 Good morning, everyone. As we are just over a month from the start of the year for students, we know a safe return to school is so important for our kids. We're reading a lot about the difficulty of a return to school, and I get it. But let's not forget about the negative impact on our kids if we don't return. There are many of us who are privileged in some way, those with options moving into the school year. But what I worry about, what keeps me up at night, is those who don't. People working in grocery stores, construction jobs, and others who don't have the time to teach their kids and struggle to pay for childcare. What happens to their kids? What are they doing to keep up? How are they getting the support they need and deserve? And what about the kids from more vulnerable families who's making sure they're learning? Getting fed is staying safe. And as Dr. Bell, the president of the Vermont chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, told us a few weeks ago, and I'm quoting her here, many of our kids are not doing OK. Think about that for just a moment. I truly believe if we don't provide a way to get those kids back to school, we'll see the ramifications for years to come. That's why this is so important to me. While our case trends show we can do it, I'm going to continue to advocate for it. But I acknowledge and understand there's some anxiety among school employees and parents. And appropriately, there are a lot of questions being asked. So we'll be dedicating time each week to give you an update on our work to support schools, teachers, parents, and kids in a safe return this year. It's important to remember we're not always going to have all the answers. And often, there won't be one simple answer because each of our schools and communities are so different. And they're different because that's the independence that Vermonters have demanded. But just like we have in all areas of this crisis, we want to give you the information we have. Take your questions and be upfront with our approach, our data, and what we're seeing across the state. Unlike many states across the country, the conditions of Vermont support a return to in-person instruction because of our low prevalence of COVID and our testing and tracing capability. But having said that, it's still important to recognize that things will be different. And this won't be easy. As we've said before, because of the nature of this virus, and even though we have the lowest number of cases in the nation, we're likely to see some cases and clusters connected to schools. And there will also be false alarms and rumors that spark fear, even if no cases are found. Adjusting to this may be difficult for some. But we want to remind Vermonters that we, as a state, nation, and across the world, know so much more about this virus today than we did in March when we had to shut down schools. And in Vermont, we worked hard to build up a testing and tracing system that can surround and contain clusters and outbreaks before they become widespread. This has been key to our reopening, where we've seen cases connected to worksites and even childcare centers. But they have not resulted in transmission like we saw this spring or other states are seeing today. That's in large part thanks to the majority of Vermonters who followed our health guidance, quarantine when needed, and change their behavior to keep each other safe. But it's also because we have an incredible and proven testing and tracing team that's ready to act quickly to contain clusters. Dr. Kelso, our state epidemiologist, is going to talk to you about this approach to testing and why this containment strategy is a top priority. And we'll be sharing more in the weeks to come because we know faith in our testing and tracing program is key to confidence in school openings. So with that, I'll turn it over to Dr. Kelso. Thank you, Governor. Vermont data and Vermont's pediatric medical community continues to support the safe opening of schools and we'll be ready to reassess that at any point. Some individuals are at higher risk of developing severe illness from COVID-19. Among adults, the risk of severe illness increases with age, with older adults at higher risk. We understand that there's fear and uncertainty. I want to tell you what the health department and agency of education are doing along with schools to prepare. We have three main approaches, decreasing the risk of individuals infected with COVID-19 from entering schools, decreasing transmission among staff and students and quickly identifying individuals with COVID-19 and putting containment procedures in place. And of course, we'll communicate regularly with staff, students, families and communities. School should plan for cases of COVID-19. Administrators will have plans in place to manage infection prevention, communication and education programs should anyone in the school test positive. The health department is actively developing tools to support this planning for when there is a positive case, including communication plans for staff, families and the community. Older adults in the school and those with specific underlying medical conditions should talk to their healthcare provider to assess their risk and determine if they should avoid in-person contact when physical distancing cannot be maintained. Testing asymptomatic people in an environment where there's a high degree of virus suppression isn't the recommended epidemiologic approach or the best strategy for containing clusters. Our experience with childcare indicates that we have an effective approach to identify clusters and contain them without seeing broader community spread. We have had over 300 childcare providers working in childcare for essential workers for the last several months and there have been about five adults working in childcare who tested positive for COVID and all of them acquired COVID outside of the childcare setting. We know the national testing system is strained and we have to use our testing capacity strategically so we can surround and contain cases that arise, limiting outbreaks and spread that leads to increased transmission in the community. Higher education requires a different approach because we're bringing in large numbers of adult students from many from other states where there is a much greater transmission rate than we have in Vermont and then we're mixing those adult students in dormitory and co-living environments. We don't have the same concerns with K through 12 where students have been living in Vermont where the virus activity is low and testing is not prevention. It only tells you whether you have the virus in your nose at the point in time on the day when you are tested so it can be falsely reassuring if a test is positive, is negative. A decision to close a school or a certain classroom for in-person instruction, for example dismissing students for the day or doing remote learning for the day will be made with the superintendent or head of school and the health department. Decisions to close for in-person instruction will be determined on a case by case basis depending on the situation in the school. If the school is cohorting students in a single classroom, for example, our most likely recommendation from the health department will be to close that classroom, just that one classroom for in-person instruction for about a day, 24 hours or so, while we get started with our contact tracing. If students are moving about and in multiple classrooms and mixing with each other more, we might recommend to close all impacted classrooms. Again, just for a day while we do contact tracing. We'll use that time to gather facts about the situation. We'll convene a rapid response team with the school and initiate contact tracing. And based on that information, we'll make further recommendations regarding any further closure for in-person instruction or other infection control prevention measures. We've been building our contact tracing capacity since March and we have a robust team that's ready. We can open schools safely. I've been reassured time and time again with each new case that's been reported that our containment strategies are working. It's mission critical to open schools and we have to try. There may be no safer place to do it than in Vermont. And now I'll turn it over to Secretary French. Thank you, Dr. Kelso. Good morning. Later today, we will be releasing an update to our safe and healthy start guidance for reopening our K-12 schools. I want to thank the Vermont Department of Health for their leadership in this work and the many educators and health experts who continue to participate in this process. When I consider the reopening guidance for schools produced by other states and the guidance produced by the CDC, I would characterize Vermont's health guidance as being fairly comprehensive. With today's update, we are adding to this already comprehensive guidance to include changes based on new health information. We are also introducing changes designed to make the guidance more useful in its implementation based on the feedback we have received from many educators in our school districts who are now engaged in the very difficult work of reopening their schools. I would thought I would take this moment this morning to highlight some of the more significant revisions in our guidance. Firstly, the assumption of the guidance remains the same in that our guidance continues to be based on the assumption of Vermont maintaining a high degree of suppression of the virus. Our initial guidance, when published in mid-June, came to the same conclusion. And this remains a central element behind the logic in our planning. One change I would like to highlight, based on a consensus view that has emerged in the public health field in the last few months, is that our guidance now includes a strong recommendation for in-person instruction for younger students, particularly for those students in grades kindergarten through grade five. I would add to that strong health recommendation that there is also a strong educational rationale for seeking to implement in-person instruction for these students. Since they are at their formative years, in schools play a critical role in their healthy development. Our guidance remains structured around the same three levels, precautions that must be implemented to prevent the virus from entering our schools, precautions that must be implemented to prevent its spread, if it were to be found in the schools, and steps that must be taken to address the needs of students and staff if they become ill during the school day. In terms of preventing the virus from entering our schools, we have made a change to the recommendation on the daily health check process. Previously, it was required to be implemented by school personnel, meaning that school employees would administer the required questionnaire and temperature check to students at the first point of contact with the school system. This has now changed to allow parents or students to complete these questionnaires themselves, and these questionnaires may be completed at the first point of contact with the district or before entering a school building. Student temperature checks will still be completed by school staff, but these two can also be completed at the first point of contact or before entering a school building. There were several reasons for making this change. One reason had to do with the change in the CDC guidance on the significance of symptom checking and temperature checks. Although these remain important screening tools, they do not address the concern necessarily of asymptomatic individuals, or that many of the symptoms of COVID-19 are the exact same symptoms experienced by all people, especially children, during cold or flu season. Another reason for making this change had to do with its practicality. We heard from many districts that it was going to be difficult to implement health checks by school personnel at first point of contact, especially when we consider the first point of contact is often a school bus. We think the revisions we are announcing today provide a more doable approach, while also preserving the utility of these screening measures from a safety perspective. In the revised guidance, we will also be making a change to the distancing recommendation for younger students. Six feet remains the distancing recommendation for older students. An expanding body of scientific evidence continues to support the finding that younger children less than 10 years old are least likely to acquire COVID-19 and least likely to transmit it to others when infected, even in very close contact scenarios. Therefore, the recommendation for distancing of these students has changed from six feet to a range of three to six feet. There are many other changes to the guidance that we believe will make the guidance more useful and informative from an implementation perspective. In terms of implementation, we acknowledge that this guidance needs to remain fairly stable so school districts can count on consistent and specific guidance from the state on these important issues. At the same time, however, I've communicated to school districts that we will undertake a regular review of this guidance at least on a monthly basis to make sure it is based on the latest health information. We will also make regular changes to improve its utility based on the feedback that we receive. Lastly, I would like to highlight that our original version of this guidance included a brief section on the social and emotional well-being of students and staff which are important considerations for the overall health of our schools. I would now like to introduce Deputy Secretary Boucher who's been leading up a task force we created to address these issues in more detail. Thank you, Secretary French. Good morning. I'm pleased to provide a summary of the work that we've been doing to ensure that students and educators, social, emotional and mental health needs are taken care of as we move back to in-person and hybrid instruction this fall. This is a really critical issue that we simply must get right. We know this has been a stressful time for students and school personnel as others have commented already this morning. Due to COVID-19 and its economic and health impact, but also given that many people have been affected by systemic racial injustice as the murder of George Floyd and subsequent state and national attention to racism has underscored. The pandemic and systematic racial injustices, sometimes both, have had a negative impact on adjustment and mental health for at least some families and at least some teachers and staff in our local districts throughout Vermont. We recognize this and we're eager to assist districts in addressing these issues as we all move toward school reentry. For the past several weeks, individuals across a variety of stakeholder groups from education, mental health and related fields have collaborated to draft guidance that will help districts operate from a stance of well-being. In addition to staff from both the Agency of Education and the Department of Mental Health, representatives for classroom teachers, the Vermont NEA, school counselors, special education directors and professionals, principals, superintendents, medical directors, staff from regional mental health agencies and health prevention specialists all work together to hash out the most important key information that schools and districts need to ensure that students are socially, emotionally and physically supported so they can effectively learn and grow in the context of COVID-19. In addition, we focused on what districts need to do to ensure that educators and support staff are so emotionally well, both for their own personal health and in order to effectively educate our students. These were two of the guiding principles that framed our work together. We're putting final touches on the document and anticipate having it out for the public within the week. I want to highlight a few critical points that are included. First, we intentionally focused on both students and educators and by educators I'm speaking about teachers, staff and administrators. The prospect of returning to school has raised concern for many, both families and teachers. The health guidance supports a return to in-person instruction, particularly in Vermont, as we've again heard this morning, but this doesn't mean we ignore the fact that this is an unprecedented and stressful time for many. Whereas some folks can't wait to get back into the classroom, others are understandably feeling anxious about what the new normal entails. We recommend that local systems first take care of the adults, ensuring they are comfortable, safe and aware because without addressing teacher and staff needs, we cannot possibly address student learning. Second, use recommended planning teams already in place, if this makes sense, to address both physical safety and well-being. Local systems, as we know, have been working hard to address the recommended safety principles in the health guidance. We urge them to use the same team-based multidisciplinary approach to address well-being and social-emotional health. Invite in community members, including those who you've been working with all along and any new entities. Think about food banks, youth groups, poverty assistance programs in your region or your community who can help schools wrap supports around families. Be sure you are also planning intentionally to make taking care of oneself an everyday normal part of the school day for both educators and staff, as well as students. Finally, we want schools and districts to adopt a long-range stance when it comes to well-being and mental health. It will certainly be important to fully engage families, communicate with and listen to teachers and staff and provide relevant professional learning opportunities in preparation for school re-entry in a few weeks. However, the nature of well-being also means that we need to sustain our work in this area. What are some of the practices you'll engage in throughout the year to keep employees and students resilient, well-nourished and healthy? Consider incorporating physical movement into each person's day, whether outside or safely within the classroom. Leverage your hard-working school counselors and social workers in new ways. They are eager to assist. Re-teach and re-teach new expectations and routines. And don't forget how powerful humor can be at allaying fear and tension. These are but a few of the suggestions we highlight in the guidance. I'm very grateful for the collaborators on this work. There's quite a list, as you heard earlier in my comments. Without their significant expertise and different perspectives, there is no way we could have come up with the comprehensive practical guide that we've developed. After all, mental health and well-being transcend all aspects of life. We didn't have an easy task before us, working largely without a unified roadmap and across groups that typically work in silos. But the shared principle we all had was a commitment to ensuring that educators and students are well. I'm thrilled that so many were willing to jump in, roll up their sleeves and get the work done, given that they were also dealing with the ongoing planning efforts, many of them for in-person instruction and school re-entry. And I'm confident that the recommendations we crafted will help districts think about and address the well-being and mental health challenges that may arise. Now I'll turn it over to Jay Nichols, Executive Director of the Vermont Principles Association, who will discuss the new sports guidance. Thank you, Deputy Secretary Moushey. I'm pleased to announce that we will have a fall sports season. But as the governor stated last week, fall sports will look different than they have in the past. We, the VPA, proposed a fall sports plan earlier this summer and shared that with members of the administration. This led to the development of a fall sports working group that included superintendents, athletic directors, a representative from the VPA, sports medicine advisory committee, medical professionals, principals, and members of the administration would final approval coming from the Department of Health. Throughout this process, our sports experts deferred to the health experts in the Department of Health on any questions of best practice related to physical safety and mitigation strategies regarding the COVID-19 virus. This is as it should be. We at the VPA are committed to providing high-quality extracurricular activities for students, including sports, and as safe a manner as possible. However, we are not medical professionals and we acknowledge that. Working within the parameters set by the Department of Health and with various stakeholders and medical professionals, we collectively have developed a plan that will allow for all fall sports to occur in some manner or another. Some of the key points from the guidance that I believe is being jointly issued by the Department of Health and Agency of Education are as follows. Schools will be able to begin official fall practices starting on September 8th. This is consistent with the governor's mandated beginning of school announcement. While Vermont schools are in step two, teams will be able to have practices, conditioning activities, and skill development. And they will also be able to scrimmage within their own team or program. However, scrimmages versus other schools are not allowed in step two. When schools move to step three, scrimmages as well as competitions between other schools is permitted. Facial coverings will be required for all players, coaches, officials, staff, and spectators at all times. This includes during active play. The only exception to this is for cross-country running. And there will be some specific guidelines around cross-country looking at staggered starts and other mitigation strategies. We anticipate moving from step two to step three for schools after the first two weeks of school. So hopefully this will mean that schools can engage in inter-scholastic events with other schools by September 21st if all goes well. In terms of spectators, any outside event hosted by a school will have to adhere to the event size restrictions that are currently in place at the state level. Currently that number is 150 for an outside event. The VPA will issue more detailed guidance this week to help schools implement the Fall Sports Program's guidance. Each VPA sanctioned sport has a committee that helps to oversee that sport in Vermont. It's important to remember, each of these committee members are volunteers. They are made up of coaches, athletic directors, officials, others that are involved in that particular sport. As of this press conference, all the Fall Sports Committees are working actively on how best to proceed with their individual sports given the guidance. Because I know there will be questions about certain sports, let me add the following. For volleyball, volleyball teams will be able to hold practices, skill development, and inter-squad scrimmages, but will not be able to have competition versus other schools inside their building. This is consistent with the guidance on healthy reopening of schools. Volleyball programs can, however, have outdoor matches versus other schools if they so choose. Football may hold practice sessions limited to low contact physical conditioning and skill development. Full contact scrimmages and games will not occur during the Fall 2020 season. However, the football committee is developing a plan for a seven-on-seven touch football season for this Fall. Our goal is to make sure as many athletes as possible can participate in their sports. We expect guidance for winter sports to be published by October 15th, 2020. And at this point, I turn the podium back over to Governor Scott. Good day. With that, we'll open up for questions. All right, just for everybody's awareness, it is 11.30 and we do have a long queue today, 23 reporters in the queue. So please keep that in mind with your questions. We'll start in the room with Calvin. All right, thank you. So, Governor, as you know, today's primary day and you're in a contested race. I'm just wondering, first off, why are you holding a press conference today and if you think that's appropriate? Well, from my standpoint, we've been holding them on Tuesdays. And the pandemic comes first. My first responsibility is for the public safety of Vermonters and I think during a pandemic, I believe that Vermonters will understand I've not actively campaigned. I've not actively fundraised. I've not even brought up the campaign during any of these press conferences. I've only reacted to questions that have come out, come about. So I think it's appropriate. If I had held it tomorrow, we'd still be talking probably about the campaign and the primary. So from my standpoint, if we get no questions on the primary, I'm fine with that. We can stick right to the education portion. Certainly. And then the follow-up question either for you or maybe Secretary French. Lots of schools have already pumped money into these very specific plans for six feet apart. So I'm wondering what your message is to districts that maybe have to go back and we look at their plans or as you're saying, we might up review these every month. So that's sort of uncertain. Yeah, it's an important consideration as I mentioned towards the end of my remarks. We at the one hand have to be responsive to changing health information on the other hand, we have to keep an eye on the practical implementations of actually doing the work at the local level. So part of the strategy around communicating that is really, I meet weekly with the superintendents and we sort of telegraph that this change was coming. We have a large number of educators on that committee and they've been sort of messaging that out to their associations. And I think lastly, just we have that additional week or so due to the governor's executive order. So I think there's sufficient time to make those adjustments. I also think they're not necessarily totally disruptive to what's already been put in place or just sort of an embellishment of the current guidance and provides some additional flexibility in some cases. This isn't really a surprise. It shouldn't be a surprise to many of the folks in the field. I think, you know, as Dr. Levine and other health folks have been communicating, this has been a consensus position developed for some time in the medical community. And once again, I think anything we can do to impart some flexibility to our districts and implementing their plans would be welcome at this point. Governor, earlier this week we learned that some students at Norwich University had violated COVID regulations. How concerned are you that this could continue at other universities as students begin to come back to school? Well, I think it's important that the schools and universities and I have great faith in their response to this, but they have to set an example about how we expect this to progress throughout this reopening of the university. So I have not spoken to the university at this point, but I believe that they will handle this appropriately. Steve? Yes, just a quick question from the French on the numbers. Do we have any idea now on the numbers of schools and where they're going? Are they the library or are they, you know, off campus or on campus? No, we don't have numbers. We are starting to collect their plans. And I think what I've observed, there are still several districts that are finalizing those plans this week. Those districts, from my perspective, were involved in sort of lengthier community or deliberative conversations. And they've been working all along at finalizing those plans, but this week there are several boards that are voting on to adopting those plans. But I should have a better handle on those numbers starting next week. I still expect a vast majority of districts to be implementing some form of hybrid instruction. Moving to the phones, we'll start with Greg from the County Courier. Greg, the County Courier. All right, we'll go to Ed at Newport Daily Express. Yes, good morning. My question would be directed to a Dan French. In the governor's opening statements and the statements you followed up with, it's obvious that we're going through times that are very turbulent and we really don't know what the future brings. And therefore, Department of Health and Agency Education are trying to stay flexible along with school administrators. The question I have is I've seen some of the supervising union plans and there is no flexibility for parents. If a parent chooses remote learning, then things change over the course of school here. They don't have the option of putting their children into another program. My question is, why is it reasonable to allow no flexibility for parents to make adjustments to their children's education as they see fit? Yeah, it's a great question. I think, you know, to your observation that we're in for a uncertain fall, and I think by definition that's meant we've had to bake a certain amount of flexibility if you will into our planning. I will say, you know, as I mentioned, there is stability in the conditions of our virus in Vermont and that's an important consideration as we're contemplating changes to our plans. Our plans in Vermont look different than many other states precisely because we have a low rate of contagion. But I think the issue of flexibility and how to resolve those issues is we've, I've made the case that that needs to be a local conversation. And in particular with school boards of the administration, they do have to reconcile parent interest, also the staff availability and a variety of other logistical issues. So it's not quite as simple as giving parents complete choice of their options. Those systems need to be designed essentially from scratch as a result of this emergency and it requires communities to reconcile these sort of disparate points of view if you will. But that's, I think the best approach in Vermont and that's the best we can do as imperfect as that might sound. I think that, that sort of reconciliation of those points of view is best, best occurring at the local level. Thank you very much. Lisa, Associated Press. Yeah, thank you. Governor, you're expected to win the primary. After that, will you be actively campaigning for the November election? Will you be hiring campaign staff or anything like that? I think, well, we'll see. Obviously, we want to get through this qualifying round. We'll see what happens tonight. I'm not sure that it's a lock-in that I win the primary. So I think we'll reflect on that after tonight. Okay, I just have one other question about the, I think for Patsy Kelpo about the pool of the plants. When there isn't, when a student has COVID and then you said they would close the classroom, you mean physically close the classroom so that students and staff would not be in there or do you mean that class would be somehow restricted from other places? And then what about what happens to those other students who were in the classroom, you know, the problem did? Yeah, great questions. Probably similar questions that a lot of parents have right now. We will take each situation as it comes. And the first thing is to get the students probably home for remote learning. Just for a day while we do our contact investigation, talk to the case and the school administrators and find out what kind of contact there's been between the child or adult who has COVID and others, how many close contacts are there and is it appropriate to keep people, you know, maybe at home versus allowing most of them to come back the next day? Just because there's a case of COVID in a classroom does not mean that every other person in that classroom is a close contact. That's why we're doing things like physical distancing and wearing masks and washing our hands to avoid having everyone be in contact with others even if they're in the same room. So, you know, we'll have to see how the cases play out but my impression is that, you know, we may identify a few close contacts for each case and appropriately quarantine those people and the rest can proceed with their instruction as they had been before. Okay, one more question about the younger children. Is social distancing going from six feet to three feet? Why even have distancing at all then if we're going down to three feet? Is this the sort of standard three feet? Yeah, just because we're saying three to six feet for the younger children doesn't mean that they need to be as close as three feet. Ideally, you know, they'll still be able to manage the six foot distance but we're allowing flexibility because the best data that we have shows that for younger children, being three feet apart is enough to prevent the majority of transmission. So we're following the science and if they can, you know, use their plans to keep them six feet apart, that's even better. Okay, thank you. Pete Hirschfeld, VPR. Governor, you said the decision to reopen schools in person learning will almost certainly result in additional cases of COVID-19 in Vermont. In your own personal thinking about this, what's the number of cases that you're willing to accept in order to proceed with this school reopening plan? Yeah, I don't know if there's a threshold for me. That hasn't been something that I've contemplated, but obviously we'll be working as a team as we have throughout this pandemic with Dr. Levine, Dr. Kelso, Secretary of French and others about what it means and whether it's appropriate to continue or to modify that approach. So there's not a set number from my standpoint unless Dr. Levine has one or Dr. Kelso has one but I believe we'll just keep reassessing on a daily basis of what we're seeing in the field. But you are effectively asking teachers to assume some level of risk to their own personal health and safety to serve these students. Yeah, I mean, we're all taking risks during this pandemic. I think that those who are on the front lines, whether they're in the grocery stores or in the restaurants or on the construction sites or childcare providers or those in healthcare are all taking risks every single day. That's part of what we're going through. And unfortunately, we have to do some of the equations. What's best for our kids? And I just want to continue to focus on that. I'm really concerned about those children, those kids that fall between the cracks but there's nobody at home to take care of them properly to help them proceed and get the education they deserve. And this isn't just about putting them on pause because if you put them on pause for a year, let's say, I'm not sure that you can pick up where you left off. I think some of the damage will be done in that year that we'll see in years to come. So I'm incredibly concerned about that provision and that's why I'm committed to doing all we can to get them back into school. Now, again, if we can't do it here, and I heard Governor Cuomo actually say, if New York can't do it, and he announced last week that they were moving to in-person instruction if they were below a certain positivity rate. And he said, I think his remark was that if New York can't do it, nobody can. And I would say that if New York can do it, Vermont certainly can. The Valley Reporter. Good morning. I was questioned from a community member who was immunocompromised with his long-term heart and kidney. And he wants to know what protocols should he follow when his wife returns to classroom four times a week? What will his ongoing, what will they do in terms of math, washing their clothes, taking their tents every day? And his wife will be returning to teach 11 to 13 year olds. And given that he's been told to budget our exposure, how should his family budget their exposure? I'm going to let Dr. Levine or Dr. Kelso answer that. Thank you. That's a very timely question because I've been working with infectious disease physicians at the university and others in the medical society. Just today, we're putting the final touches on some guidance for physicians and other clinicians who are going to be asked exactly these kinds of questions. So it's not really an exposure budget here in this case. It's really assessing a level of risk. Risk can be low, can be moderate, can be high. I don't have a lot of details on your community member. They sound like they could be a person that many of us would regard in a higher risk group if they've had some transplants, if they were on immunomodulating therapies to protect them from rejecting transplants, et cetera. So that's the kind of discussion we actually encourage and want patients and their loved ones to have with their clinicians to assess their level of risk and help in the context of everything understand if being in a classroom setting for that individual might not be the best idea because of the loved one they have at home. So I can't give a black and white answer because obviously everything has got to be very individualized, but those are the kinds of issues that if they come up, people will be discussing with their healthcare providers and coming to the appropriate conclusion. We obviously have the guidance of the Centers for Disease Control regarding a person's own individual risk and their ability to assess it based on whatever kinds of chronic or other conditions, immune suppressing conditions they may have and that can be very useful as well. So again, I'm trying to be a bit more general in my comments regarding that. Obviously we do hear this all the time that people have a loved one at home that they want to protect and wonder if their engagement in their profession or in society in general is a good idea. Still have to emphasize the four fundamentals of guidance that we always give because they will not only protect the person themselves but the loved one that they're concerned about and that of course involves the hand washing and the fact that people need to be masking and appropriately physically distancing because if they can protect themselves that way, that's all they need to do to protect their loved one. Does that pretty much give you the answer you needed? I guess so. Thank you very much. I did get cut off but I just got back on to say thanks. Move to Kat, WCAS. Thursday, talking about how infected children have at least as much of the coronavirus in their noses and throat that infected adults do and some of the children studying that were definitely children within that age range that we now say can get a little closer to each other in classrooms. How do you reconcile some of these studies coming out that talk about children being infected and being able to have this virus when we all start talking about bringing them closer together in close spaces? Dr. Levine? Yes, thanks, Kat. I haven't looked up the definition lately but I think the word reconcile is probably the right word for us to pivot on here because we're trying to balance this information which says that in very recent data there may be a significant carriage of the virus in the nasal secretions that could be infectious theoretically of some kids versus the more abundant and also recent in terms of a pandemic evidence that there has been very little in the way of child to child transmission of virus within like a classroom setting or a school setting and that in fact, as Dr. Kelso repeated with the childcare experience we have in Vermont that the majority of infections seem to come from an adult and then be transmitted to the child as opposed to the other direction. Most of the data that came out in, if we're talking about the same study was in a research letter. There was not a lot of information provided and we don't really know the implications of it because it was mostly a study of what's going on in the secretions of the noses of those individuals that were tested and they looked at children, they looked at who are younger, they looked at older children and they looked at adults and they looked at a concept called the cyclic threshold which had to do with potentially how effective that person could be and they found high cyclic thresholds in the younger children. But again, we need to be able to translate that into what actually happens in the real world with that population and that's the more challenging point. I might also comment that there's been some recent literature looking at the United States experience in this more recent few weeks to month and finding more children impacted by the virus. I would caution everybody to understand that those numbers are coming from, in many cases, states where there's a huge surge in disease activity and where the whole population has had a very high test positivity rate and schools were opened very early, often earlier in the summer than we would traditionally regard as early even in the long terms and those schools were opened at a time of high virus prevalence in the communities. I've always said and I'll continue to say that whether we're looking at our schools or whether we're looking at our colleges or what have you, they are all microcosms of our greater community. So when the adults in these various communities come from the community, their amount of disease is gonna be reflective of what's in the community and if you're doing that in a high surge state, the teachers are a part of a community and the kids are part of a community that has a high prevalence of virus from the get-go. So you might find when you put them all together in a school that that may not go so well versus a very low prevalence community like we have in the state of Vermont where people are not gonna be able to have a high enough rate of infection from the community to make that as much of a concern in the school setting. BT Baker. How many, this is a question for Commissioner Jim Baker on the phone somewhere. I don't believe he's on the phone. Can, would it be appropriate for Secretary Smith? Possibly. Hi, I'm Secretary Smith. Has Corsivic, you know all about Corsivic, my question, so let's see you guys. But I'm wondering if Corsivic has, I know Corsivic is trying to get Corsivic to test all the inmates in the Mississippi prison and I was wondering if they had actually done that. Commissioner Baker, and I'm stepping in for Commissioner Baker today, I'm sorry about that, but the Commissioner Baker has spoken with the CEO. They have agreed that they want to test all inmates within that facility. Right now what Corsivic is doing is contacting the other states to get permission to test their inmates in that other prison. So I will just say stand by, we're waiting on that permission from the other states, but as you probably know, we retested the negative inmates on just the other day and are still waiting for the test results from those. As you know, we test on a regular basis those negative inmates, but we're waiting on Corsivic has agreed to test the inmates. They are testing all their correctional officers now. I think that started yesterday and so we'll wait to see what the other states have to say. So that means that you don't know yet if there are any positive tests of the monomates over in Mississippi? We know exactly right now what the positive rates were last week. We retest on a seven day period those negatives. The positives are the positives. We retest the negatives on a seven day period. We don't have the results back. We've retested the negatives. We don't have the results back yet. And how are those positive inmates doing? How are they health wise? Most are asymptomatic according to the doctor that Dr. Strenio that we sent down there. We have one that spent an overnight, last night in the local hospital. The O2 saturation levels were below what we had expected in there. Primarily that was a precautionary reason to put that in May into the hospital for the overnight. I don't know the status of whether that person has been returned to the correctional facility. But there were two reasons for that. One, concern to make sure that the low O2 saturation rate was addressed. And secondly, the inmate wasn't adhering to the protocol of keeping the O2 device on. So the consensus was put that in May into the hospital so that the O2 levels could be monitored. And secondly, that the O2 device could be kept on. Where about in Rutland at the Marble Valley facility? What has been the results of mass testing of inmates and staff there? Yeah, the other day we did a mass test. I'm losing track of days, but I think it was Friday we did a mass test of the facility in Marble Valley other than the people that we have identified, the six that are coming in that came in from Mississippi and then a seventh inmate that was in the quarantine area. All tests came back negative. We did have a correctional officer who got a separate test not in the mass testing that we did. That has come back positive that, excuse me, that correctional officer was in the quarantine area where that is something that I'm looking at right now just came in just moments ago. All right. Sorry, just a couple more questions from the Governor's side. Governor, you said last week that teachers are being given the choice about whether to teach remotely or in person. But I'm not sure, in my case, helping the press conference, whether that's still the case? Well, I think the school districts are determining that and working with the teachers and so forth. So they're making decisions on a local basis. So it's just not something that the state is going to get involved in? Secretary French, anything to add? I would, we've given the guidance and the districts are making the decisions on their own. The schools themselves, school districts, are making those individually. Thank you, that should do it. Austin Burlington Free Press. Hi there. I'm eager to follow up on the sports guidance, which could involve several people. And the first question I have has to do with math. And I'm curious why, how you guys came to the decision of all sports, except for cross country, when soccer and field hockey players quite often run as much or more than a cross country runner would in competition? I think I'll try and answer part of that. We came to the conclusion that mass for everyone was appropriate. We just had mandatory mass for all Vermonters. We're having mass in school. And we feel that having the sports, if we're going to continue down that path, that sports should be included as well. I think it has a lot to do with the close contact in soccer, for instance. You don't get that on a cross country run. You do get that on a field, where there's multiple players in contact with one another. I will say some of the gator type mass, I went out myself because I wasn't sure how that would work. So I decided to experiment and went out on a 25 mile bike ride, which I haven't done much this year at all. And so I'm a little bit out of shape, but I picked a route that had some hills and tried to keep the effort up. And I was able to do it without any problem at all. And it was amazing how well you could breathe with the gator type neck type of approach I'm asking. So that's, from my perspective, that's what happened, I would ask Jay. Probably Dr. Levine in the last piece. Dr. Levine, anyone else? Yeah, I think it's the close contact. Yeah. Nobody wants to talk with you. Okay, so what? Wow. You don't get that very much problem. It's not consensus in the room. Governor, this is Secretary Moore. I could maybe office a little bit of additional comment, which is very much to the point that, to the extent there are opportunities to reduce contact and promote physical distancing, those are certainly the preference. And so there are also, as Jay described, modifications being looked or sought for cross-country needs. And that includes things like staggered start times. And there simply aren't those options keeping you to be able to play field-based sports. And that's the reason for masking in many sports, but not in cross-country running, where that distance can be achieved through an alternative need. Okay, and to follow up on it, just on that, given that golf is a false sport, does that mean golfers are going to be included in the MAPS mandate? And if so, does that mean casual golfers must play in a MAPS at some point going forward when this is enacted for high school athletics? So there is work being done in parallel on updating the recreational sports guidance. The guidance that was originally issued back in June was fairly limited, and the guidance that will come out in the next couple of weeks is more expansive. And then again, it's going to focus on those same key messages to the extent that anyone participating in an athletic activity is unable to maintain six feet of physical distance at all times, they should be wearing a mask. And the last thing about the MAPS, just since Friday, we've heard from some folks concerned about seeing headlines or information about health risks trying to play, for example, soccer in a mask. I was curious what information or data or expertise perhaps Dr. Levine could offer to assuage or counter those concerns. I did see that there was a physician, I believe that did a 22 mile or maybe even a marathon with a mask on to prove the point that it could be done. But Dr. Levine. Yeah, I am not aware of any substance of literature that actually counters the use of masks because it could be harmful. So I don't think there's really a lot of support for that. But again, like everything in a pandemic where a population has never masked before, I'm sure this will get more and more studied. But I want to reiterate what Secretary Moore said, because it really is just reiterating what the mandate says. So the outdoor use of masks is advised clearly, especially at times you cannot physically distance. So so many of the competitive sports we're talking about in the outdoor setting, even though they are outdoors, which is wonderful and protective by itself, one cannot effectively physically distance. I would say that a golfer standing at the tee is probably pretty physically distanced from a lot of people and should have their mask with them that may not need to wear it every moment that they're on the golf course. Curious about, have to do with football and what factors into the decision to go for seven on seven versus 11 on 11 football? That's a good question, Austin. A lot of it comes down to blocking and players being really close to each other, respiratory droplets on each other, breathing on each other. When a player's tackled, there's a whole group of people that are together. Dr. Raskin and Dr. Lee, who are two of the prominent epidemiologists folks for pediatric medicine in state, were part of this committee. And as we discussed that, it became very clear that football was problematic. And you can see that as you look across the nation with many schools already deciding not to have football, many leagues already canceling football, primarily because of those concerns. So by going to a seven on seven type of method, we can get all the kids playing, but also ensure some level of physical distancing with their mask where we can have them play football in a safe way. That's essentially what it comes down to. What was the Barton Chronicle? This is for Dr. Levine. I'm curious as to whether given the amount of experience people have with this new virus, if there's any new information about how it works and are there new treatment modalities that are proving to be more effective? It appears even though the number of people who have been affected in the surging states appear to be younger, that the death rate is declining somewhat. Just curious whether that is just good luck or something more than that? Sure, so when you use the term how it works, I'm gonna interpret that as asking what it's doing when it reaches your body and how it gets in and does any damage. And most of that, there's a lot of research going on around a certain receptor in our cells called the angiotensive converting enzyme receptor. And that has raised all kinds of issues regarding certain drugs used to treat high blood pressure, which actually impact that receptor. But so far, most of those studies haven't shown that either being on those drugs or not being on those drugs has an impact on how the course of the illness goes, though people aren't being recommended to be on those drugs that inhibit that receptor necessarily. But getting down to the actual treatments. So for the person who's got a cold with the virus or who has a mild enough illness that they're just staying at home isolated, there's not a lot of advances in treatment for that particular person. But for the person who's sick enough to be in the hospital and whose oxygen levels are suffering because of that, there's a lot that's gone on with our knowledge about how to provide oxygen to those people, how to provide it in a non-invasive way, if you will, meaning using ventilation mechanisms that don't involve being on an actual ventilator, but a more non-invasive approach where you don't have to have a tube down into your lungs to get the oxygen. So the whole intensive care management of these patients has markedly changed since March. With regard to drugs, Vermont and other states continues to get a steady supply of remdesivir, which is an antiviral drug, and it is effective in reducing the severity and duration of the symptoms of the illness. There's also been great work done with a steroid called dexamethasone, which has been very effective, again, in people ill enough to be in the hospital setting. And then lastly, on a little bit more experimental basis but showing great promise in being used actively here in Vermont, actually, is a drug used to treat the immune system in people who have diseases like rheumatoid arthritis and other rheumatic diseases. It's an immunomodulating drug, if you will, that seems to be somewhat effective in managing the course of COVID. So those are sort of the hottest things that are going on right now that I can tell you about, short of the, of course, major work going on on vaccine development. Star six on mute again if you have any follow-ups. Just give you a second. To Courtney at local 22. I have a question for Secretary Flange. You said you would be checking on school districts every month and I'm just curious how that will work, how you'll be doing it and how you'll be making sure you know school districts are following those guidelines, health guidelines and social and emotional guidelines. Yeah, thank you. Our data collection isn't focused on the health guidance. It's more on instructional opportunities our students are being provided. So we're anticipating, we're still designing the data collection but we specifically wanna know how many students at each grade level are in in-person, remote learning or hybrid disposition but we're still in the process of designing that but our goal really is to focus on issues of equity and quality for instructional opportunities. Will that be kind of like a survey thing that you'll be sending to each school district? Yeah, we have decided, we believe on the survey being the best methodology to do that but once again, we're still designing which data we're gonna collect. We know there's a lot of different interests in that data. We wanna make sure it's eminently doable for the school districts as well but we're still in the process of finalizing that but our goal is to identify the patterns of equity and opportunity. Will you be doing anything to monitor health guidelines or just kind of giving up schools to make sure they're doing it? Yeah, we intentionally decided not to take more of a monitoring approach on the health guidance just to do the complexity of the issues involved. We're working directly with districts on that topic so we have some surveillance of that but we'll reconsider our approach as time goes on but right now, districts we have, as I think it was alluded to earlier, K-12 is a much more structured and regulated environment. Our regulations and guidance have the force of regulation and licensed educators are required to follow those directions so we have a very good oversight sort of chain of command if you will of that implementation. Okay, thank you. Mike Donoghue, the Islander. Thank you for back to us. Governor, I guess we overlooked one issue last week at the late at birthday and did you get a few minutes to celebrate? No, not really. That's not my favorite day of the year anyhow. Thankfully, they only come once a year. Pick Mazen and bring over a fresh fake pot or anything like that. No, no, no special treatment. He did call and sing me happy birthday though. And working on French. With all the health issues and positive COVID tests and sports, we're seeing across the nation with professional sports and colleges and universities pulling the plug on sports either for the fall or even through December 31st. Why look quick for high school sports? And how much of this is a carrot to try to ensure students remain in school? Thanks, Mike. I hear questions like that always fall back initially on the idea that we're talking about Vermont, right? So as much as we look at national data, whether it be on reopening schools or sports or so forth, I think it's important again to just acknowledge that we design our guidance based on a realistic assessment of our conditions. So that's the first thing. We feel fairly confident that we can have sports based on the conditions that we have. But second to our other points about social emotional development of students, sports play a critical role. Particularly, I would argue probably more so now as a result of this emergency. And we really worked hard to make sure we could have a path forward for our students to be able, our student athletes to be able to participate in these activities that are so essential not only to their school experience but also to their own emotional and physical wellbeing. A lot of kids stay in school because of sports. So you're saying that there was an extra effort to try to make sure sports were available to these students? We put a lot of effort on ensuring that we could offer activities in the sports area. I mean, it was essential from our perspective, based on once again on our analysis of the public health conditions that we could do it if we could come up with the right mitigation strategies. But there certainly was a priority on us endeavoring to do this largely out of our concern for student wellbeing. Part of the BPA. Ready? Hi, Mike, I'd like the record to show that I've known you for 40 something years, you never worry about my birthday. I will hear. Okay, so first of all, we agree with everything that Secretary of French just said. You know how my feelings on it, and I can share it publicly, we really feel that sports is an extension, sports in all extracurricular activities are an extension of the school day. One of the things that I'm most proud of in Vermont is that we've always focused on the whole person. And sports teach many attributes that we want kids to have. And in Vermont, as the governor has talked about, and we've talked about previously, we have very low infection rates. If we're gonna ask kids to come back to school in person, which to as much as we can, I think we should, we also wanna make those extracurricular activities available for them. There's no place in a better position to do it than our state. We've got mitigation strategies in place that we believe are safe. And we think the mental health ramifications of not having sports is more of a worry than actually providing sports. Does that answer your question? Okay. Yeah, great. Thank you very much. Thank you. Oh, thank you. And happy birthday. Just wanna go back, Mike, again to the positivity rate and why we're unique in so many different ways when we're talking about comparisons to other states. And I'll just go back to New York because I believe I have this right and it's always dangerous when I go by memory. But I believe that New York, Governor Cuomo had said you can go back and open up schools if you have less than a 5% positivity rate. As a reminder to everyone, we have a 0.04%. 4 tenths of 1% is our positivity rate. Probably the lowest in the country. We're always consistently on the lowest. And I think we are the lowest. So put that into perspective. And when you compare that to other states that are up around 10 and 20%. So we're different. And if again, I'll say it again. If we can't do it, I don't believe anyone can. Business Magazine? Hi, Governor. I'm glad to hear you're older than I am again. That gives me some comfort. I was wondering if you had a reaction to the president's executive orders. And in particular, the book would be an extra $100. The state would have to pony up a week for unemployment insurance. It sounded like a few weeks ago that would not be feasible for the state to put any more money into that. Yeah, we're assessing that as we speak, Tim. Obviously, we want something to continue. I'm very concerned about those who are unemployed at this point in time. We have over 40,000 when you include the PUA with that. I think they need some extra assistance to have the $600 extra money cease as of last week. I think it's problematic. And it doesn't appear that Congress is moving as quick as they should be in terms of coming to some agreement. So the president took a step forward by executive order. I know there's a lot of controversy as whether it's legal or not legal. We are going to assess that. And if it's okay to do, we're trying to find a path to doing so. As well with the extra $100, it's my understanding that you could utilize just 300 and include some of the payment in the unemployment benefit itself as the $100. But if you added the $100, it could come out of your CARES Act money. So we're assessing that as we speak and want to implement that just as quick as we possibly can, just as a stopgap measure until Congress takes action. That extra $100. Absolutely, yeah. Yeah, I mean, go from 600 to 400, I think would be reasonable. The other question, maybe Jay could answer this question just occurred to me. What about the, are the non-sport ECs, are those being left up to the school districts? I'm just not sure about that. I'll let Jay answer that. I just want to go back, Tim. When I had mentioned before, the Vermont could not carry the extra money for unemployment. I was talking about the $600. We certainly could not do that. The $100 would cost us somewhere in the, if I'm doing the math right, somewhere in the $4 to $5 million a week range. And if we could use CARES Act money for the next couple of two to three weeks to give Congress more time and maybe they would reimburse us as well. So that's what we're looking at at this point. Jay? Thanks for that question. The safe and healthy schools guidance that Secretary French talked about, this newest version being coming out has a little bit of information on that. And we will be providing some information to schools and some supports in that area for things like choral singing, drama productions, those type of events. Again, the key will be that they'll have to be able to follow the guidance that's in the healthy schools document. And we will work with schools to try to do that. We're also gonna be working with Dr. Lee and Dr. Araska to provide frequently asked questions so that principals and teachers can get answers in real time to their particular circumstances. So at this time, that's the best I can answer that. Thank you. Andrew, Caledonia record? Yes, good afternoon, Governor. Thank you for taking these questions. Can you comment on the apparent contradiction to your administration's announcement on Thursday that state employees should continue to work remotely through the end of the year to help prevent spread of the virus and accommodate state employees, family needs, while pressing schools to put teachers and staff back in classrooms and school building? Well, again, I'm going to ask Secretary Young to comment as well, but from my standpoint, this is just an extension of what we're doing today to allow for more capacity, to allow for more flexibility if they can. We encourage any sector to work remotely right now until we can get through this pandemic. We are poised to do that here in the state of Vermont, so it takes away some of the risks for others and allows for those who can work at home and can provide for childcare at home. It takes some of the pressure off from the childcare system, for instance. So I think we all have to do what we can as a team, so to speak, as a state to allow for others who can't don't have that option to take advantage of childcare opportunities, for instance. As well, I just think that, again, as we look at school district to school district, we're seeing some who have a hybrid approach, some who've gone to remote learning opportunities and some who have gone to in-person instruction, so it's not across the board. It's individual to the school districts themselves. Secretary Young, do you want to comment any further on the state employees? Thank you, Governor. Pretty much covered the ground work there. Yes, we have a number of state employees who are reportedly and actually very productive working from home with the announcement of the school openings in the last week and as the governor pointed out, it varies from district to district and sometimes it varies within a family, depending on the age of their children and what programs they're in. It was our attempt to help them out in over the next five to six months with some certainty that we would not be calling them back into the work site on a regular 40-hour schedule. So we're providing flexibility to these families and to our other state workers who have other challenges presented by the pandemic through the end of the year, as long as they can remain productive and tell the work from their home or other work, or our other site. And Secretary Young, sorry, just going back to Andrew's question, could you just make clear here, this is for folks who can work remotely. We have frontline staff who are required to be on site, and have been required to be on site and have been working on site as their job requires since the start of this pandemic, correct? Correct, absolutely. We really have not stopped working for the most part. Employees who have to be on the work site and provide critical services, especially those who are institutions who are working hard on the emergency response to the pandemic have been at work. Those who could tell work and had a job that was conducive to that, they all left the offices at the end of March and have been telecommuting pretty successfully since then. So this applies to those who can telecommute. And it's not a safety concern. It's about convenience for the staff who are able to work remotely. That's right, it does help us keep our volume down within stay offices so that those who have to be here can socially distance and maintain the requirements that we put in place for the work site. So it does help with that. And, but primarily the purpose was to provide certain safety to these employees. I guess I was interested in what you would say to teachers who aren't necessarily getting that same level of accommodation and flexibility with what's being asked of them. But if I could move on to a quick question for Secretary French. Do you have a sense on if schools are adequately staffed for the year? I really have a frame of reference, but I see on school spring, there are hundreds of positions including teachers that are posted in the state of Vermont. I'm just curious if anyone knows exactly what and what's being heard from schools, whether they have enough staff. Yeah, thanks. I don't have insight into the school spring numbers per se, but I know part of the rationale for deploying the hybrid option locally is to give districts some flexibility and to give their staff some flexibility on how to respond to the emergency, meaning that there might be some staff that could work from home or in a remote environment over other staff and so forth. So I think it's an important consideration and I think this is one of the areas that districts in our state vary from district to district considerably. As you can imagine, the demographics of staff vary greatly, some staff as a whole are older in some districts rather than others or might have other health concerns and so forth. So we don't know yet. I think we'll start to get a better picture as districts finalize their plans. In many cases, those districts that came out earlier with their plans are still revising those plans. And as I mentioned previously, some are just finalizing them this week. I think then that the next prompt from that is really to then start having those questions with your staff about who's gonna be available or not. So we'll know, I think certainly here in a couple of weeks as to to what extent that's a real issue for districts. Is it late in the game to be wondering whether you have enough staff with less than a month ago before schools open? Yeah, I don't know. It's hard to sort of quarterback those kinds of questions. I think we came out rather early as a state with our health guidance for schools. And as I mentioned today, we did a revision that we sort of telegraph the folks was coming, and certainly with the governor's executive order added on an additional week for that planning. But I think that's certainly part of the cause of the anxiety today as we're getting down to the last final weeks of doing those preparations. But I think we've done everything we can and we'll continue to do what we can to support our districts in this challenging work. I don't want to take as much more time, but just to the point of clarity on masks during sports. Does that apply now to summer, I'm thinking little league, summer skills, camps, things like that? Should both kids, if they're within six feet of each other, be wearing that? Secretary Moore, are you still on? She's been heading up the sports for our cabinet. I am governor. So the recreational sports guidance still being revised. So we can currently anticipate, obviously actually encouraging that now, but requiring it effective September 8th, when all high school based. I think we might have lost you, Julie. Can you hear me now, Governor? We can. Okay. I just said that while certainly encouraging masks used across all sports currently, the requirement for masking in recreational sports will kick in on September 8th, consistent with the start of school day 12 sports. Thanks, everyone. Bye, Paige. And I went to the Fort Estone restaurant and very on Saturday night. Normally a very packed night there. Only three other parties were there. It just seems not, not very sustainable. And we were wondering since most of the deaths from COVID-19 are in Student County, most of the college students are coming back to Student County. The interstate maps are already registered by County. What would you think about a two-tier system with stricter regulations for Student County and left elsewhere? And if not, why not? Well, I would just offer a guy if you were in a restaurant that's usually packed and there were only three parties there that would tell me that they're not even at 50% capacity. So I'm not sure that increasing the capacity would help them. I think there are a lot of people who are cautious and I would include myself, for instance. I'm not sure that I'm excited about going out in a social way and going to a restaurant at this point. I think a lot of folks are apprehensive about this. So we'll have to watch this. I'm very concerned about the hospitality sector, restaurants in particular. And I think that we have provided for some means of financial assistance for them. We're currently going through that right now and establishing grants for that purpose and we'll continue to do so until we get through this. Okay, thank you. This is a question for Commissioner Smith. Volunteer church groups are hoping to return to holding safe church services inside Vermont state prisons. They say it's an inmate's religious right, just as the general public is allowed to go to church as long as they are following the CDC guidelines. Has your team in human services and corrections, have you discussed this and what can these volunteer groups expect? Secretary Smith. Thank you, Guy, for the question. I think a lot of things right now are on the table. Let me just say we are very, very cautious about who comes into the correctional facilities at this point. We have learned through this process that the infection, that the virus comes in from the outside and whether it comes in through somebody that's being booked into our facility or it comes in through visitors to our facilities. As you know, we've been very cautious about making sure that those avenues are closed off. So it continues to be closed off until we can get a handle on our facilities. And as you know, we've been very, very successful here in Vermont in terms of keeping the virus out of our facilities with the various protocols that we have in place that includes limitations on visitation. To be honest, Guy, I don't see those changing anytime soon, but nonetheless, we'll make the changes as quickly as we can. Thank you. Steve, N-K-T-V. Hello, can you hear me? I can. Thanks. A quick one for the doctor and one for Julie Moore, if I may. Doctor, when I'd asked you about the test for the coronavirus and their seven types, and you mentioned the cross-reactivity of an assay in the specific facility, could you tell me what you know or the percentage of COVID-19 tests that are 100% and what's the error rate and the accuracy for the most common test? Are you talking the PCR test versus the antigen test or any specific type? I vote the one that goes to the lab, I believe. Yeah, so the PCR test, the most commonly used test. So I wish I could give you a hard and fast number. The FDA has literally put out tens of emergency use authorizations for PCR tests, some of them going to the lab, as you described, some of them point of care tests, and I'm not sure they could even help us with all of them at this point in time and tell us which ones have as good a specificity as you're talking or not. I will say that generally speaking, if I could do that, the specificity of those tests is relatively high and sometimes it's the sensitivity that varies a bit. So the specificity, as you know, means that if we get a positive result, we can count on it being a true positive and it's not a false positive. But I would say as a blanket statement, there is no test we do in healthcare that has 100% sensitivity, 100% specificity. That doesn't exist, so it's never going to be perfect. And when you put all of these tests together, you'll come out with pretty high specificity, but I'm not sure of an exact number just because literally this has been so fast moving with so many tests approved, not always with a lot of data behind them. Most of the tests, if you read, if you will, the package insert will talk about the assays they did to get the test authorized and it will show that every case that had known virus and it was picked up accurately by these tests. But that's not the same as what is it really going to do in clinical use and when you do the test on a lot more specimens than are required to just get it authorized. So I'm beating around the bush a little only because that's being transparent, that's all I can do. All right, thanks, I appreciate it. Julie, last time we spoke, you suggested that I go out and maybe take some pictures and send them along about where there's no buffer zones and where there are a runoff from the cornfields up here. And I'm sure you know that for the past 15 years I've pointed out where these point sources are and I even showed the folks from AA and FNM where 15 feet of riverbank had been removed, where there are old river crossings that drain these continuous cornfields using chemical fertilizers, they drain right into the river. With all the folks you have at your disposal at the A&R and the DEC and the AA FNM, couldn't you have some state employees like come out and walk the rivers or streams up here, say November, and maybe take a look for yourselves. Sure, so the Agriculture Agency does have a team of inspectors, they divide up their work based on the size of the farm operations, whether it's large, medium, or small. Large farms are inspected every year, medium farms I believe once every three years and small farms once every seven years. The small farm requirement in particular is still one that's relatively new to all of us. And in fact, I had a conversation with Secretary Pettis about that work this morning and how it's proceeding. And they're still in the process of making their first rounds of those inspections, but my understanding is part of the work they do when they are on site is to do some targeted visits to fields locations as well. Part of the challenge is that there's over 400,000 acres to the best of my knowledge in active agriculture, either in annual crops, hay or pasture at this point. And so it's simply not possible to view every square foot of those fields, but I know that they have a thorough and targeted approach and frankly in the thoughtful ones that they're working their way through. To the extent we receive complaints and can do some targeted investigation work, which is why I encourage you to share photos or addresses for we're happy to follow up, but otherwise it is this methodical approach that the agencies are deploying to identify problems and ultimately implement solutions. You know, it doesn't seem to be so much the farms themselves that a lot of this is, you know, rented bottom land along the rivers and it's continuous corn year after year and it's just gushing right into the rivers, but I'd be more than happy to send some addresses or locations along. Please do. Yeah, great. All right, thank you all very much. Avery, WCAX? Hello, my question is about all works. Has there been any indication of how many students would be interested now with these guidelines that they're really interested in playing sports with the math guidelines or something like that? Fairly new in terms of the announcement and the guidelines and I think it would be hard to assess, but I'll ask Jay if he wants to comment. Thanks for your question. I think that is one that we're gonna have to see. We know we have roughly around 10,000 students that participate in sports at the high school level and I think many of those kids are waiting to get on the field. I've talked to my own grandson who's a soccer player and obviously he doesn't wanna wear a mask, but he would rather wear a mask and play than not be able to play. And I think that's where most kids are gonna fall. They're gonna have the opportunity to be physically active. They're gonna be doing it in a way that hopefully will assure that parents understand that we're taking safety seriously and again, they'll get the opportunity to play, which is better than what a lot of places are having and better than what we faced in the spring. And are you confident you'll be having a player to field team? Absolutely. And finally, just a quick follow up on wearing the mask. Has there gonna be any guidance on what type of mask that are gonna be required to actually describe a ranking of some of the masks than the garter one that the governor mentioned brings below it even to be worse with releasing of particles? So I'm wondering if there can be any sort of restrictions on that? We don't have any guidance on what types of masks will be worn at this time. We just know that any mask, any type of cloth mask is better than no mask at all in terms of transmitting the disease. I don't know if anybody else wants to comment on that. I would also say that the gator type of mask, we have to be realistic here. We are asking them to utilize them while they're playing and going through some effort and some activity. So as Jay had said, I think having some mask is better than no mask. And I believe that this is the right approach as we move forward. Thank you. Eric, time's up. Yes, this question is for Secretary French. We've been hearing nationally that there may be efforts of protest or strikes from teachers who don't want to go back in the classroom. Last week, Superintendent Bonesdale said that she had spent much of her day discussing with her staff about the concerns they have about coming back to school. Does the state hear anything similar about teachers maybe not showing up? And is there any kind of plan in place? There is a lot of teachers who don't show up to work. We haven't heard of that kind of mass interest. I know Superintendent Bonesdale's been particularly vocal about the childcare concerns, which are concerns that we share as well. And I think in her case, and particularly if I remember correctly, she perhaps to the proximity to Interstate 89 has a number of staff who work in different districts in which they live. So there's a, with the mismatch of schedules, there's emerging childcare issues. And I think that's true across the entire state. We had childcare issues prior to the emergency, but this has certainly been exacerbated by the emergency itself. And it's one we've prioritized to work on. So is it fair to say if a bunch of teachers don't show up September 8th, that schools will just shut down? Well, I think staff availability is a key, a key logistical concern for school district to maintain operations. That's why, you know, once again, why we thought in particular it was important to put the hybrid option on the table for districts to help navigate some of those types of issues. I think it would have been problematic to insist on fully in-person. And certainly I don't think the public health conditions weren't insisting on remote learning 100% either. So I think it's, you know, it's a challenging dynamic. But once again, I think it underscores why districts need to have those conversations for their parents and their staff to resolve these issues as best they can. Collins, seven days. China, I wanted to follow up on something back that will be in February. I think it was in response to a question about a specific case where someone has some certain health issues when they're left alone working at school. I guess I'm just curious as to what teachers should do, I guess, when they're being advised to not work in a school building, whether because of their own health or one of their left ones, yet schools are refusing to allow them to work remotely. I mean, is that happening? Are there any cases you're aware of? Is this being involved at all? This is Secretary French. We're not necessarily getting involved on specific HR issues and that's ultimately what this becomes. Our guidance does speak to a list of personnel that should consult with their primary care providers firstly, because I think that's where that risk assessment needs to occur. And that risk assessment's based on, you know, not only an assessment of their condition but also a work environment that might be such that it would require or be difficult to maintain social distancing. So that kind of conversation begins with the individual's primary care provider and then certainly working with their district's HR department to resolve and to come up with some accommodations. And what if they're on a accommodation? What if that's not, I mean, how do you know if that's happening? Are you hearing from any teachers who are saying that they're struggling to get their school to accommodate their needs? Yeah, I mean, we just would fall back on the typical HR laws and regulations that are available in Parenting Leave Act and so forth that covers family illness and personal illness. So some mechanisms there and I know those conversations are going on but once again, it's not something we would necessarily from the agency of education standpoint get involved in those sort of local HR decisions. And speaking of, let me just expand on that a little more as to why, I understand this is why you're saying this is a local decision but to be fair, I think the state is getting involved and has been involved since the time that we began and what was traditionally in previous years we considered local decisions and why not get involved in a case like that where teachers feel like they're not safe but it seems like a message to them is what's with your school district? Why is that the sort of post versus trying to handle it on a statewide level? I think the HR issues in particular are rather easy to explain in that regard because the bottom line is the agency of education doesn't really have any statutory or regulatory authority over these issues. A lot of these issues come down to employment of law, collective bargaining law and so forth. It's just we just don't have the authority to become involved in this kind of issue. And lastly, Governor, totally different topics but I'm curious if you had mentioned that the state would be willing to put up the $100 necessary for the president executive order. I mean, have you heard anything last couple days? Do you have any idea of how realistic it is that this actually happened and I guess are you advocating for it to happen? Well, we're assessing the situation right now. We're just contemplating what the steps are that they get there and if we can do it, we wanna do it, we wanna move forward. So we're taking every step possible. Obviously we'll have to talk with the legislature about using some of the care funds to supplement the extra $100 on top and we'll work jointly with them. But we'd like to do this as soon as possible if there's a path forward. And is your understanding of the state would need to set up some type of new system to administer this money or would this be something that would be able to be put out through the existing unemployment insurance systems? And if the state does have to set up a new system, how confident are you given the recent challenges that the state would be able to do that on a quick basis to get this money out? Yeah, we're trying to assess that right now but it's my understanding that we can do it through the existing system. If we had to build a new system, that would definitely be problematic and that would slow the process down and may not be workable for at least the immediate future. So we're again assessing this as we speak. Hopefully we'll come to some conclusion where we can move forward or that Congress acts quickly. As they've done at times in the past, it's surprising how quickly they can move when need be. And so hopefully that they'll come to some conclusion we can just continue with the process that we're experiencing at this point in time. Thank you. Pam Davis? Can you hear me? We can. This is a question for Dr. Levine. Dr. Levine, you and the other kids on your team have really nailed the virus in the first phase sort of the spring and the early spring and late spring. What I'm curious about what you're getting, you seem to be getting a second surge now not of cases but of variables. And my question, it kind of occurred while questioned but I'm curious whether you may having to make all of these judgments and I'm wondering whether it makes sense to begin to use to develop, make sense to develop a some kind of epidemiological set of curves that can't so that you can follow and get more rigor into the way that you're going to manage going forward. For example, I understand that the kindergarten kids that in Edmond's elementary school, I got to go to school two days out of five. And other kids that go on, there are all kinds of other patterns out there. At the same time as that's happening, you're getting much more speculation in your field, medical field about the differential effect on various cohorts of people so that young kids grade into guidance who say two or three may be very, very different from what happens with adolescents, say in junior high or early high school. And so you're going to have to figure that out and everything that I hear sounds like that you know that those variables are all out there and that they're tricky, okay? I just wonder whether it would be possible to develop some kind of epidemiological function so that you could get curves that would provide guidance. So those, the epidemiological curves in the early stages of the COVID seems to me to have been very valuable and to help you. But that wasn't the whole thing in any way but it was valuable in your ability to deal with the thing first. Is that a crazy idea? Nothing you ever say is crazy here. So let's take a step back. The step back would be what we do at this conference every Friday which is look at the kind of metrics that we're always looking at and making sure that we don't approach what Commissioner Pichak calls those guard rails. So looking at the syndromic surveillance data across the state, looking at the test positivity across the state, hospital utilization, numbers of new cases, percent increase in new cases, et cetera. So we always start with that baseline whether that's, you know, because who knows what's impacting that at any point in time. Is it the schools reopening? Is it the college students returning? Is it travelers coming for the summer or for the fall or what? So we need to keep our eye on that consistently. What you're now talking about is looking at the traditional epi curve, as you called it, which really tries to map out new cases and give you a visual over time comparing your total number of cases, your numbers of new cases, your percent increase in cases. And then you can try to theorize or hypothesize based on what's going on. Wow, was that caused by the sudden increase in our college student population because all of the colleges have started to return and is that what these cases are related to or not? Is it related to September 8th has now occurred and we have students coming back to school? So it shouldn't be too challenging for us to be able to look at the cases in that context and we'll also be able to actually look at the cases themselves because obviously every night when we post new cases we have an idea of what their age is, their sex is, where in the state they're located. So we get valuable information that way. So I think we'll be able to continue to do things the way you're describing, looking on a week by week basis at what is actually happening around us and how is that impacting? The big difference comparing now to March is that in March all we could do was look at it and feel a bit helpless because we didn't have appropriate PPE, we didn't have appropriate testing capacity, no one did. Now we are so well equipped in all of those areas that we can look at that data and say fine, can we contain this potential cluster? Can we contain these numbers of cases in our effective testing and contact tracing strategy? And that will be the world of difference compared to before. Dr. Kelsos, did that cover that well enough? Okay, did that cover that well enough for you, Ann? Yeah, yeah, basically the only thing I would just add, Dr. Levine, is that I understand that, but if you have to, if you have to put the thing into, using trying to find another metaphor for the governor's or to turn him to spitting it, if you have to turn it back, it's gonna be hellacious difficult to do that. If you start to have to decide backing down and start closing stuff again, it would help, I think, politically to have some mathematical rigor behind that to the extent that it's possible. The only other thing I would say is it's very common in model, and basically that's what the epidemiologic occurs through the model, and they can tell you things. It's very common for models to be succeeded by other models that have to break things down into smaller pieces. So I say, this is a curve ball, Dr. Levine, I just, so I'm, you and the team have as good credentials in the country to tell you about it, to deal with that. I just think it would be quite interesting to have that curve. Anyway, thank you. Oh, thank you, and believe me, we will have our eyes on the ball every second. My name's Alec. I'm from the Burlington Free Press. I wanted to thank you all for having this press conference. I have a question if we go back to the unemployment benefit from the executive order. I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit more about Vermont's ability to afford the extra $100. Yeah, again, we're trying to assess what that means. We believe that we could use some of the CARES money that the Congress had forwarded to us. And we do have some of that ability left. We do have money left in the CARES fund. So that could be utilized. And it's really about a stop gap measure. As I said before, back of the napkin, I'm thinking it's $4 to $5 million a week. And so that would give time for us to get to a point where Congress takes action. My goal is to make sure that people are left somewhat financially secured. We have over 40,000 people still on unemployment in the PUA. And so it's important to me that they have that security as Congress makes its way through a decision and some of what they're trying to come to conclusion on with the White House. Great, thank you. And if I could ask one more question. So I know that you spoke a little bit about going and looking at the plan, and that you're still assessing the plans of various universities within the state. But I was thinking that those plans seems like there's a little bit of a conflict in between how much authority universities have on off-campus students. I'm wondering if you, I don't know if you've thought about this at all, but if you have any opinions on that, because I know that they have a lot of authority over on-campus students and an outbreak within the campus community. But if outbreaks start to happen because of off-campus students, how much the university is responsible for those students? Again, I might point you in the direction of the university itself. I know UVM, for instance, has a contract with their students and whether, how strong that is, I'm not sure, from a legal standpoint. But I'm very concerned about the off-campus activities. So we're still trying to contemplate that. We're working on a possible solution. You might hear more about that on Friday, as a matter of fact. Okay, thank you so much. Yep, that's it. Thank you very much for tuning in. I want to thank everyone, Jay and others for coming today. And we'll look forward to seeing you on Friday.