 Good morning, everyone. We have a number of updates for you today, so I'll try to be brief. To start, today we've launched another financial assistance program, this one for the childcare sector. I've long talked about how critical good quality childcare is for Vermont, giving kids a strong foundation and supporting working families. Our childcare providers stepped up during the pandemic, staying open to support our frontline essential workers. And for that, I thank you all for your efforts and commitment to Vermont's kids. The state has worked to support these small businesses throughout the pandemic, but we know many of them continue to struggle. So, working with the legislature, we're now offering $12 million in grants for the CARES Act funding we received. This will help childcare providers with losses and additional expenses due to COVID-19. So please go to dcf.vermont.gov for details and how to apply. Next, as we focus a lot on the return to school next month, many are wondering what this means for sports. I know how important this is for many young Vermonters and their families, but like so many things during this crisis, fall sports won't be exactly what they're accustomed to. I want you to know we're working with the Vermont Principles Association, the Superintendent's Association of School Athletic Directors and Coaches, with a goal that will allow all fall sports to move forward in some fashion. This includes cross-country running, soccer, field hockey, football, cheerleading, volleyball, bass fishing, and golf. As the VPA has stated, practice will start at the same time that classes start, which is now September 8th. This guidance will also cover Vermont's recreational sports leagues as well. There will be more details from the VPA next week, but I know many have been wondering if there was going to be a season at all, so we wanted to make it clear there will be. However, kids, coaches, and parents should prepare themselves. Things will look much different, especially when it comes to high-contact sports. Now again, this won't be a normal season, but our goal is to offer a path forward for each of these sports to give our kids some sense of normalcy and at normal times. Before I turn it over to Dr. Levine, Commissioner Baker and Commissioner Pichek to provide their updates, I want to recognize a milestone in our COVID-19 response. As of yesterday, we tested more than 100,000 people. Of those, 1,448 have tested positive. Testing and contact tracing have been critical to our reopening strategy and our ongoing ability to detect and contain outbreaks. While other states continue to see surges and testing turnaround times that national labs are strained, my team continues to do all we can to make sure we maintain and build our testing capacity, so that we're always ready to contain outbreaks and protect our most vulnerable. It takes hard work by many to make all these tests happen, and their work is an important reason why the rate of transmission in this state is so low. So I want to thank them, the team at the Public Health Lab, the Health Office staff, the Vermont National Guards, state employees, and EMS workers who have stood up and run all these pop-up sites that we've seen throughout the state. With that, I'll turn it over to Dr. Levine for his update. And other than what you're going to hear from Commissioner Baker about Mississippi, I have nothing to report about any outbreaks within the borders of the state of Vermont. So I'm going to pivot directly from the governor's comments regarding the 100,000 test milestone and talk about testing. Testing's been essential in helping us learn how much the virus is in our communities, and the testing that's happened around the state is reassuring. The data from all of the testing tells us that we really do have low case counts, and our numbers aren't low just because people aren't getting tested. And how we know this is why I want to take a moment to recognize the months of hard work and very long days put in by our Public Health Laboratory team. Members of the Health Department team have all but given up their personal lives, process and analyze the literally hundreds of tests that come in every day. The list of individuals is too long to recite, but includes microbiologists, laboratory technicians, administrative and data entry staff, an entire medical technical team that make pop-ups happen in a strategic and timely way, our local health offices, our EMTs and the National Guard. Our case rates have stayed low in Vermont, and while testing is a valuable tool, it isn't what has kept so many people safe and healthy. You did that. Vermonters did that by staying home whenever possible, by wearing masks in public and following all of the other prevention steps to stay healthy. It certainly hasn't been easy, especially as the months drag on or seemingly fly by. I know that for many, caution fatigue is setting in, and it's hard to keep the regimen of precautions and hand washing going, but we need to keep it up because it's working. COVID-19 is going to be with us for a while, and while we all need to keep these basic precautions in mind as we go about our daily lives. But I fear that much of the recent discussion on testing has distracted everyone from some of the fundamental principles. There's much national and local talk about long turnaround times. States that are currently experiencing surges are having long turnaround times on the order of seven to ten days or more, and a result for a person with symptoms that comes back in that timeframe is almost worthless to the person and to the state in terms of preventing the spread of disease. It's just assured that for those who are symptomatic and need a rapid turnaround in Vermont, we have it. The commercial labs are overwhelmed. It's not their fault. They're trying hard under extraordinary circumstances. Fortunately, most of those in Vermont with symptoms are not having their specimen sent to commercial labs. It's unfortunate that many of those who are getting tested, who are without symptoms, may be experiencing delayed turnaround times. For these people where the stakes are lower and where healthcare practitioners have frequently been sending the specimens to a commercial lab, turnaround may be longer. But to keep this in perspective, we are still able to very effectively practice a containment strategy in the state of Vermont because of testing and contact tracing, which is key to limiting the spread of the virus. We also need to plan now to make sure that no matter what happens, we have the supplies and capacity ready for high priority situations that could pose a serious public health threat, especially to those who are more vulnerable to the serious effects of COVID-19. We see this in other states where surges are taxing their capacity to test and do the contact tracing essential to slowing the spread of illness. As many states struggle with a resurgence of cases, we can expect, possibly predict, a slowdown or shortage of the supplies needed to both collect samples from people at test sites and to analyze the specimens in the lab. And Vermont is not immune, as we said many times before. We expect there will be cases and even limited outbreaks as we very cautiously continue to restart Vermont. With this in mind, we continue to stockpile supplies and we must preserve our ability to test who and where we really need to test. Even as we take these steps, it's important to remember that testing is not prevention. The test that we use, the PCR test, will show you if you were sick at the time when your specimen was taken. It tells you something about that specific point in time which makes testing a really useful tool to understand. It helps us understand one, the general prevalence of a disease in the community at a point in time. Two, whether you got COVID-19 after a potential exposure. And three, whether the symptoms you are having are truly due to COVID-19. Now that we know from widespread statewide testing that the presence of virus in our state is very low, we must now prioritize our testing, as I said, to these people and situations where testing is really needed. You do not need to be tested unless you have reason to believe you've been in close contact with someone who has the virus or you have symptoms of COVID or have increased medical risk. Again, testing is not prevention. A negative test result does not mean you can ease up on all of the everyday actions we follow to keep the virus from spreading. If you haven't been exposed to the virus, then making sure you follow the core points you've heard over and over again is the best way to make sure you and your loved ones don't get sick and don't need a test. Wear a mask when you go out in public. Stay six feet away from people, especially anyone you don't live with to avoid sharing germs. Stay home if you're sick and contact your health care provider. Ultimately, the name of the game is harm and risk reduction. Most activities have some risk. Some activities are riskier than others. It's up to each of us to think about that risk to ourselves and the people we may interact with. Ask yourself before you go. Is it worth it to go to the bar with friends tonight even when you're sick of being home or to a potentially crowded event or beach when it may be busy? Always think about how you can keep yourself and others as safe as possible. Can you move your gathering outdoors? Can you keep the group on the small side? Keep your risk as low as possible to keep the virus from spreading. We will get through this eventually. And know that we'll continue to review the ever-evolving science and global knowledge about COVID-19. This is to ensure that our policy decisions are based on sound science so that Vermonters and visitors to our state have the most current and actionable information possible. This is public health, and every one of us plays a part in making sure Vermonters stays healthy and open. Now, I'd like to turn this over to Commissioner Baker. Thank you, Dr. Levine. Good morning. I'd like to take this opportunity to provide an update on the outbreak of the coronavirus at Tallahassee's County Correctional Facility in Mississippi. The general facility is owned and operated by a private contractor, Corps Civic, who Vermon has a contract with the House Vermon Inmates. We've reported that there are 219 inmates at the facility in Mississippi. We also reported that there were 147 positive tests of inmates. After an audit of the test results that came from two separate testing locations, we have determined that there are actually 146 positive tests, not 147. We have as a practice at the beginning of mass testing of our six facilities in Vermont done auditing and cross-checking of all test results that are received. It was during the process of auditing the results from Mississippi that we determined there was an individual listed as positive. That was in fact negative. The numbers are now 146 positive, 65 negative, and eight folks who were used testing. As a reminder of the timeline of events that led up to the discovery of the outbreak in Mississippi, it was the high level of standards used here in Vermont that discovered there may be a problem at Tallahassee. On July 28, six inmates from Mississippi arrived at the Marble Valley Correctional Facility in Rollins. These inmates all returned through the standard process of inmates coming back to Vermont for programming or at least planning purposes. The Vermont Department of Correction at early in the pandemic worked with the Vermont Department of Health to establish science-based protocols that mitigate the spread of virus in our correctional facilities. One of those protocols is a 14-day quarantine and on days 0, 3, and 12 testing. The testing of the Mississippi inmates resulted in all six being positive from the virus. These results coupled with a positive inmate test in Mississippi led to the Vermont Department of Correction to request that core civic test all of the inmates. That conversation took place on 7.30 after the receipt of the positive test. During the period of 7.30 to 7.31 it became apparent to the Vermont Department of Correction staff who had developed an expertise in the mitigation of virus that the core civic staff lacked immediate testing capacity. The Vermont Department of Correction started working with the Vermont Department of Health who returned contact with their counterparts at the Mississippi Department of Health to build the necessary capacity to test all 119 Vermont inmates. Over the weekend of 8.01 test results started coming back that painted a very serious picture of the spread of the virus amongst the Vermont population at Tallahatchee. As the commissioner, I felt the staff of core civic did not grasp the meaning of the results or had the urgency required to address the crisis. This resulted in a series of phone calls with me, leadership of POC, our subject matter experts, and the staff core civic. We insisted on a more focused, urgent response to the crisis. Our focus then shifted to medical care with the Vermont population including the assessing of the level of expertise of medical staff at the jail as well as medical surge capacities of area hospitals. We continued to work with core civic to write a new protocol that was specific to Mississippi. We virtually invented our subject matter experts from both DOC and the Vermont Department of Health in daily briefings with core civic. We have then conducted a series of exercises with core civic who assure complete understanding of the updated and specific protocols to deal with this outbreak. On Tuesday, 8.04, a plan was developed to stun staff to Mississippi to put boots and eyes on the ground. It was decided we needed medical expertise and operational expertise to validate that everything that could be done was being done to care for the Vermont population. During the day of 8.05, arranges were made for Dr. Scott Strenio, our part-time medical director and our logistics chief, Bob Arnell, to travel to Mississippi. Dr. Strenio and Chief Arnell arrived at the TALACI facility mid-afternoon yesterday and provided the Vermont Department leadership team with their first update early last evening. Dr. Strenio reports that he's satisfied with the level of observation, medical care, and tracking of medical service at three hospitals in a 60-mile radius of the facility. Chief Arnell reported that from an operational standpoint and early evaluation indicate that the proper protocols appear to be following to include medical isolation of the 146 positive inmates and the separation of the negative inmates. The eight refusals are being treated in accordance with the Vermont Department of Health's guidance as they were positive, even though we do not know if they are positive. As of this morning, there are no inmates from Vermont that are hospitalized. Two inmates have been transported to emergency room due to drop in O2 saturation but are now back at the jail. There are no inmates according to Dr. Strenio who are exhibiting symptoms that are overly concerning. Dr. Strenio today will review every chart of every inmate in the Vermont population to do a clinical assessment and identify those inmates at greatest risk. He will then work with core medical staff to do clinical care plans to meet the expectations of care. Chief Arnell will continue the inspection of processes at the facility today. Last evening, I spoke directly to Mr. Damon Inger, the CEO of Course 7. I insisted that the entire facility at Tallahassee be tested without delay. I emphasized to Mr. Inger that the Vermont Department of Corrections has a high level of success in keeping our six in-state facilities free of the virus to address the testing directed by the Governor Scott. I also shared that we are as successful as we are, thanks in a large part, a low-community spread that Dr. Levine just described, especially around the areas that surround our facilities. This is not the case at the facility in Mississippi. We are as low-located as some of the highest spread in the country. Course 7 will not get their arms around the outbreak if they do not determine the level of spread amongst the remaining staff and the other inmate population. In closing, I want to assure the loved ones of the Vermont inmates in Mississippi that it is not lost on me as the commissioner the seriousness of the situation and the need for family and friends to have information. To that end, we have established the team to respond to questions from family members. There is a link on our web page at Vermont Department of Corrections to get current information by leading contact number or email. My expectation is that a staff member will get back to the family in a speedy manner. We will also be sending out updates via our automatic notification call system to a towered list of numbers for designated family members. Thank you very much. Thank you, Commissioner Baker. If you could stay on the line, there may be questions after. I would like to turn it over to Commissioner Peachek for his update on modeling in the northeast region. Thank you very much, Governor. Good morning, everyone. We will start today's presentation again with a look at our national data across the U.S. where we have seen some improvements this week. We will then overview a recent analysis that our department conducted comparing urban and rural areas and their respective experiences with COVID-19 that will then again turn to our region and to Vermont and close with an update on our travel map. As a reminder for those watching at home, today's presentation is available on our department's website at dfr.vermont.gov. The past week, the United States saw new COVID-19 cases continue to decrease with the daily new case average falling below 60,000 for the first time in weeks and with new cases down 10% this week compared to last. We are also seeing a reduction across the country in individuals requiring hospital care including critical hospital care. And although this data is starting to move in the right direction, it is important to note that averaging over 50,000 new cases per day is still a rather serious situation for the country. Unfortunately, we are continuing to see a steady increase or a steady number of COVID-19 related deaths in the United States. We have reported over 1,000 deaths for each of the last 11 days in the United States with one analysis determining that an American died every 80 seconds from COVID-19 in the past week. A grim reality that we are likely to continue to see in the weeks ahead. In fact, just this morning the CDC updated its COVID-19 death projections saying the coronavirus death toll could reach as high as 190,000 by the end of August. The slowdown in new cases though is a good factor and we can see these across each of our four U.S. census regions with both the South and the West clearly seeing a decline while the Midwest and the Northeast are also seeing a slowdown in new case growth. I want to turn now to that overview I mentioned of the new analysis by our department that looks at any of the differences between urban and rural areas across the country. In the beginning months of the pandemic, COVID-19 infections were far more prevalent in highly populous urban centers. It then spread steadily outward into suburbs and rural communities. This new analysis by our department however shows that today there is now no correlation between the state's urbanization and its COVID-19 experience. Even highly rural areas are now showing significant case infection rates. Vermonters have done an excellent job combating the virus and it's important to stay vigilant since even sparsely populated rural areas like parts of Vermont can quickly be overcome by new waves of infection. The next three maps show our travel zone and the number of active COVID-19 infections within our region among three different levels of urbanization. Again, they appear generally similar with each level including both very low infection areas and several intense hot spots. The similarity again underscores our findings that rural areas are no longer safer than urban ones and again illustrates that Vermont's COVID-19 experience was certainly not predetermined nor is it happening simply by chance. We also wanted to revisit a comparison we made in late June between Hawaii, Montana, Alaska, and Vermont. At the time we noted how similar these four states' COVID-19 experience had been with each state experiencing a very mild first wave followed by a period of very low case growth and then when their economies began to reopen each saw an increase in outbreaks and clusters. At the time and as Dr. Levine just noted we mentioned how important it was for testing and contact tracing to contain these outbreaks and these clusters. Looking back over the past six weeks we have seen that Montana, Alaska, and Hawaii have each experienced challenges with their testing programs. Generally test results have slowed down or the amount of testing has decreased, largely attributable to the national increase in cases and the slowdown in commercial lab processing times. An analysis by COVID Act now also illustrates that Montana, Alaska, and Hawaii are struggling to keep up with a number of new contacts that have been created by this case growth and by these delays in testing with as few as 12% of contacts being interviewed within 48 hours of a reported positive case. Now on slide 12 we can see the outcome of this situation. When we look at the new case growth in the past six weeks we see that each Montana, Alaska, and Hawaii has seen a significant growth far surpassing their initial peak and in some days reporting hundreds or even multiple hundreds of cases. Fortunately Vermont did not follow suit and its epi team at the Department of Health continues to quickly and effectively respond to outbreaks and clusters. And as Dr. Levine mentioned to his team this is a real testament to him and Dr. Kelso, the public labs and the entire Department of Health and again illustrates how Vermont is not doing well by accident but because of the hard work of Vermonters and those who are working on their behalf as well. Turning our attention now to the northeast we see some more positive news. We did see case growth in our immediate region slow down compared to last week albeit slightly at 0.5%. This breaks with a four week streak of week over week case growth in the northeast. However there are still areas in our region that we're keeping a close eye on in particular Massachusetts and Rhode Island which have continued to see a slow creep of new cases over the past few weeks. Turning our attention to Vermont we continue to see steady and favorable trends in our numbers. New case growth was just about flat compared to last week with 39 new cases and Vermont continues to hold the distinction of having the lowest positivity rate in the country. Further all of our restart metrics continue to look good as well. This week we saw syndromic surveillance continue to indicate that very few people are visiting Vermont emergency rooms or urgent care facilities and that remains well below our 4% guardrail. Vermont's three and seven day viral growth rates remain extremely low this week and again nothing that would signify anything of significant concern. Again regarding our test positivity the seven day average remains steady and as we mentioned we continue to have the lowest positivity rate in the country. Last relating to our ICU availability this continues to trend around the 30% buffer and as we've mentioned in the past with the positive trends with our other metrics this is certainly not a concern at this time. Looking at a forecast that was run just yesterday evening we see that Vermont is likely to continue to experience these favorable trends for the next few weeks. The updated model from Oliver Wyman indicates that we are very closely tracking our estimated case growth and that we should expect to continue to see very low case growth over the next few weeks. Last turning to an update relating to our regional travel map as mentioned earlier new case growth has declined in the northeast which has translated into more individuals being eligible to travel to Vermont with quarantine free travel. The number now stands at 5.2 million up from 4.8 million last week and looking more closely at the counties that changed this week we see a relatively even mix of counties that have improved or have gotten worse. With particular improvement also in the state of Maine. Again looking back over the past six weeks we see the number is still down significantly from the high of a few weeks ago but we certainly hope the favorable trends we are seeing across the country in the mid-Atlantic and in the northeast will mean that more people can be welcomed to Vermont without the need to quarantine in the near future. At this time I would like to turn it back over to the governor. Thank you Commissioner Impecek. With that we will open it up to questions. Calvin? Thank you. With students returning back to school in the fall I'm wondering first off maybe the governor has a question for Secretary French if the state is keeping numbers and data on how many schools are either doing in-person instruction a hybrid model or both. Secretary French I don't know if you have any updated information on what schools are anticipating in terms of instruction. Thank you Governor. Many districts are still finalizing their plans and we're finding that some of the districts that came out earlier with their plans are now revising those plans. But to your question Calvin we do intend to collect monthly data starting in September on the number of students in grade levels in which students are enrolled in in-person hybrid or remote learning. Do you have any reflections on what you're seeing so far? No I think as I mentioned it's too early to tell you know there are many districts that are still revising their plans and some districts I know are finalizing them this week. And then another question earlier this week you told lawmakers that the state is working to build a list of potential child care providers to step in should some should there be a problem with child care? I'm wondering where we are in building that list and also maybe how do you think some of these providers will cooperate with the state as well? Well I think it is the child care issue that I identified I think it's on everyone's mind right now it's a significant issue. I was meeting with the partner at CDD this week, Child Development Division who oversees those programs. You know for the governor's earlier announcement today we're ramping up our infrastructure to support school districts and the state in this area and I think it's going to be a critical need and it's one we're preparing to support. Thank you. I'm wondering with the grant coming out for child care if you all have a sense of the economic impact if there's been any either from child care providers not having been available during the pandemic or moving forward if this money will help breathe in any more life or if that's even been an issue? Yeah obviously this is a question that is better for Secretary Smith but from my standpoint from the very beginning we established that there was going to be this need as we came through this pandemic for child care and that's why Secretary Smith and his team put together a plan to subsidize in some respects some of these child care facilities to make sure that they're still intact when we got through this and we knew we were going to go back to work and would need them. So I think it's been highly successful I don't know if other states did what we did but I think it was essential in making sure that we're at the point we are today to make sure that we have the facilities the additional grants are going to be beneficial as well because there's still a lot of need in their business just like anyone else and they've suffered through this so I think this will help but Secretary Smith can expand upon that. Thank you Governor I just want to reiterate something that the Governor had said we didn't shut down child care during the pandemic in fact we established two programs which were the essential the essential person's incentive program and also the stabilization program the incentive for essential persons provided extra money for those children of essential workers and the stabilization program provided money just to make sure that we didn't lose the child care infrastructure that we had during that time those that closed they needed to sustain their financial stability and the sustainability program did that we're now we also offered right after we were starting to reopen a reopening sort of grant of about six million dollars this new additional relief program includes 12 million dollars using the coronavirus relief fund to offset pandemic related expenses and losses and I just wanted to because it's significant what this state has done and I don't believe there's too many other states that have done what this state has done in terms of child care 33 million dollars total of the total of these programs plus what we have announced today that the legislature has appropriated as well with us in this effort 33 million dollars approximately 33 million dollars that's an enormous effort just to keep this economy going and the child care economy going during a time when it was critical to move forward so we've done a lot in this area and it's showing signs we need to do more and there are some things that we're looking at right now that we probably will be talking about in the next few weeks or so Mike, might as well stay up there just add you've got moves on the ground now down in Mississippi A, how long are they going to be there are you do you think this will fix the or reassure the families of those who are incarcerated down there and is there any thought to possibly pull some of those who have been outside of there once there let me turn it over to Commissioner Baker he's still on the line anticipating those questions I think some of those questions are what we've talked about before in terms of the difficulty of trying to bring back those prisoners in Mississippi during a pandemic especially when we have quarantined facilities that we need quarantine beds for also as you know we had we went from 1600 prisoners down to 1300 that's starting to creep back up and take more beds as the judiciary opens back up as well but I'll let Commissioner Baker talk about some of the efforts in terms of boots on the ground with Dr. Strenios and the director of logistics down there and also what we're doing with families I think that's important we have to reach out to families to make sure that they're up to date of what's going on as well Commissioner Baker Thank you Secretary I first before you answer those questions I need to clarify some of the remarks I made because I made a mistake when I talked about the quarantine of new individuals coming into our system and quarantining them for 14 days we test that day 0, 7, 12 and I believe what I said was 0, 3 and 12 it is 0, 7, 12 as the quote is called so I wanted to correct that let me address the first question of Dr. Strenio and logistics chief Arnell they're scheduled to come back tomorrow and they'll be working all day on the ground there in fact since we've been on the press conference I've gotten two mail updates from Dr. Strenio as he started to see the inmates in checking them medical records and so on and we emphasize that the doctor is reassuring us back here that there's no one that are exhibiting symptoms that he's concerned about they will return tomorrow we'll be getting a briefing from them a total briefing of the day from them tonight to have a better idea of what they saw and what they accomplished and then we'll have a discussion about if we need to send additional staff down next week for eyes on and boots on the ground until we hear that briefing I can't say what my recommendations of the secretary will be about sending other folks down there and increasing my level of trust with the core civic that they're doing everything they can to take care of the inmate population so if that's a good answer if that's good for you on the first answer I'll move on to the second point that the secretary was talking about there's 219 inmates in in our custody that we contract with the core civic bringing them back is not as simple as talking about bringing them back here we do have beds here now that we could bring some of them back the complication is exactly what the secretary talked about we have a very well tested quarantine system set up we have quarantine units in each facility and then we have medical isolation if we get a positive test we have to be very careful that we don't sacrifice beds in compromise that quarantine process I walked a legislative committee and the numbers yesterday and the numbers sound like you could bring people back but once you start cutting into those numbers it's impacting our ability to quarantine individuals coming into the system and to the point that the secretary made the criminal justice system has been flat for months we've been monitoring very closely the numbers our total population as we say here today our total population is 1,393 and that includes the 219 inmates that are in Telehatch that number has been going up and down and what we really watched is the number of detainees because that's an indication of when the court starts to open up and folks coming to our system are detained on bail and we have to be very careful that we're aware of that because we start taking those beds up it's going to start having a real impact on our ability to quarantine so where are you at now with your level of trust with Coralud? with my level of trust with Coralud is that the question? Correct, yeah I had a very frank and honest conversation with the CEO last night I think he understands clearly where we are here in Vermont I'm feeling better about it and I'm actually feeling much better after Dr. Strenio has reported directly to us what he's seeing for medical conditions there at the facility so I guess the best way to answer that is my trust level is rising Finally is there going to be any monetary repercussions for that lack of surveillance? I'm not done I certainly haven't even thought about that our focus this past seven or eight days are on the welfare of those 219 souls from Vermont that are there at that facility and I haven't given that any thought and I certainly haven't talked to the Secretary Thanks We'll go to the phone starting with Sean Penningham, Chester Telegraph Thank you With schools opening in about a month there seems to be some concern about the availability of PPE especially N95 masks and I know that schools are buying and they've received some from the state but they seem to be uncertain about the number that they'll use over the course of time What's the state's strategy for making sure that there's sufficient PPE available for the schools to get? Secretary French or Commissioner Shirling maybe one or both of you could comment on that Yeah, this is Secretary French and I'll start maybe Commissioner Shirling can head Yeah, we're working hard to coordinate the availability and procurement of supplies such as masks we were able to at least deploy about 400,000 KN95 masks to the schools equated to about 10 per teacher but we're working hard at the state level to keep those supply chains open and ensure we can do what we tend to help schools in this area Next and Mike Shirling here I would just add when you talk about the types of masks that are needed for certain kinds of operations folks tend to migrate to talking about the N95 important to note that the N95 is prescribed for use in very specific circumstances when there's folks that are symptomatic or known COVID positive and are primary postures to prevent the spread of a virus into schools and that can be done with cloth masks surgical procedure masks and KN95s as well also of note the KN95s can be used to fit that as a worthy substitute for the N95s we're testing those prior to them going out so the test results are available for folks that are receiving various kinds of KN95s as well How many would you expect, how many times would you expect the teacher to wear one of these masks in a classroom setting and is there the state have a procedure for decontaminating them? There are decontamination options available for N95 masks specifically in medical settings relative to the prescribed use case for masks in classrooms the cans were distributed as a matter of convenience we happen to have a stockpile of them so they're being distributed to schools but primarily as a substitute for cloth masks which are again the primary use case for most Vermonters is going to be to wear a mask if you're in close proximity to other people if a mask is not prohibited because of the medical condition Pete Hirschfeld, VPR Pete, VPR I apologize Governor this question comes directly from one of our listeners Secretary Murat Young recently sent out a memo saying that remote work would continue for state employees through the end of 2020 and this person wants to know why is it safe to send school workers and students back into buildings but not state workers Well again, I think it's important that we've continued with our essential workers throughout the state system this just allows more flexibility and more certainty we want to make sure that we provide that for state employees if possible when they don't have to come into the settings to prevent the spread if we can do all we can as we're advocating other operations as well if you don't have to come into an office setting if you can perform the duties that are needed from your home, please do and that's what we're doing we're just practicing what we're preaching so to say that we don't put people back into when we need our essential workers whether it's our parole officers or DCF workers and so forth they're out on the front lines and performing the duties at hand so it's not quite the same we just don't need to force anyone back into an office setting if there is a need for them to be there obviously with what we're doing with the schools, with the hybrid situation we're not forcing anyone to do anything they don't want to do the schools are working to come up with plans that fit their settings and they're coming up with all different approaches some are coming back into full time five day a week in-person instruction some, as we've learned are going fully remote and then there's a vast majority they're contemplating hybrid situations where they come in for a day or two or three a week and then have remote learning so again giving the flexibility we wanted to make sure that our state employees understood that and give them some comfort just like teachers have been given the same notification from their schools as well thank you Pat, at WCAS? Good morning this question is for Dr. Levine do you have any thoughts on the University of Vermont testing and quarantine plans and have you consulted with them at all Dr. Burlington has indicated some concerns with the university reopening strategy hi Kat, thanks for the question we've had extensive consultations actually and a lot of their plan comes from the guidance document that was reproduced that has been recently produced and that Richard Schneider actually discussed at one of the press conferences a number of weeks ago since late March or early April all of the campuses around the state of Vermont have been meeting with myself and my deputy commissioner early on in a problem solving mode about students who were still here even though schools were closed many of them were international students some were local students who had nowhere else to go and then as time has evolved everybody began planning when it became evident that schools would be reopening in that process so a lot of voices at the table so to speak a lot of consensus and agreement but when it came down to actually a testing strategy and a quarantine strategy we got pretty firm and strict with that much stricter than you'll see on any CDC guidance documents in the document we produced we made sure that when students arrive they are tested on day zero and then on day seven and that they are quarantined during that time period so that we could really understand what a campus would look like at the time classes were about to begin and try to make sure that we had if you will a population that we knew about already from the standpoint of the presence or absence of COVID and if it was present that it had been effectively dealt with through a containment strategy so I think you know in the city of Burlington the mayor has been very grateful actually that a lot of this has occurred I think what's come out most recently in the press has been a study from Yale or maybe not a study so much as a commentary from Yale regarding testing students every two days this goes for campuses anywhere in the country and that's an incredibly aggressive strategy essentially you don't go without testing ever almost with that kind of a strategy the UVM practice is going to be weekly after this initial test period in consultation with the investigator from Yale actually that person agreed that in a state with such low prevalence every two days was probably overkill so in that regard I think they're kind of poised to do the right thing at this point in time and we're going to find out very quickly how this initial period goes because the students are beginning to come back starting next week I believe so can the residents of Burlington feel confident that as students return to UVM there won't be a large virus outbreak in the community at large? I would hope so because the students are being held to a very strict agreement that they have to sign a contract if you will and there are consequences for not complying with the contract and of course part of the contract has to deal with the usual behaviors we're telling everyone to practice part of the contract has to deal with more egregious behaviors having large gatherings and parties and what have you and the other part has to do with adhering to the testing protocol so if there are certainly going to be consequences for not adhering to the testing protocol that should protect the city and just having the testing protocol and having a partnership with the health department to make sure we manage any positive tests that come out of that should be comforting to the city as well and so in that regard I can certainly speak Thank you To go back to Mike Donahue who I believe is on now Mike? Good morning Hi, can you hear me? I can Good morning Governor Thanks Rebecca Governor became the second Governor to test positive for COVID-19 although a second test last night I guess is negative just wondering how many times Governor you have been tested since marching in, when was the last time you and your staff including Dr. Levine have been tested I can only speak for myself, I know some staff members have been tested I have not been tested to date I've been adhering to the standards that I'm asking others to adhere to and that is to keep my distance where I'm asked and I don't come in if I'm sick so at this point in time I haven't felt it necessary to have a test I'd rather leave those tests for others who are in need I would comment a bit on Governor DeWine, send him my best I hope the second test is the right one that he is negative at this point the first test that he had was an antigen test the second was a PCR test and as you might recall we had some issues here in Vermont with an antigen test so they aren't foolproof so we'll have to wait on the results and why that happened but again my staff has been adhering again to all the guidelines wearing masks from others being separated physically separated and we've rotated our schedule a bit and not everyone is in at the same time so I don't know about Dr. Levy I'll let him answer himself on that and have anybody has anybody tested positive on your staff to your knowledge not something to work for a while or not to my knowledge Dr. Levy I likewise have been adhering here to all of the standards that we set in terms of behavior patterns etc and do a self symptom check every morning if you will and a temperature check every morning and have not been tested and would certainly seek testing if appropriate I've actually been to some of the testing centers more in my capacity of just cheering on my team than anything else but had the opportunity to be tested if needed but again this time that we want to preserve as much as we can for supplies I would only do so if I needed to right and Secretary Moore you were not on the line the other day when the question was asked about whether the state will create high school sports and recreational leagues just wondering if you could give a response to that and I know the Governor mentioned some high school sports won't look normal we're hearing high school football is going to be possibly 7 on 7 passing game with no blockers to center height from the ball and you give us an idea of what are some of the other hurdles that these sports soccer field hockey whatever cross country are going to be facing I'd be happy to as the Governor indicated there is work both with the VTA as well as recreational sports leaders to develop an approach that will allow as many as not all sports to move forward we have identified a path for all school based high school based all sports at this point and work is ongoing with recreational sports leaders obviously that is the higher contact the activity the more interested we are in looking at potential modifications that can ensure physical distancing to the extent it's practicable and also minimize the need for contact those discussions they're underway and look forward to having more to share in that space hopefully as soon as next week the intention is to ensure that there is consistency between the modifications at the high school level and the expectations for recreational sports but just to be clear obviously 7-on-7 is a big change in football just wondering what soccer field hockey you must have some preliminary information on what those are going to look like we have started to have those conversations including considering considerations related to masking and other strategies that can be deployed in terms of specific parts of play that are higher contact in ways the teams might be modified right on through looking at cross country running events and the mass start that also results in a significant amount of conversation and how we could do those in a different way Mike if I could also offer we are as concerned about off the field so we are looking at different strategies in that respect whether it's the locker rooms or on the sidelines and so forth so that's as important as it is on the field so we are looking at all aspects and I know the other leaders are looking at that as well I also wanted to add that I had forgotten to mention that I too check my temperature every single day and to make sure that there is no change in that respect great very good thank you very much alright Avery WCAS we're still hearing from a couple of people who are a bit frustrated with the DMV and how all the locations are not fully open Mr. Minoli has said that they are working on an online plan to hopefully reopen all of their services soon but we're wondering if businesses can be at 50% why can the DMV open their offices and their counters with that same guideline well don't forget Avery we've never really shut the DMV down we do have an online operation we need to enhance that I think if anything it highlights the need that we need to do better in that regard we need to do more and so it's something we want to enhance we want to alleviate some of the weights as well we're contemplating some action there that would be helpful but we do want to open up when it's safe to do so and we think we're getting there we want to make sure the employees are safe and feel safe coming in and we're setting up the operations to do just that I would expect we'd be opening up in some capacity at our DMV locations throughout the state in the very near future I'd hope we'd be open before now but it just hasn't risen to that level and we hope again to point people in the direction of if you can do it online don't come in that would be the best approach and if we can give any flexibility in terms of some of the dates the renewal notices and so forth we'll be doing more of that as well is there something specific about the DMV and safety-wise that's holding you all back from opening it up as compared to business with being at 50% it's just how it's done I mean the DMV if you've been in very confined areas to be perfectly blunt and come at different times when people have to wait a long period of time and we're trying to figure out what's the best approach to prevent that from happening whether there's a way to do that so that we don't unnecessarily put people in the way of harm as well as our employees we're just trying to get that figured out because we have peak periods at different times of the month during different times of the day and we're just trying to figure that out so that we can mitigate that Thank you Guy Page Guy Page Governor James Ellers of the Lake Champlain International reports that through August 5th this year there have been 150 sewage and water pollution spills in Vermont totaling 12 million gallons he also says 12 spills of 2.3 million gallons from Burlington alone separate from whatever is being done about reducing dairy runoff what is your administration doing to reduce municipal sewage dumping Yeah again some of the things the approaches we've been taking over the last 20 years is trying to reduce the amount of storm water that goes into sewer treatment plants to reduce the amount of capacity there because that's what we see mostly when there's a surge of climate change real we're seeing more intense storms we're seeing it all come at once and that's why it's important to take the steps we've taken but go further as well I know Secretary Moore is on the line and she's our expert, president and expert obviously on this issue and maybe she could answer the question much more succinctly than I can I'd be happy to Governor I think those are the points that we made our spot on these systems generally we're historically designed to carry wastewater and storm water in a single pipe system and it means when we see frequent and intense rainfall events we unfortunately often see more sewer overflows each of the communities in Vermont that is served by a combined sewer system has a long-term control plan to address and ultimately eliminate those overflows they also have what's called water that's issued by my agency that has the monocompliance schedule these are expensive and technically challenging infrastructure projects to implement these corrections as you might imagine these are pipes that lay under not only roadways but buildings, yards and have numerous connections so we are working actively in each of these communities to reduce the number of overflows but the Governor's point about our changing climate complicating our exacerbating these conditions and the need for this work is very accurate too Any any new initiatives expected on this something to ramp up what's being done because it sort of sounds like not as well There is a significant book of work underway both with municipalities using bond funding and other capacity as well as money that's allocated to the state's clean water fund and some federal funding that's been brought in to address water quality concerns that's all being allocated to different aspects of this largely focusing on ways to capture that storm water before it enters the sewer system and treat it that way as opposed to having it mixed with wastewater and result in a combined sewer overflow Okay, thank you Governor, yesterday might also add that all of this obviously takes resources and we are challenged on a national level in terms of infrastructure improvement and when we talk about infrastructure improvement many times people just assume our roads and bridges but it really is about our water, sewer, storm systems as well as our broadband capacity so we have infrastructure issues in our country so we need to take this opportunity I believe to focus on that and I know many have been but we have to take this seriously this is our challenge of the future is our infrastructure throughout all sectors Thank you, Governor yesterday Senator Ash and Speaker Johnson both committed to delivering the fully funded local warming solutions act to your gas after the legislature reconvened Can you indicate whether you would still and if so do you think you could do you think it would be sustained First of all in his present form I've said that I'm not in favor of it, we've offered many, many solutions we've offered ways to make it an enhancement, make it better from our standpoint if they're willing partner in trying to get something passed, I think we could make that happen but if it's just to jam this through so to speak and force my hand I'm totally willing to accept that as well but again there's a path forward we just have to work together in order to do that but I don't have the answers in terms of whether if a veto became necessary whether it could be sustained or not and obviously on the votes so you probably know as well as I do not what the outcome will be I just don't know at this point in time So you're saying that if they don't make any changes you're likely to veto it if they don't work with the movement? Again, we've offered a path forward we have some areas of disagreement and we believe that there's some solutions that could be put into place to make it palatable so we're willing we just need to make sure that we're all working together in order to do that What are some of the areas? Well, in terms of the litigation aspect that's a problem from my standpoint opening ourselves up to that we'd be vulnerable to lawsuits in that capacity that helps in trying to solve the problem that we have before us Thank you, Governor And Wallace Allen Hi, can you hear me? I can This is a question for Commissioner Baker I wanted to ask what kind of conditions the 146 positive inmates are living under Are they on lockdown or just committing phone calls things like that like their families recommendations Yeah, thank you for the question That was a little hard to hear but I think what you asked me was what are the conditions of the 146 inmates that tested positive a lot in conditions and so on Exactly, we just started with the machine I've got the question The 146 inmates are separated into two separate areas isolated, what I would call medical isolation normally if we have a situation like that under a protocol here we go into lockdown They have been in a lockdown with these circumstances and as of late last night we were starting to have conversations with them about allowing people out for showers and allowing contact with family members through phone calls but we've got to be assured that they're following the public calls for example cleaning the showers on a regular basis after the use and how they would handle calls with the phone by cleaning the phone and so on I do know that there's conversations going out with my staff with the folks on the ground and I'm hoping that we can figure out something so those folks have contact with their loved ones In the meantime as the secretary said we've invested a significant amount of resources internally to facilitate communication with the families and where the inmates are as far as their conditions are What about recreation opportunities are there any ways for them to get out? No, as part of the protocol again they've tested positive kind of ties back to questions and conversations around sporting events and mitigating the spread so I will almost check this but not be out in the right time or participating in sporting events until we end through this period of 14 days of medical isolation excuse me Thank you very much You're welcome Tim, Vermont Business Magazine Thank you for that governor I wanted to ask about GW plastic sale I wonder if you had a reaction to that and the second part of that is in the last few years there's been a lot of Vermont companies that have been sold to national or international companies really more than my experience doing this in the last 30 years and I was wondering every company needs to transition at some point or be sold as you well know I was wondering if you had any ideas about what's going on or how that might impact the Vermont economy does seem to be the way of the world I'm not sure that it's just isolated to Vermont I think we're seeing that throughout the country many businesses being bought out by larger companies and combined some of that could be a strategy in terms of producing competition but it seems as though there's always an opportunity for someone else to pick up and compete my initial reaction is GW plastic has been a great partner, great business here in Vermont and I don't know any of the particulars I wasn't notified beforehand but from what I understand the operations will not change which is good news they're going to keep the leadership staff here and they're not moving away from Vermont so my priority obviously is trying to grow the economy here in Vermont keep people employed and if they are committing to that they have to do what's right for them the owners have to do what's right for their business but it sounds as though this is a solution that will keep the business here in Vermont so from that standpoint I'm somewhat satisfied but look forward to speaking with the new owners once they come aboard all right great thank you Eric? yes this is for Secretary French is there any timeline for when schools might receive pre-k guidance? yeah thank you for the question we put up pre-k guides throughout the emergency response we are in the process of say of harmonizing that guidance through our reopening plan so we should have something out taking along the lines here within the weeks thank you Eric French any thought has been given especially for teachers in the lower grade for finding ways to supply educators with trans parent protection so young children can keep their teachers spaces I've been told and that that is very useful to give students clues about how they're doing yeah that's a great point our guidance does anticipate that need and does allow for the use of frames if you will and those kinds of environments where the educational needs really support that that kind of approach county courier? Greg the county courier? hi can you hear me? thank you governor I was comparing the state of New York travel restrictions with here in Vermont and it appears that their travel restrictions amount to 100 cases per million which is basically four times more strict than Vermont and it also means in Vermont if we got to 62 cases in a 7 day period it would turn off travel to all of Vermont by my calculations we've had about 40 cases in the last week which would mean a small cluster like the new ski could push Vermont over the edge pretty easily also looking at some of the numbers in Vermont about half of our counties would not be allowed into New York if it was calculated on a county basis and not a state basis I'm wondering what some of your thoughts are on some of that information some of that data? first of all I hadn't heard that they were 100 cases per million that would surprise me because some of the some of the I guess some of the states they've restricted and I believe they're doing this on a statewide basis on a county basis but that number doesn't sound right to me I might ask Commissioner Pichek if he could maybe bring us up to speed on that so I can actually read for you off the I'll go back on the website it's based on a 7 day rolling average of 10% positive cases or number of positive cases exceeding 10 per 100,000 residents what should be 100 per million? yeah so Greg this is my Pichek we did an analysis of what the New York travel restrictions would look like compared to Vermont and we also looked at what the EU's travel restrictions were compared to Vermont as well and we did find that the New York standards were considerably less restrictive than Vermont although the EU standards were slightly more restrictive than our state I think three or four weeks ago we showed a map of what it would look like first what it looks like under Vermont and then what it looks like under the EU as well and you can see that under the EU standard more counties would be shut off to travel to Vermont without a quarantine but under the New York standard almost every county in our travel map would have been open to travel into Vermont so the standards in New York are in fact significantly less than Vermont I can go into the details of the calculations if you want but I think maybe just there's always usually confusion about certain numbers are you know on a daily basis or on a rolling seven day average so we can actually probably get you the map as well okay thank you Mike yeah I think that's it for the weekend and have a great weekend Commissioner thank you Greg Austin Burlington Free Press hi there I was hoping to follow up about fall sports and the first thing and this is either for the governor or secretary war but I was hoping to get a clear idea of when or under what circumstances games could begin this fall and also in the same vein what would cause them to be abandoned I think the terminology that's been out there is step two versus step three and I have no idea really what that time frame would look like and then hopefully wanted to get a better idea of what the lay terms for those the difference in those two steps I might ask secretary more if she could she give us some clarification on step two and three sure I would be happy to governor and we'll ask secretary Frank to add in as necessary but step one two and three are laid out in the agency of education strong and healthy start guidance and we are anticipating that all schools statewide will start in under step two under step two schools will be able to begin practices but inner scholastic competitions would be held back until all schools reach step three the decision to move from step two to step three will be made by the agency of education in consultation with the department of health and is anticipated to be about two weeks after the start school if all goes according to plan we are also thinking about what happens if there are confirmed COVID if stillness is in the school and what that would be for school based athletic activities and I again intend to catch and tie that with those steps in the agency of education strong and healthy start guidance this is secretary Frank I don't have much to add to that I think you know once again secretary Morris stated there's a connection between the health provisions that schools are providing and the ability to offer these programs so it's our hope you know we're being very cautious in opening school at step two which is our step that requires the most stringent health precautions but it all needs to be moving to step three fairly quickly in the school year okay and I guess as a follow-up on that so we would need all of the schools to be able to get to step three to start competition between schools but if one or two schools can no longer be at step three because of illnesses would that preclude all schools from competing or just the individual schools where the intention would be to have that oh I'm sorry go ahead no you go ahead the intention would be to have that via district by district basis with the decision being made by the local superintendent in consultation with the department of health yeah it was really the individual school might not be available to compete at the other schools that they'll be able to go forward okay and the last thing I was just curious about how the process of allowing sports and competition this summer has informed the process for approaching fall school sports certainly we've been paying attention to how sports have gone this summer and feedback we've received I think by and large the recreational sports league have done a great job adhering to the guidance particularly some examples nationally of concerning conditions that have developed as a result of sporting events even though to date I think we've been very fortunate here in Vermont and so it's incorporating both what we've seen in terms of areas where additional players might be helpful as well as additional precautionary measures that we believe it makes sense to put in place given lessons that are being learned elsewhere that we hope to not have to compete here and if I might add much like our schools with the lowest number of cases in the nation the lowest positivity rate in the nation if Vermont can't do this part and open up sports then no one can because we are in a great position and as long as we can keep it confined within our state borders I think we'll be okay Erin, BT Digger all my questions are asked all in the past, thank you thanks Erin Steve, N-E-K-T-V N-E-K-T-V yes, can you hear me? I can okay, one for the governor and one for Julie Moore if I may the governor first I'd like to thank Rebecca for getting the prison the prisoner data to me historically she's incredible but she's not disagreeing Steve that's great when I when I had talked about this with some retired counselors and stuff she got the feeling or the inclination of rough data of course that a lot of these crimes violent crimes and other crimes are alcohol related or could be attributed to alcohol or there was alcohol involved if we were if the state's talking about like a 30% tax on cannabis and would we be able to track the prisoner data to find out how much is alcohol related and would increase an alcohol tax be something we might want to look at substance abuse of any type is an issue and does I think add to some of the level of incarceration that we see but we do a lot in the state in terms of prevention techniques but I don't know that a I'm just not sure at this point we're doing a great deal opioids has been a huge issue for us it was with the previous administration is with us at this point in time and we need to continue to fight that battle but alcohol as well as other substances as well have been problematic so we'll continue to do all we can but I'm not sure that raising a tax is necessarily going to fix the problem yeah with opioids as I'm sure you know if you discontinue opioids after three days of pure hell you're going to come out the other side and you basically be okay whereas if you've been drinking alcohol for years and you stop without being medically supervised you can have seizures and actually like die from it yeah I might I might make the point that I don't think three days of going cold turkey with opioids fixes the problem I think it's an ongoing lifetime effort oh no yeah but of course obviously but I was just wondering if the state could you know maybe track the how many of these crimes were alcohol related we may now I just don't have that information but does anyone else have anything to offer on this I want for Julie to fight me go ahead Julie I've got the report from the state auditor's office about the phosphorus and towards the end he said that the the agencies can't measure the phosphorus reductions for either combined sewer systems or natural resource projects and that 95% of the clean water expenditures didn't yield any measurable phosphorus reductions how can we if we're not measuring if we're not measuring any reductions then how can we how can we get to the EPA mandate thank you for that question Steve and I would say that that's a point of contention between the agency and the auditor's office in terms of exactly what it means to be able to quantify the types of reductions we're achieving certainly at the highest level each of the projects we're implementing we're able to model and estimate the pollutant reduction that's achieved using design standards and literature values we also know that ultimately we need to be able to measure the impact that our work is having on water quality in the lake and we have established a robust long-term monitoring program in cooperation with the lake campaign basin program the province of Quebec and the state of New York we are tracking the mouths of each of them for tributaries to the concentration in the lake itself at long-term trends in the aggregate obviously that's not project specific we are also always in the effort of improving our ability and our science around estimating pollutant reductions associated with specific projects and when it comes to the natural resources restoration work have an active contract with the University of Vermont where they are working with us to quantify the phosphorus reductions associated with wetland restoration practices and floodplain restoration practices that have been implemented using clean water funds collecting actual in the field data which we know will better refine and inform our estimates going forward so it is a work in progress but also believes that we have tools currently at our disposal that give us the confidence that we need to know that these are important assessments and will ultimately move us towards the goal laid out in the pollution budget to reduce possible. Sure and I'm sure you know that the two worst worst streams in the state number one is Pawdash Brook down at Urway near Burlington rather and the second worst is Mud Creek up here where I'm at and there's only a couple of large farms left and we're still seeing spreading liquid manure on days before heavy rains and right next to and next to streams buffer zones that are practically nil is there any way we could maybe tighten this up a little up here The types of practices the field-based practices that you're describing are depending on the size of the farms subject to different requirements that are administered by the agency of agriculture through a small medium and large farm operating permit program so absolutely if you're seeing locations where there are buffers that are missing that is inconsistent with the policy and law and would encourage you to follow up with specifics and happy to coordinate with the ag agency and have one of our inspectors go out and take a look at the site because that shouldn't be happening at this point So I'd have to get photos and send them along to AAF and I Yeah, you could ask a question here or to me and either one of us would be happy to help us Okay, great, thank you all very much Kevin, seven days We can Thank you, Governor I think most of my questions are for Commissioner Baker, that's alright Commissioner Baker, I appreciate the availability you've had over the past week from members of the media and today as well Could you give me a little greater sense of how many of the open beds in the state of Vermont you think could possibly be repurposed to hows in May 2 in Mississippi I know you mentioned something yesterday about 115 beds for men and 47 for women if I have that right How many of those do you think could be put back towards youth for Mississippi in May? I appreciate your comments Kevin about being available and I appreciate your patience with us getting back to you because I know you have some other requests from us and we'll get back to you with those What I said at the legislative testimony yesterday was as of yesterday it was 115 male beds and 46 female beds I'm not a physician Kevin to say how many of those beds could be repurposed I think as I said earlier in the press conference I think there's too many uncertainties right now with the courts opening up we're testing our facilities Marble Valley is being mass tested today we're a little concerned about potentially we have another outbreak in a facility to keep the space open for us to be able to manage those outbreaks so we don't get a situation that looks like Mississippi so I know you're looking for an answer how can I repurpose those beds but the conversation is much more complicated because our makeup of how we're managing the pandemic here in Vermont so what I will say to you is that in our morning briefing this morning with the leadership team we're starting to run some scenarios around if you have an outbreak here in Vermont what will we do and if we hadn't bring folks back what would that look like but we're far from having recommendations on how we would do that because it's just not that simple or plain to repurpose beds okay, thanks one other question I had was does Vermont save money by having this contract with Court Civic compared to what it pays and spend for in-state facilities and if so could you quantify it is it easy to quantify Kevin that's an interesting question being someone from outside corrections that didn't really understand the processes when I came on board in January because I've heard these figures thrown around what I will tell you it's about 26 to 27,000 dollars per inmate per year in our relationship with Court Civic I've heard these numbers thrown around about what it costs to house an inmate in Vermont but here's the interesting fact that I think the way people come up with that figure is they look at our budget they take an average of how many inmates and they divide and that's not an accurate way of doing it because I could have the population down like it has been for the last couple of months and there isn't significant savings because I still have to maintain the building we have to maintain the staffing level we have a benefit package we pay to our employees we may save a few dollars on food or incidentals but you still have to have the facility up and running so it's very hard to quantify what that cost is there is a cost to have people in facilities out of state that are real cost putting the price that are real cost back here is a little bit more difficult from where I said now other people may say they can figure that out but my seven months here I don't see where you can figure that out unless you close the facility down okay and lastly yesterday you mentioned something to the judicial oversight committee about how back in April you had shared the protocols that Vermont was working with with the folks down in Mississippi can you clarify those remarks and expand on them a little bit I'll say the same thing I said yesterday to the legislative committee that staff has told me in April when we started working on protocols right around the period of time when we had the outbreak of the northwest facility that we shared copies of our protocol with the folks in Mississippi I really have no more detail in that so that could that could have been a little more than just forwarding an email again I have no more detail in that as I say here okay so staff have told you that they shared it with folks in Mississippi but you don't know any more than that a copy of the protocol shared with core civic in Mississippi okay thanks for your time you're welcome Kevin take care Kathy the Associated Press Kathy Associated Press it's star six to one if we have no Kathy we'll go to Riley at the Burlington Precrest okay my question is for Dr. Levine okay go ahead thank you so if I understand it correctly you suggested earlier that there is a risk of backlog on tests and that tests should be reserved for certain individuals who have experienced certain circumstances and that certain individuals should be prioritized and people shouldn't just be getting tests so I'm curious about the pop-up sites around the state that are that are indicated to be for asymptomatic individuals who should be prioritized at those pop-up testing sites and what what individuals should be thinking on tests at those sites sure now that's a great question so some of the pop-up sites are regularly scheduled pop-up sites if you will and some of them are actually purposefully scheduled because there's an outbreak in an area but clearly we do prioritize coordinating a community response to an outbreak as part of the role of the pop-up in that region without an outbreak in that region obviously that's less of a concern there are many people in the state who are not symptomatic but who are required to have testing some of them may actually be the people we've just been talking about officers or other staff in the correctional system for one example there are also other vulnerable populations that people care for or are interacting with that require them to have testing at a more frequent level and they are asymptomatic as well so they are good candidates for these pop-up sites in general and there are people in the state who have a purpose for their testing even if they're asymptomatic but it's not because they deal with a vulnerable population they may be people who are trying to get out of quarantine for instance or they've been in a contact tracing exercise where they were the contact and want to be tested regarding that so they would be eligible to go there too although I would add that we are trying to steer many of the asymptomatic individuals to a multitude of other sites whether it be their primary care office a federally qualified health center our new relationships that are beginning to develop with pharmacies urgent care centers et cetera so the pop-ups are not by any means the exclusive place that we would prioritize any of those people going because there may be other opportunities that are convenient for them as well thank you I have one quick follow-up which is you mentioned that officers or individuals who work in correctional facilities would be tested at these pop-up sites in the case that they potentially had an interaction with someone with COVID would the correctional facilities not coordinate some sort of testing procedure themselves in that situation yes so you just heard that one of the facilities is being tested so we generally do the testing right there but it doesn't mean that every person who's on the staff was there at that moment because they all work different shifts or there may be a way of vacation or what have you so there may need to be access for those individuals to get their testing done at a time other than when the facility was mass tested if you will okay thank you okay thank you very much for tuning in stay safe this weekend