 Good morning, everyone. Mr. Pichek is here today to provide the latest on our data and modeling. As you'll see, we continue to do well here in Vermont, and we're not seeing the jump in cases we thought we would at this point. But what you'll also see is that other parts of the country are continuing to struggle, and cases are still ticking up in our region, including amongst our Canadian neighbors. So I know I'm starting to sound like a broken record if you even know what that means, but I really need Vermonters to know how important it is to not become complacent. Vermonters have done an incredible job since March, following the guidance and protecting each other. But with the positive trends we've had for months, I know it can be easy to let your guard down, to get out more, see more friends, go to more gatherings, interact with more and with different groups, sit a little closer, stay a little longer, and pull that mask down more often. And I get it, we're a victim of our own success, but the safety measures we have in place are there for a reason, and they're working. It's why we've been able to increase our activities and keep the economy open. But if we let up and get more relaxed, all the hard work we've done can slip away as well, just like we've seen in other places like Hawaii, Montana, and even Wyoming. As Commissioner Pichek will talk about, national modeling shows that the country should expect an uptick in cases in the coming months. But as Dr. Fauci said, it isn't inevitable here in Vermont. We put ourselves in a great position and we don't want to move backward, but the future is really in our hands. That's why I'm urging all Vermonters to continue to follow the guidance, to keep track of what you're doing and how many people you're coming in contact with, and make these decisions thoughtfully. So wear a mask, keep six feet apart, even amongst friends. Avoid large crowds, especially indoors, and follow the travel guidance. It's up to all of us to maintain and expand on the gains we've made so we can continue to move forward and set an example for the rest of the country. I thank you all for your hard work and I'll now turn it over to Commissioner Pichek. Thank you very much, Governor, and good morning, everyone. So we'll start today with an overview of some national data before turning to Vermont. And then we'll also hit on some of the points that Governor made about complacency, some issues that are happening right on our borders and very close to home as well that we want to overview and provide some context on. Then we'll provide our regional update and our travel map update as always. And for those that are interested, please visit dfr.vermont.gov to see our full presentation and all past presentations as well. So as the Governor mentioned, cases continue to be in a good position here in Vermont. But nationally and even internationally, we continue to pass grim milestones just last night. The world passed one million COVID deaths since the start of the pandemic. We just mentioned that last week had our update that the United States had crested over 200,000 deaths. So this is really a grim milestone for the world, particularly when you consider how many of the deaths in the United States make up the world's count. We see also that the United States surpassed 7 million cases just in the last few days as well. Some good news there. The amount of time it took us to get between 6 million and 7 million did increase gradually. But it's still a very high number and a very quick pace to be continuing to add millions of cases to our count here in the United States. Looking at where these cases fall across the country over the last 14 days, you can continue to see that we have very low prevalence here in the Northeast, particularly in Vermont with very, very low prevalence. Then you see some parts of the country that continue to struggle, places that haven't necessarily struggled back last spring or over the summer, North and South Dakota, parts of Iowa, parts of Wisconsin, and even parts in Tennessee and Mississippi and Alabama. So there are new places that are emerging as hotspots. They've really been hotspots for probably the last two or three weeks, but they continue to see new case growth as the rest of the country does see some improvement. But we do see, as the governor mentioned in uptick here in the Northeast, not in Vermont, but around our neighbors that we'll mention in a moment. Turning to Vermont data, again, all very encouraging, all very favorable news to us. We reported from last week another 26 cases. So last week we had 25. This week we had 26 cases. This is the lowest two-week period we've had in cases since back in late May. So that gives you, again, an indication of how lower case count is, even with K-12 reopening and higher education reopening. And here's a moment just to pause and weave in this concept of not to be complacent. The last time we had case counts this low, we did see our largest outbreak in the state just that following week. So a good reminder that even though case counts are low, that can change quickly, even in places like Vermont. But as we'll see, it also changes quickly in some other examples close by. Turning to our reopening metrics, these are all, again, trending very favorably. Syndromeic surveillance is very low. Our growth rate is very low. We have the lowest seven-day per capita infection rate in the country still on percent positivity. Again, lowest in the country for the last seven days of 0.15%. That's even lower than what we talked about a couple of weeks ago at 0.20%. So continuing to see very low positivity rate there. And then in hospital capacity, still good hospital capacity available. No one in the ICU, no one even in the hospital for COVID-19 as of today this morning. So all good trends there when it comes to our restart metrics. Turning to the testing averages, we haven't talked about this for the last couple of weeks, but I think good to highlight that our testing did increase quite considerably with the start of college. And with many colleges continuing to do periodic testing during the semester, those testing numbers have stayed quite high. Of course, there's also unaffiliated college testing that's going on that's still quite robust as well. And when you look at where we stand in the country on the next slide, both on the Y-axis, which is the number of infections, or sorry, number of tests, and on the X-axis, which is the number of infections, you can see that we rank fourth per capita and the number of tests we're doing per capita, and then still number one on infections. And this is during the last 30-day period. So testing is very robust and Vermont continues to be, particularly when compared to our counterparts across the country. So that all good news. Looking at our forecast, our most recent updated forecast, we see some improvement here like the governor mentioned. We now sort of crest below 20 cases somewhere in that 15 to 16 cases. That's the projection out into later part of October into November. That's really taking into account our improved case count as of the last two weeks. So again, this incorporates continued higher ed, continued K through 12, and all the increased mobility that we think we'll see associated with both of those activities, but still a rather mild projected increase here in Vermont. And again, we haven't seen that increase yet, so that's a favorable sign also. So with all that good news, we just want to hit on some points here about avoiding complacency because there are areas very close to home that are struggling currently with the virus. But first, let's start with a projection or a couple of projections that we have nationwide. So IHME is one of the modeling organizations that we follow and partner with another modeler who is independent, GU. These are two different models here that we've presented. One goes through the beginning of the year, and the other goes through the beginning of November. But they both tell a similar story, which is that cases nationally, this is not in Vermont, but nationally, are expected to rise as we get into the colder months of later October, November, and as you can see on the IHME chart into December and the beginning of January. So as the governor pointed out, this is going to be a challenge that we're going to face across the country and here in Vermont. If we don't continue to do all the things everyone's been doing so well, we have the risk of falling into this trend, but we do not, this trend is not inevitable. We can avoid this certainly by continuing all the good habits that Vermonters have exhibited since the beginning of the pandemic. Again, just north of us in Quebec, they had been battling the coronavirus very well, as had all of Canada. But just in the last three weeks, you can start to see really a quite dramatic increase in cases just north of the border. You know, we talked a lot back in March and April about exponential growth. You kind of look at this trend here. You look at the number of cases week over week. They're getting pretty close to that with cases almost doubling on a weekly basis. So this is approaching the levels that they saw back at the height of the pandemic back in April and March. So something really to keep an eye on. They're starting to implement measures to slow the growth, asking people to stop socializing, to stay at home. They're not canceling school, they're not closing businesses, but they are taking initial steps to try to slow the spread. So again, I think just right north of us, I mean, touching Vermont and Quebec, you can see that cases can rise quickly, particularly as things start to open up and we become more mobile. So all the more reason to stay vigilant on those main principles that we've been talking about. And just to hit on another example that is again close to home, just over in Maine, we talked about this a number of weeks ago when we updated our travel map and we saw that red county in the middle of Maine. And I think everyone's become very familiar with this case and the wedding situation that happened in Maine. But it has some really important lessons and the CDC director in Maine has emphasized these same messages that we're trying to point out here about needing to follow guidelines both on the individual standpoint and also on the institution standpoint, making sure that institutions are continuing to follow state guidance and also that Vermonters, just like Mainers, don't become complacent with how much success we've had dealing with the virus to date. But in Maine, you can see that they had a wedding that connected now to 180 cases throughout that state, eight deaths. None of those people that passed away had attended the wedding. So that in and of itself is a good example of how this virus can spread and impact people well beyond your immediate family members and immediate community. Now much of the situation is in York County, that southern county in Maine. You're seeing that York County is growing at rates that are really much more significant than the rest of the state and even a particular town in York County where the pastor from that wedding lives has seen quite, specifically quite significant growth over the last two and a half weeks. So just again, in middle part, early part of April or early part of August, that Maine wedding event occurred just over 60 attendees in violation of the state guidelines of 50 people indoors. You saw that again, it was indoors, there was little mask wearing, little social distancing, 18 cases associated with that wedding. But quickly, as the slide shows, that spread to other facilities across Maine spread to a rehabilitation center. That resulted in 39 cases, seven deaths from this event. And what is concerning again in terms of institutional breakdown and needing to be vigilant is that the individual who works at that facility came in contact with somebody from the wedding and was showing symptoms on the day that she was working at that facility. She had put that into the tracker that they were using. She had four different symptoms. But the institution itself, the rehabilitation center, did not check that to determine that she should not have been working that day. And she worked a 10-hour shift overnight. And then you can see that it spread throughout that facility. Similarly, the other outbreak that occurred happened in York related to a jail, 85 cases in that incident. Similarly, guidance was not strictly adhered to. They weren't doing symptom checks at the jail. They weren't doing good mask wearing at the jail. All in violation of Maine's guidance that has been provided. And you can see the result there. Similarly, at the associate with this Baptist church in York County, this was where the pastor had been the minister at the wedding. 10 cases associated with that religious organization. But again, just getting a sense of how widespread and different situations this one event happened in Maine and how quickly it spread throughout the state. Now, finally, you can see all the different outbreaks. Not all of them are associated directly with the Maine wedding event. But now at this point, via their CDC director in Maine, there's such high level of community transition, community transmission happening in York County that it's hard to sort of differentiate any of these events from the specific link in Maine in the wedding. But you can see they range from the jail to a workplace, to a school, to a restaurant, to a family function, to other worksites. So really critical here to stay on top of these guidance. Really critical not to become complacent. That, I think, was the main takeaway from the Maine CDC director was that he was worried both, again, individuals and institutions were becoming too complacent with their success and certainly something we don't want to replicate here in Vermont. Quickly just speeding through the higher ed update. Again, still very good news here in Vermont. One outfit recently, as of yesterday actually, ranked Vermont as the safest place to reopen schools based on 15 different metrics, both on case growth and in terms of planning and capacity and resources for school reopening. So that's reaffirming to see. But, of course, I think that's something that we kind of knew all along. You see that we have the four cases that are confirmed still here in Vermont with one presumptive case that Dr. Levine I'm sure we'll talk more about. But compared to New Hampshire where we see 53 cases in K through 12 in Maine that's now up to 32 cases, we still are comparing quite favorably even to those states that have low prevalence in their communities. So continued really strong reopening for K through 12. Looking at higher ed, 24,000 new tests conducted since the last time we provided an update of four new cases reported. And you can see from the beginning over 81,000 tests conducted in the higher education reopening for about 47 positive cases. So very low positivity rate. And again, continued success there on the reopening. Looking again to New Hampshire and to Maine, you can see that we are very favorable compared to those two places as well. But all are very stable. Again, reinforcing the message that if you have low prevalence you can safely reopen your schools and your economy as well. Quickly going through the regional data. Again, we mentioned cases are increasing across those neighbors around us, particularly in Quebec. We saw an increase of about 19% week over week of cases. If you did take Quebec out of that, the increase was about 7%. So still an increase, but much less when you take Quebec out of that equation. So something that we still need to be very vigilant on. You can see on the next slide that we've had a number of weeks of increased new case growth. So again, data in Vermont is very favorable. But there are situations right on our borders that we have to be vigilant about and mindful of. Turning lastly to the travel map update. You can see here the new travel map, a couple of things we just want to point out, particularly those counties that border Vermont, those counties are often not quarantine counties, but Washington County, New York did flip back to a quarantine county this week. So just be mindful of folks that live on that border what the essential travel guidance is. That leisure travel is not permitted. That would require a quarantine, but that there are a number of exemptions to the leisure travel policy for those that are making certain types of day trips and to be mindful of that guidance on the ACCD website. Otherwise, all the other counties in our area continue to be green and able to go back and forth without a quarantine. Unfortunately, due to this rising increase in cases, the number of people who are eligible to come to Vermont has dipped down to 4.2 million, down from 4.7 million last week, but still 4.2 million people that can come to Vermont without a quarantine. So with that, I will turn it over to Dr. Levine. Thank you, Commissioner Pichak. Lots of messages to re-emphasize and reaffirm in that presentation. So the world did just pass 1 million deaths, as you heard. Unfortunately, the United States, which accounts for only 4% of the world's population, accounts for 20% of those deaths in the 203,000 range. Vermont continues to be without an additional death in the last two months at 58, and we are at 1,749 cases as of this morning. Interesting tidbit is that our lab has performed almost 280,000 tests from nearly 163,000 people. I wanted to start with testing in my remarks this morning. The White House yesterday sent a letter to all state governors about Abbott Laboratories' Binax Now Rapid Point of Care tests. These are antigen tests. They're performed on a card, just like a pregnancy test would be, looking for a band of blue, though these are not self-administered tests. These are done at a clinical setting. In the next 7 to 10 days, Vermont will receive 12,000 of these cards, and sometime by the end of the year, 180,000. Keep in mind, I've always said that antigen testing will have a role in Vermont, and we will be releasing a health alert notification to the clinical community before the end of the week regarding these tests. The government has been appropriately trying to prioritize the tests for surge areas originally and for what they are terming in that overused term vulnerable populations. In this case, they're referring to long-term care facilities. They're referring to populations that are more vulnerable to the disease, like Native Americans. And even at campuses of historically black colleges and universities, there is new guidance from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid in our country right now regarding testing, but as well as visitation policies in long-term care facilities. And it's envisioned that some of the utility these new tests will be in such facilities to enable them to comply and to have results back in a very rapid turnaround, certainly less than 48 hours. We envision that the cards may play a role in those facilities as well, and there'll be further guidance coming out regarding their use. You've heard me speak previously about the fact that these tests can have false negatives, because they're not necessarily as sensitive as some of the PCR tests. However, when they're used with periodicity on a frequent schedule in testing facilities, not only long-term cares, but other settings potentially, the reliability does increase. One also has to keep in mind when using these types of testing, what is the prevalence of the disease in your setting? And currently in Vermont, with what Commissioner Pichak has just presented in such a low prevalence, one would risk, again, both false negative readings, but also at times a positive reading may actually be a false positive, because the pre-test probability of that test being positive was so low in our current setting. So just wetting your appetite with that, saying we are not going to throw away these cards, they will definitely be used in Vermont, but they'll be used with a significant amount of guidance. You saw a little bit of the data on our schools and our colleges and universities, and I want to just reaffirm that, again, we are really not having much more than a plateau in cases in those settings. And that the reopening has, again, continued to go very well. This was the day we typically have our phone call with all of the colleges across the state, and things continue to go well with regard to students and cooperation with the testing protocols. Very high adherence to keeping their testing obligations. Great work on what limited cases there have been in terms of cooperating with contact tracing and with the health department. And also in those settings, now feeling like there can be some discussion about what about the next semester and some planning to begin in that process. With regard to our K-12 schools, you again saw the data, no real increase in any of the number of cases, one recent case in Caledonia County that is positive by antigen test. We expect, perhaps today, we'll know the result of a PCR test that was ordered for confirmation. Though that test result was still regarded as positive when it came to the behavior of the health department and the behavior of the school regarding interpreting it as positive, doing all the appropriate contact tracing, making all the appropriate decisions regarding classes in school. And that's really the model we have that's working well in Vermont, working very closely with superintendents, principals, school nurses, and making sure that each case is treated individually and all of the right things are done. The response of our team has been swift and people affected are able to then do what is needed to allow us to continue to contain and prevent the spread of the virus. And indeed, again, I want to reiterate that we, with our low rate that you've seen in the data today, can continue to pursue this policy of containment. Finding cases through testing and the reassurance on the slide was wonderful to show that even without the colleges but certainly with the colleges, Vermont is doing an extraordinary amount of testing per capita. So we're not deceiving ourselves into thinking we have a low rate. We actually are spreading the net rather widely to look for positive cases and not finding them. Lastly, I wanted to just mention in terms of, I'll use the word outbreaks. I know on the news lately in the last several days there's been a lot of news about a nursing home in Rutland County where two staff members were positive and one patient. We're still awaiting further data but there have been no other cases reported in that facility. The facility is practicing great infectious control practices and all the appropriate quarantining of staff and patients has occurred that would need to have occurred. Another important point is that the CDC was in the news again lately with regard to a seroprevalence study. This is now antibody testing of people around the country in various, well in many states and trying to provide the states an idea of how much disease has been prevalent over this pandemic in their state. What percentage of their population has had some contact with the virus so that they would test positive? Their data for Vermont was very reassuring because it came out to be less than 1%. Again amongst the lowest in the country. There are rates that were upwards to the high teens and low 20% in that survey depending on places that have had a lot more surges with the virus. The rate that they found was very compatible with the rate of a study I talked about several weeks ago. Performed in concert with the University of Vermont where the rate could be estimated from the sample size that they chose to be approximately 2%. So again very, very low. I raise that because first of all in states like Vermont it means that we are doing our job in terms of being very, very careful and our population is successfully avoiding a lot of contact with the virus. But because of that and because so many people are not becoming ill they are still susceptible to the virus. And that's the reason we continue to advise everyone to do all of the things we advise you to do every time we stand up here and have this dual policy of being very careful and doing everything you need to do and awaiting a safe and effective vaccine that can then begin to help us with that rate of how many people will be immune to the virus. I won't say anything more about complacency because that has been addressed well today. Just remember that there were diseases like polio which only a few decades ago devastated millions and millions of people and now of course we hardly talk about anymore so we wouldn't want people to forget about what it took to win some of those major public health battles. And a commitment to public health practices and vaccine are the pathway to helping us avoid some of those diseases from roaring back. Which is why I will now in my final comment segue again to the flu vaccine because that vaccine as it's becoming more widely available will be available to everyone in the state and we want you to continue to think about doing that as well as covering your coughs and sneezes of course. The pandemic makes us forget that just two years ago we were very very concerned about outbreaks of measles that's a potentially dangerous disease that has made a comeback in the United States mainly because people forgot that vaccine is what has kept it at bay. Now for COVID we of course don't have a vaccine yet but we have to continue to sacrifice as we are doing with the way we're living our lives and keep our guard up and our masks up at the same time. If you were among the crowds who were reported to be at the beach last weekend or maybe at two larger gathering at a barbecue it was a beautiful weekend just keep in mind that if you think you're placed yourself at risk we have testing available in Vermont and you should consider getting yourself tested and then reducing the risk to others who are around you. That's all I'll say for this morning and I'll turn it back to the Governor. Thank you Commissioner Levine. We'll open up to questions. We're not really seeing widespread cases I'm just wondering I guess this incident in Maine that occurred to happen early last month so I'm wondering what is occurring that's where new call for action is called for avoiding complacencies Is there a certain instance during the lockdown that you're going to start with? No I think it's anecdotal and I think what we see is when we have so much success you tend to let your guard down I think we all do it, we're all guilty of it and it's just more of an education more of a warning of what could happen Again I keep track of all the other numbers I've used Hawaii as an example Hawaii at one point had a lower number of cases than we do here in Vermont they were amongst the lowest as well as Wyoming, Montana and what we've seen and again even though they have twice the population they had a lower number of cases than we did today Hawaii in particular has about eight times the number of cases we do at this point Wyoming has gone from the second lowest at this point to the third lowest they kept creeping up we were a fifth at one point so we are the lowest and continue to be but it doesn't take long to change that trajectory and it's due to opening up too fast letting your guard down and not following the guidelines if we want to continue to open up the economy if we want to continue to open up our schools for more in-person instruction is appropriate here in Vermont and I'm happy to see some of the results of the cases the low number of cases here in Vermont then we have to stay vigilant well again I just want to stay focused on our schools at this point I think in-person instruction as we've heard from the healthcare experts and the experts in childhood development that it's a we need a more in-person instruction and we were advised that we could do that here in Vermont we've gone to the hybrid model we're seeing some community some districts opening up a little bit more in fact I saw a news report today and this isn't in our state but right on our border in Lebanon New Hampshire are going to in-person instruction good news for the region and so I think we'll stay focused on that and at that point determine where to go next but obviously in the hospitality sector restaurants as we know are going to their some of them are getting by by having outdoor dining the temperature decreases we're going to have to come to grips with the fact that we need to provide something for these businesses to do so we may look at that sector next but again at this point our focus is entirely on education and providing for more in-person instruction last question so much of our tourism dollars come from Canada and of course they're still seeing really big life there in this future showed us I'm wondering when we have a vaccine and this might not need to be a decision but what would be this threshold opening up the border how quickly would that happen? I think it's going to be a shared agreement obviously with the United States and Canada one point Quebec and Canada was in a better position than even we were or at least mirrored what Vermont was doing and now they're seeing an escalation of cases so again we would want to make sure that it's safe for both countries and hopefully it will happen in the near future but we do rely on trade and the ski season is coming up so hopefully we'll all get back to somewhat normal in the very near future you know I think that's more of a question again for the CDC and our federal partners in terms of what they will do when the borders do open back up I remember earlier accounts of seeing temperature checks in other countries throughout the world so I don't know if that will be one of the requirements but certainly we want to make sure that everyone is healthy when they cross back and forth regardless of whether it's the flu or the coronavirus on the yes public school reopening four cases across our state so far and that's a point compared to New Hampshire for example at what point how are child care hubs protected when you have such low case counts in our public schools after three weeks at what point do you does it become just viable to really move to five person well I think to be clear the advocates Dr. Levine had advocated for in person instruction before we opened up so I think it's more viable we've proven that it's safe and I'm hopeful that more districts will follow suit well I think we want to convince them by watching the data and the science and when they become more comfortable when parents become more comfortable when teachers and staff become more comfortable and see that it's safe and that they will follow suit but we knew we had to prove ourselves I think we are doing that as we speak so hopefully there will be more that will go to five person or five day instruction are you going to watch the presidential debate tonight and if so are you listening for anything you know I'm hopeful I have a debate myself tonight and then I have all my day to day activities and so forth so I'll do my best but I have a lot of homework when I go home at night and tonight will be even more complicated but I hope to watch some of the debate but you might be able to resist that's right we'll see Steve I was just wondering about the controversy well for lack of that of the food box distribution contract being given to out of state companies versus the in state companies there seems to be some pushback on that less and less service yeah obviously this has been a beneficial program for Vermont and Vermont farmers in particular and local producers and we're hopeful there will be still the same contract with the same provider in state but they don't have to utilize products from in state we hope that the provider to use some of these these local farmers and local entities and local products in the near future but yeah I share the concern of the congressional delegation in this regard all right moving to the phones we'll start with Ed at the Newport Daily Express and my question is in supportive opening up for schools all grade level you remind a lot on data that was coming from Europe are you still tracking that data and comparing it to Vermont I know we've only had a few weeks of school data available but are you tracking if you see how we're doing the comparison from my standpoint I might ask Mr. Pichek to also fill in some of the gaps but from my perspective it's really watching our own data at this point and that's what we have to go on so we're doing amazingly well as was Mr. Pichek has stated there was one entity that said that Vermont was in the best position to have in-person instruction five days a week and we feel the same we felt that way before the schools open and we feel that way even more convincingly today anything I should add Mr. Pichek or would you like to add anything to that nothing else to add I don't believe that okay really good thank you Mike Donahue, the islander thank you Rebecca Governor I'm wondering your reaction to the protests in Burlington turning it up or not by confiscating copies of the 7-8 newspaper in Burlington or Newsy area that inspired newspapers during one of the nightly protest marches on the last week what does it say about censorship of her amendment in tolerance in Vermont yeah I thought it was unfortunate in many many different regards I agree with the publisher Paula who made a statement about that very issue and I don't think I can add anything to that I fully agree with her this seems to be you know it's ironic in some respects that they would do this which is exactly what they're protesting against so censorship isn't good and in fact it might have backfired a bit because I believe they just published more copies and more people probably want to read the story to let you know that now the element of fire has been added to protest in Vermont much like we've seen across the country well I think in this limited case I'm not sure that it's you know we've replicated that it was in that one instance hopefully they'll learn from that and not do it again but obviously any type of of a protest that involves anything that's violent or involves fire is regrettable but again I didn't see it replicated again so we'll obviously keep our eyes on this Thank you very much Peter, VPR Yeah this question is for Secretary French Secretary French as it relates to in-person learning are you aware of any instances in which a district has made the decision to either go from an all virtual learning program to a partly learning program or increase the number of days it's allowing students back into the building Good afternoon or good morning yes I think you know we're seeing those cases we are starting a formal data collection actually launched yesterday so we hope to get a better handle more formally on these trends as they're occurring and certainly monitor the situation statewide and possibly contemplate additional guidance for schools Thank you Hi questions about antigen testing here is Abbott's rapid test the only one the state is going to be adopting or are there other antigen testing companies that you would consider for use in those long-term care facilities or other such places Good morning Kat I mentioned the ones I mentioned because that's what the federal government is widely distributing and providing I believe they've also previously sent a limited number of Kaidel antigen test platforms these are more traditional you take a sample you run it through the machine for 20 minutes and get a result as opposed to the cards I was talking about where you don't actually need a machine you just need the cards and someone to observe the sample collection so there's already been opportunities for facilities to have the Kaidel machines if they wanted to use them but the fact is they're both antigen test platforms so the same guidelines would apply to either and can you elaborate on what those guidelines are going to be to the facilities that get these Abbott tests? Yes I can't give you all the details as they're being formulated and discussed within our Agency of Human Services and Department of Health but suffice it to say that when these tests are used in a screening mode as they would be used in these facilities they should be used with as I said some periodicity some regularity so that you're not just doing a one-time screening later coming back and doing it again but you're doing it once a week perhaps even more than once a week that increases the reliability of the results you're going to get now if you have a nursing home located in a county that's having a big surge of activity or the nursing home itself has had some cases and you're wanting to more regularly understand everyone there or just test somebody who happens to have a runny nose on the likelihood that they may or may not have COVID that is also a good use for these machines so when a rapid answer is needed in a setting where your probability of getting a positive result is higher because the surrounding area has a high prevalence or because the facility itself is now having increasingly prevalence of condition because that would allow you to very quickly cohort your patients or staff in a way that you would keep them separated from one another so that those who are free of disease remained in one portion of the building with one set of staff and those who were becoming positive could be appropriately housed in the same ring of the building let's say so they do have utility in those settings because I know I have several families who have been asking me this about rapid testing if it is something that a family could commit to regularly doing if say their elderly spouse wanted to visit their partner who was in a long-term care facility if they could commit to a once a week test would they be allowed that or is that just staff only that would be a use that at the present time I would not be sure that we would suggest become a routine for such a family again we're not looking to provide a level of false reassurance we'd want to be totally reassured because the last thing we want to do is introduce any potential infection to a building that we're trying to protect in all other ways so at the moment I would want to say that that is not a use that we have explored further nor has it been one that's been recommended to us okay thank you Lisa, Associated Press this is also a question for Dr. B just want to clear it back to the Rutland nursing facility so how many of the test results have come back you're still waiting for some results I can't give you a number on the number that we don't have a result on all I know is the testing has been facility-wide so so when we have results we'll know that they're based on a denominator that's pretty much the whole facility and the staff we're getting tested one day and the residents another day so we shouldn't expect to know both at the same time okay and that's ongoing right now yes, yesterday and today actually okay thank you and those are being done at our state lab so we will have the results in less than 48 hours depending on when they arrive at the lab Greg, the county courier Greg, the county courier last call Greg all right we'll go to Erin at BT Digger I was thinking, I was hoping maybe Dr. Levine could talk about this new data from CDC on how older children need to get COVID at a higher rate than young for children do does this have any what do you take out of the study and do you think it has any significance for how school officials should be planning their re-openings and you know other things right now those are great questions they actually kind of reaffirm a lot of what we've set up here and what we've been talking about in the past we know that the reason we have had more confidence talking about getting the K through 5 population back in school in that in-person learning is because of the fact that as you said their rates and this is more data to support that seem lower than the more adolescent age range and specifically more so than the high school age range which act a little more like the adult world in terms of their rate of infection so it certainly says a lot for the fact that K through 5 in-person seems to be from the data and from our current experience a safe enterprise and that we should try to maximize the benefit that that population can get from in-person experiences on the other side of that though is the high school years which fortunately as we all know and as they know have been more prepared and are better able to work in a remote environment so should there be problems with cases in that age range there's better alternatives for their learning to continue it doesn't mean we don't return students in those ages to school by any means and we're again showing success in that in Vermont as well I think for Vermont the bottom line is still if you're operating whatever you're operating whether it's a school or a prison or a long-term care facility in a state with low prevalence you will have cases but you will do much better with cases that have high prevalence and that should be the rule of thumb there's also another CDC study that looked at the distribution of age in the pandemic in the United States between May and August of this year and what it essentially says is that as opposed to very early on in March, April, May kind of range when we were seeing the older population more frequently affected and having worse outcomes in this more recent activity from May through the summer the 20 to 29 age group actually made up a very large percentage and you could actually sequentially track activity in that age group and then subsequent activity in older age groups again just reinforcing what we all know though is no matter what age we are we all need to really do our best to try to conform to the guidance that we've been talking about with physical distancing and masks etc. because the entire population benefits and that's really, really important focus for us all to have kind of a point of clarification I noticed that there haven't been any new school cases last time we talked about evidence of transmission of cases in schools from those few cases that we have thank you for letting me make that really important point thus far we have not seen any evidence for transmission of COVID-19 within schools Lisa, the Valley Reporter Hello this is probably a question for Lindsay Curley we understand from talking to local in and large owners that they are getting every potential visitor following Vermont's guidelines in terms of quarantining and visiting to the state's knowledge are Airbnb and other businesses like BRBO vetting visitors to Vermont to compliance with the guidelines Airbnb hosts have reported that vetting is not their responsibility I can answer that they are supposed to be vetting they are supposed to be doing the same that our lodging properties are doing as you might imagine they are supposed to enforce but we have made attempts to ask and ensure that they are following the same rules Is there any kind of state follow up or are you receiving reports of failure to comply and if so how does the state follow up so I have not for our agency that my knowledge has not received them as of late there may be some reports out there and we do follow up if we get a report but certainly if folks want to reach out for our agency or to the Vermont State Police they can report that it can be confidential and we can follow up great thank you I will share that with the reader you bet thank you Joe the Barton Chronicle with the ski season approaching and you know often express concerns about the problem of people in the hospitality industry being out of work how are plans going for loosening things another notch is that something that is in the foreseeable future or are the rules keeping the spaces down to 50% going to continue indefinitely well again Joe we want to open up these sectors as quick as we possibly can when it's safe to do so right now our focus as I said before is on schools more in person instruction we want to get through that hurdle first but we are going to have discussions with the ski industry to see how we can help them in some way in order to do it safely so we'll be looking for some of the restaurants and trying to adopt guidance that would help in that regard but until there's you know significant change and watching the modeling from around the region where there's a just an increase in the number of cases that are starting to surround Vermont so I'm a little concerned but again we'll continue to do everything we can to help these entities survive through this winter season in order for them to thrive in the future given that the answer appears to be that nothing can be done while the number of cases surrounding states continue to rise or at least don't fall substantially is there any prospect of additional up in the way of unemployment support for people who are simply out of work through no fault of their own I know that it took a long time the $300 thing off the ground and there were limited funds there is there any prospect of any help for people beyond that? First of all Joe I just want to make sure that everyone understands that our travel guidance provides that somewhat protection as long as everyone follows the guidance that we have in place even from other states the safer will be in Vermont so I don't want to lead anybody in the wrong direction again I'm concerned about what I'm seeing in terms of the number of counties that are becoming red and approaching going from green to yellow and so forth but that's just exactly why we have our travel guidance in place to protect Vermonters and those who travel here as long as everyone adheres to that regardless of what happens outside our borders will still be protected so we want to again provide a relief for them as best we can it's going to take some action by congress to be honest with you in terms of providing for more assistance I believe it may not happen till after the election at this point but I believe there will be a move to provide relief now remember initially it was actually the president who moved forward with this extra $300 the other $600 program it just lapsed and congress did not take action the president moved forward with the FEMA funding for a three week period and then determined that there was more money available and we were able to go to another three week period but we're closing in on the end of that as we speak so it's going to take congress to take some action at this point the legislature followed my my guidance in terms of the extra it was $20 million we'd asked for which would amount to about $100 a week for those who are unemployed but again that doesn't fill all the gaps so we need congressional action to provide for that relief for those who are unemployed we still have a little over 30,000 people unemployed in the state down from almost 90,000 at one point which is good news but there's still 30,000 which far exceeds anything we've seen in recent history thank you very much Avery WCAS Governor and Doctor the CDC just put out guidance on what they have for Halloween is there any Vermont specific advice on Thanksgiving and Christmas planning that people can start thinking about especially in light of the national forecasting projections that Commissioner P. Jett just mentioned yeah Dr. Levine was the expert on Halloween so I'm going to let him provide guidance for Thanksgiving and Christmas as well in true confessions I bought the Halloween candy already and I'm not planning on being the one who eats it so I think frankly it's important that the CDC came out with guidance for those two holidays and people do want to start making plans but I do think we should be a bit circumspect as we do that and think about what the Governor just said there's a lot of data in the region around us which we're concerned about if you layer that on top of the traditional concerns about the colder months and people congregating more indoors I think frankly for me to say too much about those two holidays at this point in time would be a bit premature and I wouldn't want to steer people wrong you know the people who are going to fly here to be with loved ones are still going to be under the same constraints no matter what I say today the region and the country they're coming from our quarantine rules aren't changing at all with regard to that but in terms of just how people can behave during those times it really would be too early for me to comment on at this point my hope is it would be like Halloween the way we're planning where our prevalence rate is still very low we don't advise kids to get into huge parties or their parents to sponsor those huge parties for kids and that we don't want them to go around house to house in huge hordes that are all next to each other much smaller groups but you know I don't want to say too much more about the other two holidays just want to be cautious and be able to advise based on the data not advise based on my hopes for those holidays Ben you mentioned briefly that quarantine the general travel requirements including the quarantine requirements do so you don't see any changes to that as people typically like to get away to warmer weather in the winter or general holiday travel well again I think I don't think anything's really changed in what we're seeing around the country the outbreaks that we're seeing in all different parts other than in the northeast and in Vermont in particular I don't see our travel policy changing in the near future quarantining when you're coming back into Vermont obviously we don't have much to say when you travel out of Vermont but when you're coming back in still it's a 14 day quarantine period although you could test after a 7 day quarantine to get a test at that point thank you both Andrew, Caledonian record yeah good afternoon this is for Dr. Levine can you further explain the situation at the St. John's Creek School and the differences in the test that produced what you're labeling the presumptive positive versus what I presume is the PCR follow up so to handle the second part of the question first the test was an antigen test and being an antigen test in a place that has a low likelihood of having a lot of positive tests in terms of the number of cases we're seeing in that part of the state we would regard the test as a presumptive positive that has to do with pre-test probability and process probability clinical reasoning argument if you will so we would want to have a confirmatory PCR test at that point in time there's not much more to say about the situation at the school because like I said we're regarding the test for the purposes of what we do in public health as a positive test until proven otherwise so all the appropriate advice was provided to the school regarding who needed to be contact traced plus the school helped us understand who needed to be contact traced and what the disposition should be of their classes there is it entirely possible that this test may have been a positive it is possible I wouldn't want to say any more than that right was this antigen test the same test that was involved in the situation in Manchester back in July that had all of those positives but in the end PCRs didn't find nearly as many I don't know what platform the test was performed on so I can't really answer that question there's only there's literally only three or four in the country so the odds are that it might be the same test but I can't say not the specifics of this test but where and why could someone get an antigen test in the state at present how so one can have an urgent care center or even another primary care practice where they've elected to have that available and that's fine we're not saying that that's a problem at all it's always going to be in the use of that test not having the test or not having the test and that test we envisioned that test could actually be useful even in a hospital setting so there are some of our hospitals that are in our critical access scheme that don't have PCR testing but still need to make a decision once a patient arrives at an emergency room and might be admitted as to should they be treated as potentially COVID or not and that test would be very useful to help them triage that case right at the point of care so again we have no fundamental problem with having antigen testing available across the state and that's why we're putting out the health alert notification this week so that the use of that test is what we focus on not having it or not having it and the results of the follow up PCR you expect those may be available as soon as today I would yes yes is it possible for those results to be made public prior to tomorrow's report if they do come in if they're known during the course of the day today that will be listed as a positive case in our daily report okay thank you Tim Vermont Business Magazine Hi Governor I just have a question for Suzanne but first the FYI to Dr. Levine I was in a convenience store yesterday the first time everyone was wearing a mask but that was pretty impressive and also the $100 you mentioned the state providing in the UI benefits does that start to go out or what do you expect it to go out we haven't technically received the at this point the bill so has not been signed but we haven't received it okay but it's in there so people can yeah but we haven't put it in the place at this point right okay so if they got the other 300 from FEMA that they could expect that that extra well I think it's you know to be honest I'm not sure that whether we're going to back date that or it's going to be starting at the point where we run out of the 300 and just go to the 100 at this point until Congress acts so I'm not sure at this point okay well that's a good time for victory yeah you know the revenue report came out last Friday and I know the data is a little mixed up because of the pandemic but the August numbers for the personal income tax actually looked pretty good and I was wondering if you had any further thoughts about what that says and if there's any can you see any any trend going forward or why that might have happened thank you I had to get off mute yeah the trend in August for the personal income tax that was one category of tax that led the rest in terms of funding it over target by about 16 million I believe or 17 million in the general fund after we accounted for the deferred taxes so you're right it was a little poppy query in the last two months because of the deferred 20 revenue I think it's too soon to tell exactly why that is happening our economists are basically advising that we get through these two months of revenue reporting and sort of turn on its head because of the pandemic and take a closer look at September and see if these trends you know this trend against target continues mostly in the general fund of the receipts that overperformed were in discreet almost like one time categories such as the estate tax the the some C receipts that we were catching up on since the pandemic and some of the health care revenues that came in a little higher than target and that accounted for most of the the overage compared to target in August well that's why I have to ask about the personal income tax but it's also noticeably up as well so that's nice alright thank you thank you Guy Page Governor last night Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana said Senate Democrats are moving away from representative government and towards what he calls declarative government in which bureaucrats make policy would you say that the Global Warming Solutions Act fits this general description and does your administration have any specific plans to contest the GWSA yeah we're still contemplating that I mean I have concerns as I said before about the constitutionality of the Global Warming Solutions Act as well as some of the process in place but mainly mainly the constitutional aspect because again the legislature can give up its authority and that's all fine and well but they can't reinvent the executive branch and that's what they've done okay thank you you expect a when you expect to make a decision on whether the administration actually would be parting to a challenge well again we're reflecting on that as we speak we're still trying to catch up from all the action in the legislature waiting for some bills to arrive we don't have any on my desk at this point but they're a number that were passed at the last minute that will need some attention so we'll do that then move on from there so a lot going on in terms of the action taken in the legislature the pandemic itself trying to build a budget for the next fiscal year which is coming up sooner than we'd like because they'll be back in session within a month so it's going to be a very very short turnaround time Governor Fiannan and Fox both reported that last night many police departments nationwide lost 9-1-1 service and other computer services for a period of time apparently due to a problem of Microsoft was Vermont affected and if so how and in the future what should Vermonters do if they find that no one answers I asked that very question this morning at a cabinet meeting of our ADS Secretary Secretary Quinn he wasn't aware at that point as to whether 9-1-1 was affected here in Vermont but certainly the Microsoft issue affected our email so it's concerning I'm not sure what action we could take I don't even know the cause at this point but again it is trying to get to the bottom of that as we speak how was the email affected just weren't able to send because of and the teams meetings and so forth with the new technology that we're all adapting to so it had an effect on some of the emails coming through but I think they eventually did okay thank you Pam Davis this is a question for Dr. LaVine Dr. LaVine we've got some very good information today on the whole antigen field and what it looks like now and how it's going I have two questions to you the first one is I believe that the essence of the antigen test is based on an assumption or a conclusion that you have that it's okay to have a test that has very high fall negatives every person has only a small amount of virus on him or her that person is not likely to transmit it my first question I like to ask two at a time my question is what is your view of the scientific validity of that do you have a sense of where the lines cross on the point at which you can put people relatively significantly safely together on the basis of a test that has a lot of fall negatives do you have your own opinion the second is the second question is on the question of the holidays coming up I wonder if you just, we're willing to go on farther over your skis on that the reality it seems to me is that Thanksgiving and Christmas are the two preeminent holidays in the year when families gather and they gather from all over the place in a mobile society my feeling is that that a combination of two week quarantine windows and a full reliance on the PCR test simply is not going to get it in those two holidays the pressures are going to be huge and so my question would be will you do, what would you be able to do to make it possible to be able for families that need to foregather on Thursday be able to get tested on Wednesday so that they can do it those are my questions, thank you good, so we'll go back to the first question first I'm not going to give an opinion I'm going to give you what we know and what we know is based on extremely limited data but it's very challenging to correlate having a positive antigen test for SARS-CoV-2 and how likely is someone to be infectious we like these tests to be used in the first five to seven days of symptoms because we think that's when a person will be most likely to have a true positive result and that correlates with a period that we're worried about them being infectious obviously and that's why they're isolated when they develop symptoms but later in the course these tests might be able to still be positive but it would be very challenging to know is that just finding some virus on the nasal swab because they're very they're able, their ability to pick up the virus is very good or is it because that person still is capable of transmitting infection to others and we just don't know as one gets later in the course so I'm giving you not the full opinion answer you want because I can only base what I say on the data that's out there right now with regard to the holidays I'm going to continue to not go over my skis and say that it's too early for me to give a lot of good advice and we're in a pandemic so I have the right to be able to say that today and I don't think people would want to be going too far over their skis and making assumptions about what Christmas is going to be like in terms of the disease I'm very struck by the data that Commissioner Pichak showed for the region, for back and for the projections around the country and we have to just be as cautious as we can be and still hope that we'll continue to maintain our really extraordinary performance here and I think part of your question was concerning a testing component into the whole mix but again no matter what test, the antigen test, PCR test, whatever, we still stand by this one statement if your test is negative it's negative that moment in time and that's all it needs and if you're coming from a place that has a lot more prevalence of disease that negative test that one moment doesn't rule anything out and just to follow up on Stuart's question from very early today even a temperature that's normal doesn't really help at that point in time either I'd love for the temperature to be integrated with all of the symptom checklist which it would be but from our Vermont data looking at all of the cases we've had less than 50% of our Vermonters presented with the symptom of fever when they were first diagnosed doesn't mean they didn't develop fever as they got more ill in the course but they did not present with fever so the pickup rate wouldn't be as good as we'd like still and with regard to the the holidays just to finish up the the reason we have this sort of period of time where we're sending the students from college home Thanksgiving and they're staying away until sometime in 2021 and the colleges are actually working with us on what that date would be but it's not going to be January 1st that gap in time will be very important towards making sure that we can return them safely with the same kind of testing and quarantine protocol that we did back in July and August to make sure that Vermont is protected again if you will from people who are coming back here for a good reason but they're coming from potentially a place that's yellow or red is that covered him well I as well as I think it can be expected I think the problem I the problem I have is the practical world somebody right now my family's got to figure out whether we can have Thanksgiving with 15 people and the reality is that all of those things which you say are true all of the information you put up is totally true the question I have is whether we'll work in the practical world but pressure for people to gather isn't just the kind of pressure you get to have a fraternity party or something that will be something that is basically done but it's more than one way to die and people have not been able to put their families together since last Christmas and so the question is we need as much of the guidance as we possibly can and I can't hear it from you Dr. Levine I want to know whether the whole tribe tested with an antigen test the day before Thanksgiving in which they are all negative should we have Thanksgiving dinner together or not are they all coming from Vermont? mostly because I again want you to look at the data that was presented today about 0.5 million people are no longer eligible within the last week to come to Vermont because their color has changed and it changes both ways over the last month or so but it's been changing in the wrong direction in the last week and so when people are making travel plans either to come from Vermont or to leave Vermont to go visit their family they're taking that kind of a risk that we can't really advise them on because things change quickly I know what the question really is can the risk be managed allegedly by an antigen test yes or no so the answer is yes with prior good behavior and depending on where a relative is coming from with quarantine if needed the combination of those two would be wonderful having just the negative test to allow them to come sit around the table could be falsely reassuring so I just have to put it out there we've got to move on to our next question now I've got it okay if it makes it any easier you can take me off the list to reduce that from 15 to 14 Steve anything can you hear me? quick one for the doctor and then one for the governor if I may earlier the IHME was referenced for their modeling hasn't some of their modeling proved to be like wildly inaccurate since this whole thing began might be a better question for Commissioner Pichek if you don't mind sure and with the cases with the amount of testing we've been seeing increasing didn't we expect that the amount of cases would be increasing and if you look at the amount of cases compared to the fatality rate nowadays hasn't the fatality rate pretty much dropped through the floor our fatality rate is I don't believe we've had it death in two months IHME H&Y too thanks for that question Steve on the first points we put two models together on that one slide it was IHME and another model we did that because you are right that it's important to back check your models and we do that on occasion and I think we've mentioned that we work with Oliver Wyman quite closely and they do that same analysis as well and the two models that perform the best are the You, Yang, Goo model and the Oliver Wyman model sort of consistently over time IHME has had to revise their forecast as things change fundamentally about what they know about the virus what is happening in the country new information that's come in but I think they both are telling the same message again one that's been the most reliable model back dated, back checked by the CDC and others and the IHME model saying that cases are likely to increase in the fall sure thank you and one for the governor if I may go ahead Steve hi thanks with a global warming solution I guess this question is kind of existential but David Attenborough was on 60 minutes last Sunday and he was basically saying that that humans are ruining the planet and I remember during the 70s when zero population growth was kind of like mentioned for sustainability here in Vermont by the way yeah well I mean if humans are ruining things wouldn't it be a good idea to go from a dynamic model to a static model where even if people, your average family had just two children that it would help with sustainability not blow holes in the labor force well again here in Vermont we suffer from a shortage of people we have a workforce shortage that was pre-pandemic that will continue we have such a low, I mean our population is receding not advancing so we have the opposite problem with maybe some other states so I wouldn't advocate for that here in Vermont we need again we need more people and fewer workers for the workforce and hampers our ability to grow the economy so in terms of the global warming solutions act though again I agree with the goals I mean I think climate change is real but I think we can have an effect on that and I think the sooner we get to electric vehicles sooner that we get to more electric heating and so forth the better off we're going to be but particularly in the transportation sector which is arguably I've heard two statistics somewhere between 45 and 60% of the carbon emissions are from transportation so the quicker that we can get there the better and another quick one regarding JP up here a good portion I'd say maybe almost 50% of their ski traffic is from Canada and if the border is not reopened is there any way that we might be able to keep them in business somehow well we certainly hope so Steve I mean that's what we've been trying to do throughout the pandemic is trying to give grants and so forth economic relief to the businesses here in Vermont so they can survive throughout the pandemic but we'll be watching obviously that we've given money to ski areas there's money in the budget I believe I think it held that there's money for the ski areas which should be helpful but again we might have to look for other ways to create more traffic if the border is not open maybe there'll be some from other states coming from safe counties throughout the region to explore JP who haven't before because it's a beautiful place and great skiing so we'll have to try and do whatever we can to support them and it's never crowded either well not right now but we hope that will be a problem in the future alright thank you all very much thank you Courtney local 22 under or doctor I'm wondering if you anticipate any new cases in Vermont in regards to fall tourism we've really seen the colors start popping within the last week I know that's a big draw far region well from my standpoint I'll let Dr. Levine give his opinion as well although he's not giving opinions today he's just relying on data what I would say again anecdotally when I'm watching the data we're not seeing an uptick in the number of cars traveled into Vermont during this time it's down significantly from last year previous years and it's not increasing previous weeks that I've seen thus far again anecdotally I was driving or I wasn't driving I was riding on Sunday to go into the office and I saw a local establishment that had the beautiful backdrop of reds and oranges and yellows and just the picturesque kind of a picture of fall foliage in Vermont beautiful backdrop so I took a picture of that hotel but then when I reflected on the picture I saw the front of the house which wasn't as picturesque as we normally would expect because there was no cars in the parking lot literally less than 12 cars there and at this point in time and years past the place would be full so we may be seeing more vehicles in Stowe and Manchester and some of the and some of the more typical areas but I can see that we're not we're not seeing the traffic that we normally do Dr. Levine the major observation I've had is we seem to be having an earlier peak it's not even October and so much has changed already so I think we do get a lot of our tours then in the beginning of October thinking that that's when the peak is and maybe it still will be in select parts of the state all of our planning that we've done in terms of staffing up our contact tracing workforce and testing capability is really based on the fact that we've reopened schools reopen colleges and have a foliage season and we always regarded them as a group hard to sort of say the biggest impact will be on one part of those three or another so I'll give my opinion I still think that could have an impact but I'm hoping if it has a reduced impact it's not because no one came because we're certainly not telling them don't come because we're afraid you're going to ruin our numbers still not we want them to come period since I'm at the mic I just have to make a teaching point in regard to Ham Davis's question again regarding testing his whole family with antigen testing to see if they can sit at the Thanksgiving table that is an example of the one time we don't want to see antigen testing used one off situation where you have a bunch of people who have not been tested at all on a regular basis none of them have any symptoms coming to a place where there's a low rate of disease that's where antigen testing if it's going to have a false negative or a false positive will be more likely to have that result so that's why when we talk about using it in places like nursing homes or other settings we talk about using it on a regular basis repetitively and not just come in and do it once and see what happens so that point needs to be hammered home thank you news 7 star 6 on you alright we'll go back to Greg from the county courier governor can you hear me? we can alright thank you for coming back to me first off I wanted to ask about a follow up on the testing for the colleges it looks like we've had many more testing tests being done than students that are attending in person are they being tested multiple times and it shows their reason that they're being tested multiple times just because it just came back around them or because maybe they've gotten a false positive or what might happen? that was part of their protocol I think every university might have been different and how they approach this but some are doing it on a weekly basis so it's just part of their plan as they move forward so they're adhering to the plan in fact UVM I believe extended their plan they may have wanted to end her maybe had more of more weeks in between testing but they've adhered to the plan they started with I've seen a moving on here I've seen a concerted effort on social media this morning to contact your office to support the newest act 250 reform bill and encourage you not to veto it do you support the newest act 250 reform or do you plan to veto that bill? well again we haven't received it yet but I was disappointed in the end product we started out with a substantial bill that had something in it for everyone and when it ended I believe that it was just a shadow of itself and there's really only two pieces left the forest fragmentation as well as just an extension of the review of the trails in Vermont so it wasn't even eliminating the need for an act 250 permit for the trails it was just extending that limitation for another year put it off until next year so we'll take a look I'll reflect on that but there were a number of bills that were sent late and I haven't had the chance to look at them but I was disappointed with that one and one more follow up much like Steve we're very close to the Canadian border up here in Franklin County and we see travelers from Quebec on a regular basis albeit this year significantly less but we still see travelers coming from Quebec with the splice in cases up there do you expect that there's going to be more restrictions for how and when people can cross the border and I'm wondering what you're hearing from the federal government on that topic yeah I'm not hearing that I know that for people business related folks folks that are coming across the border to work at some of our health care our hospitals and so forth I believe can cross back and forth so I'm not I don't know who can actually cross the border other than for essential workers so we again for the longest time we saw their numbers were mimicking hours mirroring hours here in Vermont and when they we see a spike I mean there's a dramatic spike but it's still their numbers pale in comparison to be honest with you to what we're seeing in Texas or Florida they're much less than what we've seen there so they're still safer than many parts of the United States there's at least a handful of state employees that live in Canada come down to Vermont to work I know at least one that continues to do this on a regular basis if the numbers continue to spike up there are you going to ask the state employees stay where they are in telecommute the best they can or again our vision has been to look at maybe from a district standpoint even with Canada with Quebec in particular it's not the whole Quebec province but we might have to look at their ridings which is their districts or their counties I just don't know how we would be able to do that but from my standpoint it isn't just shutting off Canada in its entirety right now but we would be more strategic about where they could or couldn't come from okay thank you Governor you're very weak alright thank you very much and we'll see you all on Friday