 We appreciate your attendance this morning. We will have three speakers, Dr. Stuart Bell, Dr. Ricky Friend, and Mayor Walt Maddox. Each of them will provide some brief comments, and then we will have a Q and A. When it's time for the Q and A, we would ask that you please address the individual who you would like to answer your question by name so that they can return to the podium to answer your question. Thanks again for being here, and at this time I'd like to welcome Dr. Stuart Bell, President of the University of Alabama. Well, good morning. Can you all hear me okay? I'd like to take this opportunity to welcome everyone on behalf of the University of Alabama and the city of Tuscaloosa, and we appreciate your attendance today. Before I begin, I would like to take a moment to recognize a number of important university as well as city officials who have joined us today to show their support. First of all, we have the UA System Chancellor, St. John, who's with us, Fast St. John, and I know there's a number of other system individuals who are with us as well. Thank you for your attendance. We have our SGA President, DeMarcus Joyner. DeMarcus, thank you for being here. Alabama Athletics Director of Sports Medicine, Jeff Allen. Thank you, Jeff. Our Chief Medical Officer for DCH, Dr. Robin Wilson. Thank you for being here, Dr. Wilson. Our Dean of our UA College of Community Health Sciences, Dr. Ricky Friend, and he will be speaking in just a moment. Thank you for being here, Ricky. Of course, our Tuscaloosa Mayor, Walt Maddox. Mayor, thank you for your support. And I believe we also have a number of city officials who are here, and I'll let the mayor make those introductions in a few moments, but I do want to just thank you all for your attendance and for all you're doing to support our community as well as the university. Well, as you all know that we have spent the better part of the last five months working days and nights preparing for our students to return. We have deployed every resource at our disposal to provide comprehensive testing, contact tracing protocols, education and training programs, and we've redesigned and equipped our infrastructure to ensure that our classrooms, our dining facilities, our residence halls, and other places on campus are as safe as they can be for our students, for our faculty and for our staff. I want to express my appreciation to Chancellor Bess St. John and the UA System Health and Safety Task Force for their tremendous support leadership throughout this process. I'm also grateful to our faculty, our staff, our student leadership, our situational response team, the COVID support team, and many others who have been working tirelessly over the past few weeks to support our campus and to support our students. And finally, I want to say thank you to our students, to our parents, to their families who have entrusted us to provide a safe environment for them to continue to learn and to grow. By returning to the capstone this fall, they have demonstrated the incredible value that they place on the Alabama experience and I want them to know how much we appreciate them, how hard we are working to keep the Alabama experience that they cherish intact. As I stated in a letter to our community yesterday, although our initial reentry test was encouraging, the rise in COVID cases that we've seen in recent days is unacceptable and if unchecked, threatens our ability to complete the semester on campus. Now is the time for action. And in addition to the stringent measures already taken on campus, we've asked for additional support from Mayor Maddox, the Tuscaloosa Police Department, local business community, and many others. We are grateful to the mayor and his team for their partnership and willingness to explore all options that will help us navigate this pandemic and complete a successful fall. Before we hear from Mayor Maddox, I'd like to ask Dr. Ricky Fren to share a few words. Dr. Fren is Dean of the College of Community Health Sciences, is a member of our situational response team. He has spearheaded our testing efforts on campus and has worked closely with the UA Health and Safety Task Force with CD officials, both for our return efforts, but also in emerging testing issues. Dr. Fren. Thank you, Dr. Bell, I can hear me fine, I'm sure it sounds like. Welcome everybody, thank you for joining us today. I'm Dr. Ricky Fren, Dean of the College of Community Health Sciences, and as many of you may know, CCHS has led the campus-wide testing efforts since early in the pandemic. Our ability to keep campus safe and informed has hinged upon having accurate, reliable, and rapid testing. We were asked in the middle of last week by Dr. Michael Sagg, Chair of the UA system health and safety team, who's an infectious disease expert at UAB, to assist GuideSafe, the group that's doing the student re-entry testing with testing to get that process completed. During that time, we encounter many students who have been exposed since returning to campus, particularly in the Greek system. The trend continued throughout the week and now has reached levels that require a significant intervention. We know from global data that with these measures, we can successfully stay ahead of these trends and actually reduce them to safe levels. Teams both at CCHS and UAB have made recommendations to the Chancellor, UA system, President Bell, Mayor Maddox, and city leaders. In addition, late last week, Dr. Pope, Vice President of Student Life, and his team in the Division of Student Life outlined additional measures by the University to temporarily prohibit on and off campus student events. We've also instituted a very restrictive policy regarding on-campus housing. In addition, our CV-19 team has worked tirelessly through the week and all weekend to test, notify, and trace each and every positive individual. This week, we will be testing up to 1,000 students per day, four or five days in locations where geographic spread has been documented. These are the first steps to alter its course and continue with in-person classes. Without this intervention and the supportive measures of our partners in student life and the city, our epidemiology and medical teams feel we will be at risk for even further consequences in the coming weeks. We continue to work closely with the UA system, Health and Safety Task Force, providing them with regular updates and are seeking their counsel on the appropriate next steps for our campus. Based on the emerging trends we are seeing, we have asked the mayor and his leadership team to consider additional measures that could help mitigate the spread of the virus in bars and restaurants. We understand the value of these businesses and the value they bring to our community. But we also know that eating and drinking in crowded social environments have been identified as a significant source of virus transmission. When the presence of the virus in our community is high, it is imperative that we limit activities that can lead to transmission as much as possible. We believe we have a limited opportunity to try to curb the trajectory of the student positivity that we are seeing and have validated. This will allow UA to continue its current in-person classes and avoid more economic pain and suffering for our community partners in the long term. We are together in this and we are prepared to fight and to vote whatever resources necessary to curb this trend. It is my sincere hope that we are successful but will not succeed without stringing compliance and cooperation from every member of the community. I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you this morning and at this time I'd like to introduce our mayor, Walt Maddox. Good morning. I certainly am honored to have members of the Tuscaloosa City Council joining me today. We have our council president, Cynthia Allman, Councilor Lee Busby, Councilor Sonia McKinstree and Councilor Odom, thank you for being here and thank you for your leadership over the past six months. I certainly wanna thank many of my team members that are here that have literally had no days off in the last six months. They have done an outstanding job of trying to protect this city, this community, this capstone that we love so much. You know, Tuscaloosa is all of our home and we're all in this together. Unfortunately, UA has been there together with the city. We've always had a special relationship but over the past few months, we have strengthened the ties that bond because we have a shared responsibility to this community. Dr. Bell, we appreciate you. Dr. Chancellor St. John, we appreciate you. Along with your respective teams, you have put the safety of students first and I have seen that firsthand. As a mayor and a father of the University of Alabama student, I am deeply grateful on behalf of the city of Tuscaloosa, thank you for your commitment. Through the uncertainty of 2020, we have met this healthcare, economic and financial burden of the pandemic with an indestructible resiliency that provides hope. We have been inspired by the resiliency of dedicated physicians, nurses, medical personnel and first responders who have been unwavering on the front lines of this pandemic. We have seen the better angels of our nature in the resiliency of small business owners who have borne the brunt of closing their doors so that DCH's doors could remain open. We have been thankful for the resiliency of educators who have reimagined their profession to ensure that learning continues for the next generation. In all corners of Tuscaloosa, the resiliency of our city has been on display and now we're required to demonstrate even more. It will not be easy, yet it must be met. As has been outlined this morning and based on my discussions with the University over the past 48 hours, the ever increasing number of coronavirus cases on campus will create two major disruptions for Tuscaloosa if left unabated. The first is to our healthcare system. From the start, the city has taken decisive action to protect DCH. This has been our North Star. The second disruption is to our local economy. UA has a $2 billion economic impact on our Metro and thousands upon thousands of our fellow citizens depend upon the jobs of that UA provides. I know this is not easy. I know that the coronavirus has taken so much but we must finish the job. When faced with a difficult challenge I often rely on a quote by Winston Churchill who said, the truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may derot it, but in the end there it is. The truth is is that fall in Tuscaloosa is in serious jeopardy. When you marry the number of coronavirus cases with the contact tracing data plus the wise counsel of the best medical experts in the country, there is your truth. If we fail to act with the courage of our convictions DCH will be at risk of being stretched beyond its capacity within the next four to six weeks. If we do nothing, UA will be forced to go to virtual classes and the economic consequences will be harsh and long lasting. These truths are hard which require me to act within my oath. As mayor, my first responsibility is to protect the health, safety and welfare of this community and every person that's living here, studying here and working here. However, for me, it's even deeper. I make these decisions not only as a public servant but as a husband, father and son. Everyone that I love the most calls Tuscaloosa home. Therefore, based on the recommendations provided by the UA response team this weekend and at the request of the university I've signed an executive order that authorizes the following. First, the closing of bars effective for the next 14 days starting at 5 p.m. tonight. This will run August 24th through September 8th. Second, the elimination of bar services at restaurants we can have table service only but no bar service for 14 days effective tonight at 5 p.m. In the fight against COVID-19 it's been our bars and restaurants who have taken the disproportionate impact. It is certainly not lost on anyone at the city of Tuscaloosa. Understanding this in the near future I will be working with the city council and looking at how we can make investments to our bars and restaurants to help them in this difficult time. This can include a myriad of different options and I look forward to working with our city leaders in doing that. Lastly, I'll be requesting from the Alabama Beverage Control Board that all of Tuscaloosa County be placed under a prohibition of sales of alcohol on premise consumption at bars for 14 days. As I close, we have to ask the question will these measures combined with UA's efforts ensure success? The truth is we don't know. However, the failure to do nothing will cost more lives and livelihoods. We must demonstrate resiliency by acknowledging and acting upon these hard truths. When we make these decisions the reflex is to focus on the what but today I'd ask you to focus on the why. For the city, our why is embedded in three principles. First is protecting the people of Tuscaloosa and the students on campus here at the University of Alabama, Stillman College and Shelton State. Second, it's about protecting DCH Regional Healthcare System. And third it's about protecting our local economy and the thousands of jobs that are right now are at risk. You know in Romans five versus one through five Paul talks about going from tribulation to strength of character to endurance to hope. I know to my fellow citizens there has been a lot of uncertainty and yes tribulation but please continue to have the endurance and the strength because through your indestructible resiliency I too believe that the promises of tomorrow the promises of hope will soon return. As Ryan said, Dr. Bell, Dr. Friend and I will be happy to answer any questions that you may have we ask that you direct your questions to either one of us. Thank you. So I'm aware that the UA Systems Office will be releasing numbers later today. And if I will stick to those numbers I can tell you that our epidemiologists infectious disease experts and our entire team have looked at them and really have called to action. Due to personal health information and the ability that some of those addresses may be involved, I can't but I can tell you we have seen some across campuses that have definite geographic locations and we're gonna be focusing on those all week. Right now our isolation and quarantine is not a capacity we're not near capacity but we are concerned that each day that goes by there may be more cases. I know the team met this morning and we're working on additional space. First and foremost I think what I would say is let's step back and look at what we're trying to accomplish certainly what we're doing. And I think as we began this year we had a very robust testing so as our students were coming back we know that our students that showed up here all tested negative coming in the university. What we've seen is an increase in those numbers as Dr. Friend mentioned. I think we're all familiar with the conversations that we had I think on a nation talking about flattening the curve. What we're trying to do now certainly with our general student body is to flatten that curve. So as we look at these different protocols in ways that we can help our students be successful and be safe keep in mind that the goal in all of those is to keep our students on campus to allow our classes to continue to be delivered in that way. And so by doing that we're able to flatten this curve and move forward through the semester. So all of our students that as we go through student conduct we'll be moving forward with those individual students and that will be determined as they go through the student conduct process. But good question, thank you. You know I think everything that we're trying to do and first and foremost as I think we've outlined here today is to make sure we keep our entire student body in this community safe that we all hold so dear. The fact that so many students return to this campus to begin this semester shows us the desire that they have the desire that their families have in order to get this experience. And remember what our students goal is. Our students goal or to take these classes to complete a degree and to be able to take that credential to take what they learned here at the University of Alabama and quite frankly what they learn here in the city of Tuscaloosa and go out and start their lives or develop a career. So what we're focusing on these steps, these protocols, those are critical in order for us to continue to achieve that goal. Are there other ways to achieve some of those there are? But we believe the best way is to implement the protocols that we have in place now. We're trying to do this early. Again, we know that early intervention has the best chance at changing the trajectory of where we're going. And I think as Dr. Friend said, the early reading on the trajectory is not one we like. And so what we're trying to do is to change that with these change of protocols. Thank you. Yes, sir. You know, I think a question we all wanna know is are we at the breaking point? What's the lever that's gonna cause us to have to change it? And basically, I think it goes back to again flattening this curve so that we are able to accommodate our current operations with the students and making sure that we're able to keep the students healthy. So there really is no single answer. So I don't wanna point you all to, let's begin looking at this graph or looking at this data and know that we can draw a line and say, here's what we're going to do because it's a very dynamic situation. Very dynamic over the weekend as we saw positive cases increasing that again today caused us to take more protocols, more steps. We're gonna continue to do that because we value first our students' health, we value their ability to get the most out of their Tuscaloosa and Alabama experience. Yes, sir. Yeah, so as Dr. Fred mentioned, we expect that that information will be available today later this afternoon. Thank you. Yeah, so first of all, let me say I am very proud of our students. I don't know if any of you all have walked around on our campus. I didn't know there were that many masks in the world but our students are being extremely compliant. They're working very hard and our challenge is not the students, our challenge is the virus. And there's a difference, folks. What we have to do is identify where does the virus thrive and where does the virus spread and how can we work together with our students, with our faculty and with our staff to make sure that we minimize those places, those incidents. So that's really what we're doing. It's not student behavior, okay. What it is is how do we have protocols so that we make it to where our students can be successful and we minimize the impact of the virus. You know, I think if you all go back and look at the plans that we developed at the system level that we've developed at the university level and all of our campuses, there's a key word in all those and it's nimble. There is, this virus does not follow our instructions very well. So what we have done I think over the last five minutes is develop, yes, I think an extremely strong plan. But a plan is only as good as you implement the plan and the results from the plan and we knew we need to be nimble. We could just sit back, as the mayor said, and do nothing. We're pretty sure what that outcome is gonna be. But rather what we're doing is we're looking to see last week we implemented some additional changes on campus. Folks, we're probably gonna do that this week. The mayor has taken a bold step for the city to partner with us. It would have been very easy for the mayor to say, folks, this is a campus challenge and we wish you luck. That was not his response even for a moment. It was what can we do to make sure that we can be successful through this? Do we know we're gonna be successful? We don't, folks, because we don't have the script of the virus. But what we can do is work extremely hard to make sure that we do everything we can. What I don't wanna do is wait until the end of the semester if we're not successful and say, what could have we done that we didn't do? And that'll be on the minds of all of us individually. Gee, I wish we would have done this if we're not successful. So we're working hard to not have that. Yes, sir. We know this is a new world for all of us. This pandemic is. It's a learning opportunity. I think it is critical that we all follow the guidelines. That's all of us. Folks, that's a look in the mirror. That's us, it always starts with us, right? Okay, but yes, it involves our students. It involves our faculty, it involves our staff who are all working hard. They're learning more, but it is critical, absolutely critical that we follow these protocols to make sure that we're able to flatten the curve, that we're able to make this trajectory in a way that's sustainable for us on campus. I don't know the exact number, but I know a number of students are going through the student conduct process, yes. You know, I'm focused on one campus and one community, but what I'm guessing, and I see that among peers even outside of this state is we're not seeing anything that's unique here at Tuscaloosa. Again, we've seen it in cities. We've seen it in states, and now it's our turn to respond. It's our turn to make the bold statements that we are. If there are any other questions, I appreciate all that you guys have allowed us to do today to share with you all. I'm sure if there's any other last-minute questions, we can catch you guys offline, but we appreciate all that you all are doing. Thanks so much. Thanks particularly, again, to the mayor for his announcement today, and for the partnership that we have with this community, and of course, we're all tied. Thank you again for your attendance. Have a great afternoon.