 Good morning. Before we begin, I want to apologize for the lack of an ALS interpreter today. Unfortunately, there was no one available, but we expect there will be again on Wednesday. So again, my apologies for that. Over the last few weeks, we've taken a couple of small steps to reopen our economy and put people back to work. Each week we've seen the situation improve because of Vermonters' sacrifices and their work to stay separated, which slowed the spread of the virus. As a result, we've avoided the worst possible outcomes and saved hundreds of lives. So as we continue to see these positive trends, we can also keep slowly turning the spigot. Restarting Vermont must be a phased approach, and so as to make sure we're not moving too quickly and putting our families, friends, and neighbors at risk. Our approach must also be strategic and creative because even while we put more people to work, it's anything but business as usual. I want to take a moment to highlight one sector that I believe set a great example of how this can be done. As you know, this weekend our farmers markets reopened, but through an agreed-upon set of guidelines, they did so in a way that kept people separated and focused on food distribution. Secretary Tebbets will update you in a few minutes, but from what I saw, myself, and heard, they took this seriously and put public health first in a way that is a great example for others. On Friday, I also mentioned the possibility of taking steps forward on outdoor recreation this week, and our farmers markets may be a model for the how in this strange new world. Last week, we also announced our strategy for increased testing and contact tracing, which is essential to any restart strategy. So as we find an outbreak, that's like a brush fire, we're able to put it out before an out-of-control forest fire erupts. This strategy is especially important as we look to erase or ease some of the restrictions on healthcare procedures. So today we'll announce some initial steps to allow for some procedures to begin again. It's important to know that our testing and tracing program is a critical part of this plan. While the initial restrictions were necessary, we also know that procedures put on hold are important to overall health. So we thank everyone for their patience. As we made sure, we didn't risk the ability to care for COVID-19 patients. Today, after working on a restart plan with the Vermont Association of Hospitals and Health Systems, the Vermont Medical Society, the Bi-State Primary Care Association, and Health First, we feel it's safe to resume more healthcare services in Vermont. In a joint effort with my team, they've developed guidelines to outline to allow outpatient services and clinic visits, things like diagnostic imaging, and some outpatient surgeries and procedures. To be clear, elective surgeries that require a hospital stay are not part of this phase. But if things continue to improve with respect to PPE inventory, and if our positive trends continue, then we'll look to open up a bit further and allow elective surgeries that require a hospital stay like hip surgery and knee surgeries. So again, I want to thank Vermont for all you've done to get us to this point, and those on the front lines for their service and care for the people of Vermont. I also want to remind everyone that I expect we'll be making a few other announcements this week that go beyond just business openings to address some of our social needs as well. So with that, I'll now ask Dr. Levine to share more details about the many safety precautions of this first healthcare phase. Dr. Levine. Thank you, Governor Scott. Ensuring we have the proper precautions and can closely monitor this phased restart will be key to our ability to move forward. As you just all heard, a great deal of planning and input has been provided to us across many Vermont and national professional societies and organizations, as we sought ways to effectively and safely put these proper steps in place. First, with respect to outpatient clinic visits and diagnostic imaging, such as mammography, facilities and healthcare professionals must demonstrate their adhering to social distancing and relevant CDC guidelines regarding infection control and prevention to maintain a safe environment for patients and staff. Examples of the precautions that should be taken when providing care in both the facility and clinic settings include but aren't limited to some of these following examples. A process to screen patients for COVID-19 related symptoms prior to any scheduled procedure. A process to screen staff and essential visitors for symptoms prior to entering a facility. PPE should be worn and utilized as necessary to ensure staff and patient safety. This may require surgical N95, KN95 or other equivalent masks and eye protection goggles. Patients and companions must wear mouth and nose coverings when in public areas. Companions are permitted only if required for direct patient assistance. Only individuals who are essential to conducting the surgery or procedure should be in the surgery or procedure suite for other patient care areas where PPE is required. Obviously waiting room chairs must be distanced at six feet. There must be written procedures for disinfection of all common areas and signage to emphasize the social restrictions such as distancing, cough, etiquette, wearing of coverings, etc. There should be liberal access to hand sanitizer. And compliance with guidance issued by relevant professional specialty societies regarding appropriate prioritization of procedures and care issues specific to COVID-19. And a lot of the fact we've had so many recent successes with telemedicine and telephone medicine. These should consider to be considered when appropriate. And policies and procedures reassessed and reevaluated frequently based on COVID-19 related data, resources, testing and other clinic information. Next for outpatient surgeries and procedures that have a minimal impact on inpatient hospital bed capacity and PPE levels including those performed in the office or ambulatory surgery center setting. Everything I've just said remains true. And these facilities need to put into place the following additional precautionary measures. Screening obviously for COVID-19 related symptoms prior to all procedures by phone, online or in person. Testing is required for procedures requiring airway management and should be done as close as possible to the procedure not to exceed 96 hours prior. Patients will be required to self-quarantine between testing and procedure. Testing of healthcare employees. All facilities will need to develop a plan and implement that plan for the periodic testing of all healthcare workers. For example nurses, physicians, emergency medical personnel, students, laboratory technicians, pharmacists and others. These plans should be coordinated with the Vermont testing task force which we've just set up last week. Available PPE with each clinic responsible to ensure it has adequate supplies of PPE through its own suppliers for needed examinations or procedures. And in the case of a COVID-19 surge and not need to rely on state sources or state supply chain for PPE. And finally test results should be communicated to the patient prior to their arrival to the facility for the outpatient surgery. While these guidelines will allow these services to resume in the safest manner possible today we must acknowledge that circumstances may change and that these services may need to be suspended again in the future if the Department of Health determines that a COVID-19 outbreak has occurred and healthcare professionals can no longer safely care for Vermonters in a way that limits the exposure of patients and staff and that preserves PPE ventilators and inpatient hospital capacity to meet the needs of an outbreak. Depending on the severity of outbreak we must acknowledge that the Department of Health may require a return to the standards of care set out in the Governor's Executive Order of March 20th with the suspension of all non-essential adult elective surgery and medical and surgical procedures. In addition on the more optimistic side though if our efforts to slow and contain the spread of the virus continue to succeed we expect to slowly and safely reopen other parts of our healthcare system such as dentistry and eye care. As promised I believe we're going to have on video Secretary Tebbitt's next. Thank you Dr. Levine and thank you to our farmers and our producers across Vermont who are working hard to feed us. Vermont agriculture is open. The cows, the goats, the sheep are being milked, the cheese is being made, the greens are being grown and our meat plants are busy processing beef, chicken, turkey, pork and lamb. Thank you to all the Vermonters who love our local food and the people who provide our farmers with market channels to reach our consumers. As the Governor mentioned this weekend farmers markets did open for their outdoors season. They did a great job in this new world. Markets have transformed themselves in a small amount of time never letting up their mission to provide local food to shoppers. In some respects the markets are going to look different than they used to. We have hit pause on some of the social aspects of farmers markets. Shoppers are picking up their orders and completing their trips without samples. The greetings and the music those are going to have to wait until another time. But you will find continue to find fresh Vermont products from our farmers and producers. You will notice new guidelines aimed at keeping farmers and our shoppers safe. You'll find more spacing between the vendors, more space between shoppers and you'll find all people wearing masks and many shoppers are pre-ordering their products online. Following these new guidelines we'll have more markets opening up this month and many more in the month of June. This model which was developed by farmers and the markets and consumers could be a blueprint for others as they navigate this new approach to organizing events and gatherings. The Vermont Agency of Agriculture Food and Markets stands ready to help others. Helping has been the theme for so many across Vermont during this pandemic. So many are sacrificing to help us get through this. We thank our farmers for leading and sacrificing. We know the future is uncertain but we know one thing is certain. Our farmers wake up every day committed to working hard and being the best. Thank you. Thank you Secretary Tevitz and as an aside that when I came in on Saturday to come into the office I did go by the farmers market here in Montpelier and I was very impressed with what I saw and what they were doing and how they were conducting themselves. So tip of the hat to them for doing the right thing and being a model for others. I know we have a number of people on the line. I think it's a record today. I think there's 26 reporters calling in so we probably should get right to it. Yes sir. So I think I caught all the question. It was kind of quiet. But I think Commissioner Harrington I think the question the question was how many people do we have answering phones at this point in time. We have approximately 175. That's 100 through the vendor Maximus and another 75 through our partnership with others. We max this is on a path to reach 200 over the next seven to 10 days. But I will say also we are seeing a number of lines that actually are seeing downtime with the line. So both at our GMP call center and on the Maximus line we are finding that there are points throughout the day or throughout the week where the queue might have calls in it. But the queue is not maxed out and there aren't people being found off the line which is good news. We do see some high points throughout the day and throughout the week and certain lines are busier than others depending on the need at that moment. With that I will also say that we are finding that a number of the issues were resolving now. There are again these cohorts of people that either need a claim adjudicated which is going through the process or there is some other aspect to their claim. But we are also finding that there are large portions of the population who have also have an open file or an open claim in our system but are simply just not filing their weekly claims. We are working to reach out to them to make sure that that is not a misconception on their part and that they are truly not seeking benefits. But there is kind of these different pockets of groups we are trying to reach out to. Another group out there that has called number of times has been really people who have incidentally or accidentally filled out their PUA application in an incorrect method or form. And now need to make adjustments to that form so we are also working on ways to improve the service there as well. In terms of traffic on the phone lines at one point I think we reported hundreds of thousands of calls coming into line. Now we are recording tens of thousands if not like I said hundreds or thousands at any given time. So we are seeing a trend there if you will. And if people keep falling through the cracks of this may be more a question for you. Would you consider cutting a second round of $1,200 check? Last week that was a consideration but I was convinced that many of those were bigger issues. Some of those who were left were bigger issues that could be that they weren't entitled to a check at this point in time. Maybe it was child support payments that weren't being paid or something of that nature. So we decided to wait again this week, see if they can clear up some more of the backlog. But I am prepared to again release another round of checks if necessary. Stewart? Governor, a question about PPP, particularly hospitality and tourism. Some businesses are concerned about some of the red tape with respect to loan forgiveness. And I am wondering if you are uncertainty of the timeline that some of those folks might be able to reopen. Have you heard of complaints about the restrictions that come with PPP? What is your guidance to some who are just weary of that? It is a very real problem that they are facing because they don't know when they are going to open. And there are restrictions, limitations on how long before they have to reopen in order to receive the money as a grant. So I am very aware of the problem. Our restart Vermont team is very aware of the problem. In fact we have a couple of people from the industry, the restaurant and bar community that are on the committee. So we know about it. We are trying to figure out what to do about it as well so that they can utilize that form to get the relief they need. I know the congressional delegation is also aware of this because what the best thing I think approach at this point would be for Congress to extend that for a few more weeks. That would certainly be helpful. I think when they first went into this everyone thought maybe eight weeks was enough because we should be out of this by then. But as we are seeing we are far from out of the woods on this. So I think Congress taking some action would help but we are also considering trying to find creative ways for us to help as well. So we will stay tuned on that. It is a very real issue and we want to do everything we can to help them because it is a vital part of our economy here in Vermont. Governor at the end of this week last week the Senate came up with their bill and they have got it on the floor they passed it. Your thoughts on that and I know you are kind of wondering where the money is coming from but also the definitions of who can get it. Yeah it is interesting. Again I do not the concept I think is very noble. I like the idea of trying to help those in need but my question always goes back to where is the money going to come from. If it cannot come out of the CARES Act money which we do not believe that it does but if we can get it fine but where do we get it then. We have a $400 million hole in the budget predicted for next year at this point in time and we have a bit of a hole in fiscal year 20 which we are not out of yet. Again noble cause want to help but it really gets down to what are the strings attached to the CARE money that maybe some are not considering. I think we should look at this as this is in general fund money that just comes in the door and the legislature gets to decide how we spend it. It is really money that has strings attached like Medicaid money or transportation fund money from the federal government and it has strings attached to it. So we just have to be very aware of that and if we want to move forward then let us consider what source the money will come from if this does not work out. Because I do not want to get people's hopes up either if this is not going to work. Well as a follow up you were saying your administration has been talking with them and discussing how to go about this thing. Is it just that they are not listening to you do you think? No I think they read it differently than maybe we do and again if we are wrong on this and it can be taken that is a different story. But my other concern is that we need to see the magnitude of the problem. We are looking at this myopically with one sector. We are looking at this from a hazard pay those who have been working want to give them some extra money because of all their actions. But we do not know I mean we have seen it with our state colleges we see it with our education system public education the education fund transportation fund. We see the agriculture community is on the brink of really collapsing in a lot of different ways. We need to focus on what is the magnitude of the problem what can we do with the money and how can we disperse it in a way that is truly meaningful and will help us out of this in the long run. We start spending the money too soon on things that we are not sure whether we can legitimately use the money for. It leaves less money for us to do with elsewhere at the end of this. So again it goes to the house I am sure that they will take testimony on this and maybe we will find out in between this time whether that is a legitimate source of the money from the CARES Act. Good morning Governor on Friday you announced that tens of thousands more vermonters would be get to go back to work on May 11 when the industry is like construction and manufacturing up and up fully. Over the weekend we heard from some people who are really excited to go back to work and stop collecting unemployment but they are worried that they won't be able to do that because they have children and no school or child care options. So for them what is your plan of addressing child care issues both for the kids who are school age but also the kids who are younger as we reopen the economy. I believe that the Congress had put some exceptions in the unemployment oversight that if they didn't have child care they would not have to go back to work. So I want to make sure that is out there. Simultaneously we are working with our restart Vermont folks on trying to contemplate child care because it becomes a very real issue as we open up more sectors. So again it is on our radar we are trying to do all we can but my message would be to those who simply don't have child care and are asked to go back to work or asked to go back to work that they don't have to. If they can show that child care is an issue for them. Commissioner Harrington do you want to add anything to that. No thank you Governor just that our state statute was also amended to ensure that if someone has to stay home to care for a loved one or a child that they would be eligible for unemployment insurance benefits. So just to be very clear here can employers fire employees who don't return because they have child care conflicts. I think the statute is pretty clear on that cat that they cannot but and I believe there's some language in the congressional act as well so I would say no. Commissioner Harrington am I correct on that. I will have to say we'll review it in more detail and get back to you. Again I just want to make sure I'm referencing the right parts of the section for protection for employees. Got it. The follow up last fall I had on the child care issues for Mike Smith. Are we still looking at like the june-ish time frame that you referenced a few press conferences ago for child care. Thanks cat for the question Mike Smith Secretary of Human Services. Yet we what we at the earliest we're looking at the June the June 1st sort of day as we plan for child care to come come back online. So at the earliest it would be June the June 1st planning deadline that we're sort of putting into place so we're still looking at that. Thank you. Thank you. Local 22. So just a quick question about reopening Vermont you said that farmers markets were showed were a great model this weekend for other outdoor recreation that could possibly open. I was just wondering if you could give me any insight into you know what what you're looking to reopen next or what you're considering and maybe when we can expect that announcement. Yeah again sometime this week we'll be making the announcement and it's more about the how rather than which sectors and trying to determine you know across the board. What can we do to provide for relief in the recreation areas where we can have more of the social separation that we don't put people at harm. That they were wearing masks where they were just putting all types of precautions into place and guidelines as we as we do this. So I would say you know it's either going to be Wednesday or Friday but I would prefer to do it Wednesday if we can. Thank you. Hi everybody happy Monday. Thinking about contact tracing. Obviously I should say presumably this has been going on to some extent from the very beginning. But when you're thinking about the increased testing and tracing they were started talking about a week or so ago. Has that kicked into into gear yet. I mean is that taking place. And if so do you have any examples of where you think quick tracing and testing might have stamped out a you know a super spreader incident. And if so can you provide me details about that. Commissioner Levine I think we have an example maybe today. So we continue to have a very very low percent positive test rate. So you're not going to see the contact tracing at the level that we have the workforce to provide. Mainly because the number of cases that have been identified wouldn't warrant that completely. But one instance that has been very successful so far to our knowledge is at our correctional facility where. We have been doing repeated testing. And it was through intense epidemiologic and contact tracing work there that we were able to really keep things very isolated in that facility. And it does not appear at this point in time to have been any spread beyond those early cases that we've had. Secretary Smith may have another one. Wilson. Thank you for the question that we are going to be ramping up substantially during this week and next as as the commissioner had talked about last week our testing and tracing programs you'll start seeing the ramp up as as it as it moves on. Probably our greatest success is our abilities to sort of look at a facility. And the commissioner commissioner Levine had talked about corrections for example the ability to trace knowing where those early cases in the correctional facility came from isolate those particular inmates that may have come into contact and not allow the spread throughout the facility. But there's also other cases as well. I mean we've we've had a homeless one homeless case in in Addison County that we are tracking right now and tracing right now to make sure there's no spread there as well. So it is up and going it's going to be considerably enhanced in the next week week and a half as we move forward. But the tracing in in the correctional facility was something that was I guess I would hail it as a success in keeping facility widespread to a minimum once we found those initial cases. So there's there's an example. OK. Thank you. Vermont Business Magazine. I think this is for Lindsay Curley. Following on Stuart's question about the PPP there's a lot of concern amongst businesses whether they're going to have to give some of this money back. And there's two different programs as you know the PPP itself and the EIDL and most of the initial money came in from the grant EIDL. And now there is a suggestion that that might be subtracted from the PPP. And now on top of that is that the SBA sent out notices last week to some businesses anyway that the EIDL loan money might be also coming in. So I'm wondering what what you're telling businesses that have these different loan programs going on. There's some tax issues in which both Congress and the IRS are at opposite ends of that needs also to be worked out. So what what should we be telling businesses Lindsay about. Should they be S growing some of this money. Should they be concerned about maybe getting a claw back from the IRS or the federal government on all this. So yes I mean I know that they put these programs out with virtually overnight and there was not a lot of guidance from the start. And as the guidance on role unraveled some of the expectations changed and the guidance changed. So I would just say to people I would continue to work with if you have a financial advisor SBA if you have a lender that you work with regularly. Really stay in contact with them. They can help guide you on what you want to do to protect yourself in this case. I do know the governor mentioned earlier that the Vermont congressional delegation have worked really hard to encourage the Treasury to clarify and to arguably change some of the terms. So in the case of the PPP the two year loan payback is pretty rugged for folks who may not have the majority of that loan forgiven because they maybe can't get their payroll get the employees backing time. So you can somebody brought up the restaurant earlier and because again they don't know when they're going to be open. It's hard to say that they can get people back by the June date. So again I wouldn't discourage people from from seeking this relief and this help. But I would absolutely make sure that you have somebody to help guide you. And if you don't have a lender or a financial advisor that you work with regularly the governor put together a task force. And on one of the action teams there are people with this expertise that are happy to lend like a concierge service and help folks navigate this. We've had a webinar already that was very successful and we intend to do more. But it is our goal to help people through this. And but it is difficult. There are a lot of uncertainties. Some people have received actually kind of substantial amounts of money. And so that that basic question of whether maybe they should just hold on to that instead of spending it. Do you have any guidance on that. Well I think it really depends on the scenario. I've heard some success stories with these PPP loans as well for employers who are that maybe their their business volume was dropped for a bit. But they were able to keep their employees through that downtime. And they've been able to send the money on the things that are forgivable and keep their payroll going. So it's really hard to just give blanket advice on these things that there are so many different scenarios that could be going on. So again I'm happy to help people connect you know connect people with some experts that can walk them through their their options. OK. Thank you. You bet. And I believe Mike Donahue was on now. Mike the Islander. Thank you. I'm not sure who this is for. Maybe the commissioner of health. I got this question sent to me from a fire rescue chief on Friday. Why is there delay in notifying EMS when someone tested positive that they've interacted with. And currently many times that the chief is saying they're not notified. And I'm just wondering how many departments have seen positive tests within their first responders since they started with department. Mike that's a very interesting question. I do not have data in front of me to help you understand how many EMS departments have had positives. We can see if we have data on that in the health department and I can get back to you with that. Do you have any idea why there's a delay in notifying them when like if they transport a person a patient that turns out to be positive that currently according to this chief that there's some delay in getting that information to that volunteer rescue squad or whatever. Yeah so I don't know what's behind that either. I mean that would be something presumably where the test would have occurred after the person arrived at a health care facility and then the test result would have come subsequent to that. So I'm not you know clearly within since we're on the topic of contact tracing since that person would have then become a known positive one of the last interactions that person had before they had the test was with the EMS system. So I'm quite clear that our team would have picked up on that and immediately been in contact with those like EMS who had a acquaintance with that individual. The other part of this I should just say is that as any EMS provider will tell you the goal is universal precautions so that every particular patient is considered to possibly be somebody who could have COVID at this time in our existence. So I'm sure they're always thinking along those lines and always airing on the side of this person might have COVID as opposed to oh I don't have to worry about this person at all because it is a time when we do advise that. Governor just a quick follow. Governor Cuomo announced over the weekend another multi state group. This one's for purchasing. Once again Vermont's not involved and I'm just wondering why you think Governor Cuomo is ignoring one of the states that abuts his state and obviously we share Lake Champlain and a lot of other things and Governor Cuomo currently I don't know if he asked you to be in part of this one but you said earlier on the earlier one that was not part of it. Probably a better question for Governor Cuomo but as you might recall when they announced the initial Northeast coalition we weren't a part of it. His office did reach out the next day and apologize for that. And we said at that point we'd love to be part of at least being at the table to understand what they're doing and because we do share one of our largest borders is with New York so it does have a direct effect on Vermont so we'd like to know what's going on if possible. We haven't been made aware of any subsequent meetings whatsoever so I was as surprised as everyone else when I heard that they have this coalition working to buy PPEs so I think it's a great concept in some respects that they would get together. We've tried to work with others around New England whether it be Governor Sheninu, Governor Mills, Governor Baker and talked about some of the needs that we have in regards to PPEs and that we're also looking into how can we start manufacturing them in our different states and would we be interested in buying some of these products if they were maybe a little bit more money than what could be bought from outside the country for instance over the next couple of years to substantiate an investment in a facility here in Vermont or in New Hampshire or Maine or wherever. And I think that that's part of our future something we'll probably learn from this in the post mortem of COVID-19 is how do we better take care of ourselves how do we produce things for ourselves and so that we don't get into the situation we find ourselves in today. And that would that would also relate to agriculture you know we're going to have to feed ourselves and think about our basic needs and we have to make sure that we we have the ability to do that in if this were ever to come up again so but I don't I don't have the answer on that. It's probably an oversight and that they didn't they didn't include us but but this point we're trying to work with with other states here in our region as well. Thank you very much. Rick Juergens the Valley News. Yes, regarding testing and the and the correctional facilities. It looks at my back to the envelope. The Vermont has tested about a third of the in state inmates in its prison system and also you report that you're retesting folks to to see if they've become negative been cured. My question is what what if any lessons does that have for the general population that that's about roughly more than 10 times the rate of testing in the general population around the state. Is that something that eventually the state wants to get to the retesting of folks after they've got positive is that something that the state is aiming to implement. This may be a commission leave Levine first and then maybe Secretary Smith to talk about their correctional facilities after. Thanks for those questions. So within the correctional facility obviously that is an enclosed environment and considered a little bit of a higher risk environment where from a public health standpoint repeated testing is actually the pathway to pursue. Initially the more universal testing in that facility allows us to cohort as we call it in public health terms. Those who have a positive test those who do not those who have a likelihood of significant exposure from those who do not. And of course the staff taking care of them as well just like in a long term care facility or nursing home would do. With with the general public that's the whole principle behind this sort of boxed in strategy of testing isolating contact tracing and quarantining because you may find there was a high risk setting that was in common for a whole bunch of people and that you can then address very quickly and prevent spread to the general population beyond that arena. Whether it would have been at a work site whether it would have been at a business that people frequented in common or another recreational setting whatever the goal of all of that is to find those places that have more people in common with them that seem to have a high risk for the infection. And make sure that you've been able to eradicate it in that arena with the Vermont population in general. We've tried to make sure that people who have even the slightest symptom something that may not have been regarded as a substantial cough and shortness of breath and fever but something much milder in presentation that those individuals still know that testing is something that they can have accomplished. And we've tried to do that very much. As you know now we're opening up an entire sector again the health care sector and that implicates doing another kind of testing round that will involve those employees who work in the health care workforce. And as you heard in my comments part of the plan for facilities that want to reopen and deliver health care services again is to have a testing plan in place for the population of employees that they have that have contact with the patients who will be coming there. I don't know if Secretary Smith may have another word or two to add. Just a word or two because I think I think Dr. Levine covered it well. If we had the ability I'd like to test every Vermont. And I think that's one of the lessons that we've we've had from this COVID-19 as a country that we should have the ability to test every Vermont or what we are doing now in a sort of our second phase. We're on the hunt for this virus. Now we've sort of been on the defense with looking at people that have had symptoms before. Now we're on the hunt of going out and looking for this virus in our in our state and we're doing it by a lot of asymptomatic testing as we as we move forward. So I think what your question is an appropriate question. How do we sort of expand from here to the asymptomatic community and we're doing that in our second phase now. And I know Dr. Levine cringes every time I say the word hunt. But that's what we're doing. We're going out and hunting for this virus and and using it when we find hotspots through tracing through testing to really pounce on. We're trying to contain this virus. A quick follow up question to that regarding prison testing. There's about 250 inmates in in Mississippi and is the state taking any measures to monitor what what the what the response and the an exposure is for those inmates. We monitor those that response every day as we do with all our correctional facilities. And in fact we do send people down to Mississippi to make sure that the correct procedures are in place as we move forward. So yes the answer is yes. Hi this question is for the governor election officials have recently expressed some frustration that you and secretary condos have not met yet about the mail and ballot procedures needed for the primary and general election. I was wondering if you've met with the secretary about this in the last few days and whether you've reached an agreement on these procedures. Given that election officials said it needed to happen by the end of April to get the ballot printed in time. And if you haven't reached an agreement can you explain why I have met with the secretary of state and I don't know if we've come to a conclusion. I we talked about my concerns in terms of printing ballots for November. I would only offer that you can't print ballots until you have a primary. And they're going to have to wait at least a couple of weeks after the primary before you print anything because of the independence and so forth as well. So I we did talk about my concerns. He was going to go back to his team and see if there's anything that they could do to address some of my concerns and I wanted to reiterate with him. This is not philosophical. It's not political. It's just from a practical standpoint. I have a number of questions. So we we did talk and we'll see what happens this week. OK. And just just a follow up. I mean you mentioned the solid just because you do have any other concerns. I mean I haven't heard too much about those just curious. Well we discussed a number of things and you know I have a lot of faith in their ability to run elections and so forth. So they have that expertise. But again from a practical standpoint I had a few other concerns and and he's going to take those back to his team. And we'll see what what they do from there. OK. Can you expand on those concerns? I'd rather not until you know I give him an opportunity to come back and see what we can work out. I mean if we can work this out great. And because I don't you know we we need to save our energy for fighting this virus and not fighting about other things. But I wouldn't characterize this as a fight either. I mean it was just I have concerns about this. I didn't ask be put in this position between him and elections. This was something that was done by an amendment at the last minute of the legislation that was passed in the in the House and Senate. So at this point in time I'm there and I have concerns. And so I think again I'm going to give them the latitude to see if those can be addressed. And if they can great and we'll move forward. Thank you. Chris Roy Newport Daily Express. Yep. Can you hear me again. Yes. We understand that a couple of weeks that New Hampshire is going to be starting to open up more businesses. I guess on the 11th they're going to allow beauty salons to operate and with special conditions. If somebody from Vermont goes to New Hampshire for those services do they have to do anything special when they return. I know two weeks ago we were talking about quarantine for 14 days. Well we still have that provision in the stay home stay safe emergency order. So that that exists today. We'll see what happens two weeks is is a long period of time and we may make some revisions. We may not but at this point in time if someone goes to another comes in from another state then they need to quarantine for 14 days. Dang it's the same true of somebody from Vermont goes to New Hampshire for an hour comes back to Vermont. Well there's certain things that can be done. I mean we had put some exemptions if you if you are on the border and you shop at a grocery store in New Hampshire then you do not have to to quarantine. So there are certain exemptions. I don't I don't have it right in front of me but it's in the in the executive order. Okay great thank you. Miss the Valley reporter. Hello given that the current stay home stay safe order expires on May 15th. Local lodging and event properties are asking us if the quarantine for out of state visitors and if the event size rules will continue beyond May 15th. And if so might they continue beyond June 15th. They're telling us they need this information urgently to manage existing and new reservations. Yeah well again we're working with the the associations and so forth trying to give guidance as we have it. I think you can expect the state of emergency would probably will be extended in some capacity the stay home stay safe provision in the state of emergency may change. And we've seen those changes over the last two weeks. You'll see some more changes this week. And I would hope if we continue down the the trending that we're seeing down this path we're going that we'll see some more lifting of some of those provisions even next week. So I understand there's a lot of apprehension but again we're guided by the data and the science and and what's happening in other parts of the region. As I mentioned before they're not out of it in New York and in Massachusetts or Connecticut or Rhode Island or New Jersey. And those are the folks that want to come to Vermont. So when they're having continue to have the number of deaths that they do as I said it was almost a thousand deaths in Massachusetts alone last week. That continued the same trend continued over the weekend. Although decreasing in New York they still had I think about two at least 2000 deaths last week alone as well. So we still see high incidence of positive testing in that region which would have a direct effect on us if we opened up lodging and without some guidance and without some provisions for safety. We would impact. Thank you. Joe Barton Chronicle Joe Barton Chronicle Ellen at VT Digger. A couple questions about testing one is for Secretary Smith mentioned that there's a homeless case in Addison County. I was wondering if you could talk about how that's being dealt with Secretary Smith. That's being dealt with and I'm going to be a little bit broader in terms of how this is dealt with so not to make sure that we don't identify any individual as we're talking about that. But that person has been moved to a facility that we have for people that are positive and need lodging for example that those facilities have been identified before. They're both in Chittenden County so they have been moved to a Chittenden County facility or lodging facility. They will be kept there until their 14 days or their abouts has been determined that they are okay to leave that facility and then the tracing of any person that's been in contact with that person will begin has begun. My understanding as of a morning call has begun to trace who that person has contacted and if needed more testing because of that tracing tracing exercise that we do but testing and tracing go hand in hand. I will I expect there will probably be more testing and tracing because of this this incident but that's that's all I can say about it at this point. But this person living in some facility with a number of other people why is there some belief that this may be some sort of spreading situation. We take every case as a spreading case every single case we take that a person has a a positive test we take as a spreading. Incident so we will do the the same thing that we do normally will trace if this this person happened to be in a in some sort of maybe possible congregate setting we're tracing that right now to make sure that it has not spread into that into any other thing but right now we have one positive case and we're looking at where we go from here. I think that question may have been worded poorly but your answer came up in response to a question about the facility type of situation and then one other question. Can I just add one one line to that just again to expand on contact tracing and where our vision is. Obviously everybody who becomes a case acquired their viral infection from somewhere and tradition is that we would look 48 hours prior to their time they became positive or symptomatic to figure out where that may have happened. The newer version of that that's part of our enhanced contact tracing that's beginning now is that we would actually go back 14 days because we would want to give a full incubation period. Admittedly most people become symptomatic on day five or day six but we always go to day 14 because that's the possible within the realm of possibility of when someone might develop symptoms from an exposure. So this individual it won't just matter where they were in the last couple of days it will matter where they were in the last couple of weeks. And Colin I think I just heard you say I just wanted to provide the context the the example they gave of the homeless situation was in response to a question about where contract tracing had been used not necessarily at a facility. I thought that's what I just heard you say. Yeah I think that I've worded the question poorly but that's understood. And then a question for either Secretary Smith or Dr. Levine about we've heard that false negatives may be sort of complicating efforts to relocate prisoners and that kind of thing. I was wondering if you could talk about sort of how the state is grappling with both negatives and false positives on some of the screening that it's doing to release people from some of the restricted settings. Sure. So one of the byproducts of the rapidity with which the COVID-19 pandemic has occurred is that the FDA has approved a whole slew of tests for the test that we call PCR where you can detect the actual presence of virus in the nasal or oral secretions. We know that the test can find low levels of virus. However these tests are so new that we don't really know in the typical clinical setting what these terms that we call sensitivity and specificity are for the virus. How likely is this test to actually find virus in somebody who has the symptoms of this disease or the opposite. So the estimates that are being thrown around now and these are estimates because this has not been clearly worked out anywhere in the country is maybe 5% to 20% false negative rate. Meaning you won't find the virus even in somebody who clinically seems to have all the right picture all the right exposures all the right symptoms etc. The opposite of that false positive is a little less worked out and probably is not as significant as the false negative. What you're referring to and I think your question though is that people can actually remain positive on their testing for a longer period than you would imagine. So they come down with symptoms they have a positive test 7 to 10 days later they're fine and rare in a go and if you retest them you actually find out that they still have a positive test. We wouldn't call that a false positive test because we already knew that they had the disease and they had a true positive early on. It's just that they didn't lose that positivity as quickly as you might have thought they would have considering the fact that they feel well. And because that happens actually fairly frequently the CDC is now recommending another process to go through to determine if someone is eligible to go back to work and get out of isolation. Because theoretically you might keep them in isolation for two or three weeks if you demand a negative test be their ticket out. And so now the CDC is saying we're going to allow people to basically have no symptoms for the last three days meaning their temperature is fine the other symptoms they presented with are fine. And if they are greater than seven days from the time of onset of their illness and they're completely free for those three days they can go back to work go back outside their home whatever. And use a non test protocol if you will to return back. So these are not false positive results these are just persistently positive results. Hope that was clear. Is about domestic violence. What is being done financially to help domestic violence agencies that are witnessing upticks and calls and higher levels of volume of violence. And how are you addressing the lack of reporting for child abuse and sexual assault. I'll let Secretary Smith start and Mr. Scherling might want to answer part of that as well. Thanks Neil for the question. First I want to say that you know during this COVID-19 I have been really proud of the agency's response to sort of keep the infrastructure in place and operational operational lies. And throughout state government by the way operational lies to respond to child abuse or domestic abuse as you said we've kept the infrastructure in place. We've kept operational lies as we have have dealt with this crisis not to take our eye off the ball. With one of the things that you have brought up and I'll let Commissioner Scherling discuss sort of the issue of domestic abuse. I'll start with child abuse consistent with other states. Our Department of Child and Families has seen a substantial decrease in the number of child abuse reports during this crisis. We've tried to start to delve into it and the reasons are a little bit complicated but in large part can be attributed to children being less visible during this time of the crisis. For example we don't have children going to school. We don't have children at their health care providers although we're doing something about that starting today with opening up sort of the clinics and health care providers. So it has a lot to do with that just to give you some statistics on child abuse from March 15th to April 15th 2019. There were 432 accepted reports on maltreatment allegations with children. During that same period in 2020 that number has dropped to 127. I think what is important and the message I want to say from your question although it doesn't precisely hit your question. But the message I want to say is if you see child abuse please call and report any suspected child abuse. You may not have the whole picture but if you suspect something please call. It might be a bit of information needed to accept a report and start the investigation. We'll be doing some PSAs on this as well with child abuse and domestic abuse. The child abuse hotline for those who may not know is 800-649-5285. This is important. To answer your question the numbers are down as I've said but that doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. So we're asking people to report. Commissioner Shirling do you have anything to add there? Yes. Good afternoon. Thanks for the question. You have correctly identified that the calls regarding domestic violence, family disturbances, things of that nature are up. Calls to hotline statewide are up. Our work together with the network of advocacy agencies continues. We're in the midst of co-authoring a grant to sustain additional funding. The network is doing renewed communications and news releases related to this as well. Domestic and sexual violence advocacy sessions, group sessions continue remotely. The shelters are still operating and the network agencies are providing a variety of additional supports to survivors and victims under the circumstances ranging from diapers of food to face masks and things that are personally protected as well. So a variety of work continues. This challenge remains unabated under the circumstances. Okay. Thank you. Sean the Chester tell you that. Can you to see substantial numbers of people going without masks in public buildings? Last week you said that education was the key to compliance and we're wondering what efforts are being made by the state to educate the public including people coming into the resort areas in southern Vermont from out of state and not quarantine. I'll have a follow up. Well, very difficult to manage. Obviously we've had signs up as they enter the state. We've tried to communicate that through every single press conference we've had that you need to quarantine when you come into the state. In terms of those in your region, we would offer that we would like to find a way hopefully in your publication that you will reiterate what our guidelines are. The state home stay safe order as well as the emergency order has in place guidelines that you must quarantine when you come into the state. If there's an abuse of that, I believe there is something on the public safety and possibly on the ACCD website where you could make that claim. And so that we could follow up. It's made the analogy that the state banning smoking in public spaces to reduce the health consequences of secondhand smoke. How would mandating facial coverage be to prevent disease be any different from that? Well, again, I, you know, this takes some time. This is just started over the last few months. I think secondhand smoke took years to put into place to use the comparison. I don't think it's apples to apples. Hopefully again from I'm going to ask Commissioner Levine to to also give his views on this. But you know anecdotally, we're seeing more compliance. I've seen it more in our region. I'm not sure why it isn't in your region, but but anything we can do to promote that would be positive. And I would advocate that your publication if you could to make this a highlight and to make sure that we do all we can to protect each other. Commissioner Levine. I feel compelled to again offer the results of my informal weekend survey. This past weekend, I would say 90% and the two, one large box and one supermarket settings that I entered. I did enter to buy something, not just to do my survey, just to keep the record clear. And as well, the governor has been alluding to, we're really trying to create a norm, a cultural norm, and cultural norms generally come through people understanding and being educated, some element of peer pressure, some element of businesses saying like with smoking, you can't enter if you're smoking. Some are saying you can't enter if you're not facially covering. So all of these things I think will build up to a level that it will be the exception and not the rule that someone has seen entering one of these places. The healthcare sector opening that we just talked about today had built in facial covering. And I would dare say that they will probably provide it if someone isn't wearing it. But at the same time, they would not allow anyone to deviate from that practice norm there. But it's really trying to evolve our culture. And if you think about in a very short number of weeks, how many new things are now cultural norms that we never would have imagined before COVID. The fact is, we've shown that we're all capable of achieving these things. Do we want these things for the rest of our life? Probably not. But at the same time, when they're important, we need to begin to learn how to adhere to them and make them seem like second nature. And that's something that's unique and special for this time period. Question to the one regarding barbershops and psalons earlier. Is it unlikely that the state will consider close contact business reopenings before the expiration of the current stay home order? I would just say that everything's on the table at this point. We're trying to consider what would be next steps. And I can't really answer that, although we're only about 10 days away from the stay home order. Stay home order expiring. So as I said before, they should be prepared. The state of emergency will continue in some capacity, but there will be changes along the way even up to that point and after as well. As we watch the data, watch the science, listen to the experts, listen to our restart team on what's most appropriate to open in a safe manner. We'll do so. Thank you. You sound like you're from another planet, Avery. Maybe- Can you hear me now? We can, we can. Okay, great, okay. So colleges across the state, including UVM and now the Montse College system, say they plan to open their campuses in the fall. Has the state given any higher ed institutions guidance on what kind of opening that could look like whether students would be in dorms, what type of classrooms that would be things like that? I'm not sure at this point whether we've given any informal guidance, certainly not any formal guidance. I will say that with the news from UVM and other institutions, they have all given the caveat that it depends on what the state is doing at that point in time. So I applaud them for planning ahead because they need to, but at the same time, alluding to the fact that our state of emergency may not be over either. So again, we're trying to do all we can at this point in time with the emergency in place and trying to open up businesses as we can every week if the trending continues. And hopefully they will get to open in the fall as they are planning. Does that have a guidance something the state would give? Yes, I would say that every sector is we're working with the institutions, different sectors, trying to like we as we did with the farmers markets, for instance, as we did with the manufacturers as we did with the contractors. We're trying to work with every single sector to find guidelines that are amenable to both and so they can put those into place and then adhere to them. It's not a top down approach. We're trying to work with them. So the same would hold true for higher institutions. All right. Thank you. Hi, Governor. I'd like to just bring up the topic of garden centers. I noticed over the weekend that there are many garden centers, but because of the 10 person rule in the garden center, there's an extremely long lined outside garden center. People, although they try to adhere to the six foot rule, really it may be an unintended consequence of this 10 person rule of thumb that we're congregating now outside in greater numbers. I'm wondering if you would consider changing that to better suit this unintended consequence. I would advocate that maybe their further guidance might be necessary because as I witnessed myself with the farmers markets, they were they had a line to waiting to go in to the farmers markets, but they were distancing themselves. They all had mass on. They were preordering. They were taking a lot of steps to keep everyone safe. So they had a long line, but they were more than six feet apart as I saw. So I think it can be done. I think it takes creativity. I think it takes discipline. And if further guidance is needed, I believe we gave that guidance. But if there's further guidance that's needed to keep everyone safe and adhere to the 10 person limit, we'll give it. I guess I guess I'm wondering if that 10 person limit was lifted. Would people get in and out of the garden center quicker, have less contact with other people and be able to get their their products and move on with less, less contact in the long run. Well, again, I would think in the future, we're hopeful that we can lift all of that and go back to some sort of normalcy will while practicing some of the self administered social separation as well as masking and so forth. So at this point in time, I'm not prepared to say that we're going to lift that because I think the team has done a pretty good job in trying to put through guidance. That are that do adhere to both the 10 person mass gathering limit as well as in one space, but also keeping, keeping other safe. So I wouldn't see that we'll be lifting that in the next week or so. But who knows, based on again, the data and the science and everything that we're doing and trying to determine other safe ways of opening other businesses as well. I think that we can use our use the farmers market again as a model for how can be done because I saw 10 and they were doing it and and keeping everyone safe at the same time. Thanks, Governor. Thanks for your time. Michelle Monroe St. Albans messenger. Hello, Governor, we've been getting some questions from folks who want us to ask you. I think that people know about. Hello. Yeah, we can hear you. Most of the questions we've been getting it focused on unemployment, which were addressed at the beginning of the conference. And so, but one of the questions was about summer camps. And if there was any chance that those might open, especially because they they offer an opportunity for childcare. So I was just wondering how much your restart committee has taken a look at that. Yeah, they are actively pursuing that and working on that as we speak. So I would expect in the next week or so that we would have some guidance put forward on that that initiative. I know it's an issue that we everyone is asking about and we're going to we're going to act on something. Great. Thank you, Governor. Thank you, Governor and gang. I'm I'm this may be a question for commissioners. I've read elsewhere that public safety organizations are relying more on on drones to keep an eye on congregations of people and monitoring safety. And I was wondering to what extent. For months, Department of Public Safety is either using drones or or advising police departments in the use of drones to both monitor safe practices and preserve folks privacy. I think that's a great question for Commissioner Sherling. Good afternoon, Joel. Thanks for the question. We are not using unmanned aerial vehicles for the COVID response. We do have a fleet of them. They're used for crime scene and accident reconstruction and things of that nature, but they haven't been deployed for this. OK, well, thank you very much. Hi, I was wondering, Governor and Dr. Levine, as we start to slowly reopen the economy and we start to see cases like that. Just what is the threshold that that you'll be looking at for like an acceptable growth? And what would the threshold be that you would institute more restrictive measures again if we if we reach that point? I'll let Commissioner Levine weigh in as well. But as you might recall from the very beginning, what we were trying to do was to mitigate the number of positive cases and mitigate this so that we didn't have an exceedance of our health care capacity. That's our overall goal is to make sure that we are able to take care of people as they come in contact and come down with the virus. So that remains our goal, my goal in trying to keep people safe, whether there's an acceptable amount is really difficult to answer, but I'll let Dr. Levine try to answer that. That is a very challenging question and it illustrates the concept of we're always trying to look into the future on a daily basis with a virus that can take up to two weeks to show the results of its infecting people. And so you need to begin to start looking at trend data and the trend data, you know, right now we're in a pretty much of a flattening of the curve as we called it and a plateauing. But the trend data would obviously be things like the percent of our all of our tests that are done that are positive, the rate of growth of new infections in terms of the incidence rate of infections. And we would begin to also begin to look at impact on the health care system, hospitalization rate for people with presumptive diagnosis or true test positive diagnosis of COVID need for ICUs, etc. So all of those metrics, if you will, are feeding into the same equation that we did way back in the beginning, but we need to try to be very nimble and be way ahead of the curve because you don't want to discover on day 14 what you should have done on day four or five. And I think we were very adept at doing that early on in this and had some success to get to where we are now, obviously. But that's what we'll be trending and watching very closely. We continue to work with all of our modeling experts as well. And sometimes the modeling, which is based on the kinds of metrics I mentioned, will begin to show trends as well. So every day of the week we look at all of the same data all the time. So my hope is that we will be able to pick up an adverse trend that would require an intervention early enough in the case that things would not have gotten out of hand. I do think that the enhanced testing and the enhanced contact tracing are going to play a big role in that because of the fact that they go back so far in time. They involve so much more additional testing. They'll even be testing performed of those who have had a contact trace positive result from the interviewing so that we'll have a lot more data this time around than any state would have had in the early go round. Does that answer your question? Yeah, that does answer some of it. I mean, would you be able to, can you share a specific? I know there's a lot of factors that you're looking at. You listed off a number, but is there a one or two kind of specific threshold, like the number of percent of positives of total number of cases that you kind of have in your head as like the number or the point where you'd start to be getting concerned? Is there a specific number there? Yeah, so there's not necessarily a specific number and it really is a synthesis, an analysis of all the data and a synthesis of all the data streams. Clearly now we're in the percent positive tests, we're in the low single digits percent. We clearly want to be below 10% throughout the time period. Would 10% cause a change, not necessarily depending on how everything else looked, but that would be a trend we'd want to watch very closely. The places that are having the peak of their outbreaks now are over 30% of their tests are positive. Obviously we don't want to get there overnight and we want to know we were headed there early on. But that doesn't mean that if we got to 11% it would be time to change everything. We'd have to integrate that with all the other factors as well. And then just as you gather more data from this enhanced testing and contact tracing. I know Governor in the previous press conference as you said you wouldn't want to selectively reopen regions of the state. But as you can more identify areas that might have outbreaks or as Secretary Smith said hot spots. Is that something you'd be considering like restricting certain areas of the state while letting others remain open? Well again my preference would be to do this as one state rather than as putting one region against another, pitting one town against another. It gets very difficult as you might imagine if you said closing off all of Chittenden County for instance and letting the rest of the state open up. I'm not sure that that would be fair to those in the outlying areas that may have no cases within their towns and in Chittenden County. So it becomes problematic to try and do that. Again we think we have a good tracing and testing program in place that we're going to build upon. We think that we've done things right. We've asked for monitors to do the right things, stay home, stay safe. We're seeing a change in behavior in terms of masking. As we're opening businesses we're asking those employees to wear masks as well. I think that everything that we're doing is moving us in the right direction so I would rather not talk about retreating. I would rather talk about how do we manage this so that we can get back to some sort of normal and we can open up more businesses. So again I would rather look at this as the glass being half full and moving forward in a very slow methodical way so that we don't have to have these conversations that you're alluding to. Thanks Governor. Patricia Bennington-Banner. Hello can you hear me? This would be a question probably for the governor. I'm wondering the press release from Rebecca Kelly referencing this reopening of some elective procedures clinic visits that you mentioned earlier. In the guidance in that press release regarding the steps that should be taken it says these steps should be taken. It doesn't say they have to be so I'm wondering the things listed in the press release and that Dr. Levine mentioned like setting up testing protocols, separating chairs, testing people that would come in contact with patients, things like that. Are they really, are they recommendations or are they requirements? I'm going to, that may be a great question for me but I'm going to turn it over to Commissioner Levine. Yeah they are expectations, conditions for reopening if you will. So the, I don't know if you've seen the release that Rebecca sent out. I don't want to read them of course because it's a very long list but all the things that's listed in that release regarding outpatient clinic visits and diagnostic imaging and outpatient surgeries, screening, testing, disinfecting, PPE, all that. Those are requirements, all of them? Yes, yes. For instance with PPE if they cannot have the supply that they need at any given time and maintain that supply they would not be able to operate because of the PPE requirements and some of the interactions. And are there an enforcement mechanism here in terms of compliance with these regulations that just you know taken that they will in fact do this? Let's use, this is Mike Smith, let's use the PPE for example. We expect them to self govern their PPE usage. They will not be able to access the state supplies of PPE nor will they be able to sort of use other state facilities for PPE. So they're going to have to self regulate their own PPE. These are requirements. You've got to test individuals that are coming in that have airway procedures for example or management of airway procedures. You've got to screen those patients before they come in. You have to have a sufficient PPE. There is no equivocation on what is required here both for the clinic and for the outpatient surgical procedures as well. So I'm struggling a little bit. Those are requirements in terms of enforcement. This has been done with the collaboration of just about every medical society and association that you can find. I think there's going to be self regulation but if we hear of somebody not doing it the executive order gives the authority to the commissioner of health in order to intervene. And he has enforcement capabilities and enforce if he has to. Thank you. I wondered for you as not as governor but as citizen what's been the hardest thing for you to do during this state of emergency. And also has any particular leader inspired you especially at this time? Tough to answer in some respects. I think every decision that I've had to make every major decision has been the toughest one. They don't seem to get any easier and I would say the toughest decisions may be yet to come in trying to open some of the businesses and entities and so forth. And doing it in a safe manner knowing everyone is anxious to go back to normalcy. And what I'm trying to do is make sure that we're working together to keep public safety in mind and not do any harm to anyone. So probably the most difficult decision I've had to make is the last one because they've all been difficult. In terms of being inspired I'm inspired by many. But I'm not sure that anyone who has gone through what we're going through at this point in time I think we'll see over time who does the right thing and who doesn't. We need to check our egos in this case we're all in this together. I thought President Bush put out a message over the weekend that was well received from my standpoint that this isn't a time for partisanship this is a time for us to work together. And I think that history will be the judge and who does that and who doesn't. And if we check our egos at the door and we do the right thing and we learn from this and admit that maybe some of the things we did weren't right. Or some of the things we did do were right that we learned together on how to prepare for this in the future. I guess I was just wondering if Phil Scott as a private citizen you've got to go by the rules too. Just as in your private life what's sort of the hardest thing for you about all of it? I'm not sure I have much of a private life these days. I'm still working seven days a week and I did manage to work half a day and got off at three o'clock on both Saturday and Sunday this week. But then I went back home and just read my weekly reports and did some other work. So there's not much of a private life at this point but I'm looking forward to one just like everyone else when we get back to normal. But until we do I'll continue to work as diligently as I can for the public safety of Vermont and to try and get the economy open back up so that we can get back to again this new normal. Thank you. All right that's it. Thank you everyone. Thanks very much for tuning in. We'll see you on Wednesday.