 Let me start by recognizing the death of Travis Roy, who unfortunately passed away this week. In fact, he chose to spend the last days of his life at his camp in Malish Bay, which says a lot about how he felt about Vermont. I last saw Travis about a year ago when he spoke at an event in Burlington. I've known him for quite some time as his dad was a UVM grad and hockey player and was involved with stock car racing in the Northeast. I had read Travis's book but never heard him personally tell his story until last year and I was so inspired after hearing him. Enough so that I spoke about him in my last State of the State address. I'd like to share a bit of that today because I think we could all use some inspiration during these difficult times and help put things in perspective. I said his talent was recognized at a young age. Hockey was his life and he was destined for the NHL. 24 years ago, he played exactly 11 seconds for Boston University before going headfirst into the boards and then instantly found himself unable to move from the neck down. Travis spent every moment since ensuring those 11 seconds defined an opportunity, not a tragedy. As a result, he changed the way his sport is taught. Through his efforts at places like Little Fenway and Essex, he's raised millions for spinal cord research and adaptive equipment. He shared his story and found his purpose in helping others find theirs. Travis said, there are times when we choose our challenges and other times when our challenges simply choose us. It's what we do in the face of those challenges that defines who we are. Those words mean more to me today than ever. The world certainly could use a few more role models like Travis Roy these days. And I'm saddened to lose one of my heroes. I send my condolences to his family, friends, and the many, many lives he touched. Next, I want to cover an issue that I'm sure is on the minds of many, the cyber attack on the IT system at the UVM Health Network. This has created a significant disruption for many of their facilities and we're working closely with UVMMC to ensure patient safety. Our Department of Public Safety alongside state and federal law enforcement are working together to give support and to determine whether it's connected to other similar events throughout the country. There has been no known impact to the state IT system and the Agency of Digital Services is continuing its everyday work to protect our IT network. I also want to assure Vermonters that we've been working around the clock and have taken several steps to ensure there's no interruption to our COVID testing. My team has done a great job and I'm confident we'll keep this process moving and maybe even improving it. As I said on Tuesday, we'll be detailing the recent hockey outbreak so we can help Vermonters understand how it was spread. Mr. Pichek and Dr. Kelso will provide a closer look at these cases, which will show how one event can turn one case into many. As well, Dr. Levine will talk about cases in schools for our weekly education update. And on that topic I also want to note that we have winter sports guidance nearly finalized and we'll be releasing that next week. Secretary French is on the line for questions as well. Before I turn it over to Dr. Kelso and Commissioner Pichek I want to reiterate some of what we said earlier this week. Like much of the region and country, we are seeing cases grow here in Vermont. While our positive rates and total case counts remain among the lowest in the country and hospitalization still remains low, no one wants to see a rise in cases. Fortunately, as we've moved through the week, the number of daily cases has slowed down. But after seeing this week's model projecting the possibility of 50 new cases a day by mid-November we have to keep an eye on things. I want to be clear. We have the tracing and testing capacity to manage our way through these types of upticks. But we also need the help of all of you to mitigate this. I have two observations from the last couple of weeks. And if we can be mindful of them, we can control our destiny just like we did last spring. First, as Dr. Levine has said, we're seeing pandemic, fatigue. People are tired of having to be so careful all the time, whether it's the travel restrictions or everyday social lives. It's just not as easy to get out and spend time with others as it was before the pandemic. Or even during the good weather months. And it seems as though we're getting to the point where, after eight months, when more people are willing to take more risks. I get it. I really do. But we must stay vigilant. The second is that our success in suppressing the virus has caused some to become more complacent. And I get that as well. What you've done over the last several months allowed us to take many steps forward and methodically reopen. However, if we want to keep our schools and economy open, we need to double down on our efforts to contain this virus. That means masking up, keeping six feet apart, washing your hands, keeping social gatherings small and just amongst those you trust, especially as we move indoors. And make sure you follow our travel guidance. Since the start of this pandemic, four monitors have stepped up to this challenge. And we suppressed the virus, even below the best case scenarios that have been modeled in the spring. I'm confident we can do it again, especially now with all we've learned. With that, I'll turn it over to Commissioner Pichek and Dr. Kelso. Thank you very much, Governor. And good morning, everyone. Dr. Kelso and I will provide an overview of the recent outbreak in central Vermont. I'll start with a play-by-play of where we stand, where the case has started, how they spread. And then Dr. Kelso will follow up with some insights into lessons learned, behaviors that may have attributed to the outbreak and to the spread, and then where we go from here. Generally, you'll see from the outbreak that, as the governor said, just a few cases can really spark a whole bunch of new and additional cases, not just the sheer number of those cases, but also spreading across a wide geographic area. So again, all the more reason I think after a result of this presentation that individuals follow those public health guidelines closely and think about that the impact that even a small behavior can have on a large group of people and on different communities as well. First, just to begin, you'll see that cases growing quickly is not unique to Vermont. It's not unique even to the region. We see just last night that the United States passed 9 million new cases. This is notable not just for an additional million cases being added to our total, but that this was the quickest we added a million cases since the start of the pandemic, just 13 days. Similarly, cases are on the rise in the region, New Hampshire, and Maine have surpassed their highest seven-day average since the beginning of the pandemic as well. If we go ahead to the next slide, we'll show just a brief overview of a past outbreak walkthrough that we did at the end of September. This was the Maine wedding that resulted in 180 cases. Unfortunately resulted in eight fatalities and also had a wide geographic distribution across the state. Here, the outbreak fortunately is better contained. There's less number of cases. And those cases have not gone at this point to vulnerable populations. So we fortunately do not have any fatalities related to the central Vermont outbreak. The age of those in that outbreak tend to be younger. There have been a lot of students impacted that are quite young or in college. So that certainly is a main difference from the cases that we presented just a month ago in Maine. But as Dr. Kelce will point out, some of the risk factors that led to this outbreak in Maine are not all that much different than what may have happened here in Vermont, including lax mask wearing, complacency by individuals, and some of those things that we hear about quite frequently. Turning now to an overview of the summary of this case, we see that there are currently 89 total cases now associated with the central Vermont outbreak, including 18 different towns throughout Vermont impacting four different counties. Similarly, the outbreak led to four additional outbreaks, although much smaller in size except for the larger outbreak at St. Michael's College where there are now 41 cases with an additional six reported yesterday. Further, even though not outbreaks, there were exposures at 19 other locations, including worksites and schools. So there was obviously wide disruption, not just for those that had an actual outbreak, but for many different locations where there was an individual infectious at a particular location throughout this current outbreak. And maybe just as concerning as Dr. Levine has mentioned in the past, I'm sure Dr. Kelce will mention 473 total contacts to date associated with this outbreak. So certainly a monumental task for the epidemiological team and Dr. Kelce's team to reach out to all of those impacted and get this outbreak contained and under control. The first case that we saw reported was way back 23 days ago on October 7th. The initial two cases reported in central Vermont. Both cases ended up being associated with sports leagues in central Vermont, associated with the central Vermont Memorial Civic Center, which then closed for cleaning. Those two cases then turned into 13 just a few days later. Connecting these cases identified further to the sports leagues that occurred in central Vermont. The teams were then notified, sent a notice out to the players, and the Vermont Department of Health contact tracers started to reach out to all of the players on the league rosters. Those 13 cases, again, you can see them spread out not just in central Vermont, but down into the upper valley and into the Chittenden County area as well, making for a wider distribution of geographic cases. We have noticed in our own mobility data that individuals are spending more time, not just outside of their home, but further away from their home since the spring, when individuals were obviously staying close to home, both for complying with the stay home, stay safe order, but also generally staying closer in their community due to fear of traveling outside of a close circle. So certainly with increased mobility, you're seeing cases that do pop up easily being spread through other geographic areas. Then a few days later, the first few cases at St. Michael's College were identified up in the Burlington area. Initially, there were eight individual cases detected through campus surveillance testing. So this is the testing that the colleges are doing on a routine basis week after week, addition to their restart testing that they did when everyone came back to campus. The contact tracing conducted at COVID positive individuals go into quarantine, those eight that were identified. And then the first reported case of transmission among the college was just a few days later on October 21st, leading to an additional 18 or so students identified and bringing that total today to 30 cases as of, actually that's as of October 18th, and you'll see that just six cases were added last night. So this was an outbreak that sparked from, you know, that outbreak in central Vermont and then sparked its own larger outbreak at St. Michael's College, not just in the immediate days following the outbreak, but in a few preceding weeks as well and seeing the impact even recently with seven cases or six cases as of yesterday. You can look at what the impact of the outbreak has been on Vermont since October 7th. You'll notice from the slide that shows all of our cases reported since that date that the outbreak in central Vermont has accounted for 26.5 of all of the cases that we've reported over these last two weeks. I think that's important for Vermonters to keep in mind for two reasons. One, again, that such a small, you know, event can spark so many cases. But then also in terms of the increased case counts that we've seen in recent weeks, many of them are attributable to this specific outbreak. And if you look at the other cases that are associated with an outbreak as well, an even broader variety of cases associated with outbreaks. You'll also see from the geographic distribution again that this is not something that was localized to a particular geographic area, like we experienced with the Winooski outbreak, but spread quickly to other communities throughout the state and even within smaller communities in certain particular locations as well. Now we have some areas of takeaway and areas of concern, but these are areas that I'm going to let Dr. Kelso talk about since she's going to have more insights in terms of behaviors that may have led to this outbreak and also observations about what we can do to prevent similar outbreaks in the future. Dr. Kelso. Thanks, Commissioner Pichek. I think the most important takeaway from this is that we all have a role to play in preventing the spread of COVID-19. As you've just seen in Dr. Pichek's presentation, just one case can quickly spread to multiple communities, multiple schools and work sites and colleges and other settings. And the more cases we have, the more at risk we are for seeing hospitalizations and perhaps deaths that result from those initial cases. So the things that the EPI teams realized as they investigated this outbreak and as it spread was that people were gathering in group sizes that met the ACCD requirements and guidelines, but yet there were gatherings indoors and outdoors and at times people were not wearing masks. We've all been saying for months, mask up, masks help prevent the spread. It's really, really important to do that. We've also seen that people were not always strictly following quarantine and that's whether they had been identified as a close contact and were not staying away from others after travel. Again, not observing the quarantine requirements. And then even some people with COVID-19-like symptoms, not diagnosed with COVID-19 but had symptoms that could have been COVID-19 not staying away from others. So these things are what all of us need to do all the time to get a check on the spread of this virus. We also saw that some people who had symptoms and thought they might have COVID and saw a COVID test continued to do daily routine activities in their communities. And finally, the health screenings that workplaces and venues are all implementing are really important. We know that not everybody with COVID-19 has symptoms but if you do have symptoms that could be due to COVID-19 it's important to pay attention to those yourselves so that you can be monitoring your own health and know when things might be taking a turn. But also report if you have symptoms. Don't go to venues or events if you have symptoms. These are things that are going to prevent the spread. And my last message is that cases of COVID-19 often begin with no symptoms and someone may feel fine and yet they may have been exposed through no fault of their own but they may have been exposed and be incubating the virus and becoming pre-symptomatic and be infectious to other people. So be aware all of the recommendations about wearing masks and staying six feet apart and not gathering unless you need to and being outdoors as much as possible. All those things are important because you can spread COVID-19 before you have any symptoms. And what we've seen in this outbreak and in other situations time and time again is that people think they're fine and they may go out to eat or go to an event and then find out a number of days later that they were in fact infectious at the time. And I think I'll turn it over to Dr. Levine. Thank you. Abundant lessons that we should all be instructed by. In Vermont, we've been proud of our work to keep COVID-19 from spreading for many months now. We stayed outside, kept our distance, wore masks and our data showed that what we did worked even when other places struggled. And while we should be proud, we may have gotten a little too comfortable with our relative success thinking Vermont is different than other places. But Vermont is not safe from COVID-19. Nowhere is. Because now we're seeing what happens when we let our guard down even just a little bit here in Vermont. Multiple outbreaks that are growing in cases showing up in an increasing number of childcare programs and schools. But we continue to do very well when you look at the large numbers of schools we have, the large numbers of childcare we have and the small numbers that have been affected. Nonetheless, over the last several weeks we've been following a total of 11 situations in schools. Many of them just in a monitoring phase at this point in time and three in childcare. The majority of these involve very small numbers and have had very straightforward recommendations and dispositions. But I again stress because this is always an important take home point any case represents a significant disruption. Disruption to the smooth operation of a class, the smooth operation of a school, parents' concerns about childcare needs because children may have to come home while their classes are in a pause situation, etc. Now our contact tracing teams are working hard and successfully responding to many situations around the state to contain outbreaks to keep the virus from spreading. But we all need to do our part. I know we are tired of this pandemic. There's a lot of uncertainty right now and I know how hard that is too. But the virus is making a dangerous comeback in many parts of the country. Leaders in other states are issuing dire warnings and taking drastic measures again. The bottom line is this is the worst time that COVID fatigue set in. Last night I spoke with my state health official colleagues from Maine, Rhode Island, New York, Connecticut and New Jersey and all shared the same concerns. And unfortunately some shared the same rising percent positivity rates which in the case of New Jersey are now over 6%. Here in the northeast and we discussed the various types of guidance we provide to our respective populations the kinds of restrictions that people and their states have had to live under and the successes we've had in managing the pandemic thus far. Several of my colleagues were actively discussing implementing dramatic changes for the immediate future with their governors. One thing all of us agreed on though we should do everything possible to keep our schools and child cares open for in-person education and care as a priority. So let's focus on what we can control. We can consider all the things we do every day carefully. We can keep our social circles small. Limiting those close contacts we have limits, potential spread of the virus and make sure others we interact with agree on what the ground rules are for our interactions with them. We can also forego travel. That's a really hard holiday message to deliver. But since we're surrounded by mainly red and yellow counties it may just not be worth the risk. But if Vermonters do leave the state make sure to follow our quarantine rules. And if visitors come into your home from most places in the region or your college student returns from the fall semester from a far away state they too must quarantine. And we can choose activities with the lowest risk possible. I'll repeat the simple guide again. Keep six foot spaces, masks on faces and avoid crowded places. The more of these things you can do the less risky it will be and the less risk we take on the more we can protect classmates coworkers and our own families. And obviously keep this in mind as you celebrate Halloween this weekend. And remember thus far we have only one example with one school that has had in-class transmission. But every school reflects what the burden of cases is in their community and the communities that families, staff and teachers may have traveled to. Keeping our community safe with low growth rate of cases will keep our schools healthy and open. We are seeing cases go up here in Vermont but there's still time to double down on our prevention efforts and we can still be proud of what we've done and what we still have left to do. For my closing comments I wanted to talk about one other topic. I very frequently hear and when I watch TV and I don't hear just from Vermonters I see this on TV so few Vermonters have died so few have been hospitalized what are we worrying about? This is a benign disease but we know better and let me detail the ways we know better. First of all I am watching hospitalizations start to pick up very slowly but real and we know this is an indicator that lags several weeks behind the increase in cases. Currently we have to our knowledge six individuals in the hospital with several of those in an ICU. That is admittedly still a very small number and we would hope it will stay that way but that is an indicator that we are now following very closely. Over the course of the pandemic death rates have improved nationwide even if hospitalization rates are worsening across the country. There's no evidence that this is because the virus itself has changed or is less virulent at this time. In Vermont it's become really evident that we've gotten really good protecting the most vulnerable whether they live independently at home in long-term care facilities or in correctional facilities or in our colleges even which are really self-contained entities if you will. Another point is that the latest surges around the country have been among people whose average age is somewhat younger than earlier on in the pandemic but we know that over time even though the initial cases are younger these evolve into cases involving more middle-aged and then older populations. A recent study in New York City at Langone Medical Center showed that even when you control for age and other diseases that a person may have the improvements we've seen in death rates are real. So why is this? It may be because we actually have had significant research in therapies as the pandemic has worn on. We know for a fact that dexamethasone a potent steroid can save lives for the very sickest hospitalized patients. We know that remdesivir an antiviral drug even though it does not have a survival advantage can shorten the duration and lessen the severity of a person's illness. And we've become so much better with ICU management ventilator management, oxygen management and we've learned how to deal with newly identified complications like blood clots in a more effective and timely manner. And finally just listen to the stories of some of those who you may know who may have been ill and developed long-term chronic symptoms. We now believe these so-called long haulers may account for up to 10% of those who have been ill. We need to learn so much more about these people and research is ongoing. But the current literature would impress upon us that contracting COVID is not a pleasant experience and may have more long-term after effects. Thank you, Dr. Levine. We'll now open it up to questions. Can't we just start the room with Calvin? Just wanted to remind folks that there's 26 people in the queue in an hour and a half to get through it all. Calvin? Thank you. So first question, just a question for Dr. Levine. So you kind of just touched upon it but this week the state is now differentiating between hospitalization data and also people that are in the ICU. I'm wondering I guess why that change was made and sort of what the reasoning behind it is in putting it on the state's dashboard. The only difference is it's now being portrayed on the dashboard. We've actually been discussing it at our press conferences frequently. So it's just in the interest of greater transparency on the dashboard. And it's not because all of a sudden we are so alarmed and feel that those numbers are going to skyrocket. And then Governor, you probably saw Justice Kavdon he had to issue a slight correction to one of his rulings earlier this week after Secretary Kondo's expressed some concern. I'm just wondering I guess what your take is on how we changed our election process and how that's playing out sort of on the national stage and in this case Wisconsin how that's affecting how they conduct their elections too. Yeah again I haven't been following it as closely as maybe you have in others but thus far we've seen robust I guess voting by these ballots that were sent to everyone. We can be proud of that over 200,000 people have voted thus far over 200,000 and we could be heading towards a record year so we want to make sure that everyone has the opportunity to vote. I don't see it exceed. I'd like to see us break the record and there's no reason we shouldn't because there's no excuses. Everyone has a ballot and should be able to take this opportunity to exercise that right to vote and express their feelings as well. Thanks. I was wondering if within the ballot it's possible to say any more about the connection between the central from on outbreak and the St. Mike's outbreak to the sports league. Dr. Kelso. Yes we have linked the larger iSports outbreak to the outbreak at St. Michael's College. Are you able to say if it was players or coaches that brought that up? I am not. Is the administration able to say or public safety whether now switching topics to the cyber attacks against the UDM Medical Center that has a demand been made or has a ransom been requested in order to restore the system? I am not aware of any demands at this point in time but I'm going to refer to nothing that we're aware of at this point. Nothing that we've heard about. And a bigger question I guess for public health perhaps. Looking at the balance between centralizing records in electronic form there's a benefit and a risk the benefit is convenience and not the others to name the risk is apparent now with the vulnerability. Is there a situation in which centralizing electronic records would ever be reconsidered in order to mitigate the risk or to the benefit in that way? Do you want to take this one in regards to vital? Secretary Smith. That's a hard question to answer and thank you for it I think. We've come a long way in technology in trying to enhance our advantage in medicine and healthcare in particular. This was a cyber attack on a network so it was contained within a network and not sort of wider spread so in that regard it is in sort of a centralized attack it is contained. You know we as a society have to weigh the efforts that technology brings with the risks that technology brings and this exposes some of the risks but at the same time we can't forget some of the things that it does. It speeds up our healthcare system it makes better decisions within our healthcare system so I think it's a balance to answer your question. I don't think we'll be decentralizing back to the old days when we all had paper files in our specific location but at the same time we do have to be vigilant in thwarting these kind of attacks. Yes, given the change in temperature this morning I'm just wondering as we go forward when people start to retreat into their homes and into restaurants or wherever are we rethinking how we enforce perhaps the restrictions on restaurants and other public places going forward for the winter season? I'll let Dr. Levine follow up on this but again from my perspective the guidelines are pretty simple and if we follow the guidelines we have in place right now we should mitigate the problems that may follow and I know it's going to be a little more problematic because we just tend to gather more inside we tend to have more groups with us, maybe groups that we don't know where they've been or where they've traveled to so that's why it's really important everything that we talked about earlier to adhere to just be very wary of those you associate yourselves with and maybe ask some questions about did they travel in the last few days are they wearing masks for instance just be more aware of the environment you're in and if we do and we mask up and we do all the things we ask you to do we should be fine but again I think it's really, I say this a lot but it's literally in our hands each and every one of us has a role to play in this and if we play the role well we'll get through this and we have thus far so we can do it again not a lot to add to that but I will remind you Steve though it was 32-ish degrees this morning this didn't begin today it's been going on and off for weeks and people's retreat to the indoors began weeks ago and I think that is reflected in some of the increase in cases we've seen and that's what we forecast aside from the modeling data we forecast we would see more cases the question would be the magnitude of that increase and hopefully it will stay modest where it is at this point in time so there's self enforcement when you're in settings that are not commercial establishments but you're just dealing with your daily life in your own home and other people's homes and where you gather with other people and then there's I think what you're alluding to which is more enforcement and maybe a commercial setting or things of that sort where there are plenty of education plenty of guidelines and opportunities for us to understand when things are going well there without necessarily any special enforcement rules or things of that sort in your contact tracing of some of these other breakouts it's I assume it's very helpful for whatever place whether it's a personal home or an establishment that they have the names of the people that they're serving or whichever some places are doing that or not I would imagine that that's something that you really would stress to you and we do stress that and when we're informed about the lack of adherence to that we do investigate that further but the major point being though on your comments is that we have not from an epidemiologic standpoint found abundant cases in the lodging industry in the restaurant industry associated with bars where other states have sometimes found some of these associations so certainly opportunities for that to happen may be abundant but we're not seeing that as a frequently reported kind of issue if I could just add one more thing Steve if you everyone could just make sure if you're contacted by contact tracing just be forthright give them the information they're asking for and we'll mitigate a lot of what we've seen because if they're not forthright if we have to go back to them two or three times before we get the correct information just that lag is when the virus will spread and then it'll spread quickly so that's when it gets out of hand okay we're doing the phones now Joseph from the Barn Chronicle Secretary French one of my readers who is a music teacher is concerned or perhaps confused about the rules for teaching instrumental music he said you know the new guidelines allow for an individual student to sing a player wind instrument in a well ventilated room so teachers can teach one student at a time by yelling through the door that's a question he said at the moment the only option is to teach outside and he notes that won't be possible soon is this just the reality he's going to live with or other thoughts in the matter yeah thank you music's in a very challenging area for us to develop guidance from because we have the brief and telling science based on studies that we're done with chorus groups around the world that speaks to the dangers particularly indoors so music activities so the best we could in our most recent revision was to provide some accommodation for individual practice essentially it's not to your reader's question so much anticipating a teacher working through a door to teach per se but it does provide a provision for individual practice but we're really you know it's going to require additional time before we're able to provide some guidance for you Chris Roy Newport Daily Express yes good morning my question was kind of answered in the opening remarks about gatherings for the holiday season and I'm just wondering how people should treat hot and camp when they start to arrive in a couple of weeks and if there's any concern that there might be an up check because of all the people gathered for the holiday season what's your recommendation Chris you know we have discussed that a bit and my advice would be for anyone going to deer camp use that as your quarantine go to deer camp stay there don't go out other than going out to hunt and you'll be fine but just again know who you're with there in the camp make sure you know where they travel from and then just I mean it's the same guidelines as anything else that we've proposed but again I would advocate just go to camp do whatever you normally do but just enjoy the outdoors and enjoy the camp atmosphere but don't go out other than that okay and again is there a concern that it might be an up check even if people don't go by your recommendation there's no concern and it's something again we've spoken about but it's up to again individuals all of us individually to make sure that we prevent the spread of the virus and that includes deer camp okay great thank you Mike Donahue thanks very much I was wondering why the delay in the winter high school has been we're from the camp through the end of the month and now it will be November before you have it we'll have them next week Mike but I'll take some of the blame for that I'm cautious by nature when I see the amount of red throughout the region coming into the state to see the rise in positivity rates here in our own state I just thought it was important to make sure that we knew what we were doing before moving forward and again you know we've seen maybe some little bit of good news this week we got to a high point last weekend it seemed like and then started to drop off this week so I'm feeling better about the number of cases and I hope it persists and continues but it'll be early that you'll see that guidance okay and the other thing is Mike goes on was identifying the one school involved in the South Brake and just wondering what other schools in the specific towns where we can find those lists that have been in fact defined in the South Brake Dr. Kelso yeah there is one K-12 school St. Mike's one business, two businesses those are the four sub outbreaks to the St. Mike's outbreak we're not going to reveal the names of those schools or establishments to protect confidentiality confidentiality we've already cleared that up to if it doesn't pertain to this yeah I think you know we have seen over the course of this pandemic like we've seen with other infectious diseases when people are outed or institutions are outed there are often negative repercussions on individuals we've seen death threats we've seen services be stopped for individuals and communities and unless there's a you know a real strong underlying reason why the public needs to know something to protect themselves we're just not going to reveal information that might put people at risk but if somebody has a child in that school K-12 or somebody is in that business don't say has yeah I understand there's concern why would you keep Vermonters in the dark I don't think we're keeping Vermonters in the dark when there is a risk to an individual a school or a business for example the contact tracing team has done the work to identify just what that risk is and to whom and we notify those people that doesn't mean that everybody else in Vermont needs to know when there are potential risks we do notify people directly because I still don't understand why you wouldn't want the people to know if their kid is going to a K-12 school that school may have been impacted yeah and again the reason we don't broadly notify is because there's not a risk to everybody Mike this is Mike Smith just let me just add quickly we do name the schools if we have a case so out there we don't name whether it's a student or a faculty member of that school but we do name the schools when we report out I'll move on so the Union Memorial yes we did name that oh is that I just wanted to make sure that that was still linked into that yeah they actually they actually named themselves Mike initially okay I just wanted to make sure the numbers match up who are the two businesses that I'm not aware of and I'm not sure that I just don't know yeah I mean we can if it is public we can give you the information yeah I know that they said they were going to get back to us about the things they never did so that was disproven but thanks I appreciate it Lola BT Digger hi can you hear me great thank you my first question is can I get the most up to date number that the health department has right now for total confirmed cases I said that K to 12 schools yeah I don't think they've changed any Lola since Tuesday I think Tuesday we do it once a week and that is the up to date number doesn't change since Tuesday right so there have been no reports that you just haven't been able to I think we updated every single week we updated on once a week correct yeah once a week we we update that and give you the official number right now I know that's when the dashboard is updated which is why I'm asking that I'm just wondering if there's any kind of interim number that you would be willing to share which I guess is not the case I do have a follow up on what Mike was asking about though I'm mostly confused because the health official I think as early as last week were saying that the cases at Union Elementary and Montpelier had been linked to the hockey outbreak and so I mean just in terms of kind of assessing the impact of the outbreak and understanding which schools it has spread I'm a little confused it's so logic as to why we wouldn't say which schools given that we are saying when there are cases in specific schools I think we came up with a standard early on about the number of students and faculty and if they were over that number we would issue the name of the school but if it was under we would not issue that name that may be where the confusion is yeah this particular case Union came out I think before we named Union Elementary no that's not I asked the health department whether or not they were linked first you said they weren't and then I followed up a few days later and it seemed like you guys had received more information at that point through contact tracing and said no actually we do believe they are linked and that was before the school as far as I know said anything publicly and at that point they were still saying they understood that there was no link I guess I can't debate you on that Lola because I think the contact tracers as soon as they made the link but I do remember initially didn't think there was a link to the school but the school was named at that point I believe so I don't know I don't know the date you write the stories you probably have all that information so we can we can get back to you on that if that's a sticking point what is it you'd like to know Lola well I would like to know which K-12 schools their cases have been linked which schools have had their cases linked back to the hockey upright I think it's union union elementary only union elementary as far as I know is that correct everyone is shaking their head yes that's correct and then a quick other question so has there been any other thought I know there were some questions last week about updated guidance for schools regarding the holidays and holiday travel we'll be issuing that next week as well that's all for me thank you thanks Lola Eric, the time is argus yes Governor your I can order on ice rinks for schedule at midnight tonight is that expected to last or is there any further action you're going to take I don't believe we'll be taking any further action specifically on freezing the reservation at this point no I think we'll just let that go and it said when you made that decision and I asked the board it wasn't enough the data has come back or not yet has there been a suggestion that the outbreak in central Vermont was connected to a hockey in the Hampshire is there any clarity on that there's no certainty apparently nothing we couldn't make a direct link back but there was suspicion of maybe that connection but we weren't able to make any direct link so do state officials still believe that there is some kind of link to New Hampshire at this point I don't know as it matters because it's been so long but again we want everyone to be careful in where they're traveling to and from and what the number of cases we're seeing in New Hampshire that would be even more relevant today okay thank you Jolie local 242 local 44 can you hear me okay? we can thank you I wanted to know what was into characterizing the outbreak as contained or not contained and do we know it's the central Vermont and why outbreak is still not contained I'll leave it to Dr. Kelso or Dr. Levine thanks for that question we use a standardized criteria for how we define when something is an outbreak and similarly there are guidelines and criteria for when you declare an outbreak closed or resolved typically it's when two incubation periods have passed with no additional cases that you know the timeline for when we expect an outbreak might be closed out that can shift and that timeline can get extended as more cases are identified because then we have to track the contacts of each new case so it's something we take a look at we're not considering the iSports outbreak contained or closed at this time thank you Stuart Ludbetter NBC5 Stuart Star 6-0-U okay we're going to move to Kat WCAX this question is for Dr. Levine are these COVID long haulers are these people who continue to test positive for the virus after a period of weeks or months or are these people who have ongoing symptoms or complications from having had the virus that's a great question and I'm going to answer it to the best of my ability again repeating that there's research going on about this as we speak however these are not usually people who are positive testers down the road they just complain of symptoms that won't go away and behave like someone who has what we would call a post viral syndrome that may involve significant fatigue or a variety of other symptoms they're not required actually there is no case definition for long hauler it's not even a medical term at this point but there's certainly no requirement that you continue to test positive it's just that you had a defined illness for which you did have a positive test and now you cannot bring yourself of these more enduring symptoms any idea of how many of these will continue even though a medical term is long hauler may have in Vermont no we're not really aware to be honest you know and nationwide the low ball estimate is 1% the high ball estimate is 10% but unclear if the truth lies in between or even beyond those numbers it's hard to know but we don't really have a good handle on it in Vermont with our I guess we're in the 2100 case range at this point in time for total cases that we've confirmed that is an area right for study that we'll actually be talking about internally but we don't actually have any data on them yet I know at one point that they have been tracking a couple of cases where there was a person who continued to test positive after a period of weeks or months so do you keep track of those still or are that just a couple of cases and they're not common yeah those are they're not common but we do see them and we've seen them in the general population we've seen them in the population in nursing homes and other skilled nursing facilities often those individuals even though they have a positive test don't have any symptoms and they just retain their test positivity some of them do have some ongoing symptoms and retain their test positivity as well so they're a different population we think than the long haul population if you indulge me one more question at the yes or no answer will a contact tracer leave a voicemail if you don't pick up yes we found out that that is true they may not leave it on the first call but they'll at least indicate they're calling from the state it's not like they'll leave it as a positive phone message by letting somebody know that they're from the state so they don't mistake the phone number as another type of call call in Flanders, 7 days call in hi sorry we can the question is for you governor I am curious as to whether well first of all have you heard about the situation of all that that was reported by BC Digger yesterday the militant training site yes I've been aware of the situation for a while I'm curious as to why the state has not taken more action to address the concerns of some of the neighbors there I was hoping you could fill it in on the efforts to date and why more is being done again I think I'm going to let our commissioner of public safety answer that I have been briefed on it on an ongoing basis but he might be able to provide a bit more information good afternoon this has been on the radar for the department of public safety and the state police since before I arrived at public safety in late 2019 we've received multiple reports of various activities at that site including noise to threats to potential zoning violations some of those fact patterns have been investigated and reported up to prosecutors to ensure that our assessment that nothing has risen to the level of criminal charges has been has occurred at this stage we are very sensitive to the concerns of neighbors and folks in that area and we remain vigilant and responsive to all incoming reports about activity there we take all reports of threats and harassment very seriously we have folks assigned to the joint terrorism task force here in Vermont and we scan the landscape not only for threats and issues specific to things that we receive directly like reports at this facility but but also on a statewide and a national landscape we have briefed we've been in contact with local and state officials from that area we've briefed legislators on our overall threat mitigation posture how investigations work what kinds of things we can investigate those briefings have occurred twice once in August and once yesterday and that's the general overview I'm not sure the nugget of your question though I guess one other thing I'll ask you and then but I would like the governor to weigh in as possible on this question but Twitter showing can you say are you aware of any federal investigations going on right now involving slavery? I can't discuss any potential federal investigations because it's outside my purview but I can't say we have shared information with federal authorities and I have every confidence that if they uncovered something that rose to the level of a federal criminal charge that they would take that very seriously Governor I understand why you would have a question but I would like that to use specifically do you think why hasn't the state done more in your opinion why are these concerns continually being brought up by these neighbors I mean some of them are in real fear here and just curious as to why the state hasn't done more I think the commissioner explained everything that we are doing and that's not doing nothing we're very much aware of the situation we're monitoring the situation but if it doesn't rise to the level of a criminal offense what would you suppose we should do? Well I guess I would just turn it around I mean what do you say to these neighbors back to say that they're having too much fear? Yeah again we've been addressing their concerns reacting when they've been calling we've been in contact with them we've been in contact with legislators on two separate occasions it's not as though we're just letting this go but there's some things we can say some things we can't and we're continuing to monitor the situation and what can you say well if I could say it I would right so we'll have to just leave it at that alright thank you Erin, B.T. Digger Erin Potenko, B.T. Digger Hi can you hear me? We can. Hi can you hear me? We can. Okay okay first off I think I just want to point out that state's public representation from last Tuesday specifically psych school that were potentially posed to COVID as part of the hot gap rate so it definitely seems like that outbreak spreads past U.D. elementary and I'm referring to Libby's presentation on Tuesday but my question well maybe maybe you could report that to Lola then because you're in the same you're in the same entity right? Yes well I think that for point is that that officials have said different things at different times and you know today we're hearing from the U.N. elementary but it's been varying reports at different times and we're just trying to figure out what the answer is anyway yeah my question is probably also for Dr. Labien I want to know if you consider Vermont to be on the verge of a second wave and I know that the definition of the second wave can really vary depending on who you are and sometimes there'd be a bit of a misnomer but it definitely when you look at the chart for Vermont it definitely looks like we are we have this big peak in April and then long periods low-cape levels and then it's starting to look like the peak in April again and you know does that mean that we could be approaching a second wave if we keep on the track that we're on is there a point at which you would say this is a second wave thanks let me try to address that for you because I think all the talks of waves confuses everybody in the whole country and I'd rather look at it as where did a particular place in the country get the virus level suppressed too and then did they get a wave after that or a spike in their cases so if you look at our data most of it tracks the larger outbreaks we've had in the state and so you know we had the Burlington-Wanooski outbreak that was substantial but as you saw we came down from that we had other smaller spikes at the time we had other outbreaks including the one at Champlain Orchard we now have another spike that clearly at its inception was related to the central Vermont issues that we've talked about here at the conference today and we don't actually know if that's fully playing out yet in terms of when Dr. Kelce mentioned two incubation periods that's a long time for us to wait but generally we will find that when we look at the slope of the epi-curve we can predict that we're coming down and the cases are becoming further apart in time and smaller in number so I don't want to use the word second wave at this point but I do want to use the word virus that's not only in our data but that is in the entire region's data and in at least 42 plus states data and it's all related I think to the more of the transitions back indoors and the fact that the seasons have changed schools have opened tourism all kinds of factors related to the leaves and what have you and that explains why there's a resurgence the real question that I'd like to reframe your question as is will this be a prolonged and ongoing and increasing resurgence or will we be able to determine that things have actually quieted down and come down substantially and with regard to your first question there have actually been other schools impacted by the hockey outbreak the central Vermont outbreak that one at Union is a true outbreak others are cases and there's a big difference between that and it's you know not unusual for us to say that we have a number of schools that have had cases and literally that may mean one person in the school at some level whether it be an adult and so those are situations that we certainly don't need to be labeling case by case for as we investigate schools across the state it's very different than when you have a school that had such a large impact like the Union school that we were talking about previously so I hope that clarifies things so on my slide last week when we said this number of schools this number of workplaces that data is accurate but doesn't mean that those are each outbreaks say Mike's clearly an outbreak many of those others most of those others not one we would classify as an outbreak just as another end result of the original outbreak we've been getting a lot of emails from parents going well the terms of what states are three schools that present that the press conference states are six and you know we know that they care and it matters to them so we're just trying to see why is there such a difference sometimes from time to time sometimes depending on what data first you look at and sometimes depending on what the exact get initiative is those in case so that's not part of why I think yeah no I empathize and I completely understand but keep in mind every parent knows because their school has told them when a situation has arisen in their school and that's the most important communication of all and whether the school communicates as they probably would not that you know this one case we have in our school is a result of the central Vermont issues or whether it's because somebody traveled and came home that doesn't really matter in the end the parents need to know what's going on in their school what have public health and the school together come to us conclusions about what recommendations need to be made and what actions taken and it's less about was this another manifestation of the hockey outbreak or was it something totally unrelated and rest assured all parents should be comforted by the fact that their schools are immediately informing their entire community when something has arisen in those settings they've been very transparent we've been side by side with them working with them and making recommendations and I think that's really a smoothly functioning process and it's still a success story in terms of looking at a reopening of the educational sector and even reopening schools that have decided to have classes go remote for a period of time or what have you thank you guide page the state of Vermont has at least three consumer portals the secretary of states my voter page DMV, my DMV, DOL unemployment, climate portal with the problems that UDMC's patient portal have you asked your IT people to evaluate possible exposure to hackers via these relatively low security consumer portal probably a better question for our agency digital services I know they do a tremendous job and very thankful we developed the agency in my first year in office because they've been instrumental in all of the things that we're talking about today as we migrate towards more information by electronic measures so I'm sure our agency digital services is looking at every opportunity to provide for the security for our IT system both in our state government but also for others as well and to make sure that we protect that so I don't know exactly the answer to your question but I'd be happy to have our secretary Quinn get in touch with you to try and answer for you that'd be terrific also I understand you're definitely pleading for the monitors to be more careful with COVID that's loud and clear you said in your statement if we want to keep our economy and schools open and Commissioner Levy said his colleagues are looking at dramatic changes so are you saying that limiting in-person access to businesses you know going more back towards the spring is that back on the table and so what would that be like I would just say everything is still always on the table depending on what we're facing so we will do what we can to protect for monitors in any way possible we've been doing it limiting the amount of travel in and out of the state throughout the pandemic and we've learned a lot we don't want to move backwards and if we follow the guidance individually follow the guidance that we put into place we won't have to move backwards we can continue to move forward so it's just again just to be aware of the situation we find ourselves in so if we see an uptick where people are not following the guidance and not adhering to any of the regulations we put into place we'll be forced to do something about it and I'm not sure what that will be yet but it depends on the situation so again everything is always on the table but it is nothing that we're talking about at this point in time in moving backwards it's just again trying to make sure that we stay vigilant thank you Lisa what are we running out of good morning I think I would like to go back to the original presentation looking at the slide with Commissioner Pichek yeah Commissioner Pichek and the hockey explanation that he went through on the slide that shows the let's see the outbreak summary I'm looking at the dots and I want to make sure I'm interpreting it correctly I did while I'm sitting here and look at the 10 by 10 map to see the new numbers that were released today for community and it looks like Waterbury went from 15 cases last week to 19 cases this week although there's a bit of a lag in the data because the maps are current as of Wednesday and that's Friday but because that dot is red on the map where Waterbury is is it safe to assume that that red dot is saying cases in Waterbury were associated with the hockey outbreak yeah Lisa so good question just to clarify this you know these dots that are on the map are from October 7th so there are all the cases that are associated with the outbreak so that could be a recent case or it could have been a case the week of the 7th so I wouldn't read into that I wouldn't read that conclusion into that okay so it sounds like of the 19 cases that Waterbury has had it looks like not necessarily a certain number we've had some of our cases then have been connected with the hockey outbreak right I think that's a fair conclusion okay and given the fact that the numbers that are out of the map as of today or from Wednesday and we have a bit of a lag I'm just wondering if Waterbury is sort of on your radar as a place where you're seeing additional community spread just given what we've sort of seen this week sort of slowly developing here I can answer no on the behalf of Dr. Calso and Dr. Levine thanks for clarifying on the dot and the timing of when these numbers are increasing here it's kind of hard to sort of match all these different sources up and sort of figure out what the timelines are for some of these things thank you Lisa okay thank you Tim from Odd Business Magazine hi it's michael's paycheck it's still there I wanted to ask about the trendline Floyd's Hazard Pay Grant program I know it's opened up on the 28th and it was first done for a service I was wondering how that was proceeding and when the individuals could expect another profit here that's good for the companies what the individuals might actually start seeing some money yeah so thank you very much Tim so the application portal did open up on Wednesday at 9 a.m. and we had significant interest from businesses they we received 750 approximately 750 applications totaling requests of about 26.6 million 21 million for current employees 5.5 for former employees so quite a number of former employees as well so that exceeds the appropriation but I want to make clear that you know that doesn't just because they've requested it doesn't mean that they'll be approved they'll be doing to encourage people to apply to the program additionally we have 1.5 million that have been approved already in the first two days probably additional millions over the weekend and into next week and for those that work for an employer they probably can anticipate their employer receiving a payment over the next two weeks and then the employer has to put that into their payroll whatever that process is the former employees can expect to receive an initial outreach from us over the next week or so and there are follow-up steps that the former employees have to follow but they should be on the lookout for a letter from us over the next week to ten days yeah it's a good question so you know we have a really great team at the department of financial regulation you know also in consultation with the agency of human services both teams have been working really hard on this they're working over this upcoming weekend to clear out some of that we anticipate that over the next two weeks they'll have worked through the vast majority of it so they were able to get right on it on Wednesday and they'll continue to continue to work hard the difference between the first round is that we did receive a lot of applications that are smaller so there'll be a lot of smaller applications to get through so the volume will be higher in terms of the number of applications we'll have to work through Dean Mulder-Connors EPR Dr. Levine you mentioned that you were on a call yesterday with a number of other health commissioners in North East and you said some of them were going to be recommending to their governor's additional restriction so I'm wondering have you recommended any additional COVID mitigation restrictions that Governor Scott in the last couple of days actually not? I'm just sort of thinking about what we know about the virus at the top of that conference speaking about how people can be asymptomatic or go for a couple of days without having symptoms to build the infection so sometimes it's a delay in sort of tracking the spread of these cases and looking at what we now know about the central way you can sort of have that seeded so much of the activity we're seeing I'm wondering what level of concern are you at about the way the virus is spreading this press conference in the last couple of days that felt more like we're in March than we were back in August or so and things weren't as bad so what level of concern are you at and at what point could you be recommending additional restrictions? Sure One of the things that we've noticed in the data currently and this has been especially apparent in some of these sub outbreaks of the original outbreak is that many of the new cases were actually already contacts so they've been in quarantine and presumably because they've adhered to quarantine are really of no threat to anyone else in the community because they're out of circulation during that time so some of them we've actually known have been asymptomatic and then obtained a test because they developed some symptoms but fortunately they developed those symptoms in a quarantine setting so that's the way things are supposed to work and that's what containment is all about so that's been very assuring to us if you will and if you go back to the beginning of the central Vermont experience with the three different leagues at the Memorial Civic Center we're not seeing new cases amongst that cohort of individuals it's all this more downstream effect and when we've seen some of these very very small school settings and workplace settings they've all been very small and nothing has come from them in terms of other spread throughout other aspects of their communities so all that's kind of reassuring and in many ways this is behaving like some of the outbreaks we've discussed here since March even though it's of a decent size at this point and it may look to the observer that, gee, when is this going to end but knowing the incubation period of the virus it takes time as we've said we don't close out an outbreak until it's gone through those two incubation periods without any additional cases so I did show a little bit of what we call the EpiCurve last Tuesday and even though it's not quite where we want it yet you could see that there is a plateauing at least and hopefully that will lead to a tailing off eventually of that and that will be reassuring so I don't think statewide, as the governor said he's been comforted by some of the data on statewide testing in the last couple of days and we would hope that would evolve into a trend and that's what we'll be watching very closely but we do like to be anticipating problems and making recommendations for tightening things up ahead of time not looking through the mirror afterwards but I don't think we're there at this point in time I think we're in a state where we don't have to get overly alarmed about going backwards as the governor says or tightening anything in terms of restrictions it's more what we've been doing which is trying to make sure that we anticipate things like holidays especially the one coming tomorrow but then the one's coming in November and December just anticipate those knowing human beings or human beings in trying to encourage people to try to be conscientious and do the right things so we don't have to worry about numbers increasing thank you hi governor my question is related to something that happened in the Mad River Valley community the other day on a local social media platform an out of state part time ski controller mentioned that they are looking for weekend housing in the area meaning that that employee plans to travel in and out of Vermont regularly without quarantine so my question is when will the state release guidance for ski area operations and how detailed will that guidance be regarding part time out of state employees well two parts to the question I guess first of all we'll be issuing guidance on the ski areas next week as well we're 99% there and we'll be releasing that in terms of the employee that's up to the employer and they should make sure that they're coming from a safe county and then hopefully in the next month or two we will be seeing more safe counties around the region and if they're coming from a green county that's perfectly acceptable and if they're coming from a red county not so much they would have to adhere to the guidelines they wouldn't be deemed an essential employee from my standpoint Greg Sinkinak you know you can hear me we can okay good thank you at least since I've played skiing questions so thank you Lisa glad that we'll be looking forward to those guidelines next week here at ski country I was wondering perhaps if we could talk a little bit about COVID fatigue and how the state gets around that because we've heard this a couple of times and you know I can imagine that you know a hector folks or brought these people into compliance because there's hesitant on that but obviously it's pretty important given what we learned today about the way that the hockey the Civic Center operates spread so we're taking a lot of the ideas about sort of how to change messaging or what say leaders can do to try to work around COVID-19 as we sort of approach this really important phase in the pandemic and the threat of another way yeah and we'd be open to any suggestions ideas from anyone on how to prevent the pandemic fatigue that we're seeing but you know I have to say as well that every time I go into a different establishment when the store and see so many people wearing masks I'm it gives me hope that we can get through this it becomes more routine and I think as well we as individuals as leaders, as family members and friends we need to lead by example and we need to make sure our friends and family members are doing the same because if we do I mean it's just somewhat frustrating in some respects because this is really pretty simple and it's all individual and we again each have a role to play in this and if we play the role well we'll get through this and we'll just have to continue to make this routine not give up because we've seen the benefit I mean we've seen here in Vermont again comparing to other states like right now I use this example I've used it throughout the last couple of weeks but when you look at Wyoming smaller than population wise than Vermont they had another 350 cases yesterday 350 we had in the teams yesterday and we thought that was probably too many in some respects because throughout the last month or two we've seen low numbers in the single digits and that we've become accustomed to that but again in other states we're doing remarkably well but we have to keep it up if we want to maintain that but we also have to pay attention to the region as we said right from the very start right from the beginning that's going to be key because we have a lot of visitors from Massachusetts New Jersey, New York, Connecticut Rhode Island and New Hampshire so what happens in their state has an effect on ours so again we need to continue to get the message out we're relying on the media and all of you who are listening in right now to get that message out as well each and every one of us should be a role model Greg the county courier Duncan Hi Governor I did have a question prepared but it seems like I might not have all the facts ready for you so I think I'm going to hold back until Tuesday so we'll take the time and appreciate the chance Great, thank you very much Greg Havery Powell, WCAX Havery We can Great I just first want to make it clear that Governor's presentation should slide that in case it's next to the outbreak in Central Vermont in the year 1989 I'm hearing I'm hearing maybe every third word could you repeat the question I have a quick question for Mr. P. Jeff he said in the presentation that there are 89 cases connected in Central Vermont so the slide deck says 87 which one is it Yeah thanks Havery so the number that we have today that's confirmed is 87 and there are probable cases that haven't been confirmed yet through other tests and the like so we'll get those confirmed when they become ready and if they turn out to be cases My full question is about cross-border travel between New Hampshire and Vermont wrapping County right now with yellow in New Hampshire which is spoken with a lawmaker in Pittsburgh and bordering e-programs in New Hampshire is that true will they not be able to go over to New Hampshire without quarantine after that response Yeah obviously we're aware of the situation and we'll take a look at that but and I'm sensitive to that cross-border type of relationship and the community goes beyond the border in some respect so we'll do whatever we can to assist but there are those types of situations all up and down the border on both sides of the state and down in the southern part and then if the Canadian border were to open up it'd be on the northern side as well so we're always impacted by those situations and if we made exceptions for every single case that comes up we might as well just throw out the travel policy all together because it would be ineffective so again while we're sensitive to this the policies in place the travel restrictions in place for a reason and if we see the number of cases growing in another state there's a reason that we should put those, make sure they're adhered to because we don't want the spread to come into our state simple as that but in this one situation we'll take a look and see if there's anything we can do to help the situation out and there currently are some Vermont counties which are at a higher than the 400 from the Indian threshold so what's the justification for not allowing and then you can start with we have some kind of Vermont that we're not going to kick one of our own counties out of state we want to keep them here within our border so we've accepted from the beginning that we have, you know, we are what we are and what we're trying to do is prevent more from happening to us by allowing more to come into the state in those areas that we know are problematic so again we know we have situations, we know our communities a little bit better than we know their communities so it does make a bit of a difference so again, it's just what we did from the very beginning thank you and Wallace Allen, BT Digger you were asked what officials might do about the situation I think Rich, assuming there are no criminal violations and you said what was happening to you do you think this is an appropriate case for prosecutors to file in extreme risk protection order to remove firearms from the situation? I think it's up to the prosecutors and I'll leave it to our commissioner to maybe answer that but obviously up to the state's attorney to determine that the reason I'm asking is because you've been pushed for charges against Jack Sawyer back in 2018 I don't know I think, as you might recall in the affidavit there was an explicit plan in place to do harm to the school and the members, the students in the school there wasn't a question of if, it was a question of which day and he had a hit list I'm not I guess to compare the two I'm not sure is fair or accurate what would it take then for this to seem like if you have if you have information to the magnitude that we saw with Jack Sawyer you should present it to us about this case if you have some sort of detail of a plan against to harm a Vermont or take a plan in place to do harm to others you should present it we have not seen that that I know of at this point in time and again I'm just saying it's not the same we saw what was happening with Jack Sawyer and I'm not sure that it's the same in this instance but if someone has information that would they would provide then we could take action who should they provide it to you can call the commissioner of public safety call your local law enforcement call someone and provide that information if you have it and you should provide and it's Mike Charling I'll just answer the question I think we spoke briefly a couple of days ago about the extreme risk protection order if there's a person who believes that they're in danger or has a fact pattern that would rise to the level of the issuance of an extreme risk protection order then they'd have to file an affidavit with the court in order to get that so that's the underlying process by which that would happen correct as we discussed a couple of days ago in Vermont the state brings criminal charges so that people don't have to do that they only have to act as witnesses provide accurate information in support of an investigation and then the state chooses through law enforcement and ultimately through a state's attorney and then a judge concurring with a finding of probable cause for risk protection orders you can actually go direct to the court much like an abuse prevention order file an affidavit and a judge direct determination whether there's a risk and a foundation for issuance of that order just for the record this is Ann Wallace Allen and that was probably Ann Galloway oh I'm sorry I only heard Ann apologies sorry I should do it for me Andrew McGregor yeah good afternoon this is for Dr. Levine or perhaps Secretary Smith wondering are we testing full capacity and that's full effect to identify the virus in general communities I'm wondering if for instance our pop-up tests that rotate through are utilized how available it's thought and has any consideration been given to randomized testing within communities like they do at the college and health care facilities in other states I'll start out with that question and then I'll turn it over to Dr. Levine if I leave anything else we're always looking for opportunities to expand our testing and in fact I think we're looking at those sort of surveillance testing opportunities as we speak as you know we're doing tremendous amount of testing in what are called pop-ups now we're moving those sort of inside now at various district offices and other places as the weather turns but you also remember we're doing a tremendous amount of surveillance testing in long-term care facilities staffing at all sorts of congregate settings including corrections in those sort of things but we are going to be looking at how we can expand our surveillance testing in communities we haven't dropped off our testing in fact if you look at sort of the testing with the colleges that's going on I think I can safely say we're averaging over 25,000 tests a week in the last few weeks so the testing is going on at a rapid pace as we move forward Dr. Levine did I miss anything okay he says I covered everything do you have another question I have a great follow-up the pop-up I think I'll just through next week and you mentioned moving indoors is there a commitment to continue sort of the rotation that's been established by talent that's looking for you say yeah I think there's a commitment to even expand our testing capabilities as we move forward yes we're going to be moving and making sure there's geographic location as well as you know it's hard to get to populations in our testing but the governor's been very clear he wants more testing available for Vermonters convenience not at our convenience but at Vermonters convenience and we're going to do that okay thank you Alex the general opinion yes hi hi Alex um and the plans for a secure juvenile facility in Newberry but what kind of guidance are you looking for from the legislation moving forward with the Becket Contract by January 1st thanks for the question as you know we have we have certain oversight responsibilities from the legislature we held a meeting yesterday to go over the for those that don't know the agency of human services through the department of children and families has a long term plan for a juvenile involved youth it's basically a we're working on a plan for a architecturally secured six bed residential treatment facility for Vermont youth in the custody of DCF and that is slated for Wells River in a 280 acre property is a former bed and breakfast facility it's a large three level building in DCF and Becket which we would be contracting with it would be operating that secure six bed residential treatment program for our target population we have several steps that the legislature has laid out yesterday we presented one of those steps and and there are the latest decision on that step until until November mid-November I believe and then it goes back to joint fiscal my understanding the one thing that I want everyone to know we do need a residential facility like this because we have closed down Woodside and so we're moving forward with a residential facility like the one that we presented yesterday did I answer your question if I could be permitted one related follow-up is there any plan to engage the community in Newberry and Wells River project yes yes yes there has to be a plan and my understanding is there's been a preliminary engagement with the community but we will I'll make the commitment here I'll make sure that DCF does engage in local leaders as we as we place this facility great thank you so much sir alright Stuart Lebeder Governor an easy one you made your decision to president I have not voted as yet I plan to vote either on Monday or Tuesday that's to be determined so I'm not ready to tell you how I'm voting but I have made a decision and I'll be voting on Monday or Tuesday alright thank you very much and we'll see you all again on Tuesday thank you you