 Good morning, everyone. We're going to start today with our modeling and health updates and pick up where we left off on Tuesday and talk about our long-term care facility visiting guidance. So with that, first, we'll go with Commissioner Pichett. Thank you very much, Governor, and good morning, everyone. We'll have our weekly briefing, as always, by starting with an overview of some of the trends on the national scene and the national data, turning then to our regional data closer to home here in the Northeast. Some updates on Vermont-specific items, and then, as always, update our travel map. Again, for those who are watching at home, please feel free to follow along by finding our presentation at dfr.vermont.gov. So starting with our national data and the trends that we're seeing, there is some good news on the national front. Cases do continue to slope down from their peak about four or five weeks ago. We now see cases are averaging on a daily basis, somewhere between 40,000 and 50,000, still a significant number of cases, but that is down from trends that were closer to 50,000 to 60,000 just a few weeks ago. And again, where we stand today is about seven weeks. A low point from the last time we saw cases in this range about seven weeks ago. So again, on the national front, cases are definitely trending in the right direction, but still rather high with about 40,000 to 50,000 new cases on a daily basis. When we turn to the regional data, we certainly see that that drive and that decrease in cases is driven by broad reductions in the south. We see the south has decreased quite substantially from its high of a few weeks ago, while cases in the Midwest, the West, and the Northeast continue to trend pretty steady and considerably lower still than the daily case counts that we're seeing in the southern region of the United States. Turning to the death totals that we're seeing across the country, again, these unfortunately continue to be pretty stubborn and stay relatively high. Death, of course, as we've discussed is a lagging indicator, but we have seen some slight decline in the number of deaths that we have seen recently and just this morning, the CDC again predicted that we will see a dramatic decrease in deaths over the next three weeks. At least that is their hope and everyone's hope as we see cases continue to decline and hopefully deaths will follow that decline as well. Turning now to our regional data, we can see here in the Northeast that news continues to be good. A week over week comparison, our cases are down just under 10%, which is a really good reduction. This is the first time our cases have been at about just over 8,000 cases for the week since early July. So again, a nice continued trend downward. We see that this is the third straight week of cases trending down as well. Cases are primarily decreasing in places like Quebec, places like Massachusetts, and they're remaining relatively steady in places like Rhode Island and Connecticut. And I think we mentioned this last week out of the Northeast. Rhode Island is the only state that we're paying particular attention to given their positivity rates and some of their test results in recent weeks. But otherwise, the region is performing quite well and the trends again are continuing to look good. Turning to the Vermont data, this week we reported 61 new cases. That's up from 39 cases last week. But I wanna again point out that we did have a considerable influx of college students start to arrive. And when you look at our testing numbers, the tests conducted in the last seven days were the greatest number of tests we've conducted since the start of the pandemic. So a pretty dramatic increase in testing, coincides with that increase in cases. And that still means that Vermont as of today has the lowest positivity rate in the country. We continue to have the lowest per capital cases in the country from the start of the pandemic. And we also have the lowest per capita case count in the last seven days compared to the rest of the country. So even though these numbers are up, again, our numbers are quite strong compared nationally. And we see quite a bit of testing happening this week to help explain that increase. Turning ahead now to our restart metrics. These are the four metrics that we are following closely and update on every week. We see on the syndromic surveillance that things continue to be rather steady. That number continues to be rather low, well below our guardrail, well below any cause for concern, which is certainly good news as again, this is an early indicator of individuals potentially turning into a positive case. We look again at our growth metric. And again, the growth metric, even though we saw an increase this week, the growth is still rather stable, relatively low, and nothing of the sort that would give us a concern that growth and trends were increasing significantly. Turning to our positivity rate, again we mentioned we're the lowest positivity rate in the country. Trending at just below 0.5, so very low positivity rate. So even though again, even though cases went up, the number of tests conducted this week also went up quite considerably. Looking at our ICU numbers, we see that we continue to trend close to that 30% buffer. We're over it at the moment, but as we've indicated in the past, since those other indicators are trending in a favorable direction, it's not something that gives us concern at this time. In fact, as it relates to COVID, there's only one individual in the hospital statewide, which is very good news generally. Turning now to an analysis that we conducted this week, taking a look at our region, basically Northern New England, Vermont, New England and Maine. We were particularly interested in following up on that rural versus urban divide that we talked about last week and seeing how that's impacting us in Northern New England. Similarly, you can see for the most populous counties in each of these three states, whether it's Cumberland Hillsboro in New Hampshire or Chittenden for Vermont, you can see that there is a cluster of cases in those counties when you look both from the entire time of the pandemic and for the last two months. But again, when you take a closer look at Vermont, you do see that that concentration in Chittenden County is lower than our peers, both in Maine and New Hampshire, and is also lower than the percent of the population that lives in Chittenden County. So we do believe that we're continuing to see the same phenomenon that is occurring across the rest of the country where cases moving to more rural areas and not necessarily concentrating only in those areas that are most urban. So something that we'll continue to keep an eye on as we go forward, but certainly nothing that gives us a pause for concern at the moment. Turning now to our update on the forecasting. Again, I think we talked about last week how the forecasting showed a slight uptick in cases. And we also indicated that over the next two to three weeks, we're really gonna have to watch this closely because we have a lot of college students coming back and a lot of testing occurring. So this is something we'll continue to watch quite closely, but we do see a continued, very slight projection up in new cases over the next three weeks. But again, as I said, this is something we'll watch closely and nothing that gives a cause for concern at the moment. Turning finally to our travel map update. You'll see here that we have seen some improvement across the travel region. We now have 6.6 million individuals who are eligible to come to Vermont without quarantine travel. That's up from 5.9 million last week, a 700,000 person increase. So that was good to see, certainly. We also see a few things that stand out in the map, particularly rural County and upstate Maine that turned to yellow where they did have an outbreak this week associated with a wedding that didn't follow Maine health guidance protocols. Individuals were inside without masks and it exceeded their capacity limits as well. So again, just a reminder about how infectious the virus can be and how it can impact places that are more rural than urban as we're seeing here in Maine. Across the entire region, you see some mixed improvement and some mixed worsening, but a pretty stable map altogether. And certainly, like I said, a positive news that another 700,000 individuals can come into Vermont without a quarantine, which certainly is a continued favorable trend. So with that, I would like to introduce Dr. Levine. You've seen some of the numbers that Commissioner Pechak just provided. And over the last week, every day is different in terms of numbers, can be as low as three, can be as high as in the low teens. That for now is exactly what we expect to see. Among college students, there have been in the range of a dozen cases so far this month. This is expected as new students are arriving and campuses have increased testing efforts. Although household and social transmission has occurred among the students, there's no ongoing transmission on any campus at this time. At the K to 12 level, we hear and understand the fears expressed by many that with the return of students to school in a couple of weeks, we'll see a spike in cases. But keep in mind, our schools are just a microcosm of our communities and our communities are doing well. As I've said, and as our epidemiologists and the modeling experts expect, we will see new cases of COVID-19 in our schools, just as we continue to see sporadic cases and clusters and even limited outbreaks in our cities and towns. That is if we all keep up the basic everyday practices that have led Vermont to this point today of having the lowest prevalence of COVID of all the states. Preventing the spread of virus is what we've all been working for and that's what we're trying to achieve. Thanks to the sacrifices and the actions of every sector of our state and every person in our state, we are beginning to achieve this. That's why it's imperative that we continue to do all the right things in the two weeks leading up to school opening, so that the schools will indeed be safe. That of course means mask wearing, physical distancing, frequent hand washing and staying home and away from others when you're not feeling well. We can't afford to let down our guard now. And think twice about fitting in a family trip or gathering before school starts. Just consider the risks. Most activities carry some risk and some are riskier than others. Remember that no matter your commitments, if you travel out of state to any county not considered safe, you must quarantine for 14 days or get a test at day seven and wait a few days for results. Yes, the school experience will be different this year but we're gratified at how educators and administrators have been working and planning together with Public Health to make sure each student can get a high quality education this school year, no matter what form it takes in each school and school district. These are challenging times for everyone, especially for parents and educators. I know that all want to get back to normal but as we watch the experience of so many other states and countries around the world, I also know that that day is still in the future. While Vermont is among the states with a low incidence of COVID-19, it wouldn't take that much to lose that distinction. We must continue to take every reasonable precaution to prevent a resurgence of the virus. And while we'll continue to see new cases or clusters or even limited outbreaks in our communities, the public health protocols we've been using over the past many months, testing, contact tracing, interviewing and advising people who have been in close contact with a person who has COVID, they really work and will continue to work to limit the spread of the virus. Now I'd like to turn this over to Secretary Smith. Thank you, Dr. Levine. I just wanted to sort of pick up on a theme that we started last week. There was a news headline that led some to believe that the Agency of Human Services was suspending visitation or not allowing visitation at long-term care facilities. I do want to set the record straight on that and this gives us an opportunity, I think, to review just where we are with visitation at long-term facilities. As I mentioned at the last press conference, we have set in motion an easing of restrictions related to visitation at long-term care facilities tied to the prevalence of the virus in the actual long-term care facility and the community at large and associated with testing. However, we are being vigilant and careful as we ease these restrictions. As you all know throughout this pandemic, Vermonters have sacrificed many aspects of their everyday life in order to keep us all safe. Older Vermonters and their loved ones have been especially impacted. Visitation was suspended in mid-March and allowed to restart on June 19th. Beginning on June 19th, the Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living, and the Vermont Department of Health implemented new guidance that allowed for visitation up to two visitors as long as it was outdoors and socially distanced and face coverings were worn. Starting July 14th, Dale and the Health Department, along with key stakeholders, announced a plan for phase reopening of Vermont's long-term care facilities. In addition to testing standards that are in place, there are other indicators that allow for the movement between phases. There's the first phase, well, phase zero is characterized by there being an outbreak or cases in the facility. That means no visits, no group activities or dining, and no outings except when medically necessary. Most facilities are at the phase one level which is allowed when a facility has gone 14 days with no new cases and there is no substantial community spread as Dr. Levine has just mentioned and as Commissioner Pichek has also mentioned. This allows for outdoor visits for up to two visitors as long as mass and distance is maintained. Phase two can happen when a facility has seen 28 days and no new cases and there is no substantial community spread. Visitors can be outside and increase up to four. Non-essential healthcare and contractors are allowed as well as non-medical necessary medical visits. Some communal dining and group activities are also allowed. Phase three occurs at 42 days with no new cases and no community spread at this phase. Indoor visitors are allowed as well as all of the things that I just talked about in phase two as long as distancing and mass are adhered to. Because of the hard work of all Vermonters to wear a mass socially distance, wash their hands and stay home when they're sick, we've all seen success in keeping the number of new COVID-19 cases low. And the positivity rates regularly the lowest in the nation. As Commissioner Pichek and Dr. Levine had talked about, we are the lowest in the nation in terms of positivity rates. In addition, these precautions have helped move long-term care facilities through the various phases. As of August 20th, we have three nursing home facilities in phase three as well as six assisted living residents and 10 residential care homes all in phase three. But we know that even in phase three, social distancing and mass complicate much needed and wanted reunions and visits between family members and other important people in their lives. Admittedly, the deaths that have occurred across the country in long-term care facilities and even some facilities here in Vermont, fortunately to a much lesser degree than other parts of the country, have had a profound effect and impact, certainly on me. As you are all aware, once the virus enters a long-term care facility, it can spread quickly and have devastating results. At the height of the pandemic, I and others had many sleepless nights but for me, many of those nights awake, we're about making sure we're doing everything possible to protect our seniors who are the most vulnerable to this virus, especially in congregate settings like nursing homes and other long-term care facilities. The frightening part is that cases can ultimately severely, mortally impact literally hundreds of people depending on the size of the facility. It is almost impossible to sleep with that on your mind. Through hard work by many, especially those caregivers at these facilities and with the proper procedures quickly put in place, Vermont has seen only two major outbreaks in long-term care facilities out of the hundreds existing in this state. Over half of our deaths from coronavirus occurred in long-term care settings. And although we are lessening visitation restrictions, we are also cognizant that the virus is still with us and people in long-term care facilities are vulnerable. Just look across the lake, to Lake Champlain, across Lake Champlain to New York where we've had three deaths recently associated with a long-term care facility in Elizabeth Town and 26 people at the facility have tested positive. As many of you know, we are doing an aggressive testing, facility-wide testing program in our nursing homes throughout the state. And this morning it was reported that two long-term care facilities reported two positives just this morning through that facility-wide testing program that we're doing. We're seeking confirmation on those results as I speak right now. With all decisions around what is allowed, we need to think about the risks and whether they outweigh the benefits in any decision that we make. This is especially true when we're talking about vulnerable populations who will have poorer outcomes if they contract the virus. There's a cost associated with risky behavior. COVID-19 in this pandemic has upset all aspects of our life. In those conditions, it is almost harder to see your loved ones and not be able to give them a hug or even a handshake or interact with them in ways that you used to do. For those who have reached out and expressed the profound impact and challenge this has had on your life and interactions with your loved ones, know that we are hearing you. The health department is looking into if it's possible to make small changes to these regulations to have it feel more like what we're used to with just the small amounts of contact, while still keeping facilities and families healthy. At the same time, our focus will continue to be on safety, especially when we are talking about the most vulnerable, but being careful, being compassionate, being vigilant is what we are striving to do for caring for our seniors. I'll now turn it over to the governor. Thank you, Secretary Smith. Switching gears a bit, I'd like to talk about the latest economic recovery proposal we made to the legislature. As you remember, our congressional delegation led by Senator Leahy on the appropriations committee secured 1.25 billion in federal relief funding for Vermont to help us navigate this pandemic. And I want to thank them for their efforts, ongoing efforts, because it's literally been life-saving for our state. At that point, nearly all non-essential business was at a standstill, so we could keep the virus from spreading, preserve hospital capacity, increase our testing program, and build out our tracing system. And while it disrupted our lives in a major way, our quick approach worked. And we avoided the tragic situations that have occurred in other states and gave us time to develop a strategy that allows us to find and contain the virus when it surfaces. Vermont's willingness to stay home, stay safe, allowed us to transition to a work smart, stay safe approach as we carefully reopen all sectors of the economy. However, our successes have come at a huge economic cost for families, communities, and businesses, not to mention nearly 300 million in lost revenue needed for government services. But more simply, our economic engine isn't performing at its full capacity. To be honest, it's primarily because of our stay safe policies, but also because people are more cautious about where and when they travel. Fewer people are visiting Vermont, staying in our hotels, eating in our restaurants, and fewer people are buying goods and services from Vermont businesses, not to mention the border to our north, the Canadian border being closed. We had to back off the throttle on our economic engine in order to slow the spread of the virus. So now we need to focus like a laser on helping these businesses and the jobs they provide survive. So they can thrive in the future as Vermont and the rest of the country work our way out of this pandemic. The way I see it, the two most important things we can do as we respond to this virus is first, make sure we find and contain it whenever there is an outbreak, and second, reduce the short and long-term economic impacts. The reality is we don't have the luxury of waiting until we have a vaccine because employers are making decisions right now about whether to fight to stay open or shutter their doors for good. As a result, it's also left employees wondering what they're going to do. In fact, we have over 40,000 of them on unemployment in that predicament right now. That's why last spring, we proposed using roughly 400 million of the 1.25 billion in federal funding to support employers and jobs. As I said then, we knew it wouldn't be enough. That's how vicious this virus has been to our economy. We appreciate the legislature working with us on the 240 million economic recovery package they approved in June. However, due to the constraints of the programs and the significant need, we've had to turn some applicants away. But now, there's an opportunity and a need to continue this work. The legislature held back about 200 million in this funding with the hope Congress might change the rules to give us more flexibility in how it's spent. However, as you may have heard, that flexibility from Washington has yet to come. And as the rules are currently written, we'll lose the funding if we don't spend it before the end of the year. Additionally, my administration presented a budget this week that's balanced, does not cut essential services, does not use our reserves, and most importantly, does not raise new taxes on firm honors. So based on what we know today and the immediate need we know exists, I'm proposing to use an additional 133 million of the CARES funding to help save businesses and jobs and continue our economic recovery efforts. Secretary Curley is going to go into more detail in a moment, but before I turn it over to her, I just want to make a couple of points, reiterate a couple of points. First, we don't need nor are we allowed to use the remaining CARES funding to backfill the state budget. And secondly, for non-employers, the ones who are the engine of our entire economy will not rebound on their own while we continue to respond to this pandemic. So we need to continue to help them and the jobs they provide is to survive. What we've done thus far has helped a lot, but it's not enough. And we need to do more. So we need to use the money we have left to make additional investments for economic recovery. It's the most important issue for all of us, collectively, to focus on right now. With that, I'll turn it over to Secretary Curley, who's going to join us by video. Secretary Curley. Good morning and thank you, Governor. As the governor said, we have made great progress in supporting Vermonters and Vermont's business since the legislature went on break in late June. Along with our friends at the Department of Taxes, we stood up and launched an economic recovery grant program in a matter of days, delivering much needed financial support to businesses navigating lost revenues during this public health crisis. To date, more than $100 million has been awarded to more than 3,500 businesses in 22 different sectors and in all 14 counties in Vermont. We have tried to be as nimble and flexible as possible in executing these economic recovery grants within the parameters of the legislation that was passed. This week, we expanded the grants to include more businesses and raised the maximum grant award for those businesses from $50,000 to $150,000. We did this in real time to address the needs we were hearing from those on the ground and in the communities all across the state. We were able to expand the program without making changes to legislation, but we've heard from businesses, legislators and community organizations that there remain unintentional gaps and some businesses have not been able to access the financial support they need. And unfortunately, the virus has persisted since the legislature was last in session and mitigation efforts to keep it at bay have remained in place. Vermonters continue to see their businesses struggle and there is so much work left to do as we continue to punch back at the economic threat as virus poses and its lingering effects on our local communities. So we are taking what we've learned and what we've heard in this last couple of months and today we're proposing, as the governor mentioned, $133 million of investment in economic development and business support in four key areas. First, $23 million in additional funding for economic recovery grants to help fill gaps in the original program. This includes expanding funding to sole proprietors and partnerships, certain types of nonprofits, very new businesses and those businesses with less than 50% losses sustained over a three month period. Of the revenue loss figures we have seen so far, the lodging sector is down 97% and food and services down 87% from previous years. These hard hit sectors need more support. So we're proposing $50 million in hospitality and tourism specific grants to bring economic relief and fund recovery solutions as fall and winter approach and capacity and travel restrictions remain in place. We're also proposing $50 million be used to give every Vermont household $150 as part of a buy local campaign to spur economic activity that supports our local businesses while giving all Vermonters enhanced buying power. And finally, $10 million in economic development and tourism marketing funding that will leverage social earned and own media to attract visitors from safe regions for the fall foliage and winter season, increase sales of local products and encourage people to consider relocating to Vermont permanently. We look forward to once again working with the legislature to get these priorities past and bringing continued relief to those that need it just as quickly as possible. Vermonters answered the call to modify their businesses and communities to slow the spread of this virus. We now must ensure they have the tools to survive in the coming months. Thank you. And with that, I'll turn it back over to the governor. Thank you, Secretary Curley. With that, we'll open up to questions. Okay, we're gonna start in the room as always, Calvin. All right, thank you. Governor, as you said, the last economic stimulus package the legislature was watered down quite a bit. How are you going to pitch this one to them seeing as how there's still three months left in a year there may be time in Washington? How are you going to convince legislative leadership to pass this? Yeah, it's difficult. This is very fluid for all of us because we don't know what's going to happen in Washington but we have to deal with reality. And what we're dealing with today is knowing that at the end of the year if we don't spend the money, we have to turn it back in. It takes a while to put these programs into place as well. We see the immediate need and in the long-term need of some of our businesses. So we'll make the case. I think that they'll be sensitive to it. They'll hear from their constituents. It could be a long winter if some of these businesses don't receive the relief that they need today. Because again, we have to think beyond the pandemic, beyond just the next month or two. We have to look six months down the road, one year down the road. And the businesses are the entities that bring us the revenue for our lifeblood in government, how we provide the services that we do without their revenue, without that revenue source. We're going to be challenged in fiscal year 22 as it is right now but we'll be even more challenged if we don't have the businesses in place to provide that. So we'll make our case. I'm hoping they'll be sensitive to it but as well we'll watch to see what Washington does and this could change everything if they gave us more flexibility. Give us a little bit more time and maybe even more resources. And I just wanted to get your thoughts on the new unemployment numbers that came out this morning. It's down to 8.3%. I'm wondering if you expect that to maybe hold steady or like keep going down or maybe if that's holding steady because we haven't opened up the state. Yeah, it's difficult to say. I mean it's good news in some respects because it's been reduced by about a percent but I'm not sure what's going to happen when it gets colder. When some of these businesses, for instance, they are outside dining that we've opened up may not be available in the winter, obviously. So we're going to be continually watching that number and I would say even though the percentage is down to that end of the 8% range, which is good news, unemployment is 100% for those 40,000 who are still without jobs. So we have to watch that and be sensitive to that. That's an incredible number for the state. NBC5, thank you. I wanted to make sure I understood some of the areas with the new grant money coming out, $133 million. Was one of those, sounded like $150 for each per monitor? Was that right? Is that for the local spending or is it with the hopes that it'll be local spending? How will that go? Yeah, I'll let Secretary Curley answer that specifically. But from my standpoint, it's a program that we're trying to develop to make sure that if we provide for these dollars for families that it'll be spent specifically in Vermont and specifically in these areas. So think of it as some sort of a card of some sort that could be utilized for some of these entities and then keep them in business and keep the resources coming in. But I'll let Secretary Curley answer that specifically. Governor, you did a great job with it. You know, really the CRF funds, we're not allowed to make cash payments to Vermonters, but we are allowed to provide a discount card as the governor referred to where it would put the buying power into the hands of Vermonters while ensuring that that money is invested back into local businesses. So this is a way, it's a win-win-win for us to get money in the hands of our local businesses and our communities, but on giving Vermonters the opportunity to choose how they're spending the money. Got it, thank you. And a different question now about, I guess it's County, New York. I think it was the County bordering Vermont who just went to red wondering, have you been in touch with folks in New York to see, is that connected to the nursing home over there or the long-term care facility and to see what parameters are around that outbreak and how much concern is there about the spread of Vermont from that? Yeah, obviously any border issues that we have, counties that border our state were concerned about specifically with the outbreak in Elizabeth town with the long-term care facility, I'm sure it'll impact us in some ways because we'll have to work with them in terms of taking some of the patients and so forth into our hospitals. But I would ask Commissioner Pichek, I don't know what information we utilize for the travel map. Whenever we do see big changes in the County, particularly when they're close to us, we do look into that a little bit more closely and it is primarily tied to that outbreak in Essex County, New York that Commissioner or Secretary Smith spoke about earlier. So that is the reason for that County attorney from green to red so quickly is associated with that outbreak. Thanks. And lastly, we've received a release about Helen Porter in Middlebury but it sounded like there was a second facility that had some positive cases. Do we know which facility that is? Secretary Smith. I said there were two that we were aware of this morning. One was the Helen Porter that you just mentioned. The other one is Wake Robin, a unit. I don't wanna be specific on this. Just a single unit with a single rooms in that unit. There has been a positive reported. My understanding is these are facility-wide testing that has been done at both of these facilities in accordance to our testing protocol with long-term care facilities. We may do some retesting on some of these just to re-confirm, but the other one is Wake Robin. And with both facilities, how much information do we have on how contained it is or how much concern there is at the moment about the possibility of expecting any more positive cases to come? Well, we have done facility-wide testing in both of those. I don't know if all the results are in yet but we'll have a good idea. As Dr. Levine has explained many times and so has Dr. Kelso, the epi-teams are all over this right now. Making calls, trying to find out contact information and trying to make sure that these are contained as we move forward. Thank you. Steve Longchamp, Local 22, Local 44. What's that? Oh, what's that? Katie Jiglin, BT Digger. Thank you. What challenges do you see in terms of state capacity to combat the virus going forward? Like, what do you foresee being the limiting factors whether for testing medical capacity, contact tracing or anything else? You know, I feel pretty good about our capacity at this point in time. Our PPE inventory is steady. Our testing, a number of tests available to us has been staying steady. We continue, I think it was asked this maybe three or four weeks ago how much testing supplies we had left and if we didn't receive any more, we were good for a month or two and that stayed steady. So we're still good for another month or two if they all of a sudden magically stopped tomorrow. But I'm seeing some hope on the horizon in terms of different testing available throughout the country that's being utilized that we will consider. We want to continue to increase our testing capacity in any way we can. Contact tracing if there is an outbreak is a main concern. But again, our epi team has been monitoring that and training people if there is further need. So we're preparing ourselves and I think we've done a pretty good job in that respect. But again, this is a daily struggle. We watch this every single day to be sure with all the pop-up tests that we have, that strategy going out throughout the state has given us the ability to see outbreaks in certain regions and then be able to immediately get on top of that to contact trace to be sure that we can contain it. So, so far so good, our numbers are showing it but I feel good about where we are at this point in time. And as part of a severe question, but have you thought about the way that the pandemic will change the way that we conceptualize and approach public health for the long term? Well, I think it has made us all more aware and certainly, you know, we've had numerous flu seasons over the last decade or two. We've had flu vaccines. We haven't, I don't know what our rate of compliance in terms of vaccine has been, but I would expect that people are paying more attention. They can see the ramifications using good hygiene, washing our hands a lot will benefit not just this pandemic, but the flu seasons in the future. So I think in many different respects, this changes our behavior, just changes the way we look at things and opens up doors with telehealth and so forth that we've had to, we've utilized. I think that that future is bright and we'll be utilizing that more. So obviously, in some respects, it seems like this pandemic started years ago. You know, just the way we've had to deal with it on a daily basis, but really it's just been months since it started. So we are going to realize more and more as time goes on and hopefully learn from this so that we can do things in a more structured, strategic way to prevent this from happening, but also to make sure that we're healthier. Okay, we're gonna move to the phones now. Anything you wanna add? Oh, I'm worried for Norworth there, that's fine. Why don't we have Dr. Levine add anything more? If you'd like to add it, one sec. I'll try not to be verbose, though. So science has taken a hit in recent months, years. So hopefully one thing that comes out of this is a greater appreciation and respect for science, kind of getting back to the way things once were without a regard to science. The other thing is the status of public health in general. I'm not talking one state's effort, but as a nation, the United States has been very different than the rest of the world. Most of the developed nations in the rest of the world routinely contribute something in the teens percent, 12%, 18%, depending on where you are of their health budget, health care budget to prevention and public health. The United States has traditionally been in the low single digits in that category. So one might say you get what you pay for. The problem is not just the current administration, it's been successive administrations over quite a number of years that have continually eroded away the amount of money going to prevention and public health. So I think one of the hopefully intended, as opposed to unintended consequences of surviving a pandemic will be a greater appreciation for all of what I've just said. And more investment, not just an emergency responsiveness and pandemic response, which had been really decimated over a couple of administrations, but really the general concept of prevention and public health and its contribution to the population's health in general. So so many of the initiatives that public health has always talked about traditionally over the years, whether it be maternal child health oriented discussions like home visiting programs for moms and their newborns, after school programs that we've talked about to protect adolescents. And then beyond that, more health promotion and chronic disease prevention activities for the general population, I think there'll be a greater appreciation for all of those things in concert with emergency preparedness so that nations are better prepared to face whatever comes next. Because scientists have been telling us for quite a number of years, this should not be a surprise. This was something that was expected at some point in time. I think we'll see a greater appreciation for all of that. Okay, moving to the box, Joseph Gresser, the Barton Chronicle. Which I have is for Dr. Levine. As much as I hate projections, I was wondering whether the expectation is that once college students have been back in the state for a while, contribution to really increasing COVID cases will decline and things will revert to the current background noise or whether you expect there to be a continued rise in the number of cases as long as the schools are in session. No, thanks for that question. That's a great question. So even now, the rise in cases is fairly minuscule when you think about thousands of college students. Now we do have thousands more still to come in the next week or two. So we'll see, again, lots of tests done and hopefully only a small percentage of those tests be positive. But we know by definition that so many students are coming from areas of the map that do not look as green as Vermont on the map so that there's an expectation that they will be bringing some virus with them. But all of the colleges are biding by quarantine protocols whether a student has a positive test or a negative test. And so once we get through that initial period, the college student population, if you will, should again look like our general community population in Vermont and we'll have an idea of where we're starting from and watch closely as to where we evolved to. So I would not think that the college contribution to our number of cases would be any different than any other part of our population with only one exception and the exception, of course, and this can apply to anyone in our population, not just the college students, is ability to adhere to all of the general guidelines we give everyone every day. And where you've seen college campuses abruptly shutting down around the country, it's often been attributed to the fact that there were too many things going on in the areas of mass gatherings, lack of physical distancing, lack of masking. Not to say that it's always the student's fault, but that certainly has been the party line that's been given at most of the campuses that have shut down. So as long as I think students here adhere to the kind of contract they're being asked to sign and adhere to, if you will, a social contract that all Vermonters have been asked to sign without actually putting their signature on a piece of paper, things should go very well. So we will eagerly watch that, Joe. The new $300 supplement to unemployment benefits, I expect that Vermonts into that is relatively simple but I believe there remain questions about the President's authority to allocate that money and I'm wondering whether the federal funds are actually moving. Joe, we just submitted our application this morning to that. There's been just a handful of states that have successfully been allowed to do this so we're hoping to be amongst them. I don't know about the legality, we'll see, but in the meantime, we're just pushing forward. And so we put in our application. Obviously that's for the 300. I had also included $20 million in CRF funds to be utilized for this, asking the legislature for approval with the Joint Fiscal Committee. They'll be taking that up soon and see whether we add the $100 on to that benefit. But this is going to take a little time because nothing is simple in Washington. So even when we do get approval, which I expect we will, it could take two to three weeks to actually come to fruition. So this is more complicated than it should be, but we're dealing with the situation at hand and until Congress gets together and just extends the program that we're utilizing right now, this other system is just a little bit more complicated and takes a little bit more work so it's going to take a while to set up and get approval for. Pat, WCAX. Hi, my question's for Dr. Levine. I saw that quite a while, a company that made the answering test that reads in Southern Vermont said that their investigation is the false positive, found no issue with the testing facility or the quality of the product used. So they said they believe all of those were true positives and that the state's follow-up PCR tests were potentially wrong. What is your response to the company's findings and what did your department's investigation into those answering test results find? Good morning, Karen. You're correct. For those who haven't read the Kaidel press release, the FDA's investigation didn't find any specific issues with the instruments or how they were used. While we wish we had a more conclusive answer about the whole situation, the health department continues to rely on epidemiological data and that data does not point to an outbreak of COVID-19 in the Manchester area and additional testing of people in that communities surrounding supported that. And events subsequent to that time have not supported any ongoing community transmission of COVID-19 in spite of ongoing testing. I do think the statement by Kaidel regarding the PCR testing was inappropriate and certainly not supported by data gathering that occurred at the level of their own instruments. We continue to talk with the Centers for Disease Control and follow their guidance on how these instruments should be used and we continue to talk with Manchester Medical Center to coordinate any subsequent steps. I do wanna add that the most commonly used test is the PCR test and it is known as a reliable test and I would want people in Vermont to know that if they need to get tested, they should have a high degree of confidence in their results. We also appreciate very much the health teams, the providers and other partners who came together to ensure that the community could access testing and get results when needed. This should give Vermonters confidence that we can respond quickly and effectively moving forward. I know at one point you said that you're pretty confident that the investigation that the Health Department was doing, especially in conjunction with, I believe, the team in Maine that was looking into a similar incident there, we're gonna find out what happened here. What did that investigation find, anything? Yeah, so far the investigation that's been announced has been the FDAs which clearly looked only at the instruments. We're continuing to work with the Centers for Disease Control so it would be premature for me today to really say any more about the epidemiologic part of the investigation until further notice. And you might be able to shed some light on what happened here. I would think within a week we'll have the results of discussions with CDC. I would wanna caution you that shedding some light might not be the end result. There may still not be an ability to totally explain the discordance in the epidemiological data and the testing data. What I'm asking is, should people trust antigen tests? Yeah, I do think that the antigen test has shown itself to be a trustworthy test. We have to be careful to make sure that they're used in the way that the FDA has approved them to be used. And in fact, almost in two coincidental to be true, five days ago the CDC updated its guidance regarding the use of antigen testing. It was very specific about the appropriate populations and timing and things of that sort. So I do want Vermonters to have trust in that testing platform as it is utilized appropriately. Thank you. Thank you. Courtney Adelman, local 22, local 44. My question's also for Dr. Levine. Just a question kind of looking down the road with schools and everything opening. Just wondering how you're feeling about going into flu season and if someone presents who likes symptoms, how should we know if they need a flu test or a COVID test? It's a great question. It would make you want to be sure that you could test for both in a very quick and rapid fashion. And that test I believe has been developed and maybe having the finishing touches on it. Ideally we'd be able to test for three things. Currently we can test for flu and for what's called RSV, which is a respiratory syncytial virus often seen in kids, but as well in adults. And we should be able to test for all three, you would hope at a time when we know all three will be present in the population. So I can't give you a specific date but everyone's eagerly awaiting the opportunity to be able to test for them all concurrently, which will really help. So they are working on something that will test for both? Yes. You know, and it will also be interesting as an aside to see the impact of the unfortunate physical distancing and masking we all have to abide by and that all of our school students and college students are also being asked to abide by. It'll be interesting to see the impact of that on the levels of disease, of these other kinds of more common diseases that we're accustomed to every fall and winter. Because Australia at least reported a fairly reduced flu season this year. And obviously they're opposite to us in their seasons and all of that. Doesn't mean that that necessarily implies that we're in for a very easy season here but we watch that with interest every year. And often the correlation is pretty good. So perhaps some of their decrease in their season had to do with just these measures that prevent people from spreading germs to one another. More people getting a flu shot? We have a huge amount of campaign to unveil, to really work on not only encouraging people to get flu shots but making the flu shots so accessible that they'd have to consciously say, I am not getting a flu shot because, and not use an excuse, I couldn't get in to get one or I couldn't find one or what have you. The flu shot season will probably be a little earlier than usual. Although none of us have received our shipments yet but people are eagerly awaiting. And at the levels of schools, at the levels of healthcare system, at the levels of pharmacies, everyone is gearing up to try to make sure that access to the flu shot will not be an issue. Thank you. Tim McQuiston from Odd Business Magazine. Hi, Dr. Levine before we move on there, I had a question about Kaidel also. So the discrepancy was about 50 positive cases. And basically Kaidel was saying that they were positive and the Vermont Department of Health said they were not. So are you maintaining that? They were still false positive. So Kaidel and the FDA is saying that they believe there was no problem with the instrumentation or how they were used. So those tests will be called positive. That doesn't mean that we can call each positive test a confirmed case by our guidelines in Vermont and in many other states where PCR confirmation is required. And it doesn't resolve the epidemiologic discrepancies but indeed the tests that were positive are positive according to the data that the company and the FDA accumulated. Do I do change the Vermont numbers based on that? Well, some of those are included in the Vermont numbers because they did have PCR confirmation. But you're correct. But there's a large number that did not. What are the, there's 40,000 people on the flight and they might be wondering what jobs are available because there are some jobs available. What are you seeing as positions that seem to be begging at the moment? I appreciate that and would also point people to our jobs report that came out for last month, just this morning. And let me just make sure I'm pulling the right information here for you. Just a second. I think what we are seeing overall is typical upticks in certain industries during this time. We did see an increase in certain sectors. So instance for arts, entertainment, recreation. We saw an increase last month of about 300 jobs. We saw additional jobs in local government and that was up about 1900. And in information services that was up about 200. So I would say overall we are seeing as restrictions, lessons as businesses are able to resume normal operations even at reduced capacity. We are seeing people able to go back to work and certainly as schools reopen in the fall we'll see individuals back to work as well. I think the governor hinted at it earlier in the press conference, we recognize that for the 40,000 or so individuals who are unemployed, they are completely unemployed. And so it is our priority to ensure that those people have the necessary resources and benefits they need to weather this storm. And certainly as the colder months come in that will impact other industries as well. Food service obviously, but also things like construction. So we are acutely aware of that and recognize that this is far from over. But we do offer and have been offering online virtual workforce development and labor force services for re-employment. And I would encourage people to either check out our website or contact one of our local regional offices as we're doing mainly online, virtual services, career fairs, job fairs and hiring events online for individuals looking to, thank you. Mike Donahue, the Allender. Thank you Ethan, I had a couple of questions but just got an email with an interesting question. So a reader in Franklin County wants to know why our teachers and support staff not listed as essential workers in the executive order. Obviously healthcare, emergency responders, banks, news media are listed as essential but quick check, I could not find teachers, whatever. Is this an oversight or are we just missing a notation somewhere? Well, in some respects, Mike, you can answer it a couple different ways but in the beginning as you know we closed the school infrastructure, went to remote learning and so forth. They have continued to be paid all of the teachers and some of the support staff, most of the support staff have been continued to be paid so there hasn't been a gap in that respect so I'm not sure what would be gained if they were called essential workers or not and I'm not sure about our designation in terms of what, again, what our expectations are with essential workers. Is there some irony that Vermont schools are gonna be fully open but in some communities the municipal offices are failing to provide some basic in-person regular government services? I mean, some of these towns, even the city of Barone and all the schools are gonna be opening with students, teachers, staff, but the mayor is yet to fully open Barone and City Hall Hall. Is the state offering any sort of help to these cities and towns unable to get government doors back open and all services fully running? You know, again, we spoke about this a little bit last week when we announced that we wanted state employees to work remotely if possible. We're encouraging all businesses to adhere to that standard, that policy if you can stay home and work from home if possible to provide those services because we want to increase the capacity, lessen the risk amongst all of our population. So I think that, again, municipalities can obviously do what they need to do but they have to answer to their constituents as well. We'll be announcing over the next few days, maybe next week sometime, a plan to open up some motor vehicle in-person stations so that we can take care of our constituents in a better way by a new program that will require a reservation for those in-person negotiations and services. So we may be able to, once we approve ourselves, may be able to offer some of that platform to the municipalities to utilize. They might learn from us when we move forward with that. But again, I think everyone's trying to do the best they can without putting more burden on the system and if that means they can stay at home and work, we encourage them to do so. Yeah, we continue to hear about DMV as being a major problem where people cannot get in there. Yeah, we'll be talking about that next week. There'll be three major facilities that we'll be opening up for some in-person services. Greg, thank you very much for being here. Thank you. Greg, the county courier. Governor, just a quick follow-up on what you just said with Mike, you said maybe three facilities statewide are gonna be opening. I know a lot of residents from Franklin County rely on, or used to rely on the, maybe twice a month DMV in St. Albans, is that not gonna be? I think the first three obviously won't, yeah, we wanna expand upon this, but we are going to, I believe, without getting too far ahead of ourselves. I think I have this right. I think it'll be Montpelier, South Burlington, and Rutland first, and then we'll expand from there. So hopefully we can get all of them open in some capacity with the, you know, improving ourselves in the initial three to somewhat walk before we run. Okay, I had a follow-up for Secretary Smith, but while you're here, Governor, I've been hearing at least anecdotal evidence that there's been some issues with Johnson State College students not following the required quarantines. I'm wondering if you can touch on what you know as the executive of Vermont, as to what's going on with students coming back, and what have you heard as far as students not following quarantine or being punished for doing so? Yeah, I haven't heard about that specifically, but that doesn't surprise me in some ways. I know this is going to be challenging, but it's incumbent upon the universities and colleges themselves to police this, and we've given some flexibility to some of the municipalities. As you heard, Burlington took advantage of this, reduced the size of gatherings, both inside and outside, as well as limited the hours of operations of some of the bars and clubs in Burlington. If Johnson, for instance, sees that there's a problem in the same regard, they can do that as well. But the college and universities have a responsibility to make sure that the guidelines that they propose are followed, and we'll continue to work with them to make sure that happens. At least what I've heard in Johnson is that there are students that may have just shown up from out of state and are not quarantining in 14 days or going out to restaurants, or going to get groceries, going to a local shop. Yeah, again, I have not heard that. In fact, I believe that the VTC students are, their policy are much more rigid than even our own. So they've been doing a great job, but I haven't heard that much about Johnson. Okay, and a quick follow up for Secretary Smith. You were talking about nursing homes earlier. I'm wondering if you mentioned there were, I think if I remember right, three nursing homes and what eight rehab centers that are under monitor. Can you release the names of those? And my other question, which I prepared earlier before you spoke, we've been hearing that there are some facilities in Franklin County that are not allowing residents who are under their 14 day quarantine when they first show up to have any physical correspondence, mail, newspapers, et cetera. And that's been perceived by some families as emotionally abusive. Is that a policy that nursing homes can put in or it's not a policy that the state has asked to have done? The only policy the state has asked for is a quarantine if you're coming into a nursing home a quarantine period of 14 days and then some testing with that. In terms of the restrictions that you just mentioned, those are news to me. Those aren't state guidelines. And I haven't heard of any nursing home that sort of prohibits those sort of, that have imposed those sort of restrictions. I'll certainly look and into the Franklin County area but I have not heard of those. Your other question, we aren't monitoring per se nursing homes. What I said was in order to go from phases you have to do certain things within the nursing homes and within those phases you are granted to go to a different phase. Testing is part of that phase for a nursing home for particular. The time limits to go from phase zero to phase three, phase three is basically the 42 days of no cases, no community spread. At that phase, as I had mentioned, indoor visitors are allowed as well as things that were in phase two, which were considerable as well as distancing and mass are adhered to. What I mentioned with various groups, I said who's in phase three, which is the top phase that we have. And as of August 20th, three nursing facilities are in phase three, six assisted living residents are in phase three and 10 residential care homes are in phase three, which is good by the way. Can you make those homes public so that the public knows who's following or who's completely in the phase three or four and who's not? Yeah, I don't see any reason why not. Thank you, thank you for your time, Secretary. Thank you for your time, Governor. Guy Page. Governor, a couple legislative questions. Yesterday the House Minority Leader Patty McCoy issued a statement opposing the Global Warming Solutions Act because of the lawsuit clause, which you've addressed before, and also the executive policy setting climate council. If the climate council is in the bill that eventually we could do, because would you veto it? Well again, in the letter that we sent to the legislature, we highlighted some of those issues, those two being part of the issues that I have with the legislation. So we see a path forward. We said that there's certain things that we could do to alleviate those concerns, and we're hopeful that they will take us up on our offer to work together, but I don't know anything more than that at this point in time. I don't believe we've received anything formally back from them. Okay, thank you. Also this week, social justice and farm groups came out against S-54 attacks and regulating marijuana bills, because they say it favors white chicken County business owners over rural and minority ownership among other concerns. Are you aware of these concerns? And if the House has said it, do you reconcile the versions of the bill? Would you veto it? Well again, I had my own stipulations in terms of moving forward with this, with the tax and regulate system, which I've been vocal about over the last couple of years, and we'll see whether they address those or not. I haven't heard about the others, but I know that there's a lot of controversial items within the tax and regulate system, and there's a lot of points of view, so we'll see what they do in the next month or how long they're in session. But I would expect regardless that this, if it doesn't pass in September, October, it would be back in January. Sorry, Governor, you're breaking up on my end, but I'll check the transcript on the Facebook. Okay, thank you. Thank you very much. Steve Merrill? Hello, can you hear me? You can. Great, thanks. Quick one for the doctor, and then for the governor, if I may. Dr. Labin, you really peaked my interest when you said that for public health, we get what we pay for, and it might be wise to allocate more funding for public health. Where specifically would you see more public health spending on a state level? Because a quick search of the CDC mistakes and bungling will net you a long litany of problems at the CDC, which has spent billions and billions of dollars. Is, would you like to see more money or resources at the state level, or are you talking federally? So it's obviously a little of both, but clearly at the state level, it's definitely needed. Turns out much of what Congress appropriates to public health goes to the CDC, and then it's funneled through various grant mechanisms to the states. So anytime the CDC budget is at risk, state public health budgets are secondarily at risk. I do wanna emphasize when I was talking about the need for more investment as a country in this, the commonly used arguments, and these are completely valid, are to look at the health outcomes in the United States. Look at the healthcare expenditures in the United States and compare both of those to other developed nations, whether they be in Europe and Asia, anywhere in the world. And you find that the United States, in spite of being the leader in spending, much of that spending being on high technology, but also on the people in the healthcare system and on medications. We are the leader in the spending, but our outcomes don't parallel that. And whether you're looking at life expectancy, maternal outcomes in pregnancies, infant mortality, the list goes on and on and on, the United States should be much higher based on what it spends, but is not. And it's because what it is spending on is on health care and not on health. So the whole issue is really one of, not trading one off for the other, but the proportions need to be readjusted. And focus on health allows the kind of prevention that doesn't lead to the disease outcomes that then look worse than other parts of the world. Okay, what would you like to see for Vermont specifically? Say a larger staff, a larger department, better laboratory facilities? Is there something you could tend to? I'll take all of those, but the bottom line is again the kind of attention to the problems that are public health and health problems that a state can then deal with. So obviously my earlier comments were true that the investment as a nation in public health has ratcheted down over many, many, many years. So indeed health departments like my own from a national perspective have been under-invested in and that causes some costs on the other end when you have something like a pandemic and need to have the appropriate emergency response, et cetera. But it also has costs when it comes down to people acquiring various chronic diseases and costing the health care system so much and wanting to make sure we can intervene on that. So it's far greater than investing in the Vermont Department of Health, for instance, and it's much more in the types of programming that will allow our population to be healthier and really again focusing on things that impact health like how people live day to day in this country, focusing on those social determinants, focusing on poverty, focusing on food insecurity, transportation, that other nations proportionately spend more of their resources on. And then that, of course, then feeds into making sure that the systems are equitable. And if there's one thing the pandemic has demonstrated to us all, just using the data, even Vermont data, but certainly national data, is that this pandemic has disproportionately impacted populations of color. That's one example from a long tradition of those populations being adversely impacted under many circumstances. So it's really paying attention to this very global picture I'm trying to paint for you when I talk about the investment in prevention and public health that some nations appear to be doing a lot better in than the United States does. I will add though that Vermont traditionally has focused on all of this and we have a population who actually wants us to focus on this and adheres to a lot of the guidelines that are going to allow them to invest in their health. And so traditionally we are in those top groupings of states when it comes to what states are healthier than others. So I don't want to understate that. So say like here in the village of North Troy it could be something as simple as like keeping a sidewalk build out. We had some sidewalk build out a while ago but they seem to have ceased now that would allow people to walk safely around the village without being in the road. And it would improve public health so it could be something as simple as more sidewalks. You're speaking like a true public health aficionado and that's why we have actually under another executive order preceded the pandemic from Governor Scott we have a health and all policies task force that really looks across all sectors of government in the state so that public health isn't going to be building the sidewalks but public health is at the same table with ACCD with the Department of Transportation and a whole host of other partners in government and outside of government so that initiative is like you just talked about which is really what we call the built environment building a healthier community which will impact everyone's health can happen. So thanks for those questions. Great, thanks. The Governor. Was that your quick question for the doctor? Yeah. Sorry about that. This one's very brief. In June you signed I think it was ACC 105 or H947 that allowed for local officials to set the budgets and stuff but in the village specifically here we don't have our annual meeting until well after town meeting so we didn't get to have a village meeting or vote on the budget this year and absent a vaccine and if these emergencies continue I mean it could be years I mean if you look at the story of the Dodge brothers say the 1918 flu took the Dodge brothers out you know two years afterwards so I mean are we looking at local officials planning a budget with no public input into like you know a year or two or three? Yeah I certainly would hope not Steve we've become more interactive trying to do things remotely virtually and I think that's going to continue to be enhanced as well which is going to have to find ways to accomplish what we need to do to keep government working which we're again challenged with every day as an administration Legislatures being challenged with that with this session coming up and individual town government has been challenged so we'll work our way through this and certainly with the vaccines that are being worked on as we speak and we hope there'll be some relief over the next six months then we'll see a change but to answer your question in particular I don't know if Secretary French might have any answers to that or Secretary Curley Thank you Governor This is Secretary French It's going to be a concern going to the fall I think we want to talk with the legislature about how best they're able voters to participate in that process Yeah I mean we've got a massive gymnasium here in the school I would think even with a six foot space and you know we should be able we could be able to accommodate you know a village meeting in the gymnasium and you know if there were proper sound equipment or something I think there's something like that might be able to give us a workaround at least Talk to your local select board about that No we will I'm sure Alright thanks Thank you all very much Avery Powell WCAX My question is for Secretary Smith The Department for Children's Families has told us the initial planning pages for the Child Care Hub are going forward including the financial aspects in the location but with kids going back to school in about two and a half weeks when will we hear these decisions Thanks Avery let me give you sort of an update DCF has met with community partners to discuss collaboration efforts and have agreed to a public and private partnership I want to get back to that in just a minute DCF has also designated a project manager they've met internally and with partners to review scope of work required by DCF and community partners and potential sites they've also been identifying areas for quick successes and potential hurdles with various sites zoning, licensing, etc Our community partners have created a survey to gather information from prospective hub sites including location, how many children they could serve, program schedule costs to begin compiling this information in one central location Let me just say to date we have identified community partners who will help lead and coordinate the statewide effort to establish these regional hubs and like I said in last week or this week whenever I announced this this is a private public partnership Vermont after school has agreed to be the lead community partner in this endeavor and let's grow kids is helping provide its expertise and assistance as well we anticipate a press release will be issued soon naming these partner organizations and providing contact information for programs and businesses that are looking to establish a hub site Let me just tell you what some of the initial feedback that we've gotten as we just announced this just days ago the initial response has been largely positive we have strong community organizations to partner with us I've named a few with the state we have numerous inquiries from businesses school districts and other community institutions asking us how they can help stand up care with their regional hubs many of the contacts that we've had include really creative solutions which speaks to Vermont's ability to program solve when faced with a sort of collective challenge I know within hours after we made the announcement I started getting emails about potential sites and have passed them on to DC so I would say stay tuned we're getting ready to do a press release and it's moving forward in what I can see in very fast manner follow up about the hubs and Dr. Latine may be able to chime in about this when you have children coming from different schools potentially all into one place how is that going to help prevent the spread of COVID-19 well let me just say we have we've had child care centers that have been open throughout the pandemic most of those children have been coming from during the height of the pandemic coming from various locations as they open up child care centers probably as diverse as we'll see here as well these hubs will be in regions where we've had good experience with this since June we have opened up our whole child care system and again we have been fairly successful fairly we've been successful in opening up those facilities I give it to Dr. Latine the regional hubs are required to meet all health and safety requirements to ensure the safety of children in their care outside of the regulated system the grant agreements that we put together with these regional hubs will stipulate these requirements and regional hubs will have to follow VDH's health guidelines as related to operating a child care system during COVID they're not going to be exempt from those sort of requirements and as we've seen in our system since the days that we were at the height of the pandemic and never really closed down the child care system and since we sort of reopened after the essential workers program with the child care system after we reopened because we kept the infrastructure in place by the funding of the infrastructure even though there were no children we've been real successful in bringing in children from all over the various locations without instances in terms of having major outbreaks in a facility Dr. Latine you want to you said it all okay thank you for your time Lisa Lumis the Veller reporter good afternoon, thanks for taking my call we understand that health care centers affiliated with the University of Vermont Medical Center including the one in our community are no longer scheduling post-travel COVID tests for the 7th day 7th day for non-symptomatic essential workers who are returning from out-state travel rather than being told to try and schedule as well green or clear choice as well as Porter and Gifford hospitals what is the reason for that change I don't really want to be in the position of speaking for a health care system as a spokesperson for the state but clearly you know they're doing what we're asking for in some sense because we're asking for multiple aspects of the health care system to be partners with the state and trying to achieve the testing that homeowners want to have obviously a health care system has many higher priority tests when it comes to people who are symptomatic people who need to be triaged appropriately within their walls people who might be at higher risk if you will in a vulnerable population so I think that is what you're seeing play out it doesn't mean they don't care about these people and they don't prioritize them as well but they hopefully are counting on other parts of their own health care system like the primary care offices etc to pick up the slack when it comes to that specific audience of people requesting tests that's my interpretation what happened was an essential worker traveled out of the state and tried to call the local health care center to schedule a test for the seventh day this person was not symptomatic and was told that the EVMC medical network is not scheduling tests for such people and this is an essential worker yeah and you're saying the network meaning even a local office as opposed to the hospital the local office could not schedule the test for this person where previously this person had traveled out of the state and the local office had put in an order for the test and then part of EVMC called to schedule that person's test for the site that's behind the Burger King and Berry I don't feel comfortable answering for the entire health network I can only tell you that we're encouraging all layers of the health care network to help us in that kind of testing it's an appropriate test to be scheduled by someone at the level of a primary care office essential worker unable to return to work because a person's doctor will not schedule that test again I can't really comment beyond that okay thank you John Dillon from on to the radio go ahead John hello so the legislature is coming back to the meeting of the senate the other day and they talked about the time frame of their work and it could be they're looking at possibly staying in through the 26th of September and looking at a number of bills as you know including the marijuana tax and regulates Big Act 250 bill level warming bill that Gartage mentioned and I'm wondering if you think the legislature should put all its attention on COVID only issues including your economic recovery plan that you talked about earlier and not this other stuff and just wait until January do you think this should be your message or do you want to deliver a message that they should be sort of focused exclusively on that issue yeah I wouldn't characterize it as focus only on this issue but I would ask them to prioritize the COVID related issues that we're facing that seems to be from my perspective the highest priority so I would ask them to at least the committees of jurisdiction to focus on for instance the economic recovery act but there are other areas that we might need some assistance as well so prioritizing the coronavirus that we're facing would seem to me from a common sense standpoint be an area that should be prioritized but doesn't mean that they can't take up the other issues they're a separate body the third branch of government and they can do what they want and it's not as though they just recessed so it's an ongoing session so they can continue to meet but again they can meet as long as they want from my perspective I just want them to focus and pass the legislation to help the vast majority of our monitors at this point in time especially with economic relief Do you act and regulate being done now because of the potential revenues for the state? Well unless there I don't know again when they would expect to see revenues last I heard it might be a while before reaping any of those benefits and if we could get money rolling in sooner rather than later obviously that would be advantageous but I haven't heard that it would be able to be set up that quickly Yes, yes and primary speak up enforcement is that still a non-starter for you? It's something that I have opposed over my years in the legislature that it's a secondary offense for primary offense from my perspective but we'll see what they work through and then we'll deal with it as it unfolds A quick question from a listener if I could about the grant program for essential workers this person founded the caregiver for a subcontractor of Dale and apparently does not qualify for the essential worker grant he's been working directly with with adults with disabilities and in wheelchairs etc so he's been doing the essential work through the pandemic but apparently is not as a subcontractor available for that grant money Secretary Smith Hey John could you have your listener contact me this is Mike Smith could you have your listener contact me because there are specifics that I need to know in terms of eligibility or non-eligibility I'm just not sure given what you've given me whether this person qualifies or not Okay well done Eric times Argus Yes I'm not sure if this is a question for Dr. Levin or Dr. French Do we have any idea what the testing is going to look like does this they have the capacity if every school is testing students and teachers Let's start with Secretary French Currently our guidance doesn't provide or consider testing all students and teachers you know once again I think too our high degree of suppression of the virus our protocols are really designed based on that assumption so that's currently not in our plan so perhaps Dr. Levin would like to comment further You stated very well Secretary French Obviously that doesn't mean that we'll never be testing in schools that would be on a case-by-case basis if that was appropriate for the particular individual but it's not a criteria for the opening of schools Schools that are going to be doing any kind of math that's in your journey concerned about that straining the capability This is Secretary French I have not heard about schools really bored with that that would have to be done in conjunction with Department of Health but I'm unaware currently of schools on their own embarking on a tested protocol As am I unaware of that Thank you Joel Baird Berlin Pre-Pres Good afternoon Governor I have a question about systemic solutions to not only health care but I guess the economy and any number of things and I'm asking on the behalf of a colleague to ask someone how they're going to vote in the presidential election but since you're a public figure I thought I'd venture to ask if you have decided in the wake of the Democratic Convention if you've decided you're going to cast the vote for Joe Biden Yeah, as you probably have heard over the last few months or maybe last couple of years I've been quite adamant in not supporting the President I won't be voting for President Trump but I have not decided at this point whether to cast the vote for former Vice President Biden but it's something that I would consider I just haven't made that decision at this point May the best man win Thank you Aaron Potanko, PT Digger I have a question about the commentary openings and the data that we're going to see out of them Right now the reporting of the number of students or staff members or faculty members at these universities it would have to be positive because what we're writing seems to be kind of like a patchwork of what university has on the website what's not actually things like that I'd like to know if the state is getting that data on all the colleges and if you plan to publish it on a regular basis for the public to see how the colleges are doing as a whole you know we really will see an increase in cases to college students I'll start to intervene to answer that but I just wanted to assure Vermonters that any confirmed cases are reported on our state website so we do keep track of that but they have to be confirmed in order to be placed in that on the website and that is absolutely true and you're right the colleges are reporting as well on their own websites we have communicated with all the colleges because needless to say they're not all using the same platforms and the same vendors for getting their test results done so most of the time we can get an electronic data feed but not always so we have to ensure that we get those numbers not just the positives but the total number tested as well I'll have to get back to you on can we actually publish them as a sort of aggregated number that will depend on our certainty about knowing that we have all of the results in hand that we need so it's actually a representative number but I can get back to you on that and as a follow-up to that as you said in the past out-of-state visitors from us at such a positive quality from us are generally referred to the state to get into their state number will that remain a true for college students so the college students are basically coming here to participate in their education and stay for semester to semesters what have you so we covered this at a prior conference when they test positive in Vermont they are going to be considered in our numbers there are some colleges that are testing the students not only when they get here but actually before they arrive and using that test to determine if the person gets on the plane or the car or what have you to get to Vermont if that test were positive technically they're still residing in their state and they haven't yet come here to pursue their education so that result would go to the state that they come from so how will we know if there is kind of a a rise in cases due to college students who drew other factors like the reopening of yeah so obviously every case that's a positive case gets immediately interviewed within a 24-hour period by our contact tracing team so that will clearly indicate if it's a college case or not and needless to say the colleges get the result very quickly because they are the ordering clinician if you will so they're usually in contact with us pretty quickly and want to help participate in the contact tracing so either way, we'll have a good handle on cases that are college cases versus not Derek Rauer, 7 days yeah two clarifying questions regarding the quite L statement for Dr. LaBean the first is, did I hear you say that the FDA has indicated to you that it incurs with the company's review? yes can you hear me? yeah, I just gave you a yes or no answer, is that okay? yes, okay, so you have heard from the FDA second is can you expand upon the distinction between the two reviews that sounds like I understood that the FDA and quite L would be coming at the problem from a different angle than the health department and the CDC yeah, so the angle that the FDA and the quite L company are coming at it from is really looking at the test as a diagnostic test and was it appropriately performed? did the site have all the appropriate recommendations in place and guidelines in place to perform the test? was the instrument indeed giving one the result that one can rely on so it was purely focused on the test we as the health department and the CDC are more focusing on epidemiology and how to explain the discordance and what we saw as part of what was going on in the region versus what the test results show and the discordance and the PCR tests and the antigen tests great, thank you well that's the end of the questions thank you very much for tuning in and we'll see you again on Tuesday