 Good morning, everyone. Thank you all for continuing to tune into these important updates. As this pandemic continues, the health and safety of all of our monitors is my top priority. Every decision I've made is guided by the best information I have for public health. And as I've said, as this virus continues to spread, and we learn more about COVID-19, for monitors can expect we may have to take further action to help slow it down. As a reminder, slowing the spread of infection is critical to making sure we can protect the most vulnerable, meaning the elderly and others who are at risk for serious illness, and in too many cases, even death. These steps are also necessary to keep our healthcare system from being overwhelmed. Like we're seeing right before our eyes in other states like New York. What we're doing is important to the health and safety of all of our monitors. To help reach these goals, on March 15th, I ordered the temporary dismissal of schools. Well, we hoped this would be enough. That is not proven to be the case. So working closely with the experts at the Department of Health and the Agency of Education, I came to the difficult decision to extend dismissal and close in-person instruction at schools for the remainder of the school year. However, to make sure our kids continue learning, I'm asking districts to complete plans for continued education through remote learning. So we're ready to go on April 13th. Now, I know this news is incredibly difficult. Let's face it, it's disappointing, frustrating, and it's just plain sad. Sad for the kids, the parents, the teachers, and all school employees. And my heart goes out to each and every one of you. It's going to be hard. I know that. The education of our kids along with the bonding and learning experience they get in school are incredibly important. So I fully understand and appreciate the impact this will have on our kids individually and families across Vermont. But from my vantage point, I believe it's the right decision because it's for the health of our kids, communities, and the entire state. That's why we're doing this. To keep people safe, to slow the spread, to save lives. Because the sobering reality is, before too long, each of us will know someone who has lost their life from this virus. That's why we must come together and support each other to get through this. Even with this decision, it's my hope that with the mitigation steps we're taking, our children will be able to return at the end of the year for activities like graduation. But we won't make that decision until we're certain it's safe. For now, we need to use our creativity to find ways to deliver quality, remote learning for our students through the end of the year. I want to thank school administrators, superintendents, educators, and staff around the state who are working hard to adapt to incredibly challenging circumstances. The fact is, we need your help and we appreciate your public service. Child care providers will also remain closed, but will still be able to provide care for the children of those workers critical to the state's response. I've been impressed with school districts who have worked very hard to set up creative and critically needed programs to offer care for students whose parents are working on the front lines. These educators and staff who are finding ways to support these families have been so important to our COVID-19 response efforts. I'm very proud and appreciative of their hard work, creative, can-do attitude, and their willingness to step up in this moment of service. These educators and the staff supporting them represent the very best of our education system. We find ourselves at a time when there's no roadmap. So our education leaders, parents and kids and all Vermonters for that matter have never been asked to do anything quite like this. But these are times that require all of us to think outside the box to find creative solutions. And we must work together to ensure we still get the best outcomes possible for our kids. I want to assure you, me and my team are here to do everything we can to help every step of the way as we navigate these uncharted waters together. Our way out of this is to use the best information we have. Use our common sense about what we want and what we need and work together in service to Vermonters. The Agency of Education will be providing technical guidance to districts by the end of this week, and Secretary French is with us on the phone today to answer any questions you might have. I again want to thank the many education leaders, teachers, parents, staff and others who stepped up during this difficult time. I know this is not easy, but your commitment to public service and your ability to adapt is exactly what we need at this very moment. It's what makes us Vermont strong and it makes us united. We will get through this and we'll do it together. So I'll now turn it over to Dr. Levine to provide an update on this point. Thank you. My objectives this morning are to provide a brief update. To talk about two groups of Vermonters I often talk about, but have not talked about in the context of this epidemic, and to provide some important news regarding testing. The update is that we had another 25 cases recorded yesterday, bringing our total up to 183. Unfortunately, we had a death yesterday and one earlier this morning, bringing our total deaths to 10. Now, in addition to those Vermonters that we've been talking about who are at greater risk for severe illness from COVID-19, older people, those who have underlying medical conditions or are immunosuppressed, I'm also specifically concerned about two groups of people. Those who smoke or vape, and those who are in need of treatment for alcohol or other substance use. I think everybody understands the harmful impact of smoking on the lungs and the growing body of evidence regarding e-cigarettes and vaping and harming lung health. By now, you should all understand what the coronavirus does to the lungs as well. And it really makes it harder for people who smoke or vape, whatever, tobacco, cannabis, anything else, to fight off the virus, putting them at much greater risk of severe illness or even death. So in the midst of this pandemic, there has never been a better time and there has never been a better reason to quit. And let's face it and be realistic. Many of you are staying at home and you're looking for new challenges, new hobbies, something new to focus on besides the virus and the news cycle. So what better time to direct your mental energies to something most smokers we know actually think about a lot, quitting. And we have a phone line and online resources to help. Your choice. If you've watched all of the ads, you know you can call 1-800-QUIT-NOW for one-on-one coaching available 24-7 with email and text support, 1-800-QUIT-NOW. Or you can get help to quit online at 802quits.org for quit resources and tools. And by quitting, of course, you'll also protect people in your household by reducing their exposure to secondhand smoke and aerosol as you spend more time at home during this pandemic. And we don't want to lose anyone for the lack of knowing where to turn for help for alcohol and their drug use either. The global pandemic has not erased the continued urgent need for substance use-related services for Vermonters. In fact, the extraordinary steps required to stop the spread of COVID-19 create new challenges for people who live with substance use disorder in terms of getting the services they need. So as of today, the Health Department has launched a new website, vthelplink.org. Vthelplink is a new single-source clearinghouse for Vermonters to get free, confidential, and personalized information and referrals to substance use prevention, treatment, and recovery services throughout the state. It features a call center staffed by clinicians. Callers can get information, referrals, resources, and educational materials on substance use for themselves, family, and friends, or on behalf of clients. There's also an online screening tool that Vermonters can use to learn about treatment options that meet their needs. People can securely chat online with call center staff through the website. The centralized coordination of substance use treatment and recovery services has been in the works for the past several years and complements the broad referral and information services we have on Vermont 211. These are more than simply difficult times, and we have no more important omission than to do everything we can to create an infrastructure that bridges the challenges that we face during this pandemic. vthelplink.org is a key resource for anyone who needs or wants to get treatment and succeed in their recovery. As I've said before, we're all in this together, and we will persevere. Now, on my last topic, as our state enters this period of the latest mitigation strategy, stay at home, stay safe, I'd like to preview a further strategy we call a containment strategy that will allow us to take advantage of this time in our work to further flatten the curve and essentially make this effort a full court press. Later today, I expect the Health Department to be updating guidelines to doctors to allow more latitude in ordering COVID-19 testing. Now, tests will still be prioritized, and patients who have no symptoms will not be tested. But people who have only mild or moderate symptoms will have more opportunity to be tested now. They will still need to call to talk with their physician or other healthcare provider so that they may order the test. Let me be clear. You cannot just show up at a testing facility or a drive-through. The test must be ordered by your physician. The objective here is to identify more COVID-positive patients early, isolate them, and slow the spread of the virus. The overall strategy is test, isolate, do contact tracing on people that that person was around, and then quarantine those contacts as appropriate. And what better time than the stay at home, stay safe climate that we're in right now. The experience in other countries who have successfully flattened the curve show that early and broad testing is a proven strategy to slow transmission of this virus. And Vermont is still early enough on the curve that this strategy may be effective. Further, we're working with our colleagues in the Department of Public Safety to mobilize more contact tracing teams to help alert people who are potentially COVID-19 positive. Now, we're able to enhance testing as a result of a very aggressive procurement strategy for both the kits that are needed for collecting the specimen from the person, as well as for testing it in the laboratory. While it's true that an enhanced testing protocol will draw on our supplies much more rapidly, I believe the benefit of more earlier testing significantly outweighs the slowing the pace of tests later. To keep our supplies up, we've augmented the supply procurement team to continue aggressive procurement. In the end, we may need the federal government to assist us with needed materials, but we're not counting on that, and we will continue to explore every avenue 24-7 to get our needed supplies. So, to be clear, if a person is not symptomatic, we're still not testing, but if the person has mild or moderate symptoms, we are making it far easier to get tested. We have a doctor's order to be tested, and please give your doctors time to review our new materials later today before calling their offices. Thank you. Well, now I'll take questions. Yes, so we have Education Secretary Dan French on the phone, so we're going to start off with questions specifically about the education dismissal, and we're going to start that with Lola from Digger. Is that a star six? Star six? Yeah. Lola, go ahead. Yes. Okay, sorry. I read a report this morning in the Rebel Bureau reformer saying that a school district down there in the Linda-Marthe Supervisory Union was considering math layoffs of support staff. Is that something that the school districts should be considering right now? Dan, are you on the line? Yes, I am, Senator. I can say that. Hi, Lola. You know, I think at this point it's... Excuse me? I said hi. Oh, hi. That's not the guidance we're disseminating at this pay level at this point. I think it's premature for districts to consider staffing ramifications of what we're terming the continuity of learning environment. I think our first step will be to work with districts to define, in fact, what the new normal would do for the learning environment will be, and they have until April 8th, April 13th implement. I think as that becomes more clear, then we'll be in a better position to figure out what the staffing pattern should be to support that work. But at this point, I appreciate the tip. I'm going to reach out to district directly, but we want to be very cautious about making any significant or dramatic changes in our staffing pattern until we get a better understanding of what that new regular education environment will be. Yeah. I mean, my original understanding was that the governor said that everyone should expect to continue to be paid. I was pretty surprised by that record. Yeah. I think, you know, once again, the definition of education environment involves districts will have to make some decisions about how to staff that. In particular, in the case of terror indicators, often they're involved in direct support to students with disabilities. So once again, our first priority will be to define what is the new regular ed environment and then from there, ensuring that students and our most vulnerable students, particularly those who are eligible for special education, that they're covering their community department. And I think terror educators both support staff and my role in delivering on service. So we'll have to address that issue during the coming days. Thank you. All right. Howard Weiss-Tisman from VPR. Dar 6 to Unmute. We can. Okay. I'm sorry about that. Secretary Brinch, I'm wondering to think about any information that might be coming from the U.S. Department of Ed as far as easing up on some of the special ed requirements for paperwork or instruction on special educators. Have you heard anything from Washington along those lines? Hi, Howard. Yes, we have. I've been participating in five-weekly calls with the Council of State School Officers which has a direct connection with the U.S. Department of Education on any issues including this issue that I think is still evolving and it's my understanding that in the current sending bill or in some other place and there is consideration giving to the U.S. Secretary an opportunity to on the floor of Congress on potential further guidance that might be necessary, particularly on the procedural aspects of special education implementation. Currently, the messages and the guidance is that we remain committed to implementing the individual's accessibility that the station has to have described and as I mentioned earlier with all its conversations we're in the process of I think essentially redefining with the regular education environment and from there I think defining accommodation. But so far there's been no guidance related to varying from the special requirements of that law. Thank you. Press Association Star 6 to unmute. Go ahead, Mike. Thank you, Governor Secretary Brent. Apparently he has asked how the state are to remain at home and others at too. And several colleges in the end say Michael's are now closing their campuses for academic years and the same goes with some of the high schools that have dormitories seen like in St. John's very limited and what I'm wondering is how the state of Vermont plans to handle the thousands of college and high schools who are trying to return to Vermont to get their property that are affected dorm rooms and not have as large influx all at once to be able to handle this. Are you working with the individual institutions to try to space them out when they arrive at Lyndon, Johnson, Norwich, St. Michael's, whatever? How are you going to handle such a large influx from how the state is going to play? I can take a stab at that, Mike, first and then, Secretary Friends, you can follow suit. For those who are out of country, I would say it'd be very difficult to come to the states at this point in time and I would ask anyone who is contemplating coming back to get their physical belongings to ask themselves do I want it or do I need it and if you just want it I would say stay right where you are until we get further down this path and if you need it I'm sure there's other accommodations that could be made out of that as we speak but public safety is first and I think that we should all keep that in mind with everything that we're doing want and need and ask yourselves what's the best action you should be taking for your personal safety and the safety of others Secretary French? Thank you, Governor My understanding and most apologies for the week ago I know in my own family my daughter, her college had shut down we had to make a quick spread down to Herkanto to move out of Herkanto but my understanding that most of the cancers have not transitioned well under way and I don't anticipate that to be a major issue relative to increased populations and they would be coming back so I think there are probably across the line that will be coming from New York City and Massachusetts and elsewhere that are consistently with high tests and everything Again Mike, I would say in my remarks I had stated that we are going to take a better look at this after we get through this for a while to see if there's any end of year graduation activities and so forth that we may be able to open the door to so that would be a time when people can come back and get their materials so again it comes down for me want and need and ask yourselves whether you actually really need it or not Thank you very much Chris Roy, Newport Daily Express Yes, good morning One that the Governor had waited any a month or so to see how things go Great question, Chris Part of it from my standpoint is consistency People want to know what's going to happen and if we put this plan into place I think we'll get better as time goes on and so rather than allow for false expectations rather than wait for a month down the road when if you could bring them back, it would only be for another month that may not be the best path and so I thought because of the we don't know where we're going with this in some respects we're relying on the best modeling and relying on the best information we have at the time that this will at least give everyone some comfort in knowing that we're going to have to make some changes behavior changes and it's going to have an incredible impact on our families but they'll know what's happening for the next two to three months Secretary French anything to add on that? Yes, Governor, I would just say it is a very challenging decision and I think certainly the public health information I think has to take priority at this point and we'll play it by ear at a certain time but I think to the public health information does not point that would be true for us to wait a month to make this decision I think it would be more challenging but to the Governor's point about the preparation and the continuity I mean it's going to take significant work for districts to deploy in this manner and it's a question of the ability of the education environment as well and not be able to turn around ramp up and ramp down so quickly so I think it would be as difficult as it is I think to a certain extent on the other hand it provides some stability and gives us the ability to innovate and be creative and we know those efforts trajectory of those efforts and the timeline which we'll be working on those constraints Okay, thank you Amy Ash Nixon, Caledonia record Amy, star six Amy, you should be unmuted Unmute your phone if you have your phone unmuted Hello We have you now Amy Okay, sorry Governor, two stores in New Hampshire have reported that grocery store workers have tested positive Are we seeing that in Vermont and are any steps going to be taken to protect people in retail? We have guidance from the health department where I haven't heard of any in the in this state but again this is happening right before our eyes we need to make sure that we're feeding and taking care of people so unless Dr. Levine has anything to add we have guidelines for personal protection we would like you to adhere to those guidelines when you're out in the public and whether you're performing these critical tasks Thank you Any education questions from the reporters in the room? Kevin So the extended dismissal of schools this will go until probably early to mid-June does this signify that businesses and will still have businesses still enclosed at that time as well? Yeah, no I wouldn't take anything from the extension or dismissal of the schools to indicate what our plan is in terms of businesses our hope really is that businesses will be allowed to go back to work at some point when it's safe and when we think the timing is right based on all the information data that we have available at the time but this was really to give some expectations for the students for the families it may not be good news and I acknowledge that this is tough tough stuff but at least they know what's before them over the next three or four months but this is not an indication of what's going to happen with businesses I guess if I just have one follow-up as well are you I guess concerned of schools not enforcing the completion of this work or these requirements going forward over the next couple months? I have complete faith in the schools we have some we're working with the superintendents and all the administrators and teachers the NEA and others to try and work on this together so I have great faith in everyone involved to do their very best to make sure that we fulfill our responsibility to educate our kids concerned about getting childcare if they're going to have to return to work for the next week or the next month or so what do you say to them for people that are worried about that? yeah this is challenging times we're going to have to get creative in this respect and hopefully they will have a plan in place and we'll be able to open up other options as we move forward we're focused on mitigation slowing the spread making sure that we have the capacity in the hospital and the healthcare system to accommodate what we see as a ramping up so until that time we're going to have to pay attention and do all we can to make sure that we slow the spread of this disease down for education questions on the phone we're going to move on to our regular questions Greg Greg from the county courier I have an education related question great, go ahead Greg Governor Scott, thanks for making the time for us you've talked about the importance of technical education including in your online I'm wondering how technical education is going to look under a remote learning environment yeah that's a great question and I haven't thought about but I'm somewhat leaving it up to others to help move ourselves through this process there are a lot of things that we can do again have to get creative and how we do it but I would have some thoughts myself on how to do it but I'm going to leave it to the experts to determine that Secretary French do you have anything to add on that thank you Governor, I think it's a great question one of the things we're preparing to do at the agency is to support that type of integration across different boundaries that have existed in education previously the group inside the agency that will be leading up our continuity of learning efforts the group that also supervises career technical education ways and initiatives so I think we're going to be in a really good position to ensure the ideas that might have previously existed inside the education system are more broadly disseminated but I think it's going to be all hands on deck and there's going to be some certainly some challenges in front of us but also some exciting opportunities I think Sean Cunningham, the Chester Telegraph Star 6 to unmute Sean On Wednesday we asked about the progress of developing medical certainty in this other part of the state so far we haven't heard much of this detail or definitive but we've spoken with popular officials here who say that professors are knowledge the state hasn't been in touch with them for planning search package do you think we're planning the search centers and where they are in their work? Commissioner Sherling will answer that question for you great question there is a robust search team made up of folks from the Department of Health Hospital Association some hospital presidents and our team and we actually touched base yesterday with all of the hospital presidents on the telephone the surge effort really is being led by the hospitals determining what the best clinical posture they believe is as this unfolds and the state is preparing to deploy resources in a nimble kind of way to ensure that they've got what they need a lot of that surge capacity we're hopeful in the plans that are continuing to emerge internal to hospitals and then there'll be a secondary surge capacity that's built at their request by the state backing them up so we don't anticipate at this point that you're going to see a surge site in the southern part of the state deployed like the first three and that's because the clinical judgment on this is evolving on a day to day basis can you explain how hospitals here as of yesterday maybe you've spoken with them but as of yesterday had no contact with the state well I would say they internal to the hospital communication lines the president of the hospital association and the leader of the executive director of the hospital association are on the surge team so they're working this daily and the communication lines to hospitals generally go through that I can't speak for the potential breakdown in communication but there's a lot going on so I'm sure that not everyone in every facility with the thousands of employees is aware of everything thank you this is star six to unmute do you want to come back if we have time Tim Quiston, Vermont business magazine Tim, star six to unmute Comcast is still sending out disconnected notices this week which seeks to contradict the PUC press release from last week families don't have money how can they assure that their internet are not going to be disconnected yeah again Tim I haven't heard about those disconnect notices but I would offer anyone receiving a disconnect notice should call 211 so that we can account for that we'll work with the Comcast and others to make sure that doesn't happen and I would say they're not regulated so it's difficult we offer guidance we hope that they would hold off on any disconnection of those devices because we certainly do need them for communication as well as some of the learning opportunities so we'll work with them to be sure that that doesn't continue to happen but I would offer again if anyone is receiving a notice call 211 so that we can receive that information and try and work with the with the utilities in seven days Courtney star six to unmute Courtney seven days hi Courtney hi thanks for taking my call so I have learned from Dr. Levine today that the health department has obviously seen a benefit in expanding the availability of tests can you talk more about whether the availability before earlier in the crisis or for the lack of tests earlier if they had tampered the test of sustainability to check the spread and explain more about how Vermont is able to procure more of these tests thank you I'll let Dr. Levine answer that question there was a lot of questions I'll try to remember them all so actually at the very very earliest part of the crisis most states did not have the ability to do any kind of expensive testing because the CDC had just allowed them to begin to validate testing protocols and gave them permission if you will to do in-state testing it had all been done by the national lab prior to that within you know we've only been in this maybe two and a half weeks and within that first week we all at the health department saw the wisdom in trying to find out how pervasive this virus was within our population and so we went from a high priority approach which we still continue respecting those who are older or have coexisting conditions or are hospitalized or are in long term care facilities or healthcare workers we saw that going from that approach to expanding it to symptomatic for monitors in their communities would be a wise strategy if we could maintain and sustain that so since the first week we've actually had a more expansive strategy that has allowed us to really get a handle on the spread of the disease throughout the state and to try to do the right things with for monitors who wonder if they have it and if they should be isolated or not but we didn't have the capacity to do that on as large a scale as we wanted to and that's why the recent procurement of more both collection and testing supplies has made that more of a reality for us and it's much more feasible for us to do and we're going to do it full bore even if it means we run ourselves to be at risk for eventually not having enough supplies 10 days or more from this point because this is really the critical juncture while everybody is if you will abiding by the stay at home stay safe policy to really work on knowing who's infected who's not and making sure that those isolation procedures go well so that the disease is really kept under control and we flatten the curve I won't deny that there was a little bit of luck involved in how we got some of the extraction kits that we needed we have people in high places that actually have some connection to Vermont and actually have some understanding of what Vermont is going through and I think that was very, very helpful but that will never suffice by itself which is why we have multiple strategies going on at the same time to ensure an adequate supply of kits of both sort, collection kits and testing kits I hope that answered all of the questions you asked we can okay great anyway Dr. Levine I'm really curious what you make and I know number of statistics in Vermont are a really tricky thing but Vermont seems to be about people with it's not having surpass both in Maine which have twice the population in the number of positive tests and I think New Hampshire has had one fatality and Maine just reported its first fatality this morning what do you think, is there something going on here beyond a random chance and what do you think that is yeah I think it's quite clear actually number one the number of cases we have is a direct outgrowth of the policy and testing we've been pursuing and that you know if there's a fundamental issue across our nation and wondering how this epidemic is unfolding and why it seems to be so aggressively increasing it's all because of inadequacy of early testing and now testing is starting to catch up but when it comes to the deaths I would just use the word outbreak we have one long-term care facility that had an outbreak of COVID-19 in a very frail elderly chronically ill population and for many in that population the goals of care due to other conditions that were sometimes cardiac sometimes dementia etc the goals of care were not aggressive treatment in a hospital ICU setting so 70% of the Vermont deaths actually have occurred in that population and only one of the seven deaths in that population actually occurred in a hospital setting again due to advanced directives and understanding of what the goals of care were so I think that makes our numbers look worse because that's all it takes in a given state as we've seen many states now in the country to have an uptick in your number of deaths but I don't want to underestimate the power of this virus and say that it's only going to kill people of that demographic we still need to all be concerned about spread of that virus to vulnerable people and that's a big reason why all of the strategies we're using are so important Nora from the Valley News to unmute we'll come back to Nora Liam from VPR wait go ahead Nora is that you Nora please hold we'll come back to you at the end Liam from VPR hi Dr. Leed so I had a question regarding Burlington's health and rehab we've seen the number of cases that continue to grow and he said that's the most of the deaths in the state how hard have you seen the outbreak leading at this point if you keep taking cases go up and are you considering more drastic measures like evacuating the facility so I would be careful because as you say the words as we see cases go up the majority of the cases were well defined very early on and there are other individuals whose testing has become positive but they were probably in an incubation period if I could use that word over a period of time we're actually very pleased with the containment efforts and the infection control efforts that the facility has abided by and continue to abide by we've had people in there looking as the health department and the department of disabilities aging and independent living has also had a look and we think that they're doing everything they should be doing we've had phone calls with the Centers for Disease Control to review all of those policies and they're comfortable they've had really good results with cohorting staff and cohorting patients so that they don't run the risk of vectoring infection throughout the facility and any staff that have been positive have been quickly identified and obviously are staying out of work so I don't think we could ask for much more we certainly haven't thought of closure as you were alluding to in your question I think you are aware that a number of their patients were transferred from a subacute rehab floor out of the facility successfully and that patients on that floor had not seen any infection thanks well I mean with regards to the patients that were transferred out I mean you know in seven days I had a story yesterday that some of the virus might have spread into some folks on that floor I'm just kind of wondering what the status of those patients is that they're still like removed and how they're going or how they're doing yeah so they are still removed and I am not aware of how they're doing in the short time that's a lapse since they left but they're all being treated as if they could harbor infection so with appropriate isolation precautions I'm not really at liberty because I'm not in the loop of knowing what their condition is but they're all being cared for appropriately I'd like to go back to Secretary French if possible my question is what are schools going to be doing about standardized testing like the SBAC or also taking the SAT or the ACT and just wondering about educational testing if any of that still takes place and if so how will that be rolled out Secretary French I'd like to thank you for your question we did receive a waiver for the state assessment the SBAC and its Related Accountability Provision so that will not be incurring the other test you alluded to the ACT I know the ACT has pushed back its date the Education Board has governed the SAT has canceled one testing date but has currently checked their other schedule and reviewed their due date but the students can stay due to that information directly on the SAT website and will be making the accommodations based on the conditions in each testing location but the state level testing has been canceled for the spring do we know anything about district testing or just individual schools and how we're going to make sure that students are learning the necessary material or is that going to be done on a school-based school basis yeah that kind of thing as we've had before will be done on a school-based school basis certainly as part of districts formulating the community learning plan they will be having to consider how to assess private student work so that will be something certainly that district school will address in the future great thank you Brittany what would you say to people who think all these steps that we're taking is an overreaction and also kind of yesterday Charles said that when New York asked for a belief that the number was 30,000 metalators but they don't need that many do you have a response to someone saying you don't need that many metalators and this is overreaction yeah that's the question first I would say that we need to take this seriously that we've seen how quickly this has evolved you don't have to look very far to see the effects it's had on New York, New York City in particular and the outer regions in a short period of time it wasn't just 10 days ago that they weren't really affected a whole lot and now they've grown to I think it was yesterday they had 38,000 cases the highest number in the nation and probably the world in one city but this is going to grow it can highly contagious and people are very infectious and so we have to take this seriously now and if it's an overreaction I'll take the brunt of that when it's appropriate but at this point public safety has to come first and I'm going to do everything I can I've always said that throughout my four years as governor now public safety is first and we'll continue to take that path to protect our citizens so the second part was the number of ventilators and I can only say my heart goes out to those in New York City and the governor when pleading with others that they need ventilators we're doing the same thing we're prepared so we're pulling every lever I'm spending a lot of time on the phone trying to track some down talking to manufacturers talking to people all over the world to try and find a path forward so that when the surge hits us if it hits us that we're prepared and have the ventilators available so I would just offer that if they don't feel they're necessary to get on the front lines and see for themselves because I would say we're going to need them and New York City certainly does need them Ann Galloway, Digger Star six to unmute Ann Galloway Hi thank you very much for taking my questions likely my questions about Burlington Public Rehab I've wondered how many cases have been identified there how many deaths required that everyone be taken out and treated elsewhere have they also been tested and what is could you give us more information about the advance directive that you mentioned is there any kind of do not resuscitate order there so 17 total patient cases and 7 deaths I do not I do not appropriately know the medical records of every patient but from talking with physicians I understand that many of the patients have do not resuscitate orders do not intubate orders often do not bring to the hospital orders which are consonant with the patient's wishes and the family's wishes directives by the health care system did I answer everything you also told how many patients have been hospitalized from Burlington health and more generally how many patients in Vermont have been hospitalized can you start releasing hospitalization data yeah so one of the patients from there was hospitalized I believe it was the first one and we actually do have hospitalization data on a daily basis we'd like it to be more robust because it requires a very firm reporting structure between every hospital and our health operation center and so we're not always 100% sure of the accuracy but that's the work that's been going on progress as a result of the phone calls we've had yesterday and today and Secretary Smith has the actual up to date numbers that we can give you now and Mike Smith just to give you updates on confirmed COVID-19 inpatient the number today is 14 the COVID-19 patients under investigation that is inpatient under investigation that number is also 14 and COVID-19 patient that has been recovered or discharged that number is 1 and I'll get back to you on that that's the numbers I have in front of me right now I'll get back to you that's the total number many grocery stores are limiting use of reusable grocery bags have you considered postponing the July 1 implementation date of the single use plastic bag ban? that question has come up I've seen that I don't have the ability to extend the date that would take legislative action have brought it up to them to see if that's of any interest to them we'll work with them if that's what they want to do we could wave any penalties as a result so we're contemplating all those actions not high on the priority list today but understand if it's a health risk we want to make sure that we take care of that Mike at Digger it's a separate question Mike at Digger in the county career I do have one follow up alright go ahead this was four probably the commissioner or the governor commissioner Levine you talked about smoking bathing and alcohol consumption being a risk factor and yet state liquor stores have been classified as essential I'm wondering what makes them essential in another question that's kind of come up in our area back in county we have a lot of workers that are continuing to work at the non-service center integration in St. Albans and there's a lot of people wondering what makes them essential workers thank you I would say first of all some of the liquor stores are attached to grocery stores so we're keeping both of them open at the same time and I would also offer some of the distilleries around the state to join in trying to come up with ways to make hand sanitizer and so forth so we're very fortunate to have those businesses that do that what was the second part of the question the second half was the Vermont service center also known as immigration in St. Albans there's still work there apparently deemed essential where there's a lot of people in the community that wonder why they're considered essential I'll let Deputy Secretary Brady thanks this is Deputy Secretary Ted Brady from the agency of commerce so the agency has implemented a director from the governor's executive order to help define which businesses may continue in-person operations and in that directive and guidance there's a specific language that references both the executive order some frequently asked questions that we've published sector by sector guidance and references best practices nationally and there are national security issues that are allowed to continue operating and homeland security operations are amongst those operations we have one more question in the room Governor Scott separately not with COVID-19 there was a report out of Canada yesterday Justin Trudeau saying that the federal government might be looking at installing troops at the U.S. Canadian border I just wanted to get your reaction to that and if you had heard anything are there any problems at the border right now or have you heard anything from the Trump administration I will only offer that we still must protect our borders even during these times maybe more important than ever and whatever action they take and we'll just see what comes into play but at this point in time I'm sure that all things are being considered protecting our borders our national security is of a high interest to all of us we're going to wrap up but I just wanted to offer I got an update on the Comcast question with public service department hearing about that from this press conference they are in contact with Comcast and they're reaching out to