 Thank you all for being here for our latest update on COVID-19, commonly known as coronavirus. The state, nation and world learn more about this new virus every single day. And public health officials and governments across the country are working to put what we learn into action because our top priority is to protect our people. While most, more than 80 percent, who get this virus experience mild to moderate symptoms, we know some people, especially older Vermonters and those with serious health conditions like heart or lung disease and diabetes, are at higher risk of becoming very sick. The best information we currently have from the experts concludes that slowing it down in preventing as many cases as possible is the best way to make sure the most vulnerable, the very ill and the elderly, get the care they need, which in many cases will include hospitalization when they need it. But more directly, this is more about protecting the vulnerable. And while many will either not get it or see mild symptoms, we all have to do our part to slow it down to protect the ill and older Vermonters who are at risk. This is the lesson from other countries like China and Italy, where efforts to slow the spread were not implemented early enough and now we see them struggling. So today, we're going to enact mitigation measures that will help slow the spread, which means better health outcomes for those who get this virus. While Vermont only has two known cases at this time, we know it's just a matter of time before there are many more. I want Vermonters to know how very fortunate we are to have so many incredibly talented and hardworking people in the Department of Health and Vermont Emergency Management, as well as first responders and health care providers across the state who have been working very hard to prepare for and respond to this virus, and it will continue to serve as well. But as more information becomes available about how important community mitigation strategies are to slowing this, we must take more action to protect the ill and elderly. Every single one of us has an incredibly important role to play in this. We're all in this together. We're going to act together, and we're going to get through this together. That's why today I declared a state of emergency, and through these emergency powers, I'm implementing several additional mitigation strategies, which will be in effect until April 15th, though that could be shortened or extended based on what we experience on the ground. Again, it's important to keep in mind this strategy is focused on protecting our most vulnerable, which based on science and data means the elderly and the very ill. Specifically, these actions are designed to prevent and control outbreaks, protect those at greatest risks, minimize the risks of the public, maintain the health and safety of our monitors, and to limit the strain on our health care system and to slow the spread of infection in our communities. First, to protect our older Vermonters, I've ordered long term care facilities to restrict visitor access with exceptions for family visiting kids and terminally ill loved ones. I know this will be very difficult for everyone involved, but we also know the residents of these facilities and those seeking care at our hospitals are most at risk, and we must take short term measures to protect them. Second, room for single space for social or recreational events. Now, I understand the destruction this will cause, as well as the economic impacts, but we've seen its effectiveness in other countries, and we must do our part. Third, to limit and protect state employees and their communities, I've suspended all non-essential out-of-state travel for state business by state employees. The Secretary of Administration and Commissioner of Human Resources are also directed to encourage and facilitate more employees to work from home over the next month, and we encourage employers across the state to do the same, if possible. My executive order also outlines additional steps to support the Health Department's work, including providing resources for the Department of Public Safety to assist with their contact tracing and investigative efforts, directing the Department of Financial Regulation to analyze demographic information in order to know the potential impacts on our population, workforce, and economy, and more. Additional steps and details are outlined in the executive order, and while I know many are concerned about our pre-K through 12 schools, in close consultation with our team, especially our healthcare team, we have determined that closing schools at this point is not seen as effective, at least not yet. We believe keeping them in schools, rather than at home alone, or with their parents or grandparents who are at risk, is the best approach at this time. However, this is something the Department of Health, Emergency Management, and the Agents of Education are closely monitoring and reevaluating every day, and we will not hesitate to act if the risks change, as the result schools and parents should be preparing for this possibility. In closing, I want to thank this group and their teams behind me, as well as those across state and local government, and in our healthcare system, who are working long hours with a fierce commitment to serving and protecting Vermonters. I also, again, want to thank members of the press for the calm clarity you've helped us communicate to Vermonters. Your professionalism is greatly appreciated and much needed in these times. Finally, and most importantly, I want to thank all Vermonters for their understanding, cooperation, and action to help protect and support their own families, as well as care for their neighbors. Because stopping this virus is about protecting the very sick and elderly from its effects. As I've outlined, this is going to require some unique and, yes, disruptive measures, and we need everyone's help to make them as successful as possible. My fellow Vermonters, I know many are concerned and even scared. I also know some will think this is not enough and others will think this is far too much. Please know every decision I make will be informed by the best science and the best experts we have available, and we are truly blessed to have some of the best professionals working with us. I also want to make this very clear. We are going to get through this together. We will be united in our commitment to protect the very ill and elderly from this virus, and this will unite us in our actions. We will work together as a community to defeat it in the short term, so we emerge stronger and more resilient for the long term. There is no doubt these are difficult steps that for a few weeks or possibly months will change what we do in our daily lives. And I also need you to know there may be more that may be necessary, but the compassion and commitment of our people and communities will see us through. We have to rise above frustrations and fear. We can't focus on how this may set us back because what it's really about is about who we are as Vermonters and how we're going to lead our state forward. Here's the bottom line. It's not in our DNA to turn our backs on the most vulnerable. We're going to face it, fight it, and we're going to win. And just like after Irene, we're all going to do our part to help each other at this time of need to show our children how the calm, compassionate determination of Vermonters in our communities can meet any challenge. So with that, I'm now going to turn this over to Dr. Levine to share the latest and what we're seeing in Vermont as well as what we know about this virus. Dr. Levine. Thank you, Governor. And I also would like to thank the members of the Vermont media. In addition to your usual good work, you've been a sexual conduit of this important public health messaging to Vermonters. I know what you've heard today and over the past several weeks can be frankly overwhelming. I'd like to in the next few moments give you a brief status update, tell a little more about the virus and some of the rationale from a public health standpoint for what you've just heard. As of earlier today, we still have only two cases. We are monitoring well over 200 Vermonters, a number that is going to increase significantly related to our second case and to the fact that the CDC has added to its recommendations for travelers returning to the US. As of this week, people returning from most of Europe will be asked to stay home for 14 days and monitor their own health and report their travel to the health department. These are the same directions we've been giving the people coming from other areas with widespread sustained transmission of COVID-19, including China, Iran and South Korea. You can find the full list on our website, healthvermont.gov. To date, we've completed monitoring for almost 100 Vermonters. Prior to today, we had tested almost 140 Vermonters in 10 days. We're anticipating an additional 100 plus test results today. Based upon the experience of many other states and some of our joining states, we fully expect this number to increase. I'll tell you just one or two things we don't know so much about with this virus. How infectious is someone who has no symptoms? How infectious is someone and for how long does it last after their illness? But there are very important things that we do know. As I've said many times, 80% of those who contract this virus will have mild to moderate illness. The incubation period from the time one contracts with someone who has the virus is four to seven days. It can, though, be up to 14. Transmissibility is thought to be one person has the ability to infect two others. And then they, of course, have that same ability, which is why it's so important early on to try to contain the virus. The case fatality rate is 1%. Much more than seasonal flu, which is 0.1%. But much less than the human race's prior experience with novel coronaviruses like SARS or MERS. And that 1% is an average. The case fatality rate is far more skewed toward the elderly and the chronically ill, those with underlying predisposing conditions that we're always telling you about. And we know the young are markedly less likely to show signs of infection. And that's why the focus of the strategy the governor has outlined is so directed to protecting our most vulnerable populations. We also know that the virus is transmitted by respiratory droplets and the distance is about six feet. And that is why, as you'll hear, social distancing strategies can become so important. We don't know how long the virus can persist on a surface on something that's not alive. It's thought to be anywhere from seconds to minutes to maybe an hour. The public health and our state's response to this outbreak is a matter of using what data we have, anticipating what the future may hold, and the timing of our approaches. And if you think about it, our goals are quite straightforward. Protect the most vulnerable. Protect as many people as possible from getting infected, knowing that many still will, as this is truly a novel virus for the human race. And prevent the healthcare system from becoming overwhelmed so it can deliver the best possible care to those in need and still retain a robust healthcare workforce. So I'm going to illustrate this with a picture because I think it's worth a thousand words. And it'll speak about the measures the governor has addressed to help flatten this curve of potential spread of virus in Vermont. I'm a little tall for this. Just for everyone's frame of reference, this axis is number of cases and the horizontal axis is time. And for the sake of this discussion, the amount of time doesn't matter. We can call it weeks, we can call it months. If we look at the experience of earlier countries, when the virus took hold in the population, it had a very rapid expansion through the population. I'll call this a spike in the number of cases. Very dramatic rise and seemingly as dramatic a fall after a period of time. If I could use our colleagues in Italy as an example, and they actually want me to use them as an example because they want the world to learn from their experience, this was a period of perhaps 10 days or two weeks, very rapid in northern Italy. Our goal is to prevent such a rapid spike because this dotted horizontal line illustrates the capacity of our healthcare system to deal with this infection. If you overwhelm the capacity of the healthcare system, you run into problems with the healthcare workforce, with hospital beds, with ICU beds, with ventilators, everything. So as the term has been used, we want to flatten the curve. And that is this blue curve here. All of the measures that the governor has described are called mitigation measures. We are following in Vermont a parallel course, a mitigation in containers. Containment is the work of all of the public health personnel following the Vermonters I've described and instructing others about what to do when they return from travel, etc. Mitigation are all the strategies you've just heard about how this may impact our daily lives in the coming weeks. It's believed that with these mitigation strategies, in effect, you flatten that curve, you may prolong the duration of the virus and the population, but the healthcare system can take care of everybody and not be extraordinarily stressed in an acute period of time. That's the whole purpose of what you've been hearing about, protecting as many people as possible over time. So what every one of us can do and what we will do in our individual actions will certainly matter when it comes to your health and the health of your loved ones, and especially how much we can limit the spread of germs and the impact of this pandemic in Vermont. It's important that everyone stay very informed of this fast-moving situation and take personal responsibility for following the Vermont and CDC recommendations and guidance. And as you've just heard, we're asking everyone to strictly follow new guidance and restrictions, which you can find regularly updated at the healthvermont.gov website. You've heard about hospitals and long-term care facility visitation policies. And obviously no one wants to introduce an infection in those settings. And I think intuitively, Vermonters understand that they shouldn't be attending those places in a state of illness and that the less interaction the public has, the more likely we will have healthy populations that don't have a virus introduced. We want to help the individuals who are housed in these long-term care settings in hospitals as well as the staff and workers. You've heard a lot about lab testing lately. And in order to identify people who are most at risk of illness, we're prioritizing lab testing. We've prioritized it for people with symptoms of disease, which we've told you include fever, cough, and shortness of breath as the most common symptoms. And we've encouraged individuals with those symptoms to call their health care provider not to physically go to their office unless instructed to do so. And we've avoided testing people who do not have COVID-19 symptoms. On the horizon in the very near future, the health care lab that has been doing all of the assays will be augmented by other labs who have been provided permission and certification to do this kind of testing as well. This is all very important work for what we call surveillance, so we can actually figure out where on this curve we are at a point in time and when certain strategies may need to be expanded. The government has provided you with a lot of information about what in public health terms we call social distancing. Social distancing measures include these cancellations of mass gatherings, adjustments to the way we work. We all know how disruptive these things can be from our normal day-to-day life. It seems that the most controversial public health recommendations surround considerations for school closures, and I'd like to spend a moment on that topic. I'll say from the outset, we, like all other states, do rely heavily on the recommendations of the Centers for Disease Control, as well as the available science, the reports from other countries' experiences, and consultation with school health experts. And speaking of school closure, that should be viewed as part of a broader suite of community mitigation strategies, useful at a time when there is significant community spread of infection. Meaning person-to-person spread without other risk factors. I'll be frank, much of this relies on mathematical modeling data, but it's not believed that very early in an outbreak, two-week short-duration closures can have an impact on the curve that I've shown you, or on medical outcomes. The advice is to time such closures slightly later in community spread, but before that spike in the curve would occur, and that a longer than two-week closure might be important at that time to be effective. Obviously, a longer closure would have significant implications for student academic support, for school-based meals and other services, and we must take into consideration something the Governor mentioned, the really undesired or unanticipated consequences of initiating school closures early, such as removing a family member from their ability to generate income and be part of the workforce so that they can care for their children or having grandparents care for children and they being the vulnerable population becoming ill from the virus. Thank you all for your attention. I'd like to now introduce our Commissioner for the Department of Disability, Aging and Independent Living, Monica Hutt. Good evening, everyone. What we know is that the population served by the Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living, both older Vermonters and Vermonters with Disabilities who may have underlying health conditions are at higher risk for the COVID-19 infection. As the Department of Health has articulated so clearly, our primary goal is to slow the spread of COVID-19 and ensure that our health care systems can keep up with the demands for care to ensure the best outcomes for all Vermonters. Our focus at Dale remains on prevention. Because of the enhanced risk to those populations receiving long-term care, the Governor has announced through this executive order an approach to limit the risk and exposure to the virus for those more vulnerable populations. By restricting visitors to long-term care facilities, carefully screening all individuals entering those facilities and promoting strong prevention measures within facilities, we're doing all we can to keep vulnerable Vermonters and the staff that care for them safe. We realize that this response could be very distressing to family members and acknowledge that it may create some hardship. Please note that by doing this, we are prioritizing the health and safety of the people that you love. Dale has been working in lockstep with VDH in terms of guidance for long-term care, screening and recommended protocols. Communication is critical to ensuring that facilities and entities serving vulnerable Vermonters have the information they need to provide good care, make good decisions and adjust their practices according to the most up-to-date information and direction. We at Dale are pushing out all the information we receive from VDH and the Centers for Disease Control to all our long-term care providers. It's important to remember that in addition to facilities, we have vulnerable Vermonters receiving critical services in their own homes and communities across the state. It's important that all those providers that are offering services to vulnerable Vermonters have the information they need to keep themselves and others safe. So in addition to long-term care facilities, those networks receiving information from Dale include our designated agencies, area agencies on aging, home health agencies, adult day programs, senior centers and meal sites. We are particularly grateful to the Health Department for all their work and for access to their expertise. Dr. Levine made himself available for a Q&A call with our long-term care facilities this week and we'll be having the same kind of call with home health providers next week. We're posting the Q&A information on our website. We have a Dale staff person in the Health Operations Center starting on Monday full-time to represent the needs of older Vermonters and Vermonters with disabilities. Additionally, we're working diligently to answer questions as they come up. As information changes and strategies evolve, we're available to field calls and respond to questions even if we need to consult with others to get the best information possible. In response to questions and concerns from our provider community, we're updating information and developing new guidance regularly. As we develop new guidance, it's available to all on that website. We are committed 100% to doing everything we can to ensure the health and safety of our most vulnerable Vermonters. We ask that everybody in Vermont join us in this effort. If you're sick, stay home. Forgo in-person visits to friends and family members who may be vulnerable. Call or FaceTime them. Follow basic precautions and encourage others to do so. By taking personal responsibility for your actions, you can keep yourself safe and keep vulnerable Vermonters safe. Finally, I want to express my sincere gratitude to the thousands of long-term care staff and community providers on the ground right now taking care of our most vulnerable populations. They are doing extraordinary, critical work, and I can't express enough my admiration for their no-nonsense common-sense approach to getting the job done and serving Vermonters. And now I'd like to introduce and ask to come forward Director Erika Borneman from Vermont Emergency Management. Good evening. The State Emergency Operations Center was activated on Wednesday at the direction of Governor Scott to work closely with the Department of Health Operations Center to coordinate the response to what is now the COVID-19 pandemic. That work has involved the implementation of community mitigation measures just like these that we are announcing tonight. These new measures have built into our operations and we are working with agencies to ensure questions are answered about that implementation. We are also working to communicate the details of the executive order to the public in a simple and effective way that's easy for everyone to understand. We communicated with emergency management directors and local officials today and will continue to do so as these are implemented. We also are in regular communications with the first responders throughout Vermont and will continue to do so as well. The State Emergency Operations Center will be activated throughout the weekend and until further notice to ensure these questions are answered and provide further guidance as necessary. We continue to urge Vermonters to work with their local officials and emergency services and emergency management directors now and in the coming days and we will continue to work to support them and provide assistance from the spectrum of state government. Thank you. At this point we'd be happy to try and answer any questions you might have. You mentioned something about the second positive information. It's like a lot of information was going to come out in that case. Can you explain that a little bit? I wasn't saying information. I was saying the amount of contact tracing and the increase in the number of individuals in Vermont that we will be working closely with. I mean because of contact with vision check. Yes, in that vein of thinking. We are very confident that everyone will hear to this. I know we're a small community in Vermont and we're hopeful that they'll take this as a measure to protect us in the long run. I'm not sure there'll be sanctions but we will provide the opportunity to educate them as to the policy and then hope they do the right thing. And you said this applies to non-essential social and recreational gatherings. Is there going to be a more specific definition of what exactly that would include? Well any gatherings with 250 people or more. Sure. What about like base lodges in this area? Well again you know yeah it would apply to them as well. We are hoping that they will again produce some strategies that might provide for that social isolation maybe on their lifts and so forth. For instance they wouldn't have to put four on a quad. They could put two. They could limit the number of people getting on the lift. I think there are strategies that could be put into place and we're hoping that they will comply and help us with this. How do you define breaks involved? Let me ask my question please. There are many other settings cafeterias in which more than 250 students will be present at one time. Is there any guidance being given to schools about that sort of thing? Well again we're basing everything on the science and we're trying to determine how we can best help the most vulnerable, the aging population. And we believe this is the right strategy. Obviously this is different work settings and so forth are different than recreational events and social gatherings. So a school is not considered a a social gathering point, a non-essential social gathering point. Could you say young people are not serious illness but they may well because of that the ideal carriers. Is that taken into consideration? Absolutely everything is taken into consideration. That's why I had said this could change. We don't know how long this strategy will be implemented. We will take this day by day and as Dr. Levine had said if we do this too early it might not be helpful. And so and as well I mean we have to consider the kids themselves and where they're going not everyone has a home to go to. Some their their most the best environment for them is the school and that's where they get the most attention, that's where they get fed and that's where they get the most social interaction with their peers. Otherwise they go home they could possibly go home to no one and that wouldn't be a good situation either. So we have to balance this out and again understand that we're flexible, we're going to watch the data, we're going to work with the superintendents and communities and to underscore if in the executive order as well the school districts themselves can close their schools. We will work with them if they feel it's necessary. We may see that there's an outbreak in a certain area where we may need to close the schools and if a parent decides that they are no longer comfortable with their child being in the school we are providing for them to take them out of school without any repercussions to the student and provide for any instruction we can at that point. So we want to make sure that we're doing all we can to help them. At what point would the administration step in and say schools or schools in this area of the state have to close? How serious would the outbreak have to come? Well I'm not sure. I mean again we'll rely on the data and the science and we're monitoring that daily as you know. Some of the tracing that we're doing will lead us to that possibly. But again it's a very fluid situation and we'll be prepared to act in a very quick fashion if it appears that it'd be beneficial to do so. Commissioner, you mentioned mathematical modeling. Is there any mathematical modeling that forecasks the projection rate of the model? You know it's interesting because we have an aging demographic. I've talked about this a lot. I'm fearful that with our aging demographic that we may be more vulnerable than other states and that's why I put these measures into place. Why I've asked the Labor Department as well as the Department of Financial Regulation, the commissioners involved to do some modeling for us and let's do let's take the data and see where we're going with this. So we're fully prepared. Don't have that data at my disposal at this point. I know they've been working on it and whether they have it now or not I'm not sure but I haven't seen it yet. As the CDC provided any state level forecasting related to compression rates? No. What's the capacity of our hospital system to treat serious cases? How many ICU beds do we have? How many are occupied right now? I mean what's the capacity of this case? Yeah again you might be able to somebody else might be the answer I'd be able to answer this but but there's some of the questions so some of the questions that I had as well we want to collect as much data as we can. Secretary Smith? Today we have 236 available beds that we could do surge capacity add another 50 onto that surge capacity to to around roughly around 283 beds that's with no mitigation strategy for example doubling up size no calling in other hospitals from out of state using other hospitals just the capacity that we have today those beds are empty right now. We probably have the update data as of now. Today we are testing at least 110 individual patients and those results are on the precipice of being reported out and I said we've already tested in the short week to week and a half that the state could do testing because we were allowed to by the CDC we've tested 140 the majority of which are negative and in addition there were five Vermonters tested by New Hampshire related to the Dartmouth-Hitchcock episode and positive case they had there and all five Vermonters were negative. You said that you've set in your remarks that in China and Italy the response was too slow and that helped to spread. I've heard on multiple occasions that basically the U.S. is on Italy's track the two weeks behind Italy. Does that mean that we have been too slow? Not necessarily just Vermonters but the whole country? Yeah I think in some respects we have to be honest with ourselves so we are learning more every day and we probably should have advanced earlier than this but I again I would say Vermont this might be a little bit unique we've had only two positive cases at this point in time and and so it hasn't hit us yet but it's only a matter of time before it does and we feel we're positioning ourselves well to to mitigate this in the future. I'm going to have our commissioner of labor come forward Mike Harrington I thought it was important I mean obviously this could be a burden if we're asking people to stay home for 14 days or there have loved ones or family that where they have to take care of them so we wanted to find a way to to accommodate them we think we found a way with the legislature's help and Commissioner Harrington if you could respond. Sure thank you Governor so I'll have you repeat the question just so I make sure I answer all parts. There's a component of this executive order that authorizes some new allowances for the UI fund for workers who affected by COVID-19 Can you isolate exactly what's going to be allowed now that was not previously mentioned? Yeah so right now the the biggest change or the biggest piece of information is that people who are impacted by this and told to self-isolate or to quarantine they will be eligible for benefits and so we will see that we will treat that as a temporarily temporary layoff and that for that isolation period they'll be eligible for benefits that is the biggest piece right now that we will be putting into place over the weekend and for next week. How long does the state of emergency go from effect the census right and next week I believe it is we start door-to-door. Yeah that's a great question and I don't have the answer to that at this point in time but we'll have to contemplate that as we move forward obviously the census is important but we don't want to put people at risk either. What is your response to Trump's emergency declaration today? Do you think it goes far enough and how do we expect it to help us in terms of funding? Yeah unfortunately I did not see his address I did hear that there was a declaration I think he made it at three or four o'clock but that's all I know about it. I will say I've been in contact with Congressman Welch he would hope to be here tonight to actually talk about the economic passage or economic package that they had hoped to pass today. He texts me before I came down and said he was not coming they were on standby they had not made a deal at this point but he hoped that it was going to be something that would be obviously positive for Vermont in our country so I'm hoping as well that they come through some agreement for the welfare of US citizens. It's been expanded in terms of the original CDC guidance was only hospitalized patients and we took that restriction away from the get-go and allowed people who are thinking they have the condition but are in their home and not requiring hospitalization to be tested. I have to say that public health one of its major core duties is surveillance so that we know where we are on that curve and our ability to do that is going to be very much expanded you know in the next several days based on our testing capacity based on capacity that gets expanded into the private sector and our major medical center can then perform as well so I believe we'll have a lot more data and again be very nimble with that data and be able to tell do we have regional expansion do we have statewide expansion are we holding steady whatever the case and make the decisions we need to make. Right it's not been expanded to someone who has no symptoms and I would make the we as a country rather than you single out the state because that's that's been the biggest criticism of the country at this point in time as you point out you don't want to have situations like happened in Italy happen here and I think we're sort of at that pivot point right now where we can try to intervene in the testing protocol as well as in our knowledge about cases in the state and make better decisions. Would it be wise to expand the testing protocol to include people in senior homes people who work in senior homes other highly at risk people out of Washington state and major focus of an outbreak. Right I don't think we would do just blind testing though of places that have no reported cases no reported illness I'd rather us be more strategic in that matter but I do believe we have plenty of people who don't have symptoms who have had an exposure history and I think we should continue to focus on that population because that population may be the canary in the mind so to speak that will help us understand how rapidly or not rapidly this virus may take hold within our borders or within the country in general. The availability of tests has not prevented us from testing appropriate people and I think just the fact that 110 are being tested today is testimony to that that far surpasses any day that we've had yet to date. We've made sure to make this a clinical judgment of the clinician that the patient has been connected with so I can't speak to what would happen at that juncture. No I think it's objectivity to be honest I think physician armed with the knowledge of what their patient is complaining about what they know about their patient's history and what they know about their risk factor history for this virus provides tremendous objectivity and we rely on their clinical judgment in that case. The only way it has is if people have absolutely zero symptoms. But I mean if you had significantly more capacity to test people tomorrow would you begin testing more people than you are right now? I don't believe the 110 involves a lot of people who were denied the opportunity to be tested today. The question is if you had significantly more testing capacity would you be tested? We would be testing people who we judged were appropriate for testing just like we are now. They are presenting to the health care system as opposed to the health department and we are relying on the clinical judgment of the clinician with our guidance. If people can be symptomatic for four or 14 days before they start to exhibit symptoms if they exhibit symptoms then waiting until they are sick seems to be understood. You know I've thought a lot about this as well and we never know when we become infected. We could test someone every single day and they could still get infected the next day with one doorknob let's say or coming in contact with someone who has it. So it would be it would stress the system. We have to again prioritize. We don't have an unlimited number of tests. If we did maybe we would test more but we don't and we have to be honest about that that we have we're doing all we can at this point in time. We're monitoring the number of tests we have available. We're hoping to to get more in the future. We've heard from the federal government that they're producing more. So we want to make sure that we keep up with what we're doing today first. But there are some talks about private companies coming forward with accelerated tests and if they can do that and we can get them in Vermont I'm sure that some people would like to rule that out in terms of whether they have it or not. But again I would stress that that could change from day to day. Any data points yet that you could look to that will allow you to be able to quantify the effect on Vermont? Well again we're that's what I've tasked our Department of Financial Regulation measure P check with trying to work with others labor and tax and so forth to try and determine what this is going to mean to us because we know if we can get the numbers and the data and it's just math at that point and at least have an idea but I don't know at this point we just talked about this about 8.30 or 9 last night at a meeting and tasked them with that at that point so I don't think we've come to any conclusions but we hope to very soon and that way we can go and make the case of the the federal delegation about what our needs what we think our needs would be which might be typical of others or maybe maybe not but but we'll come up with something that that makes sense. As it relates to financial resources being put toward COVID-19 it looks like the only thing in this emergency order just based on a brief scan is reallocation of resources at EPS that was this with contract tracing at the Department of Health. Are there any other new spending or reallocation measures that you are planning as part of this? Yeah we're going to have to reassess daily I mean we're we're keeping track we did get some some money federal money as well that's been passed on to us here in Vermont but we know that's not going to be enough so we have to continue to assess the need but we're okay right now and again working with the the legislature they've they've been willing to to do whatever they can to help and assist along the way so between the federal delegation and the legislative delegation we'll figure this out but we have to have the math first we have to figure out what our needs are before we move forward but so I used to say that we know this will grow and this is going to have an effect on our economy here in Vermont. We're hearing about the shortage of personal protective equipment for health care providers masks gloves that sort of thing I guess where are stockpiles right now sort of number-wise and what's being done on that. So the state emergency operations center has been working closely with the health operations center to inventory our statewide cash of masks and personal protective equipment so we do have an understanding of that the department of health has also submitted an additional request to the the strategic national stockpile for additional PPE and we're still waiting to hear about the timing on the delivery of that and still working on the the prioritization of that personal protective equipment. I don't have the numbers in front of me because that that's coming pretty quickly. Well again we'll continue to reassess as time moves on that's why it's critical we do all we can first to put into place mitigation efforts but we know it could impact our workforce we already have a shortage in our workforce and certainly amongst our staff and and so forth we have we have continuity continuity of operations plans in place for every department and agency so we'll we'll put those into place and enact upon them as necessary. That would be a hospital. No. Dr. Brum said said there has been no change. Yeah the hoarding that I'm seeing in the panic that's ensuing is concerning to me and I think we all have to to think about what our real needs are. If you look out you know we we hear a lot of people wanting to stockpile and there's certain products I don't understand why they're stockpiling but they are. If we look out over what your needs are over the next three to four weeks that's all you need to have at your disposal at this point in time. We have a very compassionate state and we come together and give when when it's needed and and I would hope the Vermonters would would not try to stockpile things they don't need that others do need. So let's keep in mind there will one community and but I am concerned about that but I've been told that they will be restocking and there are more products coming but this isn't you know this is unusual or this is not uncommon across the country we're seeing it everywhere. Yeah I mean we've Suzanne might be able to talk about this Secretary Young but we're asking that they work with the agency's departments to put together a plan and and move forward on this would you be the little elaborate on this. Sure Governor at your direction we have worked with the Department of Human Resources to put two things in place today. One is a ban on non-essential out-of-state travel and the other is to encourage teleworking we already have a telework policy for the state of Vermont employees what we are hoping to do is be a little more generous with that be a little more aggressive with that so we can start to lower the volume of of state employees and some of our office buildings to the extent that we can so we are putting out some telework guidelines and working with our human resource managers in our cabinet to encourage that as an option. Well I don't think you know with all due respect that they're any more special than any other Vermonter and I know that they might be at risk but there are others that are at risk as well and and no one that I know of asked for a test or was experiencing any of the conditions that would warrant a test. I'm sharing your evaluation or specialness but they are a unique group and that they are dispersed to all parts of the state from a central location that's known to be an incubator of disease. Regardless of their specialness isn't that a concern? Again I'm not sure that I've heard of anyone that had experienced any of the conditions or symptoms that would warrant a test and if they had they could have come forward and we would have tested. Lawmakers are of course working on a package of bills which would be short-term economic fix for COVID-19. I guess what's the role of your administration sort of in those talks and how are you working with lawmakers? Yeah we're trying to work hand in hand with them obviously they want to help and we would like their expertise we may need them in certain cases but we're waiting again for the economic package from the federal government what this means with their declaration if they're successful with the house and I'm not sure about the senate at that point but I'm not sure what their economic package is either. At this point in time we are okay certainly we're fluid we are our budget is good we're still getting revenue in we're fine it's much like consider this like Irene when when Irene hit we were able to take advantage of a lot of federal money in the months and years to come I would imagine that this is like our Irene and we'll be able to to make it through initially but we'll need some federal help in the in the coming months but I don't want to do anything legislatively that would would hurt in terms of the federal package yeah it may be all the above certainly we would we would be heavily involved in that we would have to prepare for that but we have the ability to do so being your your last press conference on Sunday now we're Friday I know it'll take time for some of this data to come in but how is the process in terms of transparency I've got to work between the administration the health department letting the public know about yeah I'm sure you've been to healthvermont.gov gives up to date information every single day and that's that's been distributed on a daily basis that's your best resource at this point in time if you have any questions about that any Vermonter should go to that website because it answers a lot of questions and it gives all the up-to-date information that we would have but if there's more information you need obviously you also we're just a phone call away is there a need for more frequent briefings as needed I would say as needed we will provide them so just as the data comes in it will be put out it already is yeah it has been for quite some time earlier you mentioned that we might be turning to private companies to sort of administer some of these tests or go to the results what sort of vetting are these companies yeah I this is on a on a federal level and I know that there are some large companies that I think in New York I've heard that there are companies that are coming forward they'd have to be approved by the CDC or someone FDA and before they're put into use but I've heard of them I don't have any details about them anything else you can offer with that Dr. Bromstead offered earlier that the Mayo Clinic is going to be contracted with the Medical Center to provide testing and they appear to have capacity meaning sufficient testing materials kits reagents etc to do the testing so we'll have at these two sites then the public health lab and the medical center have you basically done depending on or following the guidance of the federal government yeah so as I said the minute we were allowed to do testing we said restricting that to the only hospitalized population doesn't really allow us to do our public health surveillance function and get a handle on where is this virus in our population so we changed that immediately so I don't want to say the federal guidance is poor because the federal guidance has been excellent from the CDC however we've been able to be independent as well and come to strategic decisions that make sense for the state actually we work very closely with a lot of people at UVM and I'm at the point now where I'm having once-to-twice weekly phone calls with many kinds of audiences which include many people who are quite knowledgeable Secretary Smith sure there has there's been great focus with the Vermont prisons including the various issues dealing with supplies and social distancing for example today we've instituted video visitation to make sure that that the people that are coming to our prisons are segregated from our prison population we also are as you probably know when a prisoner is comes into our custody there is a screening process that's take takes place now that screening process has been expanded to include the questions dealing with COVID-19 as we move forward we've also increased our supply chain in terms of days on hand in terms of food medical supplies other supplies in in there as well and we've been having daily conference calls with the commissioner as well his superintendents on anything else that we can do as we move forward to not just state agencies not just public entities like schools but also other places where the public gathers I had I had the same thought when I started seeing all the empty shelves on on the news and so I was concerned I've asked what this this declaration the state declaration emergency declaration would do whether that would free up any resources from let's say any federal institutions that might have stockpiles of certain products so I haven't received the answer back on that but I've asked the question understanding the upper years partially to try to make sure the health care system doesn't get overwhelmed has there been any thought put to what would happen if hospitals do start to fill up any you know places to put additional patients or additional numbers yeah I and I will let others speak to this but there is a emergency plan that can be implemented if that happens and and probably dr brosek could really speak to this being from a being from a hospital but all the hospitals have medical surge plans and a part of that is things like canceling elective surgeries and non-essential procedures to make room for more critical patients and it's really the medical surge system in the state is a tiered surge approach where hospitals have plans for surge within their walls or even without their walls and then there are other surge sites in a real catastrophic event that we would have to bring in some additional assistance to run but there are sites identified for that as well thanks that's a great answer what I'll add is there's another piece of this for us and that's the people capacity to take care of anybody that needs our services so we've done a lot of work to make sure that we have alternative staffing plans that we can have sharing of staff among the hospitals and I just heard today that normally for our physicians they go three deep for an on-call schedule so that if the first two people go down you've got a third we've gone four deep so we're really obviously taking this incredibly seriously and working with the with the state to make sure that we have the capacity obviously the best thing is is Dr. Labine and the governor have said to make sure that we blunt that that curve so we've got a course in travel recommendations from from Europe but what about from areas within the U.S. that have higher cases of COVID-19 in Florida New York Pennsylvania is there any sort of recommendation there well certainly what we're doing with the non-essential travel for state employees is something to keep that in mind and recognize that there may be some coming in from other states it's not just from other countries or where people have been before they get to the other states so that's why we implemented that that procedure and and we're hoping that businesses will follow suit as well because anything we can do to reduce and restrict this will be better off in the long run yeah it's a great question I mean we're seeing it in the United States thus far as well there are some states who have no who don't have any cases that we know of and many that have had outbreaks so we'll probably won't know why until much less later right now it's just to really take care of the problem at the end in doing the travel self-quarantining from people traveling from back from Europe that's based on President Trump's action yes I mean it's in the Centers for Disease Control using data tells us that doesn't include that was the president's decision I don't know that for a fact I have to look at the map because his the president's directive had to do with travel to the countries um we use is travelers coming home or he enacted the travel ban it was the partial travel ban for the entire continent except for Great Britain um is your quarantine asking people to self-quarantine 14 days after coming back from Europe is that based on the president's so direction we are anytime someone is now coming back from Europe we are notified through a special CDC program called epi x that that traveler is about to arrive in Vermont so we can initiate conversation with them and understand what their needs are and what they should do in terms of their day-to-day existence so we're relying on that totally to know that they've arrived here and what to do so I'm presuming what we're getting is science-based because it's on the CDC's program it's not politically biased information which gets back to his question which is you know travelers who come back to Vermont from Washington state or Florida maybe a higher risk than travelers coming back from France um but we're not doing anything about people flying back from Seattle correct as a country I'll uh I'll take one more question yeah I just wanted to check uh our neighbor to the north um Quebec also just amongst the state of emergency there I was just curious if being such a fourth trade partner as well as a lot of um traffic in between Vermont and Quebec has there been contact with the Quebec foreign minister? I I have not uh had any contact with them at this point All right I have no idea it's nothing that I've heard anything about okay thank you very much appreciate you all coming in thank you