 Well, good morning, everyone. Thank you all for being here for our latest update on COVID-19. As I've said before, we're learning more about this new virus every single day. And our top priority continues to be protecting our people. We've talked before about how most, more than 80 percent, who get this virus will experience mild to moderate symptoms. But even if you're not worried about yourself, it's important that everyone focus on protecting those at higher risk, especially older Vermonters and those with serious health conditions, like heart or lung disease or diabetes. As I said last week, our strategy is to slow this down and prevent as many cases as possible. As you know, I declared a state of emergency, and we've implemented a range of mitigation steps to slow the spread of the virus from limiting public gatherings and restricting visitors at long-term care facilities and hospitals to banning state employee work travel and extending unemployment benefits to those who have to self-isolate and so much more. It's important for Vermonters to know that additional measures are inevitable. But every action we've taken thus far has been based on science, data, and the guidance of experts. That's why yesterday I ordered the dismissal of all pre-K through 12 schools by the end of the day Tuesday, March 17th. So effective March 18th, all schools should be closed. This decision was made in close consultation with the Department of Health and the Agency of Education. We felt this was necessary in order to keep ahead of the curve in terms of reducing the spread of COVID-19. This is a moment of service for all of us, and I know educators and school support staff all across Vermont will be flexible and do their part to support students and their families. I've also asked the Agency of Education to work with superintendents and local districts to make sure every child continues to receive the service that they need from their schools. This includes a plan so students have school work to do when schools are dismissed, as well as to create remote learning plans that prepare us for what could be a longer period of time. They will also develop a plan to get meals to kids who need them and services for children with special needs, as well as options that meet the childcare needs of the healthcare workforce and other essential personnel. At this point in time, school closures will last until April 6th, but Vermonters need to know. We may need to extend it for all the reasons we've explained. We have to slow the spread down to bend the curve. I know and I fully appreciate the challenges that closing schools will pose for Vermonters. But based on the best science available, this decision is now necessary to stay ahead of the curve to reduce the spread of COVID-19. And to the point of quickly evolving guidance, last night, CDC advised further limiting the size of public gatherings to 50. Based on that recommendation, I'm amending my executive order to limit gatherings to a maximum of 50 or 50% of an establishment's occupancy, whichever is less. Additionally, as a state government, we're working diligently to transition our state employees to work remotely. As well, we're implementing measures to limit person-to-person transactions at state offices like the DMV. Those measures will be combined with 90-day extensions in license and registration renewal. I want Vermonters to know we're continuously evaluating other mitigation steps and will continue to communicate those as they are put into place. It's important to remember that in times of crisis, we all need to make sacrifices. But Vermonters and all Americans have risen to the challenges before. And this time will be no different. We will get through this and we'll do it together. Now I'm going to turn this over to Dr. Levine to remind us of all the details around COVID-19, who is at risk while bending the curve is so important. And he can also address how we're extending our testing capacity. Dr. Levine. Thank you, Governor. Just three short days ago, we stood before you to say that Vermont was not yet at the point where closing schools was called for to slow the spread of coronavirus. But the Governor and I both stressed that the calculus could change and change soon. Based on the certain knowledge that we must take every action, even those that are the most disruptive to the lives of our children and families, we have come to the quick and data-driven conclusion that closing schools while considering the many consequences and working to mitigate them is the responsible action to take. In the U.S., the virus has been clearly overtaking our efforts at containment. In Vermont, our testing underlines this assessment. When I last spoke with you all on Friday, I noted that the health department had recorded two positives out of 140 tests. I noted to you that we would be expecting to have a marked increase in testing and that we took our public health surveillance functions very seriously and would act rapidly informed by data. Since then, in just three days, we have now tested a total of 415 people and are up to 12 positive tests. Cases have been reported in people who live in Bennington, Chittenden, Orange, Washington, and Windsor counties, plus neighboring Massachusetts and New York. At least three out of the four most recent cases seem clearly to be the result of person-to-person spread of illness in the community and not travel-related. So even these small numbers indicate that community transitioning is occurring. And that is why implementing these social distancing measures is a powerful public health tool, such as banning large public gatherings, prohibiting visitors to care settings, teleworking, and others. So now, in addition to all the actions we've taken thus far to try to slow the spread of illness over time and flatten that curve of transmission, it's appropriate to close schools. In fact, we are at precisely the time when school closure has been shown to be an effective public health strategy. Closing schools at the end of the day, Tuesday, is a further step that will help us keep ahead of the curve in terms of preventing and reducing spread of COVID-19. We are painfully aware of the disruptions in social isolation that will result from this. These are extremely difficult times for everyone, and they will not soon be over. But all of the actions that Governor Scott is taking, together with what each of us individually can do, will help slow the spread, meaning fewer people who become severely ill, fewer deaths, fewer opportunities to overwhelm the healthcare system. That is our ultimate goal. So please remember, if you are sick, stay home. That's now more important than ever. If you are sick with symptoms of COVID-19, fever, dry cough, difficulty breathing, call your healthcare provider for instructions. Don't just show up and don't go to the emergency room. We must keep our healthcare providers safe and keep our health system from being overwhelmed, and there are protocols in place to handle your concerns. And if you are well, and I hope we all remain well, practice social distancing as we've discussed. We will all thank you. I'd now like to introduce Heather Boucher. Good morning, everyone. Yes, Heather Boucher, the Deputy Secretary for Education. I'd like to start by thanking our educators and districts and school administrators throughout the state for their commitment to students and families. We at the Agency of Education have received numerous calls and questions. We are doing our very best to answer your concerns, your issues and questions, and we certainly stand ready to serve. We are certainly charting new and unknown territory in our state, but we do have some ideas based on previous emergencies, such as natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina and more regionalized H1N1 incidents to help guide us in our approach. So we will be relying on this information as we provide assistance to districts in terms of their own plans for continuation of education and services. In addition, I'd like to remind us that Vermont is not alone in statewide school closure. This is, of course, happening across the nation. We are lucky in that we have excellent cross-state collaborative relationships to rely on and we'll continue to do so throughout the coming days and weeks. At AOE, we are quickly turning operations towards continuity of education and service focus. We're setting up a new structure to address this need. We have released guidance to the field on child nutrition services and more is forthcoming. And our special education division is working as we speak on guidance for providing students free and appropriate public education under remote learning situations. We also have another division working on continuity of education through curricular shifts, personalized learning plans, and lesson planning assistance. So I will again just conclude by saying that we are ready. We are here to help our districts as much as we can. We're in this together and we wanna keep those communication lines open. Please send us your questions, concerns to your usual teams that you're working with and we will have much more information coming out in the coming days. Thank you. So at this time, we'll entertain questions. We do have about 10 media members on the phone. So we're going to alternate and take a question from the floor first. Can you read the question out? Governor, what's the plan for healthcare workers who have kids in school who are obviously needed at this time in state hospitals and public facilities to be able to get a contingency there or taking care of them from now? Yeah, there's a great concern for that very issue. It's something that we did contemplate in closing the schools because we know that a lot of parents are going to be impacted by this. So that is a provision that we've talked about. We are putting a plan into place so that we can provide for childcare for those first responders and those in the healthcare field that are going to be needed in the coming days and weeks. So at this point, we don't have it perfected, but we're working on the plan as we speak. Do you think by Wednesday it will be... I believe by in the next two days, it's my hope that we'll have something in place. Yes. Next question is Sean from the Chester Telegraph. Are you on the phone? Yeah, thank you for the question. I believe I have the answer to that, but I'm going to let Secretary Smith answer that and be more succinct. Sean, thank you for the question. Mike Smith, Secretary of Human Services. When we got the order yesterday at the agency, we formed a internal task force to look at these various issues of subsidies as well as moving forward, how we're going to move forward on this. We met this morning. We're going to be setting up a 24-7 hotline. Those questions of subsidies will be answered in the near future. As the governor had mentioned, we've got a window here that we have to get these answers done by this two-day window, and those answers will be answered. But using the subsidies, we're going to try to be as flexible as possible to sort of forewarn that, and then we'll make the decision of how those subsidies are going to be used, I would say within the next 24 to 36 hours. Is there anything you're looking at now for Friday that we're giving schools? Maybe a couple days a week and we're going to figure out those schools today? Yeah, no, I think we're right on schedule, in some respects. We were waiting for different guidance in many different ways, certainly from the number of tests that are coming back in. We were watching that, and we feel to be ahead of the curve, giving this two-day period will give us time to get ahead of the curve. So I believe we're right on schedule, and I can let Dr. Levine add to that, but this is something that we calculated, and this is what we were asking for. As I said, this is every day where we're constantly looking at the data and the science to make sure that we base decisions on that methodology, because it's really important that we just don't react too quickly, that we have to stay calm. We have to be panic-free, but at the same time, take care of what we think is the right opportunity at the right point in time. Dr. Levine, do you want to add to that? Just very quickly, you want to be on the right point on the curve, so to speak, and know when your cases are starting to escalate and could become exponentially greater. You also want firm evidence for community transmission of the virus, as opposed to just travelers coming back from places that have the virus endemic. So it really was all the right criteria were being satisfied, and I think the 48-hour waiting period is really a critical time here that a lot more can be accomplished during a weekday than a weekend. So this was a public health decision to use the school closure as another mitigating strategy, but keep in mind the reasons that these 48 hours is so critical, some of them are educational, a number of them are public health. We have children who need to be fed, need to have meals, we need that to work seamlessly. We have children, as the governor alluded to, who have disabilities or special needs. Those needs need to be met. And we have a healthcare workforce, as the first question illustrated, that needs to be having the time to plan out how that can continue to engage in that workforce and have their children taken care of at the same time. 12 cases, 415 tests total. Maybe out of you. We'll sit and rank. Yes, I know that when you use online learning to teach kids on the crack, what does that look like in the community that don't have access to the high speed internet? Yeah, I'm going to let Heather take this one. But again, we're going to be creative, understanding that we don't have internet access everywhere, but we do have a method we're going to put into place to make sure that schoolwork gets to kids and that we can keep track of it and it's reportable. Heather? Yes, just to echo what Governor Scott said, it will be largely contingent on the communities that we're talking about. In some communities, they could rather seamlessly move to a fully online platform with some training because internet usage and internet accessibility is reasonable in communities. Many of our communities, however, will likely be focusing on a combined online and paper, if you will, packet format. We will be providing assistance to the districts depending on their own unique situations and our districts and schools know that they are required to make sure that all students have access to the materials and to the instruction that will be taking place. We're seeing, of course, across the state, schools, universities, businesses, and temporarily shutting their doors. Who should be, specifically, who should be at work today? Well, obviously, those, you know, you have to take some responsibility yourself. Make sure that you're well, that you are not showing any signs yourself. We're asking businesses to implement some strategies in order to distance workers. If you can work remotely, you should. There are a number of different cases, and, again, I have to stress, you know, we're here in Vermont. We can get creative and we can do this if we just think about it a little bit differently. Think outside the box in how we provide the services that Vermonters need in a safe manner. And I have a lot of confidence in the employers across the state to do the right thing and to keep their employees safe. But I would say, just adhering to some of those questions that we ask of those who are going into, previous, going into long-term care facilities, ask yourself those questions and then ask yourself whether you should be going into work or not. Dr. Levine, anything else you'd like to add to that? Yeah, thank you very much. I got through it from an at-the-death dial back in before I missed my opportunity. There are new questions here, and I'll ask you both at the same time. I don't know what today's the fourth case that was reported overnight are, but I think yesterday, half the cases came from out of state and there's some in the community where people are coming from elsewhere, coming to Vermont to come to their second home, or whatever, and whether the, whether the, whenever we're calling this, whether the quarantine, what do you make of that? I mean, does the do-those-hours state get to place extra burden on what we're doing here? And then, and this is the second question, have any of the patients who have been treated, have any of them recovered yet? Those are my two questions. I'll take the first one first. Obviously, you know, we as a nation are in this together, and we're going to get through this together. To, you know, we know we have second home owners here that might be seeking some refuge from their own communities, and we would ask them to self-evaluate and ask themselves whether that's a good idea or not. But once they're here, we'll take care of them. We're not going to turn people away just because they're from another state. We in Vermont are compassionate and we take care of ourselves as well as others. So while it's concerning, again, I want to stress that those living in other states who have second homes here should rethink their strategy. But again, once they're here, we'll take care of them. In terms of whether anyone is recovered, I'm going to let Dr. Levine answer that. I do think the first question illustrates the concept of viruses do not respect borders. So, you know, some of our borders, we have frequent interchange, even if people aren't coming to their second homes, frequent interchange across those borders all the time. So I think we need to consider Northern New England as a community, and anyone is really susceptible within that community. For the second question, keep in mind the majority of the cases, except for the first two, are all being reported Friday, Saturday, Sunday. So none of those people, of course, have recovered. They've just become ill and gotten tested. The first two cases, to my awareness at this point in time, are clearly not yet on the pathway to recovery. Thank you. The calculus changed over the weekend. Why not make it optional for students to go to school today? Why make it optional for students to close to saying only send their kids to go to school on behalf. And the second question is, where are we on that children timeline? Yeah, well, I'll take the first one. Obviously, there are many parents who are, you know, understandably concerned about their children. And that's why I said that it's up to them. If they don't feel comfortable sending their kids to school, they should keep them home. We feel it's okay to send them to school for Monday and Tuesday. We're ahead of the curve on this. And this is calculated in our approach, giving at least two days to prepare for this. So it's not as though if we had thought that it was unsafe for them to go to school on Monday morning, we would have said over the weekend, don't come in on Monday. But we, again, are basing this on science and data. And we feel that we have two days to prepare for this and that by Wednesday, having them home will give us the best result. So the community spread that you're seeing has to be the same? Well, again, we think getting ahead of this. We know this is coming. Again, I wanna stress, the worst is yesterday they had to come. We know it's coming. We just have to slow it down a bit. And again, our strategy involved looking ahead to seeing when we thought the right time was to do this and it ended up being Tuesday evening. And shutting down the schools for Wednesday is the right approach from my standpoint. So I have a slide. Yeah, that would be showing the chart. I don't think. I don't see any other way. And Anne, we're circling through questions. I'll call your name if we have time at the end. I'm not gonna be able to show you exactly what we're doing in that chart. But we believe we are in the early phases of community transmission. So beginning the slope upwards, but certainly not anywhere near here. In time, why just give or take it? When do you start, like, when does the blue start heading down now? Time? Right. We're gonna find that out. That's all we can tell you. Colin, seven days. Yeah, hi. Thank you. So yesterday, Secretary French had mentioned that he believes teachers will still be paid because they will be required to show up to work. But he says that support staffers represent more complex questions in the way that they're funded, essentially. Just wondering if there's been any updates about thinking, Annie, for sure? Do we give these people about whether they'll be paid and go a lot of concerns about that? Yeah, we have communicated to the districts and superintendents that we expect everyone to be paid. So I know that there'll be some bumps along the road. We're not sure what everyone is going to be doing in the meantime, but again, it's about creativity and finding an approach that will work. We are going to need people to provide for the services that we have said that we're going to provide to the children, the students. So we're still going to need people in order to do that. But we haven't fully developed the plan. When that plan comes out, I'm sure that there'll be many people involved. But again, we've asked the superintendents to make sure that everyone is paid. In the nation of South Korea, they've been dealing with this for a while now, they've tested over hundreds of thousands of people. And it seems like the more they test, the lower the estimated death rate goes down. The latest number I checked from three days ago was 0.7%. So my question is, at what point does the death rate become low enough? And we always got to assume there's more people out there that we haven't tested. As you said, the symptoms are not always going to be very significant. At what point do we reevaluate some of these measures, clothing, schools, clothing? I'll let Dr. Levine answer that from my standpoint when there are no deaths occurring. But I'll let Dr. Levine answer that. If it's clear what the question is. Not super clear, but... The death rate, the more they test people, the more the death rate percentage drops. Right, because they're finding milder cases. Right, so in South Korea where they've tested hundreds of thousands of people, it's dropped to close to a half percent. So my question is, at what point does it become low enough that you start to reevaluate some of these economic measures, shutting schools, shutting public gatherings? Yeah, I personally wouldn't look at it that way because we're trying to forecast the future right now, not get to a point and then say did it work or it didn't work. These mitigation strategies do take weeks to months. That's why when we talked earlier about school closure, when it's done too early and for two weeks, it's not been shown to be effective very widely. Whereas when it started a little later and it goes a little longer, it's been shown to be an effective strategy. Just like all the other strategies that you heard about at the first press conference and in the executive order, those take time to play out. So when we talk about where we are in the curve and et cetera, we're trying not to let the curve follow the red and we're trying to implement all of these things sufficiently early that they have time to kick in and allow us to flatten that in that direction. So a half percent is still five times the rate that people die from the flu at. So it's still significant. So I don't think I would cheer about success at any point in time in the next two months because it's really everyone doing all of the strategies that have we've outlined that's gonna help us succeed. And we wanna be able to look back at the end of it and go, wow, look how wonderfully we did. But there's no way we're gonna be able to do that as time elapses because over these next several months, the entire country is gonna see the coronavirus rise in frequency of cases. Patricia, I'm wondering specifically, we've been told we're here in Southern Vermont, which of course has FDMC as our main healthcare provider. We've been told that one individual started showing symptoms. The healthcare provider was contacted and the healthcare provider said to call an individual a drive-by-testing, which FDMC has instituted. And we were told that this woman with exhibiting symptoms was told that there were no slots available to texture, so they're still waiting. And we were just told, we, of course, that there are as many tests as could possibly be needed and no one's being turned away. So I'm wondering if you guys have received any indication that people are being turned away, as was suggested. Again, I'm not aware of anyone being turned away when a provider requests a test. But again, Dr. Levine or Mary Smith might be able to answer that from the testing facility. What you're describing sounds like the testing facility didn't have a slot for the patient to have a sample taken. Because as I said in my earlier comments, our key strategy to getting ourselves to this point in time was to test as much as possible. And we had sufficient test kits to do the testing. So the role of the provider who connects with the patient is just to obtain the sample, send it to the state lab, and we will do the testing. So I'm not really sure where the confusion came from the case you're describing because we would certainly have run that test over the weekend had we received it. I think it's also important to note that if anyone is having symptoms that they suspect to be coronavirus, even though they haven't been tested, that's just a confirmation they should self-isolate. They should not become in contact with others. Governor, everyone is very concerned that the economy is going to create or worry about losing their small business, their home, their job. What do you say to those people? Yeah, well, I'm concerned as well about the economy. I mean, this certainly, if it goes on for a prolonged period of time, could be devastating to our economy. But at the same time, if we do this right and we have this period of time over the next month or two, and we can get some control over this, I believe there's a path forward. I also know that we are not alone, not our state, not the nation, it's certainly a world issue. So there'll be strategies involved and we will, we're working with our federal government as we speak. I've been in contact with Congressman Welch, Senator Leahy, I had calls with them over the weekend, and they are going to do everything they can to provide for some stimulus to help us with this economy, to provide for the local economies across the state. And I would just advocate if there's a way for you to continue to use the services and products and use some of these businesses in the state right now, please do. They'll take care of them, they've taken care of us. So we'll see, obviously, some repercussions from this. But if we do this right and take the steps that we've tried to implement, I believe that we'll shorten this and it won't be as devastating. Hello, Governor, I was just wondering about, to just ask about the discussions, is that the economic impact on people who work for businesses that they can't work from home, such as waitresses, people who work in shops, and who are getting sent home because the customers aren't there that they need to serve. So now, instead of working 40 hours a week, maybe I'm going to have to wait a week and purchase our ship, and I just send home that to you because they don't need me. But can, what assistance is going to be available for those folks? So they don't get laid off, they don't lose their jobs and qualify for employment, they just have to be around these hours. Yeah, you were a little bit garbled, but I think I got most of the question for those who are having reduced hours. Obviously, this would come through some federal action, I believe that they're contemplating this as well, and we'll do everything we can to provide for their relief. And we'll know more, this is again, quickly evolving, it's quickly evolving as a virus, it's quickly evolving as an economic package out of Washington, and so we'll know more in the next couple of days of what this could mean. But I've received assurances from Senator Leahy yesterday afternoon, as well as from Congressman Welch yesterday afternoon, they are diligently working on this effort to make sure that we protect for Monters and Americans from what we know could be stressful in the lives of their families, as well as with their businesses that they represent. Governor Rudd, the president of the administration have been out twice now talking about the public-private partnership between Walmart, Walgreens, et cetera, and some of the private labs. Have you heard anything from them? Are you looking at driving into a Walmart parking lot and setting up? Yeah, we're working on some other strategies here in Vermont, obviously making sure that we have enough testing packages is important to us. In fact, I was on a call with Governor Sununu, with the vice president on Saturday afternoon, and then was with officials from AJSS on Saturday night, about 10 o'clock, a conference call with Governor Sununu and myself and Commissioner Levine, and we discussed testing. And we believe there is a path forward for us. We're, again, taking a Vermont approach, and I believe it's going to work. Do you want to comment any further on that, Commissioner Levine, at this point, or? I could, very briefly, because it gets complicated. I would characterize what's going on at the federal level as very well-intentioned and aspirational, and it's a matter of when we will be kicking in and implemented, and we hope during this week we'll hear some more about that. But as the governor said, we are taking a Vermont approach, and it turns out that to be successful in testing across the nation on this date today, you really need to be very resourceful and work with your academic medical centers to accomplish the goal, because most health departments can't obtain the quantity of the reagents that are needed to do all of the processes involved in testing. So we have some very promising work we're doing with the University of Vermont College of Medicine and with the University of Vermont Medical Center with, at the level of actually testing reagents, at the level of the kinds of equipment needed to do the testing and the personnel. And it's really going to become a very nice collaborative effort that will help us maintain the level of testing we've been doing thus far. Yeah, Todd, thank you so much for my question. What confidence do you have, Governor and Commissioner, that the healthcare system can handle this with doubling the number of positives since last Friday? Also, how many tests are available right now, and how many people have been tested? Yeah, I have, you know, again, I have confidence in our healthcare system. Obviously, the measures we're taking today are in attempt to prevent the surge. I mean, if we get to a point where we're at the, at this level here, it's going to compromise our healthcare system, and that's why we have to take the measures we're taking in order to reduce that. And it might prolong it a bit because it's inevitable that we'll get this here in Vermont. But if we can reduce the high number of cases at any one time, then we can prevent that surge into our healthcare system. So that's our approach. But if we do it the way we're doing it, I believe that we're fine. We have an update every day on the number of beds available and units available. And so I'm confident that we're doing our due diligence to make sure that we're ready when this does happen. But the other testing and number of tests and so forth. So as I said earlier, we've done 415 tests, add five more from New Hampshire of Vermont residents, that's 420. We have in the 400 range test kits available right now, which will be augmented with the collaborative arrangement I just mentioned before. And again, I wanna point out one of the previous questions had to do with getting the person tested in Southwestern Vermont. And people need to really understand, Southwestern Vermont Medical Center has been an innovator. They are the first drive-through site in Vermont. And other medical centers are pivoting off of that. Federally qualified health centers have considered pivoting off of that. We have some capacity with our Department of Public Safety to actually create situations that will be like that as well. So in terms of coping with the load of people who might think they need to be tested and whose physicians believe that that is something that would be advisable, we should be able to meet that need. And as the governor said, we're trying to make sure we don't over tax the resources of our healthcare system. And at some point in time, we may get to that dotted line, we hope we don't get above it. How many cases may you anticipate at the height? Hard to know the severity. That would be an impossible answer to give right now. But 297 beds available today. And keep in mind, not all of the 12 positives are in a hospital ICU. A number of them are in home. They've been seen by the healthcare system and are well enough to stay at home and weather the storm, so to speak, with their illness. And we anticipate again, if we use the experience of other countries that over 80% of Vermonters who contract this illness should not require hospitalization and should have a mild to moderate course. I think that's why it's really important that we focus on the elderly and those with chronic conditions that to prevent them from getting it, prevent the spread. And that's why we focus so heavily on that population so that, because we know that they're the ones who may be hospitalized as a result. Thank you all, thank you to the media for your questions. And we have to get the governor to a call now and there is a process for questions if you need to follow up with us, please do so. Thanks for communicating this to Vermonters and the way you've done it. It really does help. We appreciate it.