 Good morning, everyone. As I announced on Friday, we're changing the order of our press conference presentations. Today, Commissioner Pichek will present our latest data and modeling, as well as our travel map. And we'll continue to do so every Tuesday. And we'll move our regular education updates to Fridays. However, Secretary French will be making an announcement today regarding the many questions we've received about moving schools from step two to step three. Our goal in presenting the modeling earlier in the week is to help make it easier for travelers to plan so they can follow the travel and quarantine policy. And our lodging facilities will have more time to help them do so. As a reminder, lodging facilities are now able to rent all rooms. But again, all of the safety protocols and requirements will remain in place. This will increase the number of rooms rented, but does not change capacity in gathering areas like dining or event space. I also want to be clear about the bar seating change because I've seen some misinformation out there. This change did not increase capacity at bars and restaurants. Bar and restaurant capacity remains at 50%, which has been the limit since June 26, about three months ago. This change was simply to allow seating at the bar counter. And they still will have to comply with the 50% capacity and all other safety measures within the guidance as well. The reaction to last week's announcements and what I expect we'll hear after Secretary French's announcement today is similar to what we've experienced throughout this pandemic. Some feel we're moving way too fast, and others believe we're moving way too slow. I get it. We've all been living with so much uncertainty since March. Everything about our lives have been turned upside down. And as we await for a vaccine, we don't know how long we're going to be in this position. And all of this, plus the alarming trends we've seen in other parts of the country and the detrimental impact on our economy, creates fear. Fear about your health and the health of your family. Fear about your job and how you put food on the table. Fear about whether you can afford to keep your business open. Fear about whether your kids are falling behind. And if they'll ever catch up. I understand all that, but please no. We keep these concerns in mind every day and with every decision. This is why I put such an emphasis on the data, the science, and most importantly, the expertise of the teams at health, education, emergency management, and others. Because there are no easy answers. Every decision we make, whether it's to move forward, to stay where we are has ripple effects somewhere else. And we think about the ramifications at every turn. For example, when we take a step forward, we frequently hear from the other side. Well, if it's safe to do X, why isn't it safe to do Y? And from the other side, we hear if it's not safe to do Y, how is it safe to do X? The fact is, we know enough about managing this disease where most activities with safety measures in place would be safe if they were done in a vacuum. But that's not reality. We don't live in a vacuum. Everything is intertwined with something else. And we have to look at the big picture. This is why we've taken a methodical approach. One quarter turn at a time. So we can open the spigot a little, see what happens, then open it a little more. And this strategy has worked. We've leave the country in so many ways when it comes to suppressing this virus. So this is the approach we're going to continue to take. And we'll continue getting up here twice a week and answering your questions. So you understand what we're doing and why we're doing it this way. Now, I know this is hard. And I know many are tired of dealing with this pandemic, especially with so much going on in the world. But if we stick together, if we continue to pull in the same direction against a common enemy, which in this case is the virus, we'll get through this and we'll be stronger for it. So with that, I'll now turn it over to Secretary French for an education announcement. Thank you, Governor. Good morning. I wanted to follow up on my comments from last week regarding a change in step levels for our health guidance in schools. Our guidance includes two levels of mitigation strategies that schools need to follow to ensure their safe operations. Step two is the more stringent level. Step three, on the other hand, still requires the stringent measures, but under step three, schools have additional flexibility on how to implement them. We opened our schools under step two to give schools the opportunity to practice the implementation of the more strict requirements. But we also anticipated moving to step three towards the end of September. Our decision in determining the step levels for schools is based on a consideration of two variables. First variable is the overall health conditions for the virus in Vermont. In spite of the few cases we have seen in schools, the conditions remain very positive. The cases we have seen in schools were the results of the virus essentially being brought to school. To date, we have not seen transmission of the virus in schools. The other variable for our decision making is an assessment of to what extent schools are being able to implement our required health guidance. We measure this subjectively through anecdotal observation based on our frequent, if not daily conversations with principals and superintendents. We also measure compliance with the health guidance more objectively by looking at the health data, which as I mentioned previously, is remains positive in spite of the small number of cases we have seen in schools so far. Based on our review of these considerations, we are announcing all schools will be placed on step three effective September 26th, which is this Saturday. We decide to make the transition date on a Saturday since the change in step level is also connected to our sports guidance. Moving to step three will permit the start of intercholastic competitions this weekend. We wanted to give our student athletes an extra weekend for what has already been a shortened season. This is particularly important for our students participating in activities that have short seasons to begin with, such as bass fishing and golf. In terms of school operations, step three should not be viewed as relaxing the necessary mitigation strategy schools need to follow. All of the basic mitigation strategies, such as staying at home when you're sick, completing the daily health check, wearing a facial covering, social distancing, and washing your hands in a remain in place and must be followed. Under step three, schools may consider the use of common areas such as gyms and cafeterias. Under step two, these communal spaces were not allowed to be utilized for their normal purposes. Under step three, schools may consider using these spaces again for their intended purposes, but with smaller student group sizes, staggering the use of the space, and ensuring cleaning and disinfection between uses. Under step three, schools also have greater flexibility in grouping students during the day. Under step two, schools are required to keep the same groups of students together whenever feasible, what we call the POD model. Under step three, schools have more flexibility in grouping students. POD configurations remain an important consideration, but strict adherence to this model is not required under step three. This will provide additional flexibility for grouping students by academic subject, which is a very important consideration, particularly for high schools. In summary, we'll be placing all schools on step three effective this Saturday, September 26th. The change in step level does not change to what extent a district may offer in-person instruction or not. That decision remains a decision for the local school district. We know, however, that in-person instruction is very important for the healthy development and academic success of our students, particularly for our youngest students. So we believe it is critical to continue to work towards more in-person instruction while the conditions are optimal to do so. Moving to step three will give schools additional flexibility to provide more in-person instruction. That being said, we will continue to closely monitor the health conditions and the ability of our schools to implement the required health guidance, and we will not hesitate to move back to step two to ensure the safety of our students and staff. On behalf of our students and schools, I'd like to thank all Vermonters for their support over the last several months. Vermon has the best conditions in the country based on your willingness to work together and to do what is best to keep us all safe. Your attention in following our guidance has allowed us to open our schools safely, but we cannot let our guard down now. If we wanna keep schools open and do what is best for our kids, we have to continue to work together. Thank you again for your support. Now I'll turn it over to Dr. Levine. Good morning. I'll make the health update and cases updated a bit abbreviated as Commissioner Pichak will be going in a greater detail this morning. But as of today, we are at 1,721 cases, having recorded only 15 cases in the past four days. While our nation prepares to record its tragic 200,000th death, probably today, Vermont remains at 58 deaths, with none recorded in 56 days. As you've heard from Secretary French, as of this morning, we've had a small number of cases reported at a total of three schools in Vermont since the start of the school year. Most recent reported over the weekend involving Williamstown Middle and High School. Our contact tracing team has reached close contacts. Everyone has received the guidance and any instructions for quarantining as appropriate. At the last few press conferences, I've been talking about how we expect an increase in cases as schools reopen, and we start to spend more time indoors as the weather cools off. The good news is that as of today, two weeks in, we have seen no COVID-19 transmission within K to 12 schools. Among the current cases associated with the three schools, none of the people who tested positive got the virus due to being in school. Based on our investigations, all had been exposed prior to classes beginning. Even if they were potentially infectious for a day in school, adherence to physical distancing and masking guidance have been and remain critical strategies for students and staff to continue to adhere to. Vermont's experience stands out against what is unfortunately happening in many other states as they reopen their schools. One important reason for our success thus far is that our school administrators, teachers and staff have been literally moving mountains to create safe and healthy learning environments for our children and workplaces for their staff. The health department, together with the agency of education and others throughout state government, have been closely working with superintendents, principals and school nurses to support that work. All are full partners in preparing for and responding swiftly when we find virus spreading in a school. You'll notice I said when and not if we find the virus spreading in a school. COVID-19 is highly contagious. That's why wearing masks and physical distancing are so important to preventing a single child or adult from spreading the virus. But I have an important message to parents, caregivers and school personnel. Any cases of the virus in your school is not a failure on your part. Any more than your child getting sick at home is a failure. It is the nature of this virus to be easily transmitted from person to person. We're all doing our level best to prevent it spread and no person of school should be singled out to be blamed or stigmatized. I mentioned stigma at our last press conference and got several questions on it and we've provided some pointers in our daily update. I'd like to briefly focus on it again. First, by repeating what I've just emphasized, no single person or group of people are more likely than others to spread COVID-19. This is key because stigma is associated with a lack of knowledge of how COVID-19 spreads, which fuels fears about disease and death, gossip that spreads rumors and false information and a need to place blame. Stigma hurts everyone by creating fear or anger toward ordinary people. Instead of focusing on the disease that is causing the problem. I've seen it over the course of this pandemic, directed at ethnic groups, congregate housing complexes, businesses, travelers, childcare centers. I would not want it to be directed at a school that happened to have a small number of COVID cases among its students or staff. So how can we reduce stigma? First, maintain the privacy and confidentiality of people seeking healthcare and of those who may be part of any contact investigation. That is why my staff at the health department are so fiercely protective of Vermont's and Vermont's personal and private information. Second, quickly communicate the risk or lack of risk from contact with patients, people, products in places. Third, correct negative language by sharing accurate information about how the virus spreads. It is in the air we breathe. Fourth, speak out against negative behaviors and statements, including those on social media. Returning now to our Vermont management of the pandemic and our schools. We have been more successful than nearly anyone else in the country. We know this by our still low rate of virus in the state. When there is a case in a school, we will quickly act to investigate the situation and take all appropriate steps to contain its spread. This starts with expert contact tracing. And again, if you get a call from the health department, we are all counting on you to answer the phone and speak with our team. They will advise quarantine as appropriate and strongly recommend PCR testing for those people they determine to be close contacts and give everyone who may have been affected the information and guidance they need. By the way, there is good news for anyone who does need to get tested. There are now more of the nasal swabs available. So less of the brain tickling that many of us have enjoyed thus far. I have one additional but important point to schools and families. It's a reminder that people may have the virus and not yet know it. You may not have any symptoms or you may have mild symptoms and not recognize them as possibly being COVID-19. So if your child doesn't normally have a headache or cough or congestion or any of the possible milder symptoms of the virus, then keep them home and let the school nurse know why. And if the symptoms persist, call your child's pediatrician for advice. You can find a list of the symptoms at our website, healthvermont.gov slash COVID-19. But it's been several months, so just to review them again, as the students may actually know them better than the adults now. Fever, 100.4 or higher. Cough, shortness of breath or difficulty breathing. Chills, fatigue, muscle pain or aches, headache, new loss of taste or smell, congestion or runny nose, nausea, vomiting or diarrhea. Finally, I will close with a comment regarding how the virus is transmitted to others. Yesterday, in yet another public relations fiasco with overtones of politicization, the CDC abruptly dropped new guidance from its website about airborne transmission of the coronavirus. Just days after publishing it. The agency said a draft version was posted in error before it had gone through the normal review process and then reverted to its previous guidance, which does not mention airborne transmission. Keep in mind, this speaker and scientists across the country and for that matter, the world have been calling for the risk of airborne transmission to be recognized by health authorities. In many ways, it is why our advice about distancing, masking and time spent in indoor settings are such fundamental parts of our health guidance. Recommendations that will only become more relevant to Vermonters as we begin to hunker down for the winter. So expect to see more news consistent with this guidance from the CDC in the coming days and know that as always, we in Vermont will be guided by the science. I'll now turn it over to Commissioner Pichak. Thank you, Dr. Levine and good morning everyone. So we'll begin today's presentation, like we have in the past few weeks with an update on some national data and national trends, focusing also on that grim milestone that Dr. Levine mentioned of crossing 200,000 COVID deaths likely today at the end of the day and then focus on Vermont data, our forecast, turning to an higher education K through 12 update on data and then completing it with the regional information and the travel map. So turning to that grim milestone based on data from Johns Hopkins University by the conclusion of today, all probability the United States will cross 200,000 deaths since the start of the pandemic. Obviously a grim milestone, but it does again highlight the success that we have had here in Vermont. We've talked a lot about hospitalizations and cases and how our case counts are low, but also our death rate has been very low throughout the pandemic. Obviously those are all interconnected and important. When you look at the amount of deaths per capita from the beginning of the pandemic and just going all the way back to January to today, you see that Vermont is very low on that ranking only having Hawaii, Wyoming and Alaska having a lower death rate. However, if you do remember at the beginning of the pandemic, there were outbreaks in Vermont, particularly a few in long-term care facilities. So we did have more deaths per capita early on in the pandemic. If you measure it just from the period of time when we started to more fully reopen our economy and as others did as well from May 15th, you'll see that clearly Vermont has the lowest per capita death numbers in the country by quite a bit. So we're very fortunate that our state has responded in the way that it has because it doesn't just keep our case counts low, it keeps people alive and it keeps Vermont safe, which is a very good thing. Wanting to point out also, we hear some discussion about who makes up the 200,000 deaths or these people that potentially would have passed away from some other ailment anyway. And we think it's important just to look at the data. Right here on this next slide, we have the number of deaths on average for the past five years, 2015 to 2019. It's a pretty consistent average. It is higher in the winter, lower in the summer and the spring. But then when you flip ahead and look at the number of deaths from 2020, you see that there is a dramatic increase in 2020. Again, really just shocking when you look at those numbers and see that clearly it's a deviation from the norm that we've seen over the past five years. Then when you dig a little deeper on that and look at how many of those deaths that deviate from that mean are related to COVID, which is that red part of the uptick. You can see that there are still a number of non COVID related deaths or not reported as COVID related deaths that still are in excess of what we would see in a normal year. So certainly tragic 200,000 COVID deaths, but the impact is also beyond that as well. Turning to the national cases, again, you can see by the 30 day map that Vermont continues to have a really low prevalence of the virus, which obviously is excellent news as we continue K through 12 and higher ed reopening. Really, it really stands out even in the Northeast as having really low prevalence, but the Northeast itself remains rather strong. Turning to the national cases per day, I do want to point this chart out because you can see from last Friday, we talked about a slight increase in cases and that increase has continued. Again, we'll watch this closely. It's either post labor date increased in testing or post labor day increase in infections, potentially K through 12, higher ed restart across the country. All of those things are possible, but we'll certainly we'll watch that number nationally and regionally very closely. And then breaking it out by region, you can see that the South is seeing an increase in cases a little bit more prominently than the West and the Midwest, but those areas are also seen an increase in cases as is the Northeast, although much more slight than the other regions of the country. So turning down to the Vermont data, since it is the first day of fall, we thought we'd just look back on the summer season and see what our numbers held for that period. You can see we conducted over 188,000 tests, 559 positives in Vermont throughout the summer for a very low positivity rate. And again, fortunately, very few people in the hospital in that period of time, whether in general hospital beds or in the ICU. And we did record three deaths over the summer, but again, fortunately much, much less in terms of the number of deaths in other parts of the country have experienced during this pandemic. The weekly totals, we're now we'll report on weekly totals from Tuesday to Monday, rather than Friday to Thursday. So we went back and changed all the data for previous weeks. You'll see that we're down this week, 25 cases compared to the seven days over the prior period of time, which was 45 cases. So case count remains very low. We continue to have the lowest positivity rate in the country, the lowest prevalence since the start of the pandemic as well. Flipping ahead, we see that there is a forecast that we've created in here. We did not include our Oliver Wyman forecast that will be updated for next Tuesday, but there's another model that we look at that just shows where are the counties that are likely to see growth and where are the counties that are likely to see decreases over the next two to three weeks. You can see some parts of the Northeast are slated for increases. Others will see improvement. The three counties in Vermont, based on this model were very slight increases. So again, nothing that gives us pause for concern, but something we're going to continue to look closely at because the national numbers are going up as are the regional numbers. In terms of our restart metrics, these are all trending in the right direction. Syndromeic surveillance is low. Growth rate is low. Positivity remains very low. And the number of people in the facility that we have to treat people remains very high. So we have plenty of hospital capacity with two people in the hospital today and no one fortunately in the ICU. Turning to the K through 12 and higher ed update. Again, this is just from Friday. So there's not much to refresh here, but as Dr. Levine and Secretary French pointed out, there was a new case in Vermont. So we're up to four cases. New Hampshire has seen an increase of 10 cases since Friday when we last updated. They now have 33 cases impacting 22 schools and Maine saw four new cases since Friday impacting six of their schools. So across the region, low prevalence and seeing rather mild cases, but Vermont clearly continuing to do really strong in terms of its reopening. From the college front, there are about another 2,100 tests that were conducted since Friday. One new positive recorded in the numbers. So 43 potential total positive cases now for higher education, still a very low positivity rate successful reopening in that regard. Looking at the regional data, we do see cases increasing week over week. This is something we saw last week as well. I will point out that there was a large increase. We include Quebec in this regional forecast anticipating that at some point the border would be open and they would be included in our sort of regional focus. But I will point out that Quebec has seen an increase pretty significant compared to the other states around us. So that is accounting for a lot of the increase that we're seeing the last couple of weeks. So I think that's something important context to point out, but we are seeing increases across the region as well. Again, you can see that difference when you look at week over week that the last four weeks we have seen an uptick across the region. A lot of it due to Quebec, but not all of it necessarily other states are seeing increases as well. Lastly, turning to our travel map, you see those increases impacting the map. Some places in New Hampshire and Maine are now in the yellow or red category. There was some improvement along the western border of Vermont for those counties that are in the New York, upstate, tri-state area or tri-city area. So there is some improvement there, but overall the map is rather flat and is down a little bit. So something that we will continue to focus on we'll update it every Tuesday going forward and we'll have sort of a consistent point in time from now forward, which I think will be helpful for those anticipating travel. So with that, I'll turn it back over to the governor. Thank you very much, Commissioner Pichek. And with that we'll open up for questions. All right, it is 11.35 and we do have a long queue today. So I'm gonna ask folks to keep it to one or two questions rather than three or four or more. We'll start with Calvin. All right, thank you, Governor. So the legislative session potentially could be coming to a wrap by the end of this week. I'm just kind of hoping to gather your final thoughts on it. It's been a marathon legislative session. At the beginning there was lots of agreement between Democrats, public kids, yourself working with the speaker and the pro-tenant. I'm just, as I said, hoping to get your final thoughts and maybe be able to continue to see that bipartisan work, I guess. It's been a difficult year in so many different respects, whether it's individually or with the legislature, going to a remote type of a meeting process has been challenging in many respects and we're all trying to do whatever we can to continue to inform each other and to make sure that we're protecting Vermonters. So high level, we've done a lot of good work. I think the budget that we presented, the three quarter budget that we presented to the legislature and all, you know, when you look at it, again, from a 30,000 foot view, I think a lot of the measures were adopted. So that's good news. Been some disappointments along the way as well, but we'll work our way through that as well and continue to take the high road and do what's right for Vermont. And here's that the Senate, just this afternoon passed F-54 cannabis bill. I know there's still some concerns from racial justice advocates and also some in the ag community. Have you seen the final version and where do you stand on that? Yeah, I have not. As you said, it's just past the final stages today, I believe in the Senate. At that point in time, it typically goes through the legislative council to make sure that everything is correct and then the it's sent to us and we have some time to look that over as well. So I don't know when we'll get the bill, but we'll take a look. We'll reflect on all the areas of disagreement and then I'll make a decision from there. All right, Ross. I'm going to speak for Secretary French. I know of at least a few school districts that have been operating under a hybrid model since the first day of school that are starting to transition within the next coming weeks back to the full in person. I understand that decision lies with the districts. From your perspective though, kind of in the top town, what more needs to happen for more schools to kind of take that next step and bringing more kids back into in-person learning? And when do they know that they're right? Yeah, I mean that last question, I think is the important one because it really gets to the practical aspects of implementing fairly complex guidance that we've created for schools. And it's that measure of people being comfortable in their operations and safe operations that it's sort of a necessary precondition. So I know speaking for all educators, they're very anxious to return to normal and to as much in-person as instruction as possible, but that is predicated on the operational safety of their buildings and part of that assessment is their comfort level and consistency in doing that. So far we're very pleased, as I mentioned, almost daily contact with school districts. We're very pleased to the extent that people have been able to implement this fairly complex and stringent guidance. So as you notice, we're seeing that trend towards more in-person instruction, which I think is critical particularly this time of year when arguably the conditions are gonna be the best as they're going to be going into the winter. So we'll monitor that. I will be doing a monthly data collection but so far very pleased with the progress districts we're making and hopefully we'll see more in-person instruction, particularly with younger students, which I think we all know is developmentally so critical for them. And as far as just following up on the sports presuming, we're fast approaching, maybe winter sports season, as far as basketball and volleyball and things like that to take place inside a gym. Will there be new guidance that comes out for those types of sports that happen in close contact and inside not out enough field with a ball of trees blown across? Yeah, what we decide to do as Secretary Morris, that's sort of leading this up in cooperation with VPA and others, it's fairly complex process. We decided to issue guidance on fall sports first and then we'll take up the issue of winter sports here shortly. But part of it was just to let the conditions play out a bit. But as you mentioned, the issues of indoor activities are more significant relative to our health consideration. So hopefully we'll have some guidance out for winter sports here in October. Thank you. Steve? Governor, your reaction or maybe the Department of Public Safety's reaction to the resignation of the Burlington Police Sergeant and that entire issue of how that plays out in the law enforcement community as far as contracts and trying to recruit people that come forward and take those jobs? Well, this was a local issue. I only know as much as you probably know at this point in time what I've read. They came to the conclusion, the city council had come to the conclusion that this was their best approach forward considering all of the technicalities of union contracts and so forth. So it appears that they have a path forward. I'm not sure that it's going to satisfy everyone. But they were in a tough position. So from our standpoint, from my standpoint, it's totally a local issue. Does Mike have or Shirley have any comment as far as, I don't know if I speak on the line, but he has to hire and recruit people. Again, I think this was an agreed upon contract or agreed upon solution with that particular person. So it's not as though it was forced on them. So Secretary or Commissioner Shirley, anything to add to that? No, nothing specific, Governor. As you indicated, I don't know the details either. And it is a local matter that we've not been involved in. And finally, on the Supreme Court death of so-called going forward, I think you said on the record that you would like to see the replacement brought forward after the elections. Still the case? Still the case. I think that the point was made four years ago that that was preferable. And that's the precedent. So if we want to instill confidence in our political system, confidence, trust, and government, I think we have to just follow through and temper down what we're seeing throughout our nature. This is an area that is going to further divide the United States. And we just have to take the first step in trying to prevent that from happening from my standpoint. Joe, the Barton Chronicle. And days, according to Columbia University's model, that Orleans County is projected to see an increase in the number of cases of COVID. I am curious as to whether the tracking and tracing of the group of cases we had about a week ago suggest that's the case or if the Columbia model doesn't take into account what the State Department of Health already knows. I think Richard and Lee will be in first. So with this kind of a modeling process, they're looking at trends and cases. And so based on the recent trend in Orleans County, they're seeing that uptick. We'll see if that actually becomes true or not. Because we're, again, dealing with very small numbers of cases in any region of the state. There is nothing new to report on the interviews, contact tracing, anything about some unifying theme in Orleans County that we should be concerned about. So let's hope that the modeling actually doesn't show an increase. Mr. P. Jack's going to mention something as well. Joe, I just wanted to point out and reiterate what Dr. Levine said that the case counts are obviously very low. And those increases projected for the Vermont counties are very low. So they're projected to go up. But it could be a case or two. It could cause them to increase based on what the basis that they're starting from. But because they're starting from a very low number to begin with, and we're dealing with very low numbers, I'd attribute that more to the increase than anything else. Thank you. Given what Dr. Levine said about the possible political interference in information provided by the EDC, I'm curious, status frequently referred to the pandemic is one in 100 years of it. And historically, that's true. But we have no guarantee that going forward, we will be as lucky as the past generations have been. Do Dr. Stated Vermont, by itself, have the public health capacity to deal with anything else that might come down the line in the foreseeable future? Or is the possible interference with the CDC and perhaps the FDA something that is a matter of great concern in case of such an unfortunate eventuality? I'll try and answer part of that. Commissioner Levine may want to also comment. But from my standpoint, we've learned a lot over the last six months since March. And what we've done, I think, has been beneficial. And we've been successful because we've done what we thought was right. And we take the guidance, we take the information that we receive even on a federal level. And it doesn't mean that we automatically adhere to everything that they say. But we take that information in, learn from other states as well. And at the end of the day, we do what we think is right. And it's, again, led us to where we are today. I did want to comment as well about the Northeast Kingdom and Orleans County in particular. But I watch CNN every now and then. And I get very frustrated because I see there's maps that they produce on almost a daily basis showing states they're in trouble. And typically, there's been many days where I see Vermont as being bright red. And I know our case numbers. I watch them every single day. And because they deal with a percentage basis, it appears when we go from three cases to six cases, it's a 100% increase. And then all of a sudden, we have a doubling of the number of cases. What most people don't understand is it literally is going from three to six. And so that puts us in the red. And that's frustrating. And I would assume that that's what some of what we're seeing with some of these projections when they look at the percentage. It looks like we have a problem. But when in reality, we do not. Mr. Levine. And I can reassure the governor that at 5 o'clock this morning, CNN had us as dark green, which is as good as it gets. And there were only three states that were a shade of green. So if we look at infectious diseases over the long term, H1N1, a decade ago, Ebola and Zika, less number of years ago, the state of Vermont had a strategy for all of those. The citizens of Vermont were protected in ways that they may not have even been aware of, because they didn't have the news cycle of COVID-247 for those that we have now. So I'm confident Vermont can handle whatever the next issue might be. I'm hopeful that whatever the next issue might be, we would have, as I've said up here many times, a coherent national strategy. So states would be doing what the Northern New England states are trying to do, which is talk to each other and work with one another and learn from one another, but also coordinate with one another. And that's what the country has needed for the whole time of this pandemic. I don't foresee this one-in-a-hundred-year thing happening in another year or two again, but we do need to understand that the so-called concept of zoonoses, which are infectious diseases that are usually in the animal world, but then jump into the human world, we are seeing that with greater frequency. So obviously people are keeping their eye on that ball and I don't think we would become surprised by anything, but I'm not looking forward to a repeat of this kind of response and scenario two or three years from now. I do think it'll wait quite a few years, but we shall see. Thank you very much. Wilson-Ring, the AP. Hi, here's a question for Dr. Levine. I feel I should know the answer to this, but I'm a little confused about the discussion about airborne transmission. I have read some of those stories I've seen on it. And is there a distinction between airborne transmission and aerosolized transmission? And is it significant? I mean, I see airborne as if somebody's coughs and those large droplets can spread a short distance as opposed to the, it seems, and again, this is where I'm looking for the expert guidance. The discussion about the airborne transmission seems to be more about the droplets that are the particles of virus that will travel further distances. There's a case of the Chinese restaurant, I think, and some others that I thought. And I was just wondering if you could help me understand that better. You understand it perfectly well, just to repeat for the public at large. Yes, the concept was the more fine mists that are aerosols as opposed to the large respiratory droplets. Indeed, proportion-wise, I would still believe the large respiratory droplets are the inherent danger with this virus. And that's why staying further than six feet from people is a good idea in wearing a mask. But the fine aerosols, the Chinese restaurant study, a whole host of both physical chemistry studies and epidemiologic studies provide a fair amount of evidence that aerosols still may play a significant role, just not maybe as high a proportion as the large respiratory droplets. And knowing that as implications, of course, for how we protect ourselves from those aerosols, because we can't necessarily distance ourselves from them, masks are believed to have really a two-way street where we always think of them as an altruistic thing where we're protecting our neighbor from our droplets. But there's some evidence that perhaps with the aerosols you may be protecting yourself by wearing the mask as well. And then that has implications, of course, for ventilation systems and filtration of air as well. So you're right on target. So then using the term airborne in this context, focusing more on the aerosolide, is that correct? Yeah, and that was the intent, to broaden the landscape a little bit beyond large droplets. The answer is my question perfectly. Thank you very much. Stuart, NBC5, thanks to Unmue. We'll move to Mike, the Islander. Thanks, Rebecca. Governor, US Secretary Friend to write this morning that Vermonters are frustrated with COVID-19 restrictions, which I'll account to you and Vermont as that's the best effort of all 50 states. Still remains frustrating, though, for Vermonters. And Vermonters are cured of pain. And the state has worked with just about every group. But one group we keep hearing from that says they've been ignored are the landlords. They say they understand the importance of providing good shelter to families. But they're also reporting that they aren't getting any income. A lot of people are not paying their rent. So the landlords are going to catch 22. They aren't getting paid. They can't evict the tenants. They say they need help paying their taxes, paying bills, paying their employees, paying contractors, to make sure that there's actually heat lights in the room where a good working shade for these tenants. And when Landlord reports being owed $23,000 and another is owed $17,000, with no place to turn, does the state have any significant plan to help or work with these landlords that are frustrated by what they're in the middle of? Having owned a, I've been a landlord at one point in my life, I understand the frustration. And the tight margins there. We do have a program, and I would maybe, maybe Secretary Curley might be able to describe that, but we have a program in place that, with the CARES money that we are reimbursing for those who haven't been able to pay to make sure that landlords are protected. Secretary Curley, anything to offer on that? Yes, through the CARES Act, we are able to offer some support and assistance through the rental housing stabilization program. It's being administered by the Vermont State Housing Authority in partnership with the Department of Housing and Community Development. So if you want to either go to our website, get a little more information on that. There is some information there, but I'm also happy to connect you with Commissioner Hanford, who can walk you through the variety of options that would be available to, again, to help support these landlords. Yeah, Mike. So that money is going through, the money is going to the landlords, it's not going to necessarily the tenants who are then under an obligation, hopefully to pay that money to the landlords, you're saying? Yeah, the money goes directly to the landlords and in some instances, I think the ideal is that the landlord and the tenant are both attesting to the situation and obviously there's, I think, an alternate if the tenants or the, yeah, the tenants not willing to work together with the landlord to show the need. So, yeah, the money does not go to the tenants with the expectation that they will be responsible to pay the landlord it, it will go directly to the landlord. Great. Mike, if you have a specific landlord that has been impacted, please have them contact us or you can and we'll put them in touch with Commissioner Hanford for a description of that or someone there so that we make sure that we provide whatever relief we can. Great, I'll get back to the ones that reached out to us. Thank you. Thank you. All right, and I believe Stuart Lebeder is online now. Yeah, thanks, Rebecca. A question about the BPR PBS poll out today, which Governor shows you with a big lead over David Zuckerman and a competitive race for a Lieutenant Governor. What's your read on these results and how much difference do you think it would really make to have Scott Milner in the number two spot? Should you win another term? Well, a couple things. In terms of the poll itself, while they provide some information, it's a snapshot in time. Politics is fickle, as you know, you've covered it for a long time. And while you might be the hero this week, you might be the villain next week and perception changes. So again, it's good information to have and good for your ego, but at the same time, you have to focus on what you're doing, doing it for the right reasons, not following polls. And that's what I've done throughout my political life and I'll continue to do now. In terms of having Scott Milner in the second position, that would be beneficial to me, just having someone with the same thought and the same goals that I have in terms of economic recovery. He's someone that I believe has lived this in his own businesses over a number of years. So that would be helpful for me. Also found that on the question of a regulated retail marijuana system, I think every group, every region, voters of every party favor this idea. Does that factor into the decisions you're gonna have to make? What factored into my decision or what factors into my decision is some of what I outlined, as you know, over the last couple of years, I've had some concerns about going to a regulated market. And so I narrowed it to three issues and they would have to satisfy those issues in order for me to move forward. It appears that they've come a long ways and they've really tried to meet my concerns and I appreciate that from the legislature. And again, I made this, when I talked about this the other day, I was comparing that to the Global Warming Solutions Act where they didn't address my concerns. In fact, they didn't even try to, which is in stark contrast to this, to the tax and regulate of marijuana that we've seen. So again, I appreciate that. We'll take a look at that. That will determine, when I go through the bill, determine whether I allow it to move forward or not. Thank you, Dylan. Eric, the Times-Argus. Yes, Europe is reportedly experiencing a second wave of the virus. What's being done in Vermont to protect against the second wave here? I'll refer to Dr. Levine, but I can say from my standpoint, continuing to do what we're doing. And it's really about those simple measures, paying attention to the guidance that we've put out, simple principles, just trying to be careful and do as much testing as we possibly can so that we have a surveillance of what's going on in Vermont and not opening that economic spigot too fast as we have done throughout this last six months. We just opened it a small amount at a time. And if we continue to do that and not try and open it too quick, I think we'll still be successful. But again, watching the other states around us is important as well because they do have an impact on us. And I watch the information every day. I know our health department does and our epi team, as well as Commissioner Pichek with his modeling. It gives us a sense of what's going on around the country, but in particular in the Northeast to see what's coming at us. And when we saw at one point that it appeared to be moving, it was moving up the East Coast, impacting Maryland and other states up the line, Connecticut and so forth, where they saw a bit of a resurgence. That's when we wanted to put into effect our mass mandate and to try and stop the transmission coming into Vermont. I think that got here to make sure that we didn't have any increase in positive cases. It appears the measures we took were successful. And that's what we have to do. Be nimble, watch the information, keep track of the science and the data and follow those really four simple principles of just making sure that when we're sick to stay away from others, keeping physically separated, wearing a mask and washing your hands a lot. If we continue to do that, I think we'll be okay. Dr. Levine. The concept of a second wave itself needs to be explained. Clearly in the United States, if we have what's called a second wave, it really won't be a second wave. It's really gonna be a continuation of what's been going on since the beginning of the year. Dr. Kelso and I had a chance to look at some World Health Organization data yesterday and mapping of cases. And when you really look at that, we never got down to zero anywhere in the world really. Most places got down a certain amount from their first initial experience with the virus. They put the mitigation strategies in place, things came down and we see them on the rise again. But that's really a continuation of what began in February, March, April, as opposed to something new. The difference in the United States, you know, if the curve around the world kind of looks like things went up, they came down and now they're going back up. The United States went up, it came down to a much higher level, not as low as a lot of places that have done a better job. And that's really, for our country, just a continuation of what's happened. I will say if you look at the Vermont curve, I mean, we really have come down. And the virus has really been suppressed to a much lower level. I can't add much more to what the governor said about how we're protecting Vermonters because the strategy is the strategy. It's not really being adapted to something new coming down the pike right now. It continues to be the same strategy. And really, we need to take Dr. Fauci's advice and make sure that we do not let our guard down because that would really be at odds with the current strategy that we're doing. So keeping the adherence that we're doing. And I think, you know, we've done a really good job in the state of protecting those most vulnerable. And we need to continue that because that indeed is the most fragile part of any part of managing this pandemic is worrying about those who are living in congregate settings, worrying about those who may have a special vulnerability to the virus because of their age or their medical conditions, et cetera. So we need to continue to pay attention to that as well. But I think what the governor said about travel is very, very wise. We need to, again, try to make sure we can encourage travel to the degree we can, but watch it very closely because we know that zones change very quickly sometimes and where we think we're comfortable having people from Vermont go and come back to or people come into the state as tourists, one week it may look very good, another week or another month it may not. And we need to clearly watch the trends just to be ahead of that game. The question is likely for Dr. Levine. We hear a lot of comments like, well, things won't go back to normal until there's a vaccine. And I think some people view it as kind of like a flick of the switch, like there's gonna be a vaccine and then suddenly things go back to what they were pre-COVID. But I think in reality, we all know it's gonna be a longer process than that. Can you talk about what the vaccine rollout timeline might look like here once one has been approved and what people should expect when they hear a vaccine has been approved and are wondering when they might be able to go back to quote-unquote normal? You know, this is a great question this morning because unless you watch for subtleties, there's been a subtle change in messaging even though we know there is a lot of politicization being done about a vaccine will be ready by election day, et cetera. If we ignore that even in Washington and from people we respect in the healthcare enterprise in Washington, there's been a subtle change in the messaging. And the messaging now is the vaccine may indeed be here by the year's end, but that's only for a very small percentage of the US population. It needs to be really geared up in terms of production and manufacturing. It'll be the first half of next year before a lot more of us might get to see it and it'll certainly play out over the whole course of next year. But the subtlety in the messaging is the lifestyle we're becoming accustomed to today and all of the things we're doing today actually will continue on even when a vaccine arrives because it's a two-prong strategy. It's doing all the things we can to suppress the virus in the way we live but it's also having a vaccine increase the numbers of us who might have a form of immunity to the virus and just by being immune will help suppress the virus level in the population as well. But that number isn't gonna grow to high proportions as quickly as a vaccine might become available. So, that's sort of the messaging that we are now hearing and I actually subscribe to because it makes a lot of sense. Knowing again that the herd immunity that so many are looking for just isn't happening. You know, if a state has got 10% of its people with antibodies to the virus before a vaccine, that's a lot. Most of the states like ours are gonna be much less than that. So again, the timeline, I don't wanna be the holder of the crystal ball by any means, but the timeline is I think kind of the way it was described in the conference that Dr. Fauci came to. This fall, we may indeed see one or two of these vaccine candidates achieve some kind of approval because of their efficacy and safety but they'll again be available to a high priority part of the population and that is being determined literally as we speak by the AICP, which is the advisory panel on immunizations that the CDC has and it'll be early to mid next year before there's enough gearing up of the manufacturing and ability to administer this to a bigger chunk of the population before that happens. Did I cover all the things you asked? I think you did, yeah. Thanks. Local 22? Or are there expectations of these shortages across the state? That's Levine. Today, the answer is no, but that's in a typical year as well but certainly over the next one to two months we've already got our earlier shipments of vaccine in and in fact, if you take an informal survey of your own you'll find a lot of people have actually been able to access the vaccine at this point but this is going to really gear up as we get through October and everything is sort of already ordered. We have a percentage higher than previous years ordered knowing that there may be increased demand this year. We have had favorable work not just in our vaccine for children program but in our vaccine for adult program which includes adults now over 65 who are in the Medicare age range because that program is now allowing vaccines for that group as well. We've had a tremendous rollout and continuing collaborative work with multiple sectors of the healthcare system in terms of creative and innovative ways to deliver this vaccine and so Vermonters can access it without hopefully a lot of tedious chores. So yes, they could access it in the usual places like their doctor's office. They can access it in places that haven't been as usual but can become more usual like pharmacies but there's a lot of partnership going on with our local health offices and the Department of Health with practices across the state whether they be part of a health network whether they be part of a federally qualified health center to deliver the vaccine in novel locations like outside of school, outside a supermarket places like that where you can actually receive the vaccine this year where you may not have in previous years. So we're going to see more and more of that work evolve over the next couple of weeks and you'll see a lot more messaging from the health department regarding all those sort of accessible points. And then I just wanted to follow up and clarify on the topic of transmission in CDC of probably pulling the guidance off their website if the virus can spread through airborne particles why exactly did they take that guidance off their website? Probably not a question for me or any of us up here. The statement they made was that it had been put up too early and it hadn't been appropriately checked and it would be put up again when they had gone through their process. But obviously already pundits far, with far more stature than myself are saying that this seems to be more of a political message. I don't have any verification of that so we can only think what we think. It's unfortunate when it builds on several other instances that have occurred in the last several weeks that we've commented on up here and that eventually have gone the right way. Thank you. Erin, BT Digger. My question is about the current of this figure that was announced last week, the increase in hotel capacity because some hotel and hospitality leaders and owners wrote to us to say this doesn't really make a difference to us because we've been at a lower occupancy anyway, but well below the legal occupancy because so many people are limited or banned from coming to Vermont. And I'm sure that many of them also feel that they don't want to put their employees and their safety at greater risk but there's quite a bind right now with people unable to come into the state. What do you have to say to people in hospitality who are still struggling because of the restrictions? Well, first of all, I don't recall hearing from anyone in the lodging industry that asked us not to expand the occupancy rate of their facilities, zero. But maybe that's true. And if they have concerns about that, obviously they don't have to. They're in control of their own occupancy if they don't want to have 100%, they don't have to. I have a great concern for the hospitality sector. As you probably know, that's why we put forth a fairly significant economic package to be considered by the legislature to address some needs to try and give them enough money and enough grants to survive so they can thrive in the future. Without that money, I think they are in trouble. And so again, the legislature didn't move forward with everything we've asked but we still have that opportunity and we're still going to continue to work on that because if there's one sector that's suffered the most, it's the hospitality sector lodging restaurants. So we're going to continue to do everything we can to help but we haven't banned anybody from coming into Vermont just to be absolutely clear. They can still come to Vermont but they have to quarantine if they do. And if they come from those areas that we model that we just finished modeling today that are green counties that are safe, they can come to Vermont without having to quarantine. We're talking about millions of people who can come to Vermont right now without quarantine. And again, from my standpoint, we're trying to balance public safety with the economy and that's why we've done a little bit at a time. I think opening up lodging to 100% made a lot of sense. And it was based on the advice and consent of our epi team and Dr. Levine, Dr. Kelso and thought this was an approach that was safe. So that's why we continue to do so with the economic disadvantage they're living with that in mind. Okay, thank you. I also have a question about the recently announced school case at a place that I believe it is. It's not reported on the department of health to you for court of school cases which says that it was last updated September 18th. Is that going to be updated on a weekly basis or what is the time period for us finding out about school cases? Secretary Smith. I'll have Dr. Levine correct me if I'm wrong but the health department will update that on a weekly basis. I think it's gonna be updated every Monday if I'm correct. The cutoff will be a Friday and then it'll be updated every Monday. So it, I don't believe that case would be updated until next week. We just switched Tuesdays. Yeah, we just switched. So I'll look into it Erin, but obviously everybody knows because we have announced that there was a case in Williamstown but we'll update the website to correspond to that. Okay, thank you very much. Mike, true North report. Thanks for taking my question about the math and sports. So the current Vermont policy since September 8th is that children must wear masks even while wearing plain sports. The current CDC guidelines for wearing masks during sports are that during high intensity sports players may not be able to wear a mask because they are, because they say wearing them causes difficulty breathing. My question is why is this Vermont following the CDC guidelines on this? Yeah, we've been more restrictive in a number of areas from the CDC and we'll continue to do what we think is right for Vermont. But again, we just thought this was the right approach whether, you know, we had decisions to make as to whether we should have sports at all. The first priority is getting kids back in school, getting back into some in-person instruction, which we thought was safe. Secondary to that was sports and felt that having this mass to prevent the spread because the spread of the virus can happen to kids as well as adults. So we just thought this was the right approach. Are you and your expert continuing to monitor the studies on the mask wearing back so both the benefits and the potential arms that they cause? We'll continue to monitor every situation as it relates to the health of Vermonters. All right, well, thank you. Guy Page. Good morning, Governor. Good morning. What is the status of students taking driver's ed in school and taking road tests for their licenses? That I don't know, Guy. I don't know if Secretary French can offer anything about the driver's education. We don't really have any news on this. I can speak with you. Okay. Yeah, hi, Guy. I haven't heard of any further issues. I know, you know, driver's ed has certainly expanded the access for testing so forth. I know my daughter took her tests in August and we didn't really have a lot of trouble scheduling that. But I think initially, particularly in earlier part of the summer, there were concerns about, you know, the safety of running those programs and so forth. I think a lot of the programs have come back online. I haven't heard more from schools about backlog in that issue. So driver's ed, the necessary hours with the teacher and everything that's going forward and some of the learners from it can go into DMV and take a test, just sort of the way we're all used to. Yeah, I'm not sure so much about the DMV mechanics, but I will say in schools, I believe the programs are, certainly they have a backlog, but they're addressing the issue as the schools have reopened. Thank you. Guy, on that issue with motor vehicle, I don't believe we have a backlog there, but be happy to take a look and inquire of commissioner Manoli to find out where we're at. But I think we caught up and I believe you can make an appointment just as we normally have, but you have to make the appointment and reserve the slot. But let me check on that and make sure I'm correct. Thank you. Last week, Seattle 350.org leaders taught reminders mass protest techniques like poking with police crowd control chemicals out of state state and healthy in jail. Has your administration spoken with Vermont's organized protest community trying to set ground rules for a peaceful protest, especially around election time? Commissioner Sherling, maybe I would refer to you. I'm not aware of any protest plan, but that doesn't mean there aren't any. And I'm not sure if we've engaged with those potential protesters or not. Yeah, that's correct, governor. I'm not aware of any scheduled protests that are in our service areas at this point, but when they do crop up, we do actively work to engage organizers to ensure that things go smoothly and safely and everyone can exercise their rights without running into any risk. Yeah, peaceful protests are what we want to underscore that as long as we want to give individuals the right to use, utilize their freedom of speech, and but to do it in a safe manner. I think that's the point and we'll continue to, if we hear about an organized protest, we'll engage in trying to make sure that everyone stays safe. Thank you. April, WCAX. Hello, just hoping the military that might be able to give us enough to do on child care hubs. Child care hubs. Thanks, Avery, just reporting as of this morning, we are proud to report there are 31 school-aged child care hubs that have been identified and we'll provide child care at 83 different locations, with 76 of those locations currently up and running. In aggregate, the hubs are anticipating to serve approximately 4,800 children, with many of those children attending more than one week. In terms of capacity, the sites currently available can offer over 10,000 slots for children. As I've mentioned several times, it's important to keep in mind that one child can occupy multiple slots over the course of the week, and that multiple children can occupy one slot over the course of a week. We're still looking to expand this, but I've just got to say this. I mean, the DCF and the after-school program have done remarkable work getting this program up and running in such a short amount of time. And it's a dynamic program, so we'll adjust as the needs warrant here in the state. As soon as schools come back full-time in person, we'll have to adjust there. If there continues to be remote or learning, we'll adjust as well there. But this has been a remarkable effort in an amazing short of time to get this system up and running. Thank you. Commissioner Levine, you've talked recently about other folks having concerns about politicization at the CDC. Are you personally of the belief that politics is playing an undue role in formation guidance or other policy there? And separately, have you registered for concern specifically about the removal of the airborne guidance from the most recent CDC diet? Yeah, so make no mistake, I still think the CDC is one of the preeminent health and public health directed organizations in the world. Highly respected. I think it's actually a shame that it's been called out the way it's been called out, but this is the reality that we are seeing in front of us. I would use the word it's great science and it's great scientists and its ability to disseminate credible information that is very factual and science-based and data-driven is being interfered with, but it's not being totally destroyed by any means. So most of the time, what we're finding is perhaps a delay as opposed to the actual information never seeing the light of day. The most egregious example was what happened with testing of asymptomatic people. We stood up in Vermont and said, we are going to continue to test asymptomatic people who may have come in contact with someone who was COVID positive. The CDC eventually returned to that and published that on its website. CDC also had this most recent episode. Have not registered anything as it literally has happened overnight, so I haven't had a chance to do anything about that. As part of the organization of state health officials, we all in a consensus fashion sent some communication to a number of the organizations we deal with the most often, including CDC and HHS, and indeed then had a direct conversation as an organization with the secretary for health, Brett Girouard, Admiral Girouard, which was quite productive. We have registered not just little Vermont, but as a nation, are concerned mostly, as well as somewhat of our dismay regarding what's happened in recent weeks. Unfortunately, this is yet another example, but this too will come to pass. And like I said, the right information is always coming out. It just might not be coming out in the timely fashion that had been planned. Well, I have you, Commissioner Green, what's the possible clusters or outbreaks in LaMoyle County right now? What county? LaMoyle? LaMoyle County. Several weeks ago, but nothing recent. Okay. So you're probably looking at where the cases are coming from on a daily basis, but. Well, we heard from some locals there about the possibility of cases related to a lot of gathering. Yeah, and if that's true, I'm not aware of the specific gathering that we've linked cases to. Okay. Thank you very much. The Newport Daily Express. Good afternoon. This is probably before I talk to Louvine. The other day when I was driving to a meeting, I stopped up on a hill that's got great scenic views and I took some pictures. The point of the pictures wasn't to take pictures of Balsolius. It was pictures of hazy skies in the middle of the afternoon, which leads me to believe that this is ash that's coming from the wildfires out west. As you have any feedback at this point of whether or not that type of air pollution is depressing for modern, what type of impact do you think that could have during this pandemic? Is there any advice that the Department of Health is offering to make sure that people are safe when they see this type of a fallout? Yeah, I may refer to first of all, Secretary Moore. She's on the line because I believe you had reported this yesterday or the day before that some of the haze we're seeing is from the remnants of the fires and the smoke from the West Coast. Right. Yes, yes, Governor. We are seeing the smoke from the fires on the West Coast and we know that it is actually affecting huge amounts and what folks are able to see. The sky itself may be tinged with orange or other colors, and the smoke is not expected to really reach ground level to any significant extent. We are measuring fine particulate matter. We refer to it as CM 2.5. But really, our expecting concentrations to remain in the good or worst-case scenario, the moderate, or should be our quality index through the next several days. I think you have agreement there in the household. Anything you want to... Do I apologize? Is there any guidelines that the Department of Health has to make sure that people who are vulnerable to the elderly or guys with some type of mental condition will be safe when they go outside and there's a recommendation, wear a mask all the time or with a mask out in the back? We maintain a website that tracks the air quality index writ large, not just for this incident, but other air quality concerns. And if you're interested, I would like to follow up afterwards through Rebecca and provide you a link to that website which shows how to track the air quality. Yeah, I'd like to see that every grade. Okay? Thank you, thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, Ed. Andrew, Caledonian record? Yeah, good afternoon. I suppose this might be for Secretary French. You mentioned a little bit earlier in the work on fells in winter sports guidance. And I know it's not slated to be released for a few more weeks yet. But is there still a question of if indoor winter sports can happen or is that as you've been settled and now it's more about determining how fast to allow it? Okay, French. Yeah, I think we're following the same process we did with the fall and I'm going to invite Secretary Moore to chime in. But as I mentioned, it involves a lot of the key stakeholders and not the least of which are our medical experts including Dr. Raskin and Dr. Lee. But we also have folks that are familiar with athletics in general in the state, VPA and so forth but also involves athletic directors and those that are specific experts on the specific sports that are involved. So we'll consider all those elements as the guidance comes together. No determination yet that they can happen? Yeah, we haven't finalized our approach to this yet. But in October, we'll definitely do so. I'm going to thank. Can you play TV? Hello, can you hear me? We can. Great. This one's for Dr. Levine. There's a noted Chinese barologist, her work's been published and peer reviewed in Science, Nature, and the Lands that I believe. Her name is Dr. Lee Ming Yan and she's come forward recently, I guess she was spirited out of Communist China. She's come forward recently and said that the virus was assembled or put together in a lab and she can identify the cut sites. Do you have any opinion? Have you seen any of her work, Dr. Levine? I've not seen her work related to this particular topic. It has been a pretty common theme for several months that this was a virus manufactured in a lab that either unintentionally or intentionally and it got out. As part of researching that, the World Health Organization was able to send some scientists into China to further investigate. We've had people in the US government who have also been in touch with that team and may even have a member of the US scientific establishment on that team. I've not heard anything that would corroborate the fact that this virus came from a laboratory and didn't come from animal to human transmission. But again, it's probably still in process so I really can't say anything more definitive because that's all, that's as much as I know and I think that's as much information as it has been released. Yeah, she just came forward last week. Thank you. And regarding the cell phone tracking data, I was kind of intrigued when you mentioned last week that it was voluntary. Is this something that people entering Vermont are asked if it's okay to be cracked or is this part of a 24-page legalese thing that people just hit okay when they first get their phone? So that the public understands what you're saying, the cell phone tracking is referring to understanding social mobility patterns of the population by using the geospatial guidance of their cell phone as opposed to part of contact tracing or anything else like that. Since it was Commissioner Pechak's slide that you're referring to with that data, I'll invite him up and he can answer further. Thank you. Yeah, thanks for that question, Steve. So just to reiterate, the data is data that's accumulated by a third-party provider. They anonymize it, they aggregate it so we don't know who it is. We can't even really know specifically where it's coming from. It's sort of in an aggregated census block and it's user-consented meaning when you, generally when you download an app, they'll call out specifically, can this app track you when you have it open, can it track you at all times and you usually say yes or no to that. So that is the user-consented piece. It is called out specifically, generally, for the apps that I've seen. And it's nothing to do with Vermont. It's tracking people across the globe. Sure, but they are specifically asked that it's okay for them to be tracked. Yeah, that's been, usually the question is can we share your mobility with Apple or whomever the app might be with? And that's been my experience with every app that I've seen. Okay, great. Thank you all very much. Tim from Vermont Business Magazine. Hi, Governor, you talked about the ability and that's where I just talked about sports. They both come together in upcoming ski season and there's, as you know, there's no place more crowded than the ski lodge. Are you kind of thinking along the same line that the French went to perhaps turn this bigot again for indoor hospitality, which would be so important this winter, you know, October, I think it's what they're very friends with. You talked about the sports. Yeah, well, again, I think we're going to rely on the data and science. We haven't contemplated that turn of this bigot at this point in time, but knowing, you know, for the ski season coming up, typically after the first of the year, we do have some time to put that together. But again, if we are able to, and I know the ski areas themselves are putting some guidelines into place to make sure that they keep their guests safe and which is applauded by this administration. And we'll work with them to make sure that we do all we can so that they can continue to have their guests coming to Vermont, but do it in a safe manner. So I don't think we're ready to make a decision at this point on that front. And there's no, I know during the summer there was some restrictions on recreational sports, but there's nothing that wouldn't allow the ski area to... Yeah, no, as far as I know at this point in time, again, we haven't really spoken about this in great detail, but if they adhere to the guidelines that are in place at this point in time, they could open tomorrow if there was snow. So we'll continue to work with them and making sure that our monitors are safe, kept safe, and that we're able to open up the economy as much as we can. But again, we have to use some common sense and be practical about this. We'll follow the data and the science and take the advice of the health experts before we open that door. All right, great, thank you. Lisa, the Valley Reporter. The follow-up on that last question, will there be any specific guidance issues for the Montsquieu Resorts in terms of on-float capacity, share list, density, and lining up to board share list? You know, again, we haven't, I know that they, the skiers themselves are working on that. We will work with them in any way we can to provide any help we can, but we just haven't gotten that far at this point in time. But I would imagine, again, if we can adhere to the guidelines we have in place right now, keeping the six-foot separation, wearing a mask, and so forth and so on, I believe they could open at this point. There's the mask gathering, I think that you're referring to, may not work the same way because they are so separated, but we'll be working on that over the next month or so. Thank you, and we received a question from a reader, this is probably a question for Commissioner Smith, wanting to know why schools can't create child care, or remote learning pods within the school system, why they can't exist in a staff space in the school. Is there a legal reason why pods can't be in schools? I wasn't aware that they couldn't, but Secretary Smith, do you have anything, or do you want to get back to Lisa? Yeah, Lisa, I wasn't aware that they couldn't. In fact, we do have some, we're using some school facilities right now for our child care locations. So, I would be more than happy to meet with anybody that wants some further clarification. Great, I will pass this information back to the reader. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Pam, Davis? This is a question that's supposed to either, just the governor or what Dr. Levy, the state of Vermont has done extremely well in managing the COVID, and I think everybody recognizes that, and one of the reasons for that is that is what we're seeing right here in these press conferences where we get a steady supply of really reliable information that we can count on dealing with that issue. And the equally important and much more complicated issue I think is healthcare reform and the supply of reliable information there is very much less available. Well, my question basically is this, this is the first question is for the governor. One of the questions that is very much alive in the reform space now is whether one care of Vermont has, how well its performance has been and specifically whether it has saved any money. In the last, the research press reports say that one care of Vermont has not saved any money during the period of reform which has run from 2013 to the current day. My question is this, I understand that this is kind of from what field and I don't expect you to have specific numbers, but do you think, can you assess or tell us your opinion about how much value we have achieved from healthcare reform in Vermont over the last time from 2013 until now? Yeah, yeah, Ham, good question. You know, we've made some gains but obviously with some of what the federal government has told us that we're not meeting some of the targets that we are supposed to. So we have some work to do. I think as Secretary Smith had mentioned maybe last week that we need a bit of a reboot. We need to take a look and see whether one care is doing all they can. And it's still, there's areas of improvement that we can make within one care or what we need to do to bring affordable healthcare back on track and to the forefront. So we look forward to that. I know Secretary Smith is engaging as we speak and we'll continue to try and improve because we know that issue didn't go away. It's still here. Thank you, Governor, but let me just leave you with one question that I don't expect to answer today but that is this. Perfect. The press coverage says that the reform has that the one care of mine has not saved any money. My calculations, comparing the performance of the hospital system in the first decade of the new millennium to the period of reform shows that the healthcare that the hospital system cost were reduced by a total of almost $2 billion over that period. So my question is, I understand that you're not running around with numbers like that at this time but I would ask you for the next time. What do you, that's a specific number. That's the fact. It's not a, well, we need to boot up a little better. We need to fiddle around with this or we need to do a little better. The reality is in order to get asked these issues you have to, we have to start getting hard information. My question to you would be for the future. What do your numbers show? I get 1.95 billion, 2013 to 2019. What do you get? Yeah. If I can get one, yes, I'm sorry, go ahead. No, go ahead and ask your next question. I'm going to ask Secretary Smith to comment because I've asked him the same questions. Okay, the second question is once again this is a little bit unfair because it's just coming out of left field. But one of the things that seems to me that we need in the healthcare reform field as I say is hard, reliable information that's a public, the whole public and have confidence in it. And one of the major sources of that, both from Vermont and in comparison to national, okay, is what we've got from Dr. Levine on medical questions. So the whole reform space of the world is complete with really different medical questions on which people absolutely do not agree. So here's the kind of question that I think arises and I would like him, Dr. Levine, to consider. One of the issues that has come up in the last two months is whether the Northwest Medical Center in St. Alvin should build from basically from scratch and a new ICU, okay, under the ICU in conjunction with telemedicine to doctors, okay, on the assumption that- They cannot get in and cannot get out of the service from the ICU to 30 minutes down the road at UVM. So my question is, as I say, probably can't be answered right off the top. But with Dr. Levine, I'd like to know whether Dr. Levine could weigh in on a question like that. Secretary Smith offer his little advice. Hey, I'm thanking you for the questions. I think, you know, I don't want to dismiss what I said last week when I used the word reboot like you happened to do just a little while ago because I think we have to look at everything, including the cost savings that we talk about. There are numbers flying around in terms of what are the accurate cost savings. And I think we need to look in terms of those cost savings. In terms of Northwest, I mean you've got to admit that part of the issue with Northwest is that's a Green Mountain Care Board function is to look at whether they should be applying the various services that they're applying because it's budget related. And of course the Green Mountain Care Board does approve their budget. But I don't, I want to get back to the issue of looking at healthcare because I think it's important. I think we're at a critical stage right now where we really have to take a close look at a correction, at a mid-course correction during the all-payer model. And I want to distinguish between the all-payer model because it's all-encompassing and the ACO which is part of the all-payer model. The all-payer model, and I said this last week and I really, I truly believe this, the all-payer model theoretically has some very, very innovative and progressive elements to it. And in fact, I've seen it work in a way that really stabilized the healthcare system during the height of the pandemic. So how do we make that theoretical aspect of the all-payer work on a better operational aspect I think is important as we move forward. And I wouldn't dismiss that everything is going okay. I think we've got to admit that operationally we've got a lot of work ahead of us in order to make the theoretical matchup with the operational. And I think that's important as we move forward. So I do thank you for the question. I'll be ready for some of the specifics that you had mentioned when we come back Friday. Thank you for that, Secretary Smith. I totally agree with you about the Green Mountain Care Board. It's interesting, I asked that question in the Green Mountain when the Green Mountain Care Board handled the, made their recent decision on the Southwest budget. It really didn't make a call on that and I think they should have, but I agree with you totally that the, we really need to look closely at this. And my only point is that, my only point is that we are at the, nobody's really seriously challenging what your team has to say about the COVID and it's because simply the results are just too good for ability. But that's not the case in the whole reform arena is really contentious as wild stuff flying around all the time. And it's just my only point is we need to have somebody that we can, that everybody in the state can believe beginning to weigh in on this. That's just my opinion. But thank you. Yeah, thank you, him. That's it. Thank you all for tuning in. We'll see you again on Friday.