 Well, good morning, everyone. Just over one month ago, on April 20th, we saw our first turn of the spigot go into effect, with small outdoor crews returning to work. Since then, we've slowly opened up sectors with strict health and safety measures in place. We've also eased restrictions so people can see their family and friends in small groups. Over this time, we've also expanded our testing, and we're close to hitting our goal of over 1,000 tests a day. And for contact tracing, we now have the capacity to scale up to 90 investigators, tracing as many as 500 cases each day if needed. Although we truly hope we never have to use all this capacity. And here's the good news. Even with these reopenings and more testing, we're still seeing a very low number of cases in promising trends. Mr. Pichek will be sharing more on this in a few minutes. Along with the normal graphs, he'll talk about what we're looking at on a regional basis. And while we continue to have good news here in Vermont, we also need to be aware of what's going on in other states around us, because we're not on an island. And some of our neighbors still have a significant number of new and active cases. This is why we've taken a very careful, cautious approach. Our decisions continue to be based on the data. But it's important to understand we can't look at our numbers in a vacuum. We have to consider other states and the ripple effect behind every reopening. This is a difficult process. And I know some would like easier answers, more certainty, and a quick return to normal. But unfortunately, this isn't how the virus operates. And we have to deal with this reality. So we'll continue to be up front with you on our thinking and the data behind it. And on that note, as I've previewed over the last week, we're taking more steps forward. On Wednesday, ACCD issued guidance to help restaurants start preparing for the next step, which will allow outdoor seating for bars and restaurants with limitations and strict safety procedures in place. With a great weather forecast for this weekend, and the blessing of Dr. Levine and Dr. Kelso, I signed an order this morning making this effective today, instead of a week from today. Now, we understand it won't be possible for all restaurants to start today. But for those who already have outdoor seating or who can work with their communities or neighbors to get creative, this lets them open up for a, after a very long two months, a sacrifice, and with bills still coming in with no income. ACCD will also issue guidance today to allow salons and barbershots to reopen again, starting May 29th. And like all businesses reopening, there will be limits and safety measures in place to help protect workers and customers. In a moment, Dr. Levine will outline the next phase of our medical restart, which will open additional health services over the next few weeks. I should also mention that as of tomorrow, churches will be allowed to open to 25% capacity. Now, I know there are other close contact business owners like gyms and spas who are waiting for updates as well. We're not quite there yet because the epidemiology team wants to track the data just a little bit longer. But I expect to be able to at least announce the timeframe for their reopening a week from today. I believe these steps forward will be welcome news for many. And because most Vermonters are being smart and staying safe, our data continues to show we're moving in the right direction. But even with the steps we've taken, the reality is we're still far from being back to normal. With that in mind, the Fairs and Field Days Association asked for guidance about whether traditional fairs scheduled in the months to come should be canceled. So while I've tried to avoid getting too far ahead of our data, I understand this need and the reality that we're just not ready for large unstructured events with hundreds, if not thousands of people coming into one area without control and the ability to physically separate. That's why unfortunately this order also cancels all traditional fairs and festivals for this season. However, what it does not do is permanently close fairgrounds or prohibit operations that may meet Health Department and ACCD guidance in the coming months. Now, I hope this unfortunate news mixed in with some positive gains can serve as a reminder that we can't declare victory yet and we can't let up either. As more of our monitors get back to work, there's more places to visit and meetings with others. It's more important than ever to be smart about your health and the health of others. This means physical separation and limiting group size, washing your hands a lot, wearing a mask if you can when you're in public and can't maintain a safe distance, keeping track of who you come in contact with and always staying home when not feeling well. While we're making good progress, we don't want to lose ground because we have to remember this is literally in our hands. I'll now turn it over to Dr. Levine to share details on the next phase of health care openings. Dr. Levine. Thank you, Governor. Today I'm here to announce the further restarting and final steps to complete the opening of our health care system. There are three separate areas that may resume their operations. The first area for further reopening includes hospitals, health systems, and office-based medical or MD positions. At a previous press briefing, we discussed the resumption of office visits and non-urgent elective surgical procedures that do not require or impact the inpatient hospital setting. Today, hospitals are now able to schedule and perform inpatient surgeries and procedures so long as they adhere to all of what we call mitigation requirements. These requirements include screening patients for COVID-19 related symptoms, screening all staff and visitors, having PCR testing plans in place for relevant clinicians and staff, having adequate supplies of PPE, and testing all patients' undergoing surgery, among others. Hospitals must also have plans to promptly expand their inpatient capacity to handle any surge of COVID-19 patients in their local community. The second area for reopening includes a more comprehensive expansion of outpatient services, incorporating professions that are licensed by the Office of Professional Regulation, OPR. These include those who provide care without physical contact, such as licensed alcohol and drug counselors, allied mental health, dietitians, psychologists, social workers, and others. Essentially, those professions that provide care with some physical contact but without expected exposure to potentially infectious secretions, such as acupuncturists, chiropractic, physical and occupational therapy, opticians, and optometrists. And finally, those professions involved in care that is more likely to expose them to COVID-19, such as doctors of osteopathy, naturopathy, physician assistants, and nurses. For all of these, outpatient clinic visits and diagnostic imaging may resume immediately. The third area that may restart effective immediately is dental services. The challenge with dentistry, of course, is the generation of aerosols as part of many office-based activities, from dental hygiene through a variety of preventive, restorative, endodontic, periodontic, and orthodontic procedures. Here as well, there are many patient-specific, staff-specific, and PPE-specific requirements, as well as environmental compliance requirements that come as part of maintaining a safe environment in the COVID-19 era. Between now and June 1st, dentists will need to employ only those procedures with a low risk of aerosol generation. Beginning June 1st, we believe Vermont will be at a phase of overall reopening that will permit integration of the procedures associated with a higher risk of aerosol generation. The dental community itself is confident it has the requisite knowledge, skills, office processes and equipment, testing protocols, and PPE to accomplish these safely, and will share the efforts and practices they have adopted with their patients. As with all such restart efforts, the restart team and the Department of Health will very closely monitor all of the daily epidemiologic and healthcare systems-specific data that are normally collected in the weeks that follow to understand if these openings have had any significant impacts. Before I turn this over to Commissioner Pichak, where you'll see some very interesting data regarding our region as well, I just want to caution Vermonters to not drop their guard too much. We are truly blessed with very low rates of infection in the state right now, and though we have had 50 deaths, tragic as they are, we have not seen an increase in that number recently. I have to remind everybody, though, that amongst us all, we have those who are, by virtue of either age, chronic disease conditions, or immunocompromising states, at higher risk of an adverse outcome with COVID-19. And we need to be respectful of that at all times. I, along with everyone else that's watching, want to have a wonderful and beautiful Memorial Day weekend and spend some time in the outdoors. I would just like everyone to remember all of those aspects of personal hygiene, respiratory etiquette, physical distancing, and facial covering that are so important to the success we've already enjoyed and will be continuing to be important to future success with this virus. Now I'll Commissioner Pichak. Thank you, Commissioner Levine. I'm Mike Pichak and I head up Vermont's COVID-19 modeling team. Today marks our eighth public briefing on Vermont's data and modeling outlook. I will start with an overview of our recent modeling and trends, and then we'll discuss the four key trends that we are following as we continue to reopen Vermont. I will then finish as the governor mentioned with a discussion about our efforts to model and forecast the jurisdictions around us to get a better sense of when it might be safe to welcome regional visitors to Vermont without travel restrictions. For those watching at home, today's presentation can be found on our department's website, dfr.vermont.gov under our COVID-19 resource page. Vermont's data and forecasts continue their favorable trends with less than 20 COVID positive tests reported during the previous week. This means Vermont continues to perform better than forecasted and continues to stand out both regionally and nationally as a state well-positioned to safely and strategically continue to reopen its economy. Next, we turn to Vermont's doubling rate. This metric indicates the amount of time required for confirmed cases to double. I'm happy to report that Vermont's doubling rate continues to slow. We now do not expect our cases to double for over 46 weeks, an improvement from 40 weeks last Friday. This means Vermont's doubling rate continues to be the second slowest in the United States, only behind Hawaii. On the next slide, we see a comparison of the doubling rates across the Northeast. Vermont's compares very favorably to our Northeast counterparts, but again on a positive note, we can see that each of the states around us have either seen their doubling rate improve or hold steady from the week before. We also continue to track mobility in Vermont. I think it's important to point out some notable trends regarding mobility. As you can see, Vermont had the most mobile population in early March compared to our Northeast counterparts. However, once public health measures were put in the place, Vermonters were the least mobile compared to our counterparts in neighboring states. And we continue to remain at a very low level of mobility, even relative to the warming weather and the reopening restrictions. A good sign in terms of Vermonters continuing to take physical distancing as a paramount concern and seriously. We also previously discussed the four key metrics that we're following as we continue to reopen our society and reopen our economy. I want to run through those four metrics now and mention both where we are and what we're looking at in terms of a guardrail or a concerning trend relating to each one of those metrics. Our first metric is syndromic surveillance, which informs us about the percent of visits to emergency care centers for COVID-like symptoms. We want this percentage to remain below 4% during our reopening. As you can see from the slide, the metric has been trending down for weeks and we are currently well below that 4% guardrail. Again, the second metric we wanna follow closely is the rate of viral growth. We want this metric to be trending down, flat or relatively low during reopening. As the chart indicates, both our three-day and our seven-day averages have been in decline for weeks and are holding steady at below a half a percent. This metric is also well below the guardrail of sustained viral growth. Our third data point is the percent of new COVID-19 tests that come back positive. We have determined that this percentage should remain below 5% during the reopening phase. Again, as we can see from the slide, the percent of positive tests has been trending down for weeks and we are safely below that 5% guardrail. The fourth and final metric is hospital and critical care bed availability. We continue to feel confident that Vermont has the adequate reserve of hospital and ICU beds in place if there is a resurgence of the virus. During the reopening, we would like to see at least 30% of our hospital and ICU beds remain available to treat patients. As you can see, we've been meeting that target now for quite some time. We also have been talking about how we wanna monitor the various turns of the dial as we reopen the economy. It's important for us to monitor that 10 to 14-day window after a reopening measure is implemented to ensure that there isn't viral growth of an unusual or sustained amount. This chart shows that with each turn of the dial that we have made, the 10 to 14-day period that followed really did not cause anything of concern for us. The viral growth rate remained stable and in some cases continued to trend down as well. This gives us confidence that even as we continue to reopen, we are seeing the trends moving in the right direction. So as our trends continue to move in the right direction, it has become clear to us that we really need to focus not just on Vermont, but also on our neighboring states in Quebec to understand again when and how it might be safe for Vermont to reopen its tourism and leisure travel industries without restrictions. As we know, these industries are critical to the Vermont's economy. Accordingly, we plan to incorporate the trends and forecasts of our neighbors into our weekly briefings going forward. As you can see from these first two charts, our neighbors have seen a considerable number of new cases and deaths during just the last seven days. For example, during these last seven days, New Hampshire had about 571 new cases. Again, that compares to about the 20 that we had here in Vermont. Massachusetts had about 8,500 new cases and New York had just about 16,000 new cases. Again, those are new cases just in the last seven days compared to our under 20 cases that we've had here in Vermont during that same time period. You can also see the number of deaths that have occurred over the last seven days with our neighboring jurisdictions. As Dr. Levine pointed out, we unfortunately have had just around 50 deaths here in Vermont, but something to point out is this New Hampshire just in the last week has had close to 40 deaths. So that gives you some relative context to the challenges that our neighbors are continuing to face and why it's so important for Vermonters to stay vigilant when and for us to stay vigilant as a state for allowing outside visitors to visit here. Our last slide is a visualization of the threat that remains in our neighboring states. We estimated the number of total and active cases that one would encounter from five different driving times from right here in Vermont State Capitol. You can see just an hour's drive from here. It's relatively safe with about 1,000 confirmed cases and 300 active cases. Similarly, with a two-hour drive, it's a relative area of safety. However, quickly when you drive about three hours, you run into about 35,000 active cases that surround Vermont. A four-hour drive, that increases to about 60,000 active cases. And a five-hour drive, you're closer to 80,000 active cases. Again, this is a good lesson for Vermonters about the challenges that our neighbors continue to experience with COVID-19 even as we've seen continued improved trends here in Vermont. Vermont's trajectory continues to trend favorably, but at the same time, as we mentioned, we need to watch our neighbors closely because we are not an island. We must keep a close eye on regional growth and forecasts as our state continues to reopen. I would also again like to thank Vermonters because all of the success that we've had here in our state is directly attributable to their sacrifices and adherence to public health guidance and science as well. And at this time, I'd like to turn it back over to the governor. Thank you, Commissioner Pichek. With that, we'll open it up to questions. Let's start with Calvin. Thank you. So this actually might be a question for Commissioner Pichek. So the data you just presented, I guess, so we're still seeing cases from around the region, but at what point do we make that determination of visitors not having to quarantine for two weeks? What sort of goes into that decision? Where do we draw that line? Yeah, it's a good question, Calvin, and that's something that we're currently drying up and making some determinations about. As you remember, when we started to see our active cases decline and our case growth decline, we started to talk about those four key metrics that we're watching for when we reopen. So certainly we want to continue to watch the case growth and the active cases in the states around us, but then we're also going to come up with some more specific metrics to follow to make that kind of determination. You have to look both at the averages, at sort of how they're trending, but you also have to look at the aggregate number of cases as well. Both of those things helps inform when it's safe to reopen without restrictions. Do you see that happening in the next few weeks? I'm just thinking about the summer tourism season and how... Yeah, it's a great question and I wish we could give you some certainty, but as you can imagine, both trying to understand how slowly or how quickly these trends might be going down and also you'll notice that each one of those states is in some stage of reopening. So you also have to understand, will that have an impact on their numbers in Vermont? We were in a strong position to reopen safely and we haven't seen our numbers increase. Maybe not every state is in that same situation, so we have to watch that closely as well. So it's unfortunately, really can't give a specific timeline at this point. And I guess one last follow up regarding tourism and travel, I think it's probably more so for the governor, but as we've opened up restaurants today, there is of course capacity limits and restrictions. Lots of restaurants with these new rules can't meet their bottom line. They're also giving their jobs back to their employees who are coming off a really lucrative unemployment that they're turning them down. So I guess it's employers are being put in a really hard top spot in terms of hiring their employees back. I guess what's your message to restaurant owners and people who are tourism that are facing these tough challenges? Yeah, that's why we're doing this in a slow, methodical way in trying to ramp back up. Obviously, this next measure that we put into place today for outdoor dining isn't going to solve all their problems and it isn't going to fill the gap. And we understand that, but we have to start somewhere. And I think there's a great way to do it, do it marginally, you know, a little bit at a time. That's why we're seeing some of the percentages we've rolled out, the 25%. I'd like to get to a point where we're open at 25% across almost all sectors. And then we can go from there, watch the data and see what happens. I mean, we've seen a dramatic change or I've seen a dramatic change in some of the numbers in New York, for instance, over the last week. They're dropping very quickly. So if we can continue to see that happen and our numbers remain steady even after opening up some of the sectors, we can go from 25% to 50%. And then we go from 50 to 75% and pretty soon we're back to where we were before under different conditions, but at least we've done it in a very thoughtful, methodical way. Governor, what about Quebec? It wasn't part of commissioner's modeling. Border will remain closed for another month. We learned this week. Do you anticipate the border will reopen a month from now? And does the Quebec experience with these cases concern you? Well, obviously Quebec is very important to us in many different ways. Our largest trading partner, great for tourism here in the state. But we are also concerned about what we're seeing in the Montreal area in particular. As you saw on the heat map that there is a lot of concentration up in the Montreal area. So that's what we're watching. We'll see again. I've seen a tremendous gains from New York over the last week to two weeks. They were able to plateau and then we're on a downhill slope after that and they continue to be. So we're hopeful that our friends for the North will experience the same thing and that we can all get back to trading between our two countries and in particular with Quebec and Vermont because tourism again is very important to us in the northern part of the state in terms of our friends from Quebec. Are you anticipating the reopening? You know, I don't have a lot to do with the border up on that side. But we'll see. But I would also say that even when we open back up it'll be under the same restrictions that we're asking of our other friends to our south. So if there's still a quarantine period in place we'd ask the same from our friends in Quebec. And just to clarify Calvin's last point about the capacity limits rising with restaurants to 50 at some point, is there a target that you'd like to see before you move to that is good weeks? Yeah, it really depends a lot on what we see with this initial opening. And again, you know, we've had some great news with the modeling that we've done and the great work that Commissioner Pechak has done with his team and the health department and so forth just really analyzing the data. And so if it looks like over the next two weeks there's no tremendous changes in the trajectory then I would see us opening up to the next level and being able to open indoor dining on a very limited basis. So as I said, my goal would be to get to June 1st and have almost everything open to 25% or at least announce that opening by June 1. So then we can get on a path to all moving together in a very systematic way. Thank you. Actually, with that map up Governor it looks like the east and west borders of the state as well as the northeast Canadian border you're in pretty good shape. Is there a possibility that you may go to a regional opening or do you want to stay with? Possibly, but I would also add, I mean, if you and this is something that I've asked Commissioner Pechak to replicate, but if we went back maybe a week or two I would say that this area wouldn't look as dark here on the southern part of New Hampshire. I feel as though it's migrating a bit north. I would also say that I don't believe Maine has hit their peak at this time. So again, regionally, we have to watch what's happening. If it's migrating north, this will have an effect on Vermont. So that's what we have to watch. And that's why the regional aspect is so important. Move to the phones now. There are 23 colors on the phone, so just spare that in mind. We'll start with Greg from the County Courier. Hi, Governor. As much fun as I had questioning you about your hairstyle earlier in the week, I'm gonna go a little more serious today. We've had a lot of people ask about reopening and by the numbers that I'm seeing on the state health department's website, we've seen roughly three dozen new cases in two weeks, basically the incubation period of this virus. Here in Franklin County, it's been 18 days since we've seen a new case reported. And these numbers seem staggeringly stable despite slowly opening the economy. What metrics are you guys, your administration looking at that prevents you from opening faster? And is it just a really conservative approach that you're taking to reopening? And is it a lack of success in neighboring states also having a significant impact? Yeah, it's probably all the above. I mean, I am being very cautious about this. I don't want to lose ground. I'd rather take two steps forward and continue or one and a half steps forward rather than take two steps forward and then one step back. So really trying to make sure that we don't lose ground as we reopen. And maybe it's too cautious, but I want to make sure that we're doing this to help protect Vermonters as well. And we don't do or cause any undue harm as well. But it does, and I don't know, Greg, if you're seeing some of what we have here or whether you're watching this, but it really is about that heat map that I was just talking about and what's happening in other states. And again, as I watched the numbers in New Hampshire, for instance, their death rate has increased dramatically, it seems, in the last week or two, when initially we were actually had more deaths than New Hampshire, even though they have twice the population. Over the last couple of weeks, they continue to grow where they have four times the deaths that Vermont does at this point in time while ours is stabilized. So there's something going on in New Hampshire and it's probably from the Boston area and migrating north into New Hampshire. And again, we know what happens then because most of our travel is when you see the number of cars coming into Vermont, a lot of it has been over the last two months from New Hampshire. So again, we're trying to monitor that. We did describe a lot of the metrics, I think it was last week, in terms of what we watch, in terms of what we reopen and how we reopen. But again, watching other states, watching what they do, trying to make sure that again, we put people first. And while we wanna open up the economy and I'm desperate to do that for a number of reasons, I just wanna make sure that we're protecting Vermont the best we can. And then a quick follow-up and this may be for Dr. Levine. I know in Franklin County because it's been so long since there's been a new case. So I know from some people, there's a perception that there really is a lack of virus circulating in the community. So at what point would the numbers show that there is a lack of virus actually circulating throughout the community? Or is the assumption that it's always gonna be circulating here forever? I'll let Dr. Levine answer that, but I do wanna mention there was on one of the calls I was on this morning and talked about the pop-up testing sites that we're having over the next week or so. And I believe St. Albans is on the list a couple of times over the next week or two. So that will be helpful in determining just what you're getting at. Is it prevalent in the community when we do additional testing? And I think that that will tell us a lot. Dr. Levine. Yeah, I wanna reintroduce the word suppression as well because it does seem we've effectively suppressed the virus so that you're seeing the kind of rates and numbers of new cases that you describe. But I do wanna again reintroduce the concepts of how this virus thrives and how this virus could beat us. And that is by the closeness of contact that we have. So I've talked in the past about close contact, density of contact in terms of size of mass gatherings, for instance, and then duration of contact in terms of the time interval that goes on. And so these cautious steps that the governor is describing and this phased approach, much of it is based on just the principle of how many people can you comfortably have within a vicinity of each other and not expect a lot of virus transmission if one of them happened to have the virus. And as you reopen, most of what we talk about is going from sizes, very small, like in your own home, to 10, to 25, to 50, et cetera. And you can just think probability-wise, the likelihood of being able to transmit virus to other people is much greater the more people you have together in close proximity. And in fact, when we talk about the are not, which is how infected certain viruses are, one person has the opportunity to give this virus to two to three others very quickly. If it's present in the same room and nobody's protected by physical distancing or facial covering or what have you. So those are the kinds of thoughts that we have in mind as we watch our data in these two-week increments as each change is made. Doctor, and thanks, Governor. I wanted some clarification on the numbers. A lot of Vermonters use Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. So are any deaths there or positive cases there, including in the Vermont numbers? I didn't think they were, but just wanted to check. I don't believe so, but I'll ask Dr. Levine to take it to that. Thank you. So there's a Vermonter who's seeking care at Dartmouth and succumbs to COVID-19. That will get recorded in our death statistics. Okay. And what about case someone who has been tested positive there? Yes, just like sometimes in the morning, we have cases that when we saw through them, we learned that the case was actually somebody who lived in another state who happened to be tested in Vermont and we let that other state know that they have a positive. The same thing happens reciprocally. Okay. And then just about the dentistry procedures, what constitutes like a low aerosol procedure? Yeah, so if you're a dental hygienist or you're going for a dental hygiene appointment, traditionally, there'll be an ultrasonic phase in the beginning, which has a lot of spray. They usually even give you goggles to wear. So that's a potential aerosol generating procedure, but the actual manual scaling of the teeth with an instrument is much less likely to create that kind of aerosol. The polishing of the teeth could create that aerosol. And if you're a dentist and you're drilling, that's obviously a potential aerosol generating procedure as well. Okay, so it sounds like there'd be pretty limited procedures? Until the beginning of June. Although within that limitation, there is actually, we've provided a list to the dentist and they're obviously well aware of it for guidance that lists the kinds of procedures that are able to be done, such as application of various varnishes and silver diming fluoride, things of that sort that can work to preserve teeth without necessarily creating a big aerosol. Okay, thank you. I see a large percentage of their workforce as state workers. Is there any timeline for their return or what the new normal for them might look like as things continue to open up? I might refer to Secretary Young if she's on the phone. Yes, thank you, Governor. We are working within the parameters of the distancing and the public health aspects of bringing employees home. We're going to be working, we are working now on a plan of what a return would look like. Again, it's going to be dependent on the guidelines set by the governor in his addendum to the executive order and the social distancing and physical distancing requirements that we will likely be complying with within our existing state buildings. But no particular timeline at this time, we're working through what it's going to look like as these orders unfold. Eric, I might want to add that we want to continue to encourage remote work and that will be the last sector to bring in. We just want to make sure that, and that goes outside of state government as well, just keep encouraging remote working at this point in time. Yes, good morning. When the salons open next week, is there going to be business as usual or are there going to be new guidelines and what services may they provide? In other words, what is that going to look like? There will be guidance, Chris. I'll refer to Secretary Curley. She might be able to tell you. Hi, yes, thanks, Chris. The guidance to be up on the website shortly after the press conference ends today and what they can expect to see is operations limited to 25% or 10 total customers of staff and customers combined, so whichever is greater. I won't go into all the details, but just to give a little idea, salons can expect to do anything that's related to hair like a trim, a color, a maintenance of a beard, a blow-dried, but we are not ready for the salons to be offering massages or nails at this point that will be coming. And what about other services like tattoo powers, pierce and powers, we've been getting those conversations. Are you ready to say anything about that yet? Just to follow up with the governor mentioned earlier, we hope to have an announcement out by June 1st as to their start date. We're hoping very soon, but not with today's phase opening or phase restart. Okay, may I ask one more quick question? Go ahead. Yes. Would the travel, excuse me, not the travel ban, but with the quarantine recommendation from people from coming out of state, businesses who live on that tourism business kind of count this year as a write-off? Chris, maybe I can answer that, Secretary Curley. We hope to get travel back to somewhat normal as soon as possible. But again, that's why we're opening up in this methodical way so that we can watch what the data is telling us, making sure the trajectory is moving in the right direction and we can do this safely. So just as quick as we can in two-week increments, we're going to try and get to, as I said before, to that 25% level where everyone's open and then go from 25 to 50, 50 to 75 and so forth, just as quick as we possibly can, but doing it safely. Okay, thank you. This question might be for Dr. Levine. You made a comment that on June 1st, Vermont will be at a reopening that will allow all dental care to resume. What do you exactly expect to see by June 1st? Yes, thanks, Gat. Our epidemiology teams and our health surveillance teams are actually looking at a lot of pieces of data to see how we conform with some of the phases that CDC has used to determine stages of reopening. So it'll be a lot of the data that Commissioner Pichak already illustrated, but then it'll be different unique analyses of some of that data within subsets. So we're going to try to find if based on CDC's own, not requirements, but guidance regarding phase, how we fit. We know that they have phases zero through three and we are very comfortably now in phase two. So it's really a mat deciding when we enter phase three. And phase three is the actual first place where dentistry is even mentioned in the CDC guidance. Kind of a follow-up to this then, the fairs and festivals, we didn't feel comfortable enough that the numbers were going to look good this summer to plan ahead for those. What about the other large gatherings that are a more personal nature, like weddings or funerals? We've had so many people emailing us asking when those can happen, especially some of their visitors are coming in from out of state and they're currently the quarantine issues in place. Is there any sort of advice or guidance that we can give those particular people who are waiting on kind of answers about these personal gatherings? Yeah, again, Kat, this is difficult to answer in some respects, but hopefully by June one, we'll get to the 25 person limit, upping from 10 to 25. So that, and that would allow for more, even now you can have weddings, but they'd have to be fairly small. Going up to 25 will allow a little bit larger wedding. Some of the travel into the state is problematic right now. And again, when we see the numbers on the heat map, that's going to determine what we do in the future. So just as quick as we know something and we see a trend, either a positive or negative, we wanna let everyone know so that they can be prepared. So you can see how quickly what we've done over the last couple of weeks in terms of moving forward. So I just wanna give comfort that we're watching that. We're going to open just as quick as we can. Thank you. Come back to you if we have something up on the screen here. Joe Barton Chronicle. Rather the analogy to Irene is a good one, but I know that afterwards there was a lot of thought given to different ways of doing things like constructing roads and dealing with culverts and things like that. And I wonder whether it is too early to start looking at the damage to economy from something like this and take into account problems that the state was already having and thinking about using some of the mitigation money through sectors of the economy so that we are not vulnerable in the same way that we are now. Great question. And if we can just break away for a minute, I'll answer that right after this next screen before I take the next question. I just wanna bring attention to what we're seeing here. We're live from South Burlington, a formation of four F-35s from the Vermont Air National Guard are about to take off as part of Operation America Strong. This is an Air Force initiative to salute healthcare workers across the country. And so over the next 90 minutes, the formation will fly over Vermont hospitals starting in Middlebury, down to Bennington, over to Brattleboro, then up along the eastern side of the state to Berlin, the Northeast Kingdom over St. Albans, and then return to Burlington. Those on the front lines have worked long, hard hours and given so much throughout this once-in-a-lifetime crisis. So I wanna thank our healthcare professionals, emergency responders, essential workers for their commitment and service throughout this pandemic. I also wanna thank the Guard and the US Air Force for this tribute, especially here this weekend, a Memorial Day weekend, where we're not going to see as many activities, not as many parades. And so this is a fitting tribute, I would say to all who are serving their country in different ways. So with that, we'll have to wait a minute while they get cleared for a takeoff. I'm told now that it's going to be two minutes. So Joe, I'm gonna start answering your questions. I may have to stop in the middle, but I think you bring up a great point. After Irene, we learned many different things about that emergency, and I reflect back on that because I was Lieutenant Governor at the time. And but that was all structural things that we could do with permitting and so forth and how we could expedite different types of construction. But it does, it is relative to what we're seeing today. And we're going to learn a lot of lessons here after this pandemic is over, some good, some bad, and how we can deal with this in the future if there is a resurgence or another pandemic. So some of what I'm seeing telehealth, for instance, I think that's an area that we can expand upon, but broadband is going to be so important. So hopefully we're going to have an REA approach from Congress where we can really implement more broadband and expand throughout the state so that everyone is in some way taking care of in the future. Did I answer your question, Joe? Well, we're dependent on tourism and it's pretty clear that tourism can be knocked out really quickly. I also know that the farm economy has been, it continues to be weak. And I just wonder whether it is possible to think about finding for people, entrepreneurs, businesses that might be a little bit less susceptible to unforeseen disruption. If I knew what they were, I would be richer than a reporter is. They're taking off as we speak. Stand by again, Joe. Now we've seen the fourth and final F-35 taking off from South Burlington. Joe, I'd say in about an hour you should see them over in your area. To answer the rest of your question, again, I think that the, I said it the other day, I think through crisis, hill spur, innovation, and as well as creativity. And I believe that what we'll find is a couple of things. One, I think we need to learn how to take care of ourselves again, making sure that we don't have to depend on the rest of the world with PPE and some of the gowns and some of the face masks and so forth. I think we have to do for ourselves and make sure we protect ourselves in that way as well. We have to feed ourselves. So that's a basic human need. And if we can revive the agricultural community in this way, I think it's going to be beneficial. And we want to protect our farms. We want to protect agriculture in so many ways. So again, I think we'll learn a lot and we have a lot of time to contemplate that. But again, we just need to reflect on what we do best and what we can do better. Hi, excuse me. I think this is the question for Dr. Levine. Some of the restaurant owners have said to me that they don't understand why they have to keep customers' information for the contact tracing when other businesses don't. For example, grocery stores, which also have people walking around in contact with each other and other businesses. I think it's a matter of complexity. Hordes of people are entering and leaving supermarkets all of the time. Their contact time interval is relatively brief with one another and with the store compared to restaurants where the requirement is that they must take a reservation. So they're already going to be listed in some system. They're going to probably have a dwell time. If I could call it that, that would be significant where people can be interacting with one another often without any facial covering because they're trying to eat and drink. And have a period of time that that evolves over. And there's a limited number of people that are going to be there in a certain time interval. So it would be relatively easy to trace back that rather, I'll call it higher risk. I don't want to assign a risk that seems extraordinary, but a higher risk proposition that dining in a restaurant would have compared to walking in and out of a store. OK, is there any way for the state to mitigate the burden of this for the restaurants, but they have to do this sort of extra steps that other businesses don't? Well, I certainly don't believe there's a big enforcement component to it that they're going to be in big trouble. I think it's more of a civic responsibility and something that we would regard as fairly low intensity for them to assume because this data they'll have over the course of the hours that they're open on any given day. Just like we're asking, frankly, the public, and I've done that at several press conferences, ask the public to start thinking in terms of not just a day or two before they may have come down with symptoms, but 14 days. And we've had people in the public actually offering ideas about diaries and logs that people would keep on their own knowing that someday they might be actually helping others by having maintained that data. Thank you, Secretary. Yeah, hi, I just thought I would add. Lodging campgrounds and other accommodations as well are also required to keep a log for 30 days. There could be some others without going through everything. Just wanted to make sure to mention that it wasn't isolated to restaurants. We have asked others to keep a simple log that we can access in the event we need it. I think I heard you over the weed record that appeared outside my window. Thank you. I do know that about lodging and campgrounds. Yeah, I don't know where. OK, OK, great. Thanks very much. Yes, hello, Governor. We've heard from a local fireworks company that's been fielding a lot of calls from municipalities about 4th of July fireworks displays. Would your directive regarding fairs and festivals cover fireworks displays as well? I don't know if they would really cover the fireworks displays themselves. It would probably be more of a question of the gathering and to watch them. I mean, certainly, even at that point in time, with what we're anticipating to go to gatherings of 25 by somewhere around the June 1st period, you could gather in 25 people at a time to watch fireworks. So imagine if they're a display somewhere and there were a number of different entities having get-togethers of 25 or more, you could have a few people watching the fireworks display. So I don't know. Is it be the fireworks display themselves, but the gathering that might be anticipated before that? OK, and so would that be something maybe the municipalities or whoever the sponsors of those activities should be trying to take those mitigating measures? Yeah, I mean, we've already heard, obviously, there's been a number of 4th of July parades that have already been canceled as of now. So I would anticipate there might be more before this is over. But I'm not sure what that will do to the displays themselves, the fireworks display. OK, thank you. Thank you. Our area is home to a couple of well-known events, the Chesterfall Festival and the Peru Fair. They're both in late September and both have already filled their vendor list or mostly filled their vendor list. The governor just said that traditional fairs would be closed for the season. But the wording of Addendum 15 is confusing, saying that traditional fairs and festivals are hereby canceled until further notice. Should those events be notifying their vendors of the cancellation, or is it possible we would see a change that would fall under the further notice? Well, we certainly hope things will be different by the fall. I mean, we've seen remarkable changes over the last month, and we hope to keep moving in the right direction. So possibly in September, we'll see a change where maybe there's something that could happen with some of the festivals. It all depends on the numbers at that time, the trends we're seeing. And again, I keep going back to the data and the science. Thank you. Governor, there are obviously some difficult practical realities for somebody that wants to visit the state, but has to quarantine here for 14 days prior to being able to stay in any kind of lodging option. Has the state or will the state consider providing any space where visitors could go through that 14-day quarantine process prior to the more formal establishment? You know, this isn't a perfect process, and we're always willing to consider almost anything. And we know how difficult this is for some to abide by this 14-day quarantine period. I will remind everyone that Maine has the same initiative as does New Hampshire, as does Massachusetts. So if you're traveling the other way, they have the same quarantine period. So we'll look for better ways to do this again. Our hope is that we'll work our way through this, be able to expand on some of the numbers in terms of percentages, and then try to do what we can to make it as easy as possible for people to come to the state when we can, when it's safe to do so. So we're looking at that. Any different approaches that we might be able to take where everything is under consideration at this point? And have you been able to preliminarily identify any places where that might be able to take place? Well, I don't know if it'd be a specific area or not. I mean, we're just considering, again, different methods where we might look at having a test in another state and then coming to the state or quarantining another state and then certifying that of some sort. I mean, there's just all kinds of different ways we might be able to do it. So we haven't looked at one specific area. But again, we're just looking at all our options because we know how critical tourism is to our state and our economy. So obviously, we want to do this safely, but at the same time, we want to get there as quickly as we can. Thank you. Dana, great. Good afternoon. Governor, in terms of the opening to 25% occupancy for church worship gatherings, I'm just wondering what information or advisors that you were in contact with allowed you to be able to make this decision. And other question is, in particular, what should churches be focused on in terms of creating this space where people are going to come together to worship? Well, again, what we've been trying to do, again, is get opening up as methodically as we possibly can. I know churches have been a question. We've allowed gatherings up to 10. We want to open it up to 25% or 25 by June 1. But we've also opened up other sectors in contemplating. We open up other sectors to 25%, whether it's lodging or otherwise. So we just want to put everybody on the same level playing field, and we thought it was time to do that for the churches as well. In terms of the guidance, I may refer to Secretary Curley to see if there's any guidance on the website at this point. But it really is about the same things that we've been talking about, trying to social distance, not gather in groups. Just set yourselves apart. Every other pew or something of that magnitude. So just be smart about this. Be smart, be safe, and that's the bottom line. Secretary Curley, is there anything on the website that might help the churches? Yes, there is. If you go to the accd.vermont.gov website, there's a memo that outlines health and safety expectations and also if you go to sector-specific guidance, there's an entire paragraph specifically on religious organizations. So it would be a place where you could go to get additional guidance for, as the governor said, we really just want you to maintain some distance and keep yourselves safe. Thank you. I have a question from our business magazine. Hi, Michael Harrington. I assume you're listening in. I had a question about the unemployment rate that was released this morning. And a couple of quick questions. One, is that 15.6% that doesn't actually seem too bad considering our expectations? What was your thought on how it came in? I appreciate the question and the opportunity. Again, this is a rolling number. It rarely stays constant. It also represents data from the week of the 12th of the prior month. So from that perspective, too, it is not necessarily current data. I think that number will, at least till we get caught up in our data to where we are currently, may continue to rise. So from that perspective, I don't think the 15% that was reported today represents the entire load that we're currently seeing on the system. It also only shows people, specifically, initial claims coming in and filing claims. But as mentioned, it's not always up to date to the date of the publication. Yeah, I also noticed that the labor force increased by 9,000. What do we attribute that to? It could be a variety of reasons. One, that is not related to COVID-19 is that many people were off as part of seasonal layoffs that may have been able to return to work that have been priorly on unemployment. But I think at the same time as we and the governor and Dr. Levine, as we continue to work towards reopening Vermont and Vermont businesses, we are seeing the number of filings going down as people return to work. And I'm assuming we discussed this earlier last week or so. This does not include the PUC people? That is correct. At this time, it does not include the PUA people, so the Pandemic Unemployment Assistant Program. And that represents about 15,000 to 16,000 individuals who have filed. And I know that you're still working through the PUA, some of the claims getting that straight now. Is that all straightened out now, as far as you know? It's all straightened out. There will always be new claims that come in. So claims will always need to be resolved. Most of them are processed automatically. Others that come in where an issue is created were able to resolve those in about a week, roughly. There are some unique cases out there that we continue to work through. But because of their complexity, it requires a much more intimate conversation between a representative and the actual claimant. And the overpayment people who then were put off a couple of weeks between payments because they were overpaid. Is that all straightened out, too? For the most part, there was one final piece that we were working on. But my understanding is those were either processed today or will be processed today or tomorrow. All right, great. Well, thank you very much. Thank you. Lisa, the Valley Reporter. Thank you. Last week, reference was made to the ability of Vermonters to self-certify that they'd quarantine properly until they could stay in a Vermont lodging establishment. I was able to get that form from the health department. And it's apparently totally on your honor. And I want to follow up on Peter Herschfeld's question. Given the heat map we've been shown today, do you think there could be a similar form for those from other states to attest to their own self-quarantine so that they could make weekend visits to their second homes or ins and lodges? Well, again, we're considering all options at this point in time. And I'm not sure if the question was why we would self-certify. What was the first question? Well, I was curious because if I want to stay in a Vermont inner lodge, I can self-certify that I have properly quarantined and been symptom-free for 14 days. And it's for my fill out and sign and presumably give to my innkeeper. So I was curious if there would be the ability for out of state in light of the heat map you showed us today. I was wondering if there would be an ability for second home owners and visitors from out of state to do something similar. Yeah, well, obviously we're considering all options at this point in time. And I'm not sure who they would turn that into and who would keep track of that. But again, we want to open up this sector as well as quickly as we can. We have a lot of important second home owners here in Vermont that have helped us through other times of crisis. So we want them back as quick as possible. Thank you. I'm wondering about the essential employees. I'm wondering about the status of the essential employees hazard grant program, which would temporarily raise the wages of low wages into workers like grocery workers who make under $25 an hour. Has that fell across your desk yet, Governor, and have you signed it or do you plan to sign it? I think it's just past the Senate. I think it's in the House at this point. I don't know anything about it. Probably a better question for either the pro tem or the speaker. But I haven't heard anything about it of late. Do you have plans to sign it should across your desk? Again, I'm not going to commit to signing anything until I see it. And what final version comes through, again, it just passed out of the Senate as a long ways to go before it hits my desk. But I can answer it better when it actually passes both bodies. And then I can give you a complete answer. But again, I just want to remind everyone that we don't have an infinite amount of money to deal with. So when we talk about whether it's helping the state colleges, we know we have to do something with our health care system to make sure that that's solid on a better foundation. But there are a number of different needs throughout Vermont. And there's just not enough money to go around. So we have to look at things in the aggregate and make sure that we know the magnitude of the problem before we start committing new money. Sure. OK, I have one follow-up question then. I'm curious, did it cost the state to have the Vermont National Guard fly over to thank essential workers today? Not that I'm aware of it. This was a US Air Force initiative through the Guard. So nothing that I'm aware of. It didn't cost. We're not getting a bill for that, no. OK, thanks so much. My question is probably for the governor, but if someone else would like to chime in, they can chime in, of course. Governor Baker recently came out with a plan to invest $56 million in food security initiatives in Massachusetts. Given the long lines that farmers with family drop-offs and the fact that feeding Americans estimated food insecurity in Vermont has gone up by 50%, have you considered coming out with a similar funding plan? Well, I think we're actually doing a lot of that as we speak. I mean, if you saw the number of different initiatives that are happening throughout the state right now, in conjunction with Meals on Wheels, the Vermont Food Bank, as well as the local capstones and brocks of the world, we're doing a lot of that as we speak. So I might ask Secretary Smith if he has any further information on that. Sure, Governor. Thank you very much. Just to reiterate what the governor is, that was one of our prime sort of objectives as we looked at responding to this crisis was food security. And as you looked, we've had massive amounts of distribution outlets. We continue to look at those distribution outlets to see how we can enhance them. The governor talked on Meals on Wheels, the SNAP program, for example, providing more money within the SNAP program as we speak. All of those are on the table. And the more that we can do, I think, the better. The more that we can do also to make sure that we reach out to those people that are shut in or don't have the availability to go to one of these places of distribution is another thing we've got to pay attention to. The last thing is we paid particular attention as we were talking about closing down various institution schools, for example, on how we were going to deliver meals to children and continue that program. So food security has always been at the forefront of our whole sort of response system. And how do we increase it now? And how do we make sure as we start moving forward and how do we enhance that program is what we're looking at right now. Could you clarify what funding the state is providing right now, because what I'm hearing is the Vermont Food Bank has said its operating costs have gone up by $300,000 and they have called on the state to help defray the cost of that. So has the state defrayed the cost of that? Are you planning to? I've spent the agency of human services spent $120 million in response to this. Food security is part of that. If we need to spend a little bit more to make sure that Vermonters are secure with their food, we'll do that. Okay, thank you. I would also like to remind everyone that the Vermont Food Bank has received direct help from the federal government as well. And as a reminder too, that while it sounds like a big number, $56 million in Massachusetts, they have over 10 times our population. So if you do the math per capita, we would be doing $5.6 million. And I would have to venture to say that we've probably exceeded that here in the state. So we've done a significant amount, or we're going to continue to provide for the basic needs and do all we can to help those in need. Yeah, so just a quick question. This weekend is supposed to be really warm weather and obviously it's a holiday weekend. People are gonna wanna get outside, get by the water, be on the beaches possibly. I'm just wondering what bull should people be following if they plan on heading out? I mean, it's hot, should they be wearing masks? Just keep it just touched on that a little bit. Yeah, I'm going to ask Dr. Levine to answer that because it's the same as what we've been talking about, trying to physically distance yourself, making sure that you're not getting into large groups over 10 and just spacing, wearing masks when you possibly can, and trying to be respectful of others. Dr. Levine. I can't try to say it better. I'll just add one or two quick points and that would be that the facial coverings are really, really instrumental at those times when you are least thinking about it, you may be outside hiking and think I'm in the middle of nowhere and maybe you didn't forget to pack your facial covering, but then all of a sudden the trail is narrow and the only place you can go is to the side to let a group by and there's a group of 20 people who are physically distanced but still coming by in close proximity to you because you can't get off that trail where you are at the time. So we really do want people to be aware of that. Knowing the outdoors is pretty much safer than the indoors. I think that goes without saying because we have more natural air currents and ventilation and dissipation of particles that might come from us than an indoor setting, but at the same time, if you're in an outdoors area and it's getting crowded and you don't have real opportunity to maneuver around that, the facial covering would be really, really instrumental to you protecting others and for them to protect you as well. So it's very, very important at those times when we can't physically distance as well as we'd like to. Usually those are very transient moments but they can be very meaningful moments. So again, think of your fellow Vermonters every time this question comes up and always have it with you even if you don't need to be wearing it moment to moment while you're outside. So even on the beaches you still recommend wearing them out? I would definitely recommend it, especially under some of the circumstances where the beaches aren't that large and more people than perhaps we would like to be congregated in one area end up being there seeking some respite from the sun and the heat and wanting to be near the water. It would be sometimes very unpredictable that it would get crowded even if you arrived and it wasn't that crowded. Perfect, thank you so much. Thank you very much. Governor Scott, more likely maybe Dr. Levine just to follow up on that question. Obviously Memorial Day weekend, it's a good time usually for municipal schools to reopen along with swimming pools at condominium complexes, neighborhood associations throughout the state and even at private homes which often hosts neighborhood families and kids. In light of the banner warm weather these two weeks, what is the state telling like small condominium neighborhood pools about what they should be doing? And obviously there's a wide range of people, multiple ages, using railings, ladders, diving boards, multi-touch objects. What restrictions should the state be putting on those? And I did have one follow-up with the governor too. I'm going to ask Secretary Curley if she has that in front of her but I believe there's guidance that was issued on pools and so forth and some of those situations you described. Yeah, for sure. We did update that this week. And if you again, go to the accd.vermont.gov website on the landing page is a memo that talks all about health and safety measures that are needed to restart and reopen. And in outdoor recreation specifically, pools and beaches maybe open so long as they can comply with the guidance. So to give you a pinpoint, it's section 4.2. Great, thank you. And follow-up with- Go ahead. No, go ahead. It's Dr. Levina, some of the ad. We've got a doctor who's questioning why the pool is not open where I live, so. Yeah, and certainly we've issued previous guidance regarding some of our social policy, we'll call it regarding trusted households getting together with one another, keeping within the confines of the size limitation. But certainly if someone had a private pool in their own home and had a family over, I don't think that would be in the guidance currently to say that they could not do that. But clearly more municipal activities is what Secretary Curley was referring to which would still abide. Again, it all has to do with the opportunities for people to be closer together and in size gatherings that are larger than we're currently advocating as a matter of health policy. Great. Governor, just a clarification, the shutdown of the small county fairs with a few thousand people, wondering what this means to place near and dear to youths under road and even the Vermont lake monsters that have large crowds. And can you clarify about July 4th celebrations, especially Burlington with 25,000 people on the waterfront with vendors compared to small towns like Hullburg Barton and Bradford just having fireworks at night? Yeah. Well, again, I think that we'll see some guidance in the next couple of weeks in terms of fourth July celebrations in terms of some of the other. I just want to remind everyone when we said the fairs, the traditional fairs will not be happening. A number of them have already canceled but we wanted to make sure that we're consistent in the message there. But that doesn't mean the fairgrounds themselves are closed to the possibility of having something in the future. We are not saying that we're going to move forward with like the lake monsters and so forth but just contemplate that those could be reserved seats. You could social distance yourself from others. So there's a situation where you might close down some of the vending and so forth so that you could do it safely if you could spread out within the stadium. So we're not at this point contemplating that but again, when you think about the stadiums and so forth and some of the fairgrounds, they might anticipate having some other event where they could do it safely and we'd consider them on a one-time basis as we move forward. Again, think about 25% occupancy and so forth. So that would pertain to that as well. That includes Thunder Road too? Well, that remains to be seen. I don't know at this point. I would put them in the same category as the lake monsters and other sporting events. I can't determine what's going to happen. It all depends on the data, the science and what we're seeing and trending and so forth but suffice it to say they aren't opening up this weekend. Thank you very much. Can you hear me? All right, so my question is about farmers markets. I'm wondering if you could maybe elaborate on how you anticipate farmers markets looking in the coming weeks as I know they're pretty vital to Vermont's economy. Well, we've already opened up farmers markets. Is there a limited capacity to farmers markets that they've left to continue to follow though? And do you anticipate? There's guidelines they have to follow and they'll be updated as we move forward. And again, watching the trendings and so forth. But they have been open and will continue to be open for the foreseeable future and hopefully expand as it gets safer. All right, thank you. My question is likely for Dr. Levine. So I'm sure you're aware of the CDC that's updated this guideline saying that the coronavirus doesn't spread as easily on surfaces. I'm just curious how that is affected the way you have issued guidance and guided the governor in this so far. Yeah, at the present time we haven't actually changed our guidance on environmental surfaces, environmental hygiene. Fortunately, much of the guidance has been very consistent in terms of not a lot of novel ways to deal with this virus compared to any other infectious substance and in terms of the kinds of disinfectants and substances that are used for cleaning. So we haven't had to change that very much. What you're referring to though does have to do a little bit with the survival I guess we'll call it of the virus on various surfaces and how infectious they may or may not be. So we're gonna have to look in a little more detail at that to see if there's any subtle changes we'd have to do. I wouldn't want people to have a message now that it's nowhere near as contagious a virus as we thought it was because it truly is. We do know that the total number of cases that occur in relation to surfaces in the environment compared to person to person transmission is well under 5%, maybe even lower. So it's never been the major mode of transmission that we've been worried about, but at the same time we clearly wanna be respectful of the fact that as we increase size gatherings and density of people in one place or another there are many surfaces we have to worry about that people could be in contact with one after the other and not just worry about what would happen an hour or two or three later. Yes, hello, Governor, can you all hear me? Yes, we can. Oh, great. I was wondering if for numerically challenged Vermonters you might spell out what the 25% goal is and when that's taking place and when is the 25 person limit? How does that fit in? I get calls from people who listen to this around the state and I guess related to this is the agency of commerce and community development website the best single place for consumers and business people or just residents in general to read the updates to the state orders, the state safe orders. I would say in terms of business the ACCD website is the best opportunity to find guidance for your business and other issues. In terms of health, the Department of Health website is the best to get the data and so forth for any questions you might have in that regard. In terms of the trying to bring some clarity because it can be challenging because we've talked about all different types of limits throughout this entire last three months really we went from 500 to 250 to gatherings of 100 down to 50-50 and now we're down to 10. Now we're moving in the other direction so we want to increase the capacity so the 25 total capacity limit is the number of people in one gathering. That's currently at 10, we go to 25 we hope by around the first of June for childcare facilities and so forth but we're trying to also align at the same time all the 25% limits in terms of occupancy whether it's in retail or whether it's in anything else we've spoken about and places of worship and so forth. So I'm trying to get to 25% so it's all consistent is something that I think is important so that we can all understand what we're doing and then when we go from 25% of occupancy to something better when the numbers are provided for safety for monitors then we can go from 25 to 50 and then 50 to 75 and 75 to 100 it's just easier if we have one kind of set metric that we use but the 25 in aggregate is probably going to stay until we grow that number as well so we'll have to live with both but at that point in time June one is what we're hoping to get everyone to 25% or to the aggregate size of 25. Okay, great, thank you and I should point out that the background notice was not coming from me. Okay, we won't blame you anymore then. Great, thank you. Let the record show if that was not true. Seven days. Hi Governor, I'm curious if you expect to reach an agreement with Secretary Kondo's about the mail-in balloting by the end of today, lawmakers have said that they would likely move forward with a bill to essentially strip you of the power to jointly decide this with the secretary if a decision is reached soon so just wanted to get an update. Well again, I didn't ask to be put in this position. The legislature is the one that put me in the position to add my voice if they expected a rubber stamp, they picked the wrong person and maybe they should have just continued to put it in the hands of the Secretary of State. I think we, I thought we had come to a conclusion that we're gonna move forward with the mail-in ballots to make sure that we protect the election cycle in November but now this give and take in any negotiation and so we are going to have a point from the negotiations I'm having with the Secretary of State that in August after the primary that I wanted to opt in at that point, he wanted to opt out, I said okay we can opt out but I'd like to put in a panel instead of having it to elected officials that we put it in a panel of experts so to speak, one designee of the governor, designee of the Secretary of State, the commissioner of health which I think would be really vitally important as well as a representative of the Town Clerk's Association as well as one from the Mayor's Coalition. That way we can think about, contemplate what it means and make sure that we're doing it in a objective way and then not having anyone on the committee that is going to be involved in the November election which I think is important from an objectivity standpoint. So that's where we are today. The legislature wants to take me out of it, that's fine. I won't stand in their way. They're the ones that put me in to begin with. And just a quick follow-up as we're talking about ballot through any indication at this point whether your name will be on those come August. Well, I know I'm going to have to make a decision by next week at some point. So I'll take the weekend to mull that over but I haven't made a decision at this point. Thank you. I would also remind everyone, we already have a mail-in ballot system that has been widely used and I thought we'd have something to back up to but this provision that we're talking about is actually to mail ballots to every single voter in Vermont which is fine if we have a resurgence. So again, I think that putting the plan into place, moving forward with this makes a lot of sense. We've done this throughout this pandemic and we should do it here. I'm just saying, let's take another look after things are changing very quickly here in Vermont and throughout the Northeast. Let's take another look in August to make sure that we get this right. I guess I just clarified, do you expect that you'll have a decision by the end of today or an agreement? Maybe just a yes or no? Well, I sent my desire and I said that I would accede to his position so I'm not sure if the sticking point is the five-person committee, that doesn't preclude him from moving forward at this point because I've already said we should move forward. So I can't answer yes or no because I'm not sure I understand what the problem is. Maybe you can tell me, Colin. Yeah, we'll see, thanks. Can you hear me? Okay, thanks. And I wanted to thank WCAX for televising this. It's really a community service on their part. I've got a couple for Dr. Levine and then one for the governor. Dr. Levine, NPR had reported the CDC had been mixing the results of PCR and serology tests and adding the two types together, it shows the more testing of active cases than was actually the case. And it doesn't give a real-time info about new infections and some states have been doing this and then reverse direction. Is Vermont mixing the PCR and serology tests and number two for Dr. Levine. J.P. Morgan did a study in conjunction with data from John Hopkins, Harvard, University of Toronto, Washington University, Imperial College, et cetera. And the J.P. Morgan study showed that ending the lockdowns soon, if not immediate, are associated with better outcomes. And for Governor Scott, if you ever worked in a restaurant or owned a restaurant, the profit margins are so slim. I mean, you have food spoilage and other things to deal with. And I'm not sure you spent a lot of time outside lately, but with the outdoor dining, we've got mayflies out there that are pretty thick and heavy and they're to be followed by mosquitoes and horseflies and stuff like that. Well, you're not making it too appealing for the outdoor dining. I'll answer the last question first. First of all, yes, I've owned restaurants in the past. I've worked in restaurants myself. I understand how tight the margins are, probably better than a lot of people. So I completely and sympathetic to all the business owners out there and what they have to go through, especially through no fault of their own over the last couple of months. But this is a step forward, I think, in the right direction and then hopefully we'll expand upon this. So this is the best we can do at this point and some will be creative and take advantage of it. Others may not, but I'm hopeful, I'm hopeful that this will help give a little bit of a shot on the arm to those that are in desperate need. I also wanted to call out, I didn't want to see X to get all the credit here, local access, channel 22, Fox 44 and WPTZ as well. They've all covered this. So we thank them for doing that. Dr. Levine. If the situation is as grim as you paint and we wouldn't want to sit outdoors because of the bugs, that would be very sad. But I would still encourage us all to do take-out at places that do take-out and to tip handily because every worker there needs that. The issue about lockdown, there wasn't really a question you had in there, but I think you're asking if I kind of agreed with their assessment and. It's a brand new study, so I'm not sure if you had time to review it at all. No, I have not had time to review it, but I can tell you, and if it uses the word lockdown, it's probably more apropos for the countries like China that actually formally did lockdown, as opposed to states like Vermont that had a stay at home, stay safe kind of policy, which is a little less government enforced and militarized than a lockdown situation would be. But even if we'd look at our own situation here in Vermont, as every part of coming out of this, getting into this happened way more quickly than coming out of it, and that's because of that exponential growth of the virus. And so anytime you implement something as strict as a stay at home policy or a lockdown, it's because you're seeing that the exponential growth has gone so wild that you really have no other strategy left to deal with a pandemic and to try to keep your population healthy and to try to keep your health system from being vastly overrun and overtaxed at a time that people need it the most. So coming out of it can be a lot slower than coming into it, and I think everyone can understand the reasoning behind that. Most of the countries that I'm aware that it did employ the formal lockdown, it took a while for them to come out of it. So I'd love to see the study just to see if they sort of plot them all on a common scale so that we can see the impact it had on all of these epidemiologic indicators that Commissioner Pichak and I have talked about at numerous press conferences, because that would be very instructive, especially if we see a resurgence in the future. And with that resurgence, we'd want to know how quickly to implement certain mitigation strategies and how quickly we could come out of them. With regard to the data, and just to review for everyone in case they forgot the first question, the CDC did comment that a number of states had aggregated two types of data. The data from the nasal swab test, the nasal pharyngeal swabs, which is PCR data telling people how much active viral infection is present and does an individual actually have an active infection present. Versus this other piece of data from a blood test called a serology or antibody level in the person's blood, which only tells you that that person has somehow, somewhere encountered this virus, whether they had symptoms or were totally unaware of symptoms. And pooling them all together to try to reflect the state's experience with the virus. CDC, I believe, originally recommended putting all tests together. And now, of course, that's not being recommended. And Vermont was recognized as a state that had done that and now is no longer doing it. And we have definitely not been pooling that data since all of this came out. Did it impact the way Vermonters understand the disease and the way we've been able to portray the disease? Hardly at all, as it turns out, because we have now tested well over 25,000 Vermonters for a single test. Never mind those who have had repetitive tests. And out of the 25,000, about 4% of those, around 1,000, had serologies, not the PCR. So if you take those out, it has very little impact on the data. It may have made our percent positivity data look a little better. And as you saw on the screen earlier, the percent positivity rate in Vermont is now very, very low. It's even like below 1%. But obviously, when the virus is very active and when places like New York City had full-fledged epidemics, we're in the 30% to 40% positivity rate. In Vermont, if it impacted that level a little bit because that denominator got bigger because more tests were reported, we've calculated that it was under 1% the difference it would have made. So if we were reporting a 3% positivity rate, perhaps it was 2.5 or 2.8 and not 3. Very, very subtle distinction there. And certainly, the numbers you saw on the screen today reflect only the PCR. And they're incredibly low. So very low impact is the bottom line. Governor, this is a question for you or Secretary French. Given the state of Vermont's increased emphasis on working at home, will the Agency of Education help at-home employees and other Vermonters by offering homeschooling curriculum and other assistance? Well, I don't want to take all the questions. I think I'll let Secretary French answer that one. Good afternoon. Yeah, we don't provide curriculum, per se, but we do have a regulatory approach to homeschooling. Certainly, as we look towards the fall, we expect there to be some continued need for remote learning. So we're making plans accordingly. And we're not necessarily creating or promoting curriculum, but we're helping to build the infrastructure so schools can share that curriculum more widely amongst themselves and for homeschooling parents as well. So you're saying no real help for people who actually want to homeschool outside of the school system, but you're going to be doing more remote learning within the school district? We provide help from a regulatory standpoint. Homeschooling is, by definition, sort of an independent sort of venture, if you will. We provide direct support to homeschoolers, and we'll continue to do that. Resources that we create as part of continuity of learning are largely focused internally inside the school, but they're also going to be publicly available and organized resources like our PBS relationship and partnership and Vermont Public Radio. Those sorts of resources are publicly available to all folks. OK, thank you. I have one question in the room. Yes. This is a question that has emerged into the Channel 3 newsroom cover. And the question is regarding the last question regarding schools opening up in the fall. DCC, the guidance appears to be quite strict. And some are concerned that it's prohibitive that these schools may not be able to open in the fall. I'm not sure who can answer that. I could ask Secretary French if he's seen the CDC guidelines, or Dr. Levine, or maybe both. Yeah, I could. This is Secretary French. I can take a first step at that. Yeah, CDC didn't keep them guidance this week. I'm not sure I'd qualified as being strict. I still think it's fairly general, still focused on sort of the basic ideas of hygiene and sanitation and so forth. We are starting to see state's work on, I think, the harder issues of how to use time inside the school and how to use space in the classroom. But I don't see us being inhibited at that point, at this point by CDC. But we are in the process of formulating our guidance. And we're going to be engaging in a pretty significant planning activity. So our intention is to try to open school for in-person instruction as much as possible. But certainly our priority focus isn't sure we can do that in a safe and healthy manner. Commissioner Levine? Very, very briefly, just to add to that, coincidentally, Secretary French and I and a whole team are meeting at 3 o'clock today addressing this exact issue and looking more in-depth at the CDC guidance. Because this is not a single-team sport. This is a real large team that has to really get together to make these kinds of decisions. And they're not easy ones, obviously. So we have experts in education. We have experts in public health. We have experts in behavioral psychology and other areas. Because we really need to understand better the impact of these on the school in large, on the students who are part of the school, and upon the greater society from a public health standpoint, if you will. So there's a lot that goes into this. The CDC does, when used the word prohibitive, it actually just has it at a later phase of the management of the pandemic. So it is more or less a phase three activity. So the number of states that might be in a position to even think more acutely about this is going to be very small originally and hopefully will grow with time. Even though some states you may have observed already began to do some things with their schools, which we would regard as perhaps premature and based on the newest CDC guidance might look premature. But again, we all want to learn from one another and we need to actually see what kind of experiences different states and countries have. You've probably read recently, France sent a lot of students back to school and they're watching to see how that goes. In some cases it didn't go so well and they kind of pulled back, but not country wide, more local in a sense. So we have to just learn from that and see where it goes. But it's gonna take a whole team of us to really analyze this well and make sure we have all the right metrics lined up so we know what we're doing. And that appears to be the last question as a reminder to everyone in observance of Memorial Day, we will not be having a press conference on Monday. I hope everyone has a very peaceful, uneventful Memorial Day weekend. I hope you be smart, be safe and take a moment to reflect on someone you may have lost, particularly those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice, those first responders and those who put themselves in danger to protect us. So thank you very much for listening in.