 Good morning, everyone. I want to start this morning with a quick update on the census. I'm pleased to report while we previously lagged behind the rest of the country, we're now fifth in the rankings and on track to match our 2010 response. So we can do even better. So if you haven't completed your census forms, go to my2020census.gov to complete it. And I thank those who have already done so. It really does make a difference for our state. As a reminder, Fridays will now be dedicated to education updates. And Secretary French is here to reflect on the first three weeks of school restart and more on moving to step three. And as many of you know, about a month ago, we began an effort to create a system of childcare hubs to help support families on remote working days due to the different hybrid approaches schools were taking. Since then, the Agency of Human Services in partnership with Vermont After School has worked quickly to stand up these hubs. I'm pleased to have Holly Morehouse here today, the Executive Director of Vermont After School, to provide an update on this work. Holly, along with her staff and the Department of Children and Families, have worked with communities across Vermont to expand and create quality childcare hubs. And this work has been essential to help families during this unusual school year. This has been a great example of collaboration amongst many partners. Holly will share more in a few minutes on how it has worked and where it is today. But before I turn it over to Holly and Secretary French, I want to take some time to remind folks of why we're doing this and the role we all need to play. Giving kids a good foundation has been a priority of mine as governor. Because as a former contractor, I know the stronger the foundation, the better the chance of long lasting positive outcomes later in life. This is why I prioritize investments in childcare throughout my times as governor. It's also why I put an emphasis on in-person instruction, especially for younger students, while our low case counts will support it. We need to do all we can to give our kids the best possible education, even during these uncertain and challenging times. I greatly appreciate the work of school administrators, teachers, and support staff across the state, as well as my team at the Agency of Education for helping get these kids back to school this fall. And a special thank you to our childcare partners for supporting remote learning needs. And with a few weeks under our belt, all indications are their work is paying off. But here's what's so important for the rest of us to remember. Their success and our ability to maintain and expand in-person learning for our kids depends on all of us doing what we need to do to keep the level of virus low in our communities. Vermont has had a lot of success and we've gotten a lot of attention for that success. But we cannot get lulled into complacency. Like Dr. Fauci told us, we can't let our guard down. While our region continues to do better than many other parts of the country, if you look at some of the larger outbreaks in surrounding states like Maine, their health officials are warning that the quick spread appears to be the result of folks not following the state's safety protocols. We can't let that happen here. There will always be risk of spread. But the procedures we have in place for businesses, schools and more, as well as the basic individual steps we've all been taken will limit this risk. But we all have to do our part to follow them. That means wear a mask around others. Keep physical distance. Wash your hands. Stay home when sick. And follow the travel and other health guidance. It's more important than ever that we keep us up for our kids and families as well as for our communities and our economy. If we stay vigilant and continue to suppress this virus, we'll continue taking steps forward, not back. And we'll get through this stronger than we were before. I'll now turn it over to Holly for more on our child care hubs. Thank you, Governor. And thank you for the opportunity to be here today. I'm Holly Morehouse, Executive Director of Vermont After School. We are a statewide nonprofit dedicated to ensuring access to quality after school summer and expanded learning programs so that all of Vermont's children and youth can have the opportunities that they need and deserve to be active, engaged, connected and heard. I'm grateful to be here this morning as just one member of an incredible team that has been working on this HEP effort, both at the Department for Children and Families and at Vermont After School. I'm also proud to represent what is truly an amazing field, those who work with children and youth outside the school day and over the summer. We all know that these are extraordinary times and the directors and staff from the after school programs, the parks and recreation departments, the child care centers and the youth serving organizations who have stepped forward to respond to this hubs challenge, make up what is truly an extraordinary field. To understand the hub project, we have to go back to August when it became clear that not all of our elementary schools were going to be able to open for in-person classes as they would have in a normal year. And yet we knew that after months of being out of school, children needed access to programming and opportunities to play, connect and learn with others in safe and caring spaces. We also knew that parents and family members needed to be able to return to work. I so appreciate Governor Scott for recognizing these needs, both of the school-aged children and of working families. And I appreciate Secretary Smith and the Department for Children and Families, particularly Miranda Gray, the state lead at DCF for the hub project, for stepping in to develop the hub initiative and to take this on. It's truly been a collaborative effort at the state level. For example, the Child Development Division and the Licensing Unit have worked closely with every hub applicant to provide ongoing support and to make sure that every proposed location is appropriate for the care of children. The Division of Fire Safety has been ensuring that buildings are safe for children. The Agency of Natural Resources has been ensuring that children have access to safe drinking water and that septic systems are able to manage the increased usage. The Department of Labor has stepped in to assist with the staff recruitment process. The Agency of Education and Hunger-Free Vermont have helped connect hubs to appropriate food programs so that children can have access to healthy snacks and meals. And the Department of Health has provided detailed health and safety guidelines and they have answered countless questions from hub providers about facial coverings, keeping children in pods and cohorts and more. And Let's Grow Kids and members of the Early Childhood Advocacy Alliance have helped to make sure that any system we set up for the hubs doesn't do harm to the existing network of childcare providers. I'd like to take a moment to talk about the map behind me. I'm proud to report that in just over four weeks, we have established 35 hubs and 87 locations. The black squares on the map show the location of the hubs. The gray dots are the affiliated locations and sites that may belong to a hub. So hubs can serve children at more than one location. The shading of the map refers to the underlying school schedules. The green areas have returned to in-person classes five days a week for elementary students and the yellow and red areas cover areas where schools have a hybrid model or a fully remote. An interactive version of this map is available on our website at vermontafterschool.org under the COVID-19 section. I invite all of you to go to the website. You can toggle on any of those locations. You can click on the dots, find out the street address, the name of the entity, contact information, the grades of the children that they serve. And when you dig deeper into the data, you will see that the current network of hubs can serve over 5,000 children from approximately 107 towns in Vermont and 132 schools. I'd like to also point out that behind every one of these dots is a local story of innovation, determination, flexibility, and caring in Vermont's communities. This has by no means been an easy process, but we have learned so much. We have learned that where there was an existing after-school provider or out-of-school time program, it was often easier as well as less expensive to get a school-age hub up and running. These hubs didn't magically appear out of thin air. In order to get the new system in place, we worked with many existing partners on the ground and in communities who already knew how to work with children and youth and how to run these programs and who had existing relationships, both with schools and with families. In many cases, these are the after-school programs and youth organizations that pivoted back in March to providing childcare for essential workers, to creating virtual learning spaces for children and youth, to helping distribute school meals while kids were at home, and to running safe and engaging summer programs these past few months. We have also learned that where there was close collaboration between the school leadership teams and the after-school program or hub provider, the services and support for families tend to be better coordinated and often more affordable. We've seen innovative partnerships at the local level to help fill in the gaps based on community need, whether it's the owner of a fitness center providing space for a program, a business working with a hub provider to create a cohort for the children of their employees, or a local church opening their doors for use by a nearby program. We also quickly saw that the work is about so much more than just opening a location, as about recruiting staff, providing training, figuring out complex schedules, thinking through so many aspects of health and safety. Vermont After School has been providing technical assistance for all of the hub sites. We created an extensive staffing campaign to find qualified individuals, and we are providing several weeks of free virtual training for hub staff on a wide range of topics, from child development to youth voice to social-emotional learning and family engagement. We have also seen very clearly that the funding for school-aged childcare and youth-serving programs can vary greatly from one location to the next. While we did put a number of measures in place to help families, we don't yet have a system in Vermont that fully addresses the underlying inequities and access to childcare and supports for children and youth outside the school day. However, COVID has taught us so much about how important these programs and resources are for Vermont's families, businesses, schools, and communities. So what do these hubs look like? What do they look like on the ground? Well, I can tell you they are full of joy, flexibility, and creativity. Staff are supporting learning, working in facial coverings all day, finding ways to get children outside as much as possible, and playing that crucial role between home and school. There is so much positive child development that comes from playing with peers, having caring adults who can focus on social-emotional growth, participating in hands-on learning activities, being physically active outdoors, trying new hobbies, and exploring new interests from birding to engineering to building forts in the woods to pottery. Hubs are also integrating time every day for children to participate in remote learning activities provided by their schools. They have created quiet spaces, access to Wi-Fi, set up crayons and markers and space to complete assignments, and staff are there to offer an encouraging word and to help children stay on task. All this while maintaining health measures to keep kids and staff safe. What's left to do? Well, the work is not done. The landscape around school schedules will continue to evolve. This map will continue to change as we move through the fall. We'll continue to track the child care needs of families to respond as best we can. As schools transition to additional in-person days for students, we will continue to work with the hubs to figure out how best to support families in just hours accordingly. We're talking with the existing hubs now about what it will look like for them to be ready to reopen later if needed. We heard from 30 of the hubs this week in a survey that every single one of them said that they expected to most definitely or most likely be able to reopen later in the fall if they need to. At the same time, we're working with DCF to be prepared to meet the needs of schools that are currently in the classroom five days a week do have to shift and go to remote learning at any time in the future. The adaptability and problem-solving approach we have seen thus far from the hubs will continue to be an asset moving forward. In closing, I'd like to thank Governor Scott and Secretary Smith for the opportunity to be part of this important initiative designed to respond to the challenge before us regarding children's needs and working families. The approach that Vermont has taken can also in so many ways strengthen the overall system by working with existing providers and local communities by focusing on partnership and collaboration by expanding sites and staff in thoughtful ways by running a staff recruitment campaign that brings new people into the field rather than drawing staff away from existing childcare providers. These are all part of the story about how Vermont approached this current challenge while also making an investment for the future. I look forward to hearing your questions. I look forward to having deeper conversations about this important issue. I look forward to having an even stronger system in Vermont. Thank you. At this time, it is my pleasure and responsibility to turn the virtual mic over to Secretary Dan French. Good morning. Thank you, Holly, for coming to our school for your work. It's been a very successful partnership with our schools and it's amazing how quickly responsive that they are all. I really appreciate it. I thought I'd provide a few updates since Tuesday's press conference. As you know, our schools will be moving to set three and our health guidance starting tomorrow, September 26. We opened our schools that are set to the more restrictive requirements to give our schools the opportunity to practice and become more comfortable implementing these structure measures. Since conditions have made positive in our schools have demonstrated their ability to successfully operate in the measures in place, we decided to move to step three. Step three still requires schools to implement the basic mitigation strategies that are proven to be effective against the virus. Under step three, however, schools have some additional flexibility in how to implement these strategies in a few areas. For example, one of those areas is school cafeterias. Under step two, schools are not allowed to use cafeteria spaces for feeding students. Under step three, on the other hand, schools may use their cafeterias for feeding students, the precautions being implemented such as smaller group sizes and disinfecting regularly between groups. This flexibility is important since schools use their cafeterias in different ways and not all schools have cafeterias. For example, many of our smaller schools have multi-purpose roots or NPRs that function at both cafeterias and gypses and in some cases also as auditoriums. The key aspect of the step three benefits in this area is the word may. Under step three, schools are not required to start feeding students with their cafeterias. They may do so, but the decision is up to them. If they decide to do so, however, they need to follow the additional precautions necessary to ensure the safety of students and staff. Our schools have become used to interpreting these nuances in our guidance. Our guidance often includes both requirements and things for just recommendations. When schools operationalize their guidance and questions around implementation come up, we usually publish clarifications for our guidance in the form of frequently asked questions or what we call FAQ documents. This week, we publish an FAQ on the differences between step two and step three. One area we address in this FAQ is the relationship between step three and in-person instruction. Moving to step three does not require districts to move to foreign-person instruction, but we are encouraging them to do so, particularly for our younger students while in conditions to remain positive. It's important to note that many districts, however, were already moving to additional in-person instruction prior to the move to step three, and this move had a plan consistent with their reopening plans. For example, a superintendent, S. X. Webber, school district chairman, did this week that their district was moving to in-person instruction for students in grades pre-taken five for five days a week starting October 5th. We expect more districts to increase for days of in-person instruction in the coming weeks. Another area I want to provide nothing on has to do with our team briefing process around the process of both school cases that happened a few weeks ago. We organized the team briefing process before we refined our ability to support schools when positive cases emerged. Team briefing process started last Friday when members of the Health Department's contact tracing team and Dr. Kelso met with the leadership team in the school district. I then met with Dr. Kelso in the district superintendent on Tuesday, and we will be taking feedback from the meetings to refine our processes and to share our lessons learned in all schools and districts in the state. Two areas that have emerged from these meetings, one has to do with improving school competition with additional export that go to the Department of Health relative to school contacts so that we can ensure a rapid identification of contacts, if they're close contacts, as soon as possible. We also think that districts would benefit from additional state-level communications on the contact tracing process so they can better share the information with their communities. Also this week, our leadership team of the Department of Health met to review our state-level health guidance. We have a state-level task force that was formed to help design this guidance. That task force comprised of medical experts and educational leaders from all the major educational associations. We decided this week that we were going to reconvene that task force and it will start meeting in the coming weeks to address possible recommendations for guidance. It was our intention to revisit our guidance on monthly basis and we've identified a few areas that we think weren't revisions. One area that needs to be addressed is the colder weather that we've seen in the last few weeks and its impact on our ability to do the daily health check process. The colder weather that's needed are difficult to obtain after a temperature check for students with staff. The temperature checks are required as part of our daily health check process. I expect the task force will address this concern in a few others we've put together and will be publishing an update regarding this later in October. Speaking of the colder weather guidance we've subsequently issued guidance for what we call climate weather days such as snow days. Basically, districts will not have to make up snow days during this emergency as long as they can't satisfactorily the requirements for remote learning during those days. Lastly, we have started conversations with our very stakeholder groups to plan for the rest of the school year. So much of the work to take has been focused on reopening our schools and implementing the necessary precautions to ensure safety of students and staff. Much of this work is negligible for dress operational areas such as instructional schedules, modifications to facilities and to the education planning. We know we must continue this work to ensure schools can operate safely and we'll be in no doubt changing conditions in the month that. At the same time, however, we're anxious to restart the work of our education system to address the needs of our students. This will require us to begin to address the impact of the emergency and to design intervention strategies to address the educational needs of students. We hope to help find these strategies in the coming weeks. Good morning everyone. Before I get to my comments I feel compelled to reinforce the Governor's comments regarding Dr. Fauci's admonition to us to make sure that we don't let our guard down and put that into context as to why that is important building on some of the comments we just heard. We've had great success in the K-12 endeavors thus far and minimal number of cases in our schools. Our childcare experience has been phenomenal in the long term and in the recent term. That's because there are not cases being brought into those settings. Those settings are just microcosms of our greater community. So if the students who have parents are attending the school if the workers in the childcare settings are coming to work every day they represent the level of virus that's in our community at large. The fact that we have a low level of virus is testimony to everyone's being receptive to and sticking to all of the guidance we give about how to live our daily lives. But that's so critical and it's been the ingredient of our success. So we need to take Dr. Fauci's word seriously and continue that. Whether it's school, whether it's college where we tested everybody found some cases at the initial testing but then basically have fared quite well since that time because the college students are now part of our greater community. Our long term care facilities, nursing homes our correctional facilities this is testimony to the fact that those who are working in those facilities are actually abiding by all of the guidance we've provided. So I just wanted to contextualize that a little bit and again reinforce the message you've been getting from us all. In terms of data, I don't have a lot to share on the data front today. Unfortunately as a country we've just passed two milestones seven million cases 200,000 deaths over the past week in Vermont we've had very low case counts each day this entire week which of course is great news no additional cases to tell you about in the K through 12 only one additional college case was announced by the college yesterday at St. Mike's and like to congratulate them on the propness with which they reformed their university community and conferring with our experts at the health department as well. We now I believe are at 1781 cases we're on the 59th day without any deaths we've had a total of 58 deaths. What I really want to talk to you about this morning though is the flu. We say every year the best way to prevent the flu obviously is to get a flu shot. It helps you avoid missing work or missing school or even having to go to the doctor for that matter and if you do get the flu it can reduce the severity of the illness that you're going to have. It can be a lifesaver if you have underlying severe illnesses and are at higher risk and the related hospitalizations and occasionally deaths that might occur from the flu and that's just the flu kind of in normal times but during the current pandemic there are a lot more unknowns we don't know how common it might be to actually get the flu and COVID at the same time or if having the flu makes you more susceptible to getting COVID thereafter I think we'd all agree we don't really want to get both We also don't know whether a surge in cases of COVID and the flu could happen at the same time the so-called TWINDEMIC that could realistically overwhelm anybody's health care system and put people at risk Simply put we know more about the flu than we do about COVID and we already have a vaccine to prevent it So please get your flu shot and make sure your children do too Anyone over 6 months old with rare exceptions should be vaccinated and certainly be vaccinated if you are in a high risk group or have underlying health conditions Now this year my team at the health department has ordered more flu vaccine than usual to increase demand So no matter what your age 6 months to over 65 you have access to plenty of vaccine and we're working closely with the entire medical community primary care providers visiting nurse associations and we're encouraging community partnerships to provide clinics where access might be limited like in schools, community centers or assisted living facilities I've mentioned we have a lot of innovative ways we've thought about this year and I'm really excited to hear about some of the innovative practices that are already beginning to happen out there amongst medical practices hospital groups etc They're finding ways to deliver the vaccine some of which has been informed by COVID and others of which is just great creativity Who ever thought you would drive through to get your vaccine like a drive through test in the COVID era There are now opportunities to do that in the drive through fashion You can go to a food pickup site and get a flu shot There are mobile vans for people who have difficulty accessing some of the other sites that can bring the flu shot to you Some of our colleagues in the healthcare system are partnering with schools to provide flu vaccine to both the students and the staff All of this work makes the job of getting a flu shot much easier much more accessible for Vermonters and that can make a huge difference So what I'm trying to tell you is there's not a lot of excuses you'll be able to come up with during the month of October especially for why you shouldn't be getting your flu shot or why it's a challenge to get one You can still get it through your doctor's office or your local pharmacy or a clinic near you and if you happen to not have insurance you can depend on our local health offices which are distributed throughout the state and we will provide you with a free flu shot If you want to learn more about this healthvermont.gov slash flu And of course I have to end by saying to keep up those actions that have helped Vermonters control the spread of COVID-19 They're going to help no matter what season we're in COVID season, flu season you name it Meanwhile we're also preparing for the eventuality of a safe and effective vaccine for COVID-19 I can't predict and won't predict exactly when that time will be but I have great confidence that in Vermont we will be ready for the vaccine before the vaccine is ready for use I'll turn it back to the governor Thank you very much Dr. Levine, Secretary French Holly We'll now open up for questions Thank you Governor Some schools are already going back to hold in-person operations I'm wondering at what point we'll have to start closing down some of these will be in progress I think that's either for Holly actually Thank you for your question We're already working with the hub sites on how that transition could move forward Many of them are saying that they won't just disappear into thin air What they'll do is they'll transition back to after-school programming in the afternoons They're shifting staff into additional positions and they are trying to be ready to reopen again later if they need to and we're really following closely both the landscape around COVID as well as what the schools are going to do in each of the communities We're probably secretary of the burden if she's on the phone not a long ago the state sent out checks for public care employers and public safety employers with the hazard pay We're hearing from some employers that they haven't gotten the reverse checks yet I'm wondering where we are with that process I actually think that's in Secretary Smith's shop Actually on a hazard pay I'm surprised with the question because we had a $28 million hazard pay program as of today and this was a few days ago so I think it's probably more 20.1 million has already been distributed out there We expect to get an additional $4.9 million out the door It probably has already left out the door given that this is a few days old to 25 million and we're looking over the rest of the applications As you know, legislature has expanded the Hazardous Pay program so we'll be back probably doing more here in the near future in terms of the Hazardous Pay program Why I've got the podium let me just also talk about the health care stabilization program As you remember that program was $275 million We're distributing in the first round in different tranches, different rounds that will do the distribution The first round is about $100 million 80 of which were pretty much out the door now 20 of which we had to go back and ask additional questions These are pretty complicated formulas for that particular program So a lot has gone out the door in these programs and more is to come There's a second round of the health care stabilization as well that will begin in October One last question While I have you You might have seen there was a letter that went out from UDN Health Network CEO John Bronsted Earlier this week two degree in health care were basically pushing back on their pledged decision for the health network I wonder if you've seen the letter or maybe sharing the same concerns I have seen the letter I haven't read it carefully I want to stay out of their fight between the Green Mountain Care Board and the hospital in terms of the agency of human services We're sort of on the periphery of that That is budget sort of reviews that happen at the Green Mountain Care Board I think what we've all got to do here whether it's the Green Mountain Care Board or the network itself, UVM Health Network is to try to find some common ground here as we move forward and make sure that we have stability in our system as well as keeping costs down Vermonters understand that health care costs are a burden they see that every year and I think there's a line here that we really have got to tow that make sure that we have stability in our system as well as making sure that we really pay attention to the needs of Vermonters out there I can just go back to Holly and the after-school program as you might recall as well my budget address and state of the state I talked about as well as early care and learning the after-school program and developing and enhancing that so this really does put us a step closer to that vision and I think it's going to be essential in the future This question is either for your new governor or Dr. Levin Dr. Dr. Levin said that last month Massachusetts announced they're requiring all students to be vaccinated from K through college has there been any discussion about that in regards to vaccinating all students here in the state for the flu and if you don't see the number of flu shots in the state is that something that's possible? I'll let Dr. Levin answer that Thanks for that question I will preface my comment that Massachusetts believes still is the only state to have done that so I say that only because they may be a major trendsetter or they may be an exception one can look at it either way To answer your question we have had a very engaging discussion on this very topic and received lots of unsolicited communications on this topic at this point in time we don't feel that mandating the vaccine for the entire population is appropriate I don't think you could mandate it for just school aged children and young adults and not for the whole population because again they're all part of the same greater community and so it would have to be pretty much across the board that we've had no such intention at this point in time to mandate the flu vaccine we'd like to think that our approach that we're taking that is not just the messaging campaign and greater messaging and education but greater ability to actually access the vaccine to meet the vermoner where they are literally to provide a reason to enhance the uptake of that to the level we'd like to get traditionally flu vaccine has less than 50% uptake across the whole population we'd certainly want to well exceed that and get much higher than that I guess just reiterate for the moners out there of all years do you think this year is an example of time to get a vaccine I would reiterate that if you've kind of other years said I got away without it I did fine this isn't the year to say that this is the year to say all bets are off the table we've got all these viruses circulating around I'm going to at least do something about the one virus I know we have a preventer for just to get your reaction real quick to the President's comments earlier this week when he was asked by our board of the White House about the peaceful transition of powers he had on the election he was surprised what went through it unfortunately I can't say that I was surprised but I think this is dangerous rhetoric and I think it further galvanized the divide we're seeing across the nation it's so polarized I agree with Governor Baker on his response to this and I think that this should be as has happened throughout our history a peaceful transition of power regardless you know it's tough to lose but it needs to be to support our democracy staying on that Governor haven't really ever heard at least 30 years a question of whether or not we're going to have a vision of power is this simply just some sort of a thing to create of us you know I can't pretend to know what what goes on in the President's head what strategy is but again I just see this as dangerous for our country it further galvanized that divide that we see that is happening right now and it's dangerous people are afraid it's just creating more confusion, more confrontation and it's unnecessary and whoever wins the election and if it goes his way there will be no transition but we accept the results and we have to do that this time as well again it's too important and we've seen you know again it's disappointing but I think the last President to lose was I believe George H. W. Bush and he did so gracefully and because he believes in our country and if you believe in your country and you truly want to help people then you allow this to happen and you do all you can to support the new President in order to support all of us so this has been our tradition and we should continue to do that sort of a high tourist season as well as the ski season coming up the death toll on roads right now is fast approaching the actual death toll of the virus and it seems like it's on par with I guess the past last year any message to folks I mean are we driving too fast are we driving just distracted I'd say yes to all the above yes people are driving too fast yes they're distracted and it's just unfortunate what we're seeing across Vermont again as you pointed out last year was an abnormally good year it was about half what we normally see in deaths on our highways but this is alarming we seem to see more than one every single week at this point and people need to slow down they need to pay attention to what they're doing because it doesn't just affect you it's affecting someone else an innocent victim on our highways and prevention is key whether we talk about a vaccine for the flu or whether wearing a mask or when there's a vaccine that's safe for the coronavirus we need to take those prevention measures and you can do so on the highways it's literally in your hands Mike the Islander Thanks Rebecca Governor Scott thanks for getting to make your name heard in touch with me and the landlord who's not paying cash to recover rent payments so they can pay taxes to his great help this timely question today comes from a reader in the Northeast Kingdom actually apparently the legislature announced draft from the proposal of the annual state budget $21,000 to fund body cameras for Capitol Police the reader is wondering if there's any apparent irony that the state legislators want state police to have body cameras on all troopers if the one area of cameras will be blocked from the state is where the state legislators themselves could be captured is to say do as I say not as I do You know I hadn't heard that Mike before you brought it up and I haven't seen that part of the budget but I think it's important that we cross law enforcement throughout Vermont for all law enforcement to have body cameras in order to protect both themselves and others and I think it's essential so again probably a better question for them I wasn't aware that that was happening I know that they're finalizing the budget today so again I don't know if it's part of it or not but a better question for them but for the Capitol Police from time to time respond to incidents outside of the campus building and I mean could the DSP allocate some of their funds for body cameras maybe to give would they be within their ability to weather budget works well the Capitol Police are sworn officers as well and it is a separate organization than the state police I'm not at this point willing to give up resources that we need for Vermont State Police at this point in time to share with others I think that if the legislature thought it was important for the State House Capitol Police to have body cameras they would provide that those resources but they're limited and I know our budget is limited with the Department of Public Safety as well Vermont State Police in general I guess at this point we didn't have we're not putting any extra fluff in budgets and I'm not willing to give any of that up at this point in time if there's a need we should fund it okay and a follow up to Steve Longcamp's question on the high number of fatalities earlier this week there was another disturbing highway safety cage where two teenage drivers were driving more than 90 miles an hour at the same time as US 7 right after there was a federal fatal on Route 7 just a few miles away your administration has a temporary directive in place in order to safely not to release names of juvenile drivers or teen drivers in car accidents and you want to take it in but I'm just wondering when that directive was going to be listed and return to the transparency that Vermonters are used to follow the Constitution yeah again I may commission a shirling but temporary is the key word we want to work through and make sure that we're not implicating or altering the case future case as in regards to naming underage driver so once we get through that we hopefully we'll get back to where we were before or have something that we can satisfy both needs commissioner shirling anything to offer on that just governor that the question like just that the assessment's ongoing our staff and the staff at the various agencies that are staff they are also embroiled and the legislative session has been technically and we still have this pandemic that encumbers a significant amount of time so a little slower than we'd like but we're still working on it just to clarify governor you put them in bad not impact cases but for the last 40 years there's never been an impact on any case I'm just wondering why you didn't keep with the status quo while studying or I think we were yeah I mean I think this was brought up by the law defense I believe so we take that seriously and we don't want to impact this case or other cases while we figure this out that's all if they hadn't brought it up we would still be doing the same thing we've been on for the last 40 years very good okay thank you thank you Kat WCAX Hi my question is for Holly any sense of how many families are still looking for childcare and health placements and which areas of the state do you still have the greatest need that is a great question thank you we are working closely with the childcare referral specialists in every community because they are in touch with families and the local need and we're hearing from them where and when they start to see surges or needs in childcare for the different age groups at this moment we are proud to say that the areas that were identified of the last couple weeks we have been able to set up hubs in Manchester there's a hub in progress in Randolph we're looking at hubs in Grand Isle and then also in Swanton so we do continue to move and adapt so our tasks over this coming week will be to work with the referral specialists again to see where the need still is and as we talked about earlier to also watch what's happening with the schools and whether some of them are going back to programming in the school in person and the hubs will shift in one direction or if another part of the state if any of the schools need to perhaps shift the other way if they start to see any COVID cases and open up for additional remote programming so it is a fluid and dynamic landscape that we are continuing to follow and work very closely with the hubs on and the second part of your question is that you were just talking about the areas of the state that still had needs I think so if there's anything else to add on that I'll ask my follow-up question that's great, thank you any sense broadly of the average cost of these programs for parents? the state has put a number of measures in place to help on cost there are some hubs locations that are free or very low cost of families these are usually working in partnership with schools or with nonprofit organizations and have access to additional grants and other funding sources to help alleviate some of the cost of families the cap that the state has put on the hubs as they've asked them to charge no more than $200 a week for families we do have some hubs that are around $60 a day when they don't have another income source to help offset the cost beyond the hub grant which lasts for the first part of the year the other measures that the state has put into place is to make sure that all of the hub locations can be used for the child care financial assistance program so that is the program that helps families who qualify for child care assistance in their area as well thank you Eric, the time is arduous yes, when these child care hubs were discussed last month it was because of the state capacity what the state would need was 10,000 slot serving kids and it looks like we're at a capacity of 5,000 now did the numbers change or did we only have what we were looking for going back to Holly on that the difference in the numbers is the difference between children that can be served in the system and slots so a slot may be how many children on a particular day so when we speak about 5,000 children being able to be served by the current network we're talking about children who may be going to hubs most likely are going to hub more than one day a week so one child could take up multiple slots there may be other cases where there is a slot in a hub that's open 5 days a week and different children are filling those slots throughout the course of the week so that's kind of the difference in that language if you go back to the original press conference when the hub initiative was announced the state was looking at being able to serve 7,300 children that estimate came from looking at all the elementary schools in Vermont and calculating a percentage of elementary students who would need access to child care on remote learning days because in looking at the map not all of our elementary schools did have remote learning days we weren't needed to set up hubs and a number of school districts and supervisory unions so it makes sense in a lot of ways that our number of 5,000 children would be lower than the 7,300 that was originally estimated so is there a number of like are you looking for a couple hundred more or is it kind of that where you wanted to be right now we are very pleased and proud with where we are right now but we're not done so we will continue to monitor the situation we will continue to see what the need is in communities across the state I think that there's we need to recognize that the child care decisions that families make are very complex and sometimes they may change over time so a family that maybe didn't think they needed care at the beginning of September now as we're moving later into the fall may change their mind or they may be more comfortable with sending their child to a child care hub so we will keep on top of all those numbers thank you I also want to add Eric as we see more trust and faith in the system more trust in our schools we're also seeing more schools go back to in-person instruction so that's good news for all of us but it does lessen some of the pressure on the school program so the hubs that we've put into place so it's good news in some respects but as Holly had said merging or going to a more after school is going to be necessary as well so it's all good for all of us okay, thank you Leah, VPR hi, to be a question for Dr. Levine you were talking about ways to help our to get the broader population I'm just wondering if you have specific plans or things that you're going to be doing to reach out to more vulnerable populations or frontline workers or people who have been disproportionately impacted by COVID who probably use a flu shot more so than others yeah, you just covered a lot of potential customers, I guess I could call them for that specifically many vulnerable people are older and reside in facilities, not necessarily nursing homes but facilities where they have some element of their care provided, they're not totally independent we plan on actually having clinics in some of those assisted living facilities to enable them to have uptake of the shot when that's available we also plan as I mentioned earlier to have some mobile capacity so if there are vulnerable people who may have a potential disability or other issue that prevents them from accessing a more traditional site we can kind of come to them which I think would be really helpful and then those who are in society who actually have socioeconomic issues or food and security issues they have housing issues and just really can't go to where they need to go we'll try to go to places where they are whether it be to their housing facility whether it be to a food access site or what have you I think you're going to see just a lot of creativity around the question you asked and you know we've partnered with many many aspects of the health care system the ideas I've given you are the ones that we know are happening but I'm sure there are more that are yet to be known by me at this point in time because we've really engaged in a way that we want them to keep innovating you mentioned that generally only about half the population get the flu vaccine and do you have a target that you're hoping to have like over 50% what was the I think you know it would be wonderful to have in the 60-70% range we've ordered a vaccine well in excess of previous years so aspirationally we want to get there and we want to make sure we have the vaccine available so that we can get there so we're clearly in the over 50% I don't want to put a firm number on 60 or 70 but you know in that direction would be astounding for a flu season and again I just encourage people to make this that season that they say I'm going to change my behavior and if I haven't had it in the past I think I will get it this year makes sense well we'll see as I said before I will not be voting for President Trump and I have yet to listen to any of the debates and I will and see whether Vice President, former Vice President Biden will earn my vote we'll see I'm a centrist, I'm a moderate I want to hear some of his views about bringing people together and supporting some of the centrist and moderates of the world as well Hi Jeff this is a question for the Governor Governor, how do you feel about the budget bill that lawmakers are going to be sending to you today? Do you have any issues with what you've seen so far? I've seen both the Senate version, the House version I know that they're getting very close to coming to conclusion it's in a conference committee at this point in time so I haven't seen the final bill so it's hard for me to comment whether I had any problems because there are many last minute additions that could come into play here that I may not be in favor of but so far so good they've brought forward a lot of the initiatives that I'd asked that I'd asked to be included there are some that didn't get funded that I wanted but that's normal that's what we do every year not everyone gets everything they want but overall I think the budget looks good, we're living within our means and it's something that I believe for Monarch can be very proud of Are you satisfied with the amount of money that is going to go to help the hospitality industry? Well I mean that's still can be determined I think there is going to have to be more resources devoted to the hospitality industry we are we'll work through that through the joint fiscal committee as well in the aftermath of the budget because there'll be some money still left over from the coronavirus relief funds and the CARES money that we will be able to tap into in the aftermath of the budget so we'll continue to work on that but I still believe that there needs to be more economic relief for the hospitality industry in particular This is a question for my parents if he's on the line do the people who were getting the $300 as well are they still going to be eligible for the $300 supplement that's coming their way? I think Mike may be on but I think the quick answer is the majority of them would be but there were some guidelines put in place, provisions you had to make at least $100 and there may be a couple of other provisions where not everyone would be included but the vast majority of them would be Commissioner Harrington You're absolutely correct Governor the two provisions that were released in the LWR program with a $300 program where that people had to have a weekly benefit amount of $100 or more in the FPUC program as long as you were receiving any benefit amount you were eligible for the $600 likewise specific to the LWA program you specifically have to be unemployed due to a COVID reason where your employment must be disrupted due to COVID and that wasn't the case with the $600? That's correct and there's another there's another some of the money I don't know what it is that is going to be used for another batch of $600 payments that's in the budget now like in the house version I think I don't think it's in the house version or any of the budget I think those are separate these are federal dollars there was an extra there was three weeks to begin with and then there's a second tier of another three weeks I believe is that correct Commissioner Harrington that's correct and what you may be referring to anism the provision that was discussed about adding an additional $100 benefit on top of the $300 and I do know that discussed last night as part of the budget I don't know where it ended up but it was to the tune of about $17 million to provide additional benefits on top of the LWA benefit so again the governor is correct we don't want to mix up the difference in the federal program which is the $300 per week for a total of six weeks and then we would also look for additional CRS money to be allocated to provide an additional $100 for potentially after four weeks but it really just depends on how much money the legislature at all puts aside for that program okay, thank you so much Wilson, the AP good afternoon everybody I guess this is a question for Secretary French although someone else could weigh in if they'd like with the state ready to move into step three in the education plan what comes next assuming things continue to go well on the virus front and how far can that be taken before there is widespread vaccination which presumably wouldn't be half mid-year, next year or later, how far can it go? Secretary French yeah, thank you as I mentioned we're certainly trying to think about the future of the plan accordingly we're listening very closely to the conversation around the vaccine I think it's important to consider our mitigation strategies as sort of being layers the foundational layer of course is what we've achieved all of our monitors have helped us achieve in terms of having a high suppression of the virus and then the other layers such as wearing a mask and so forth are enacted in our school then to ensure safety we think about the vaccine as being yet another layer in the mitigation strategies and certainly we expect in the school situation to be operating with all these layers for some time the full impact of the vaccines achieved but as I mentioned I think our efforts right now appropriately were one on real things schools that have the next piece of work for us to begin to address the impact of the emergency on student learning and pointing the education system to do that work with an understanding that will probably be in this extended with mitigation strategies for some time so there is no step forward not in our original guidance no we basically crafted two levels if you will of our mitigation strategies as I mentioned we do plan every month but at this point we don't contemplate additional levels or steps okay great thank you very much Erin BT Digger how would you grade your performance at the debate last night I didn't have a debate last night I was on actually in the morning but I haven't watched it I think that's for the general public to decide not me additional thoughts I think it's above the D plus that's what I got from the NEA before but I think it was above that no other thoughts about how the debate went no I think it was I think the questions were expected no other thoughts really I have a question probably for Dr. Levin about this week's Department of Health report which reports that presumably of the recorded COVID-19 cases about 23% have been asymptomatic is that all in line with data that we've seen outside of Vermont and do you believe it to be representative of how many people are asymptomatic of COVID-19 in general thanks for that question it's a great question if you parse out the number it turns out to be obviously a much larger number you're looking at the pediatric population and some of our evidence when we looked at the BIPOC population is that they are sometimes more likely to be symptomatic but I think if you look at it in the grand picture we only know who's symptomatic or not symptomatic if they've been documented as a case and with the growing belief in the propensity of this virus to infect people and the people don't know they're infected because they either don't develop severe symptoms or they have no symptoms I suspect the number of asymptomatic people who have ever had contact with COVID is much higher than the 20% range probably higher than 40% even we just don't know that and it's a challenge if I look at the antibody data we don't believe very many of our monitors have been exposed to the virus at all but when you go to look at antibody data in places that have had a huge experience with the virus the numbers do get higher so I'm not giving you a definitive answer except to say that the number is probably higher than what we've reported it's just we don't have an idea of how many people have had contact with the virus in total does the asymptomatic rate tell you anything about our testing protocols and whether they're potentially reaching asymptomatic people um yeah it does so like you know the the largest percentage of people who are asymptomatic who should test positive would be people who have said they've been in contact with someone with COVID and early on in the pandemic about 10 or more percent would test positive eventually now when we test that population it's really under 5% which sometimes sounds very surprising that people who actually say I was in contact with someone with COVID or who are contact tracers have identified as a contact and say you need to be quarantined because you had the degree of contact with someone with COVID that could put you at risk and then put others at risk turns out to be now 5% or less which to me is a pretty startling number to say the least the only other population we have experience with is those who have traveled and want to try to get a day 7 test to get out of quarantine and again many many of those are able to get out of quarantine but again just because they came from a zone that was redder or yellower than Vermont doesn't mean they themselves were in contact with people who would put them at risk but many of them are successful so it's a really hard number to get a handle on without literally testing everybody in the population at some point in time which you know hasn't happened at this point okay thank you very much Stuart Ledbetter NBC5 Good morning Governor echoing your or amplifying your comments earlier about the legislature and adjournment I mean how involved has the administration been in some of these big bills that are moving this week you seem to be generally okay with the construct of the budget agreement but do we need a use of force policy or anything else that's headed your way that you don't think you can accept well we have concerns Commissioner Scherling has outlined a lot of the concerns we have with the excessive force bill that's heading appears to be heading our way I don't think it's passed completely yet we had a path forward on that as well we'll see where we go I haven't made any decisions on any of the bills going my way as to whether to let them go or not but that was one bill we had concerns about and we'll see what happens in the late stages of any legislative session anything can happen so we'll know a lot more hopefully tonight or tomorrow whenever they adjourn and then make a determination as to what finally passed and what didn't I'm very concerned by the way about the lack of the Act 250 bill being moved forward I'm not sure if that's going to be taken up today or not a lot of work was put into that over the last couple of years and it's unfortunate because we had a lot of different entities working together again over these last two years put a lot of work into this and I think it's essential as we move forward to try and grow this economy that we update Act 250 and just to clarify something you said earlier about Governor Baker and the dust-up President Trump's gone after him this morning calling him a Republican in name only but the New York Times this morning quotes the chair of your Vermont Republican party as saying the President's right to question the integrity of the election that everyone knows the checklists are you know in question is the chair of your party the Vermont party complicit in a disinformation effort well she's obviously entitled to her opinion I've stated mine I believe that we need to have a path forward we need people to vote we have ballots that are being mailed to every Vermont to take advantage of that I think there's been a lot of apathy over the years in the last 20 years I've been part of this political process and sometimes those who complain the most don't always vote and I would say now's your chance there's no excuse for not voting this year you're going to be mailed a ballot and so exercise your right and vote if you don't agree with the direction we're going in right now take advantage of that if you accept and want to continue the way we're going take advantage of that as well this is your opportunity we can 19 years the CDC has been testing well the CDC now tests about 600,000 squads of patients with flu-like symptoms for an average of about 15% positive rate for influenza which the flu shots are made for showing that 85% of people are sick from some other virus and coronaviruses being about 40% and there are 36 known coronaviruses four of them routinely cause 40% of the illnesses year after year three are labeled as pandemic but according to the CDC the flu vaccines reduce the risk by 40-50% when they are well matched to the flu when they're not well matched they have little to no benefit and they report that about 30,000 vaccine injury reports a year which is a capture rate of about 1% of all adverse effects and most of the adverse effects of that 1% are mild but 10-15% include permanent disability hospitalization life-threatening illness or death and and because the vaccine courts according to the prep act the vaccine makers are immune from liability and a plaintiff has to prove willful misconduct and the court cases are held in private aren't there risks associated with flu vaccines? you have me totally confused at this point Steve but I'm going to go way out on the limb and assume this is a question for Dr. Levine I have all my statistics in front of me but you've done a good job with throwing a lot of numbers around and at us I do know even when you're saying the percentage of the adverse events that are more serious you're giving a percent number I do know that in any given flu season that's a very very small number of absolute people having the number of doses of flu vaccine that are administered the reality is that the notion of who's liable how to prosecute that who's immune from litigation etc is way beyond the state of Vermont at this point in time and it's going to be hard for me to comment on any of that the thing I want to comment on the most is that you may have just created a fear in the hearts of many people who actually were thinking they might go get the flu vaccine and I invite them no I understand unanticipated consequence so I just want to make sure that people understand that the percentage of people who have any kind of an adverse reaction to anything is generally very very small and with the flu vaccine in recent years the data does not show that people are being harmed by having gotten the flu vaccine you're correct on the other hand that sometimes they're not always being helped to the degree we want depending on the match of the vaccine to the strains of the virus that are circulating but certainly on a good year we expect around 60% or so to be of an efficacy rate and there was a few years ago a year that just wasn't as good so not as much protection came from that vaccine although still people even if they didn't avoid getting the flu would have had a milder illness from it a quick political question for the governor there were some thrown around earlier the governor there was a report out of the senate recently about Joe Biden's lifelong dealings that have enriched his brothers and his family and specifically his son while he was in office do you have any comment on people enriching their family through their official official titles and stuff like that yeah and I'm assuming you're talking about the US senate not the Vermont senate although they could have as well I'm I'm opposed to it that's great thank you very much Jolie local 22 hey this is a question for secretary french regarding step 3 now that it is reopened capitarias and gyms what's the status of reopening of full buses and transportation services yeah thanks actually when we opened schools we opened a step 2 except for transportation which we did open step 3 so we've been at step 3 for school transportation since the very beginning largely because of the challenges of delivering transportation particularly in our more rural areas of the state so we've been at step 3 for transportation from the very beginning you also mentioned revisions earlier on and I just want to know what's being done to address the misuse of temperature guns they seem to be acceptable technologies but also misuse is that in your revisions plan oh revisions we are going to address some aspects of that relative to the cold temperature so there's been some debate in the scientific community as well about the efficacy of temperature checks I know our scientists still strong in support of their use so our task force will be reconvened and we'll be looking at temperature checks really primarily to function in the cold weather but we'll be reviewing a number of items I'm sure that will affect the use of temperature checks in the coming weeks and just a quick clarification step 3 allowed for to meet but does it also allow travel activities in general I'm not sure if I understand travel activities relative to schools yeah relative to clubs that also travel or is it difficult to take support yeah in the specific connection to sports is about inter-scholastic competitions certainly assumes a certain amount of travel but our overall does speak to the issue of field trips and so forth certainly the you know think twice before holding those types of activities I will say in addition relative to the idea of making revisions to our guidance one of the issues that has come up is a need to express from school districts to get more guidance on the issue of extra critical activity other than sports so I think that's one of the issues we will probably address in the forthcoming revisions alrighty thank you very much Andrew Taledonian record yes good afternoon yes good afternoon I guess to continue with Secretary French Joey just touched on some of it I'm just curious there were other aspects of the guidance that you were thinking were right for review at this point especially anything during the conduct of the school day whether it be spacing or masks or politics things of that nature that would have a direct impact on a classroom experience if you will yeah I don't think so basically just through this process that what we do in the task force which is rather large we bring together the health and science experts also with some practitioners so it's really about bringing those two sides of the equation together and as we've done I think in all our guidance in this day we really put so much to the great deal with this on science piece or to a certain extent based on practice so we're constantly as I mentioned earlier creating SAQ documents that are largely based on the practice standpoint as questions emerge from the very practical implementation of the guidance and we want to get that feedback captured back in the guidance at the same time we put a significant emphasis on the health information so we've accumulated a number of items from the practice standpoint certainly a part of the revision process will be to first understand if there's anything new emerging from a science perspective that should be incorporated in the guidance but I would just say stay tuned once again we plan to do this every month and I expect that we'll publish a revision of the guidance at some point here in October and this might be for Commissioner Levine I thought I had one the other day from elsewhere in the country on people with positive COVID tests knowingly violating quarantine requirements including parents sending kids to school has Vermont experienced anything like that people you know close contacts skipping quarantine or people out and about with known cases that's a great question because there are going to be times where actually not aware of that most of those people aren't going to want it to be public that they are violating their quarantine we're not aware of a lot of poor cooperation however and our contact tracing team you know makes the initial contacts they then utilize the Sarah alert app which is not a tracking app it doesn't tell them that the person is now attending some big function even though they're supposed to quarantine but it does allow communication back and forth as needed and then at the end of it all there can be more communication about resolution of symptoms and feeling fine rather than just having us make the assumption 30 days later that people resolved so you know we're not getting huge reports I assume the way we get these reports would be other members of our society who say aren't you supposed to be in quarantine and you're not and reporting them so to speak and we're just not hearing a lot of that happening and we actually you know when we have a setting we're dealing with if it's a work setting if it's a school setting for instance or a long term care facility or correctional facility we know if those people have actually come back to work as there's their employer and the majority of them to be doing the majority of the time is showing up when they shouldn't show up so we're not getting a lot of notifications that say the opposite so I feel pretty good about that I know the story you were talking about I'd love to say Vermonters are above that but nothing to worry us with yet at the job report from last week I'm sure it has not escaped your notice that what looks like a very favorable headline employment rate for the state is actually based on a very large drop in the number of people in the labor force and that was obviously a problem before COVID do you have any sense of the cause of the current drop is it something that you think we're going to have to take our way out of or do you think people come back to work when more jobs are available first of all Joe I think I feel, we feel the formula is skewed in some respects it doesn't provide the accurate information that we need now it's the same as it always has been but these are unusual times and people answer differently based on this situation so but I do believe two things one, when we finally get through all of this that we are still going to have workforce challenges in the state we still desperately need more people to come live in our state and bring their kids with them and to provide for the workforce because as you remember in the pandemic we had the lowest unemployment rate in the country and we had more jobs than we had people to fill so I expect we'll get back to that and we'll have to face those challenges in the coming year I would also expect that we will see those who are unemployed at this point or have lost their jobs or they've been shut down and the jobs aren't open at this point they will resume and if we can keep particularly the hospitality sector in survival mode then they can thrive afterwards but it's going to take us I think making more investments in the hospitality sector for that to happen but I think we will get back to some sort of normal but we're going to have to provide assistance along the way you said that you thought that the figures were skewed could you elaborate and explain why you think that and how they're skewed I think it's I'll let Commissioner Harrington answer this because he does it more eloquently than I do but it's based on how they receive the information and I believe it's on a survey and how the questions are asked and so might lead some to answer differently then and it's not it's not that they're being dishonest it's just that the way that the question is being portrayed they might answer it different than the actual situation they're in Commissioner Harrington can you give us a brief maybe explanation from your perspective sure and you are correct Governor you know when we're talking about the survey it's actually a national survey conducted by the US Census Bureau it has standard questions that are asked week over week or month over month and they those questions don't change due to the what's happening in the world around them and so what we are running into right now is a definitional issue in terms of what is considered the labor force and what is considered unemployed and so as part of the household survey conducted by the Census Bureau the way they determine the unemployment rate is based on the number of people that they survey and of those people surveyed how many are actively looking for work or have looked for work in the past four weeks and how many of those people would accept work if awkward and we all know that there are a number of mitigating factors right now during COVID that prevent someone from looking for work or being able to accept work but the survey doesn't differentiate in that number and so when we're looking at an unemployment rate if we're basing it solely on those people who are actively looking for work and able to accept work that's how we get the 4.8% but in all actuality we look at the number of people who are still filing for benefit that number is probably more somewhere between 8 and 10% unemployment it's just not in alignment with how the federal government calculates the unemployment rate and so to that effect I wouldn't look at those numbers and simply say that we've lost 15,000 people out of our labor force and because there's a low unemployment rate those people must have gone back to work our labor force I don't think has changed much it's just that we have again a high number of people collecting unemployment and right now whether it's because we're not requiring them to search for work or because they have an underlying COVID qualifying issues that is preventing them from looking for work that's really what's leading to the difference in these numbers so the federal government's attempt to be consistent to the way they ask questions is in this case producing the opposite of what they intend is that what I have to understand correct and I believe this is an issue that many states have brought forth to both the U.S. Department of Labor as well as the Bureau of Labor and the Census Bureau and at this time they've chosen consistency over accuracy and part of that I'm completely sympathetic to because it allows us to look back at historically and when you start changing questions you can't do that however I think we should also take these numbers with somewhat of a grain of salt because I'm not sure they're truly reflective of the current conditions in the state thank you very much yes sir Greg, county courier good afternoon governor I want to have a quick follow-up regarding my concrete question on releasing names of when and if that is lifted will we be going back through releasing the names of those faulted incidents that have previously been held with help? I would assume so Greg we were fine with what we were doing previous to this incident but we wanted to be cautious and take a step back and make sure that we were within the law in doing so so we have if we went back to the way we did things before we would release the names and that would be for the ones that have been withheld in this time period? if it was proven that we were doing things appropriately yes we would release the names okay looking on I heard this morning that the four lets are still in place instead of the restrooms with the state house up in the notch is that COVID related? I'm not I'm not aware to be honest with you I would assume that it's COVID related I would also assume this time of year with foliage starting and again they may have been there all year long I just don't know will they ramp up and bring some of those portable devices in to take care of the traveling public and those who are coming to experience the beauty of Vermont? yes that's why I bring up with foliage starting years of the composting toilets that are there and the state has invested in our close to the public and I'm just curious why that might be and why that is safer alternative than the composting toilets yeah I just don't know I'd be happy to take a look at that and it's probably out of the parks department or maybe it's B-trans I just don't know but we'll get to the bottom of it okay thank you thank you I didn't through the the agency received a significant appropriation almost $2 million to improve standardization at state lands and that included installation of a number of facilities Portalex are far easier to sanitize and maintain than some of our traditional structures that have significant wood surfaces and so we have really prioritized the use of those facilities this region in order to keep up with the CDC recommendations regarding cleaning and sanitizing how often are those sanitized and I'm curious if they're sanitized more often than you know the CDC estimates that this virus lasts on wood for example wood needs to check into that and get back to you it depends on the terms of the contract I know when we issued the contract we specifically thought vendors that would be able to provide basis with the recommended frequency I also know that some of the contractors indicated they weren't able to do that and so we tried to maximize the amount of maintenance that those facilities received but I can't say what those specific units of the smugglers are seeing in terms of maintenance okay I guess I will follow up with you another time on that thank you very much thank you great Tim from Old Business Magazine Hi Governor this is a couple of quick incentives a larger portion about broadband and for Michael Harrington maybe are those $300 those all got out I'm wondering because if people haven't got them are they should not expect them to thank you for the question not all of them have gone out that is because we're doing rolling payments that people certify so a series of checks went out last week and were received this week another series of checks went out this week at this time we're still talking about the first series of three weeks and we've received approval from the federal government for the second three weeks and are simply waiting on the funds to be allocated to us so those will start as well in the coming weeks so it's not necessarily that if someone hasn't received a check yet that they're not going to receive a check if they did certify an agency that they certified after we sent out the first round of checks and so we'll again we're doing rolling payments as people certify that their reason for unemployment is due to COVID all right great thank you and Governor for the moratorium on disconnect I believe I have this right the PUC extended the moratorium until October 15 but I thought that was something that you did through your executive orders um we did the disconnects I mean we did the evictions I'm not sure about the disconnects to be honest with you I can check with our commissioner Commissioner Tierney and find out for sure but I know we did the foreclosures and evictions but I'm not sure if we had any language in terms of disconnects we'll take a look there and get back to you Tim okay and as part of broadband is concerned you know beyond the pressure being put on by this learning elsewhere there's a lot of people at least temporarily looking to move into Vermont or at least get a second one having a better broadband system would enhance that opportunity to take advantage of those people coming here but I know there's been money at least temporarily but if you have a broader broader plan to ban taking advantage of this opportunity yeah in terms of we started with some of that with pre-pandemic some of the community utility departments that were being established we've enhanced those with some of the CARES money but we have to keep in mind as well even if we had more CARES money available at this point we have the December 31st deadline that it has to be utilized and put into place so I believe we've done all we can in terms of broadband under the current guidelines if there was more flexibility that might make a difference I'm going to continue to have my conversations with the Congressional delegation Senator Leahy and Senator Sanders and Congressman Welch and I know we're all on the same page this is something that we knew it was a problem before we knew that it was something that would be economically attractive for many in the state but it was very expensive we're talking hundreds of millions of dollars and we're not alone there are a number of other rural states they're in the same predicament as Vermont and that's why I think there needs to be more of an REA approach to this I think it needs congressional action and I think it needs to be funded throughout the country on this because again this pandemic has highlighted the need and now we just need the resources in order to fulfill the need and so we'll continue to work with them and hopefully instead of the Rural Electrification Act it will be the Rural Broadband Act and we'll be able to assist Vermont in getting into the 21st century that's it, okay thank you very much and we'll be back on Tuesday and we'll have modeling again on Tuesday thank you