trying to get that message out but it's hard to hit everyone and it's been again one of those frustrating areas where people just are willing but don't know just aren't looking far enough When municipal playgrounds were open I was wondering if you had any thoughts or had me potentially to that You know we were just talking about this this morning and I will look into that Certainly the playgrounds are somewhat problematic because there's a lot of hygiene issues kids touching everything and so that's that's been a concern of ours but I really I don't have the answer that but I'd be happy to take a look and bring that up with a group Any discussion of what measures you could take to mitigate the sanitary issues You know I I just don't know at this point in time until we have the conversation I know why we close them and as you might imagine it would be difficult for someone to be wiping down all of the slides and so forth that we have all the touch points we have any recreational type of facility especially with kids So we're going to have the conversation I just don't have the answer for you at this point in time Hi Governor this question is for you I was wondering if you share do you have any thoughts about the legislature not taking up any of the prison reforms that including one specifically that would bar all the FD workers from any sexual relations with those in the system May I let Secretary Smith cover part of that but just as a reminder I'm not sure that you know the session is not over obviously they're going into recess there's other opportunities when they come back in August but Secretary Smith as you know I was hopeful that they would take these up I'm still hopeful that at some point they would take these up I can understand given the circumstances with COVID-19 and some of the distraction away from there my hope is that we will continue to do this I think it's imperative that we do some of the things that I had outlined in that memo it seems years ago now but in November or December I think this was the first issue that I dealt with so I'm hopeful that they will start taking up some of these issues particularly around behavior also recruiting and some other areas that we had recommended for our reform package for correctional officers but follow-up for you Governor on an unrelated topic I was just wondering if you could share your thoughts about the pushback in the House Juneteenth vote on Friday and whether you would have voted for the resolution if you were still in the legislature from my standpoint I probably would have continued to vote in favor of it I thought it was unfortunate that when the had said if you just would remove the mention of President Trump that they could have gotten behind it and maybe had 100% of the House voting in favor of that resolution it was just a moment in time when you could unite around a common cause and sent a message but unfortunately that did not happen they weren't successful in having that removed the mention of President Trump but again from my standpoint I would have voted for it but I understand that it came down to politics and it's unfortunate because again just removal of that section would have sent a powerful message I think they were all in this together we believe in the message of really thinking about how powerful Juneteenth was and is and how we should recognize it more in the future so I just thought it was unfortunate Just to push back on that a little bit do you think that politics can be removed from this conversation? You've talked at length about some of these issues in the recent weeks and you've obviously made your case with some of the President's comments clear I mean do you think that politics will not play into the discussion right now? Well I think you could have a separate resolution on the President if it came down to whether you pass 90% of a resolution with 100% behind you I think again that's a powerful statement President Trump is just a snapshot in time in some respects he may not be with us after November who knows what's going to happen in this next election but Juneteenth is going to be with us throughout eternity and it's about again reflecting on the significance of that date and what it meant to Americans what it meant to our country and we should reflect on that and work on that and make sure that we realize how significant that was and how much more work we have to do in order to get to a place that we want to be so again from my standpoint I would have had I been a leader in the body I would have taken that out had the vote and then developed another resolution on the rest of it so that you could have at least sent the message so that we're united in this cause for the common good Lisa the AP Lisa AP yes thanks the legislature wants to wrap up this week and they're planning to allocate about a billion dollars from the CARES Act and then save about 250 million and they're planning to pass a first quarter budget and then come back in August I think when they know more about the state's fiscal health and what money will be available to help state and local government cope and I'm just wondering Governor what do you think of what they're doing well again you know we're trying to figure out exactly what's in the economic package what we put forward what they're covering it still appears that there's a significant amount that's not included it's become a little bit more complicated from the House perspective it still has to go through the Senate there's still a lot of work to do this week and I understand the need to wrap things up and get moving I just I'm not sure if they can get it all done in this week but they may and then come back in August I think that makes sense we'll know more about what our fiscal health is and have you know maybe a little bit more recognition of how things are playing out in terms of the coronavirus and their economy as well again I think they will have to come back quarter one budget again we would we had included a 2% reduction in the first quarter because we know that there's going to be a deficit to stop that to allow us to spend up to the full 25% 100% of the quarter of last year so we'll see how that plays out but again I believe regardless there's going to be a deficit when we get back in August okay but it makes sense to you to come back in August I think yeah I don't see any other way around that I think it's a good plan to go and have one quarter of the budget done and then we'll have a better idea of where we are in reality okay and then I have a question for Dr. Levine we had a couple weeks there where we had new cases that were in the single digits and then I noticed just in the last few days versus Friday maybe the last few days we've had 10 or 12 new cases every day and I was just wondering do you know what's going on there I know you said that community transmission doesn't need to be a big deal in Vermont but is that what's happening with those numbers yeah so on one day over the weekend we had 12 cases yesterday 4 cases the day before the 12 cases was 4 cases I believe so certainly not a trend but I can bring my slide with me today to show you the new cases but it's been up and down in a low range still but not as low as it was prior to the Winooski Burlington outbreak but still you know we have to be careful how we use the term community transmission I mean obviously these are cases arising in a community so that's fine but they're not necessarily spreading throughout that community and they're kind of what we expect like I said we expect if we continue to test at this capacity we will find cases and if we continue to have people doing what we're actually allowing them to do which is re-engage and that together with other people we will find cases but we're not alarmed by the total numbers per day that we've been seeing in the certainly in the last week or 10 days for sure okay thank you I'm going to go back to Guy Page whenever yesterday a parent of young children asked me to ask you quote, why are playgrounds are still cut up with more wire than an East German Burger Crossing while some municipal and school playgrounds are open on a playground risk many are simply closed I understand school playgrounds will be open with restrictions this fall but on behalf of the 1 and 8permoners 9 years old or under and their parents and child care workers can you say when all public playgrounds will be open this summer yeah Guy I don't know if you heard my answer before someone else asked the same question about when those would be open up we were talking about this morning and I wasn't to be honest with you I wasn't quite sure whether they were open or not so we'll have the discussion obviously the touch points multiple touch points and a playground are significant for a lot of kids a lot of touch points hard to clean and so forth so but we'll have the conversation because I think especially during the summer we need to make sure there was activities for our kids you talked a little bit about how you were waiting for more information in the Berlin community to be able to define whether it was boxed in, contained, sort of like what stage we were at do you have a better sense now of what stage that situation is at sure it's it's so common to use the forest fire analogies these days so I would use the term smoldering it's not completely over we know that we haven't even gone through that additional 14 day cycle that we wanted to go through but the most recent cases that have been added to the list to get to the 110 some of them are true new cases a number of them are contacts that converted to cases a number of them are cases that we already knew about in the community and it already been tallied up as a case in Vermont but we hadn't attributed it to the outbreak itself so I'm still obviously we're doing what we can to contain it and we're doing a great job actually but the bottom line is to say that it's fully contained it's not quite there yet but I can imagine with you again and just say that until we really don't have anything new associated with it it's not 100% over but clearly we've received incredible compliance by all who have been affected by this and there's every indication it's going in the right direction and actually the following up on a question that was earlier about these clusters I guess you're trying to define what they are in Wyndham County and Rutland County can you get some specific details I know you're still in your investigative phase but about the scope are you talking about less than five cases, more than five cases just what are the parameters and specific details that you can give now about those clusters? Sure so only aware of two affected individuals in the Rutland County but we're aware that there may be others who may have symptoms so obviously we're waiting testing there and in Wyndham County two adults and four children Finally I want to follow up on Governor with you on something you mentioned right at the very beginning of the conference you spoke a little bit about how we might need to continue to place restrictions to smother the embers of this virus in the early days of this pandemic you've kind of signaled a lot about when you might be placing new restrictions on the state and I'm wondering are you doing that here is there anything that's happening that you're seeing as concerning that might cause you to restrict some of the opening that we've been seeing in the state right now? No not at all not at this point in time that if we have to we'll put those into place but at this point we're still opening up and hopefully we'll have some more announcements by the end of the week Chris being too much of a pessimist can you sort of share a little bit about what might cause you to go back and place some restrictions what are the numbers that you're looking at or where would they have to reach? Yeah I mean I think you can look back in terms of what we've done when we reopen I'm concerned about more of a geographical a number of geographical areas being impacted with outbreaks I'm worried about the capacity of our health care system and just the number of positive active cases and so forth so again we'll rely on the data rely on the health department team the epidemiologists and others to determine when that is but at this point in time I'm not seeing any concern from my standpoint Can you hear me? Can Thank you one for the doctor one for the governor if I may Dr. Levine we've got a word up here in the kingdom area that there's been no testing of nursing home employees and given that prevalence and danger to older folks do you have any plans for testing nursing home employees? I believe we have we have tested nursing home employees and we certainly have had pop-up testing in the northeast kingdom in fact I think there was some even today or a plan for today or tomorrow but anyhow I'll let Dr. Levine answer. The entire group between the department of health and the department of disabilities aging and independent living putting together the kind of testing plan that you're talking about for the future but the future is kind of now so the facility that you're referring to I'm sure hasn't had to do anything as of today but we're working with all the facilities around the state to actually implement plans where staff members and residents can undergo a testing protocol because we do recognize just like you said that these are the most vulnerable so it's coming soon absolutely now they should have still been able to implement their sort of summertime out in the open air visitation policy which we announced last week in anticipation of actually the father's day weekend but part of the reopening of nursing homes and long-term care facilities as we're calling that part of that reopening is actually tied into more aggressive testing protocols okay soon then thank you Governor is the state still running the non-compliance reporting line and website us Commissioner Shirling I believe that's still up Commissioner Shirling that's correct Governor it's still up although the number of reports has dramatically decreased over time okay and Commissioner Shirling when will we have have access to the data I mean obviously you probably want to remove the names of the people reporting and things like that but when will when will we be able to maybe take a look at the at the results or at the aggregate of that program we have been releasing that data on a rolling basis in response to a number of inquiries so if you reach out to our RFEI I'm sure he can get you the most recent numbers okay and who would that be Adam Silverman Adam Silverman okay great alright thank you all very much Courtney local 22 hi quick question in regards to first steps of when you see in Burlington outbreak I'm just wondering it's testing it's still available throughout the week and additionally in regards to outbreaks and smaller things like that I'm wondering in order to get tested do you have to be living in that municipality where the outbreaks happen to be able to get tested I can answer the second part you don't have to be a member of the community to get tested there if you want to test you can get a test even if you live in another area of the state okay thank you the first three days of this week Monday through Wednesday testing is available in Winooski at the O'Brien Center I believe and the last three days of this week testing is available in Burlington thank you I should note that there's other pop-up testing throughout the state as well not just in Winooski and in the Chittenden County area but throughout the state okay thank you Lisa the Valley report hello thanks for taking my call my question is about the border with Canada are there any instances or circumstances in which people are allowed to travel through Canada or into Canada perhaps visit a family member or yes are there any what are those guidelines I believe I believe there are but I don't know what the circumstances are but it's fairly limited but I believe that you can is anyone on the line that may have the answer to that for Lisa if not we can get it for you or point you in the right direction that would be great hearing none we'll get you the answer to that okay thank you very much okay well again thank you very much for tuning in and we'll see you on Wednesday