 Good morning, everyone. I want to start with a few brief updates. First, I want to let everyone know that we've recently issued updated recreational sports guidance for both indoor and outdoor youth and adult clubs and leagues, which closely mirrors our school sports guidance. Secretary Moore is on the line to be able to answer some of the questions that might come up. And rec leads across the state should visit accd.vermont.gov for the latest guidance. Next, I'd like to also remind everyone, once again, to please take a few minutes this weekend to fill out your census forms. Getting a complete count is critical to making sure we best serve Vermonters. It impacts the amount of federal funds we receive and also many more important services. Like everything else, our ability to get the responses has been hindered by the pandemic. But it only takes a few minutes to help and to fill these out. For anyone who doesn't have or has misplaced your form, you can complete it online at my2020census.gov. Since we're heading into a holiday weekend, I want to take some time today to ask Vermonters to make an extra effort to stay smart and stay safe this weekend. We continue to lead the country in suppressing the virus. As I said on Tuesday, that can change very quickly if we aren't smart and vigilant. So this weekend, I urge all Vermonters to have fun, celebrate the unofficial end of summer, but do so using common sense and following the health department guidance. First, get outside as much as you can this weekend. It's good for the mind and the soul. Keep six feet apart from others. Wear a mask when in public. Wash your hands a lot. If you're not feeling well, stay home and avoid large gatherings and don't travel to areas that have high case counts. It's really pretty simple when you think about it. The health department is also working to help Vermonters understand what the most risky situations are. So I think we're showing the graphic here. Gathering outside in small numbers with everyone wearing masks is the safest way to celebrate this weekend. Staying vigilant is more important than ever with our school's opening next week. Our kids need us to do our part in order to keep cases low in our communities. Our low prevalence is why it's possible for a return to in-person instruction. And we don't want to lose any ground as a result. And since this is our last press briefing before school begins on Tuesday morning, I want to talk about this a bit more as well. Mr. Petschak will present our latest data in a few minutes, which continues to show the level of virus across Vermont remains low. And our public health experts continue to support our return to school. While most schools are taking a hybrid approach with three or more days of remote learning, we know there is still a lot of anxiety about returning. And I get it. But I don't want you to forget that the folks behind me and on the phone, Dr. Kelso, Dr. Levine, Secretary Smith, Secretary French, Commissioner Shirling and their incredible team of experts have been hard at work in support of our schools for months. And even more importantly, our superintendents, principals, teachers, school nurses, custodians, and support staff across the state have stepped up to this incredible time of service to make Tuesday in all the days that follow as successful as possible for our kids. I believe in them. I have faith in them. And I thank them for their expertise and service during these unprecedented times. As we said for months, we know this isn't easy for anyone. There will be bumps in the road, maybe big ones. And there will be cases tied to schools. So I want parents and school employees to know that people on the stage and our teams behind the scenes know how important this is. And we care about the health and safety of every single Vermonter. We're here to work with you as we take this big step forward, to respond to and contain cases and adapt to changing circumstances, just as we have throughout this entire pandemic. With that, I'll now turn it over to Dr. Kelso for a health update. Thank you, Governor. Our college restart is going well in Vermont. We've had a small number of cases, but they've been detected early. And the colleges are doing a great job of identifying those cases, getting them isolated, and ensuring that their close contacts have quarantine housing available. I also want to let you know that we've updated our data dashboard at healthvermont.gov slash COVID-19 to now include additional data, including county-level case information, where you can see a graph of new and cumulative cases in each county, as well as breakdowns by age and sex. Before I give you an update on the Killington outbreak and other information, I want to briefly share more information about why I'm here, other than to give the cameras a break from tilting way up to film Dr. Levine, who had a conflicting appointment this morning. I'm not a medical doctor. I'm the Vermont state epidemiologist. My team and I are responsible for infectious disease surveillance, prevention, and control for infectious diseases of public health importance. We respond to things like cases of pertussis in schools and child cares, measles exposures among travelers, foodborne disease outbreaks, HIV and sexually transmitted infections, Lyme disease, and animal bites that could be a risk for rabies. Much of what you hear from the health department is driven by the hard work and data compiled by our team of epidemiologists, public health statisticians, and microbiologists. These are the people in the trenches, along with dozens of other public health professionals from across the department, who have been working ridiculous hours since this pandemic started. Stepping up to investigate every cluster and outbreak and report the data. Applying hard science to information and person to person supports that are getting us through this crisis. Frankly, these are my public health heroes, and I wanted you to know about them. So in Killington, a little more than a week ago, we began investigating an outbreak of cases associated with a private party at the Summit Lodge. There are currently 17 cases associated with this outbreak. Two new cases were added yesterday, and both had previously been identified as close contacts who were in quarantine. 11 of the cases attended a private party on the 19th, and six others are due to subsequent transmission from someone who is at the party. Of the 49 guests, we have reached 34. 15 of them are out of state residence, and we've notified their home state health departments. There might be some community spread in the coming weeks, and we understand that community members might be anxious. Multiple testing opportunities are available this week in the Rutland and Killington areas. And this is a good reminder to follow public health recommendations and make careful decisions about what we do and where we go. Wear a mask, stay six feet apart, and as the governor said, this is not the year for big cookouts and gatherings over the Labor Day weekend. We'll be continuing our investigation and we'll keep the communities and local officials informed of our progress and any actions anyone may need to take. The main point is that if you don't hear from the health department directly, that's good news. Your responsibility will be to keep taking the important precautions that stop outbreaks before they start. On Tuesday, Dr. Levine spoke about Vermont's successes in contact tracing, reaching out to confirm cases of COVID-19 and their close contacts so that people have the information and guidance they need to keep themselves healthy and importantly to prevent further spread of the virus. I'm proud of our teams and proud of Vermonters who understand the importance of answering the phone when we call and talking to us honestly and without shame so we can do our work and quickly and effectively because it's only with that support and trust that we can contain outbreaks and stop the spread that we see in other states. Our track record in contact tracing should give Vermonters confidence that we can not only maintain the gains we have achieved in keeping Vermont healthy and open but also can move forward with opening schools, keeping them open and our children, their teachers and staff safe. Vermont's turnaround time for lab results is one to two and a half days unlike other states where it can take up to 10 days to get lab results and we have 65 trained contact tracers with more being trained just in case. We've typically needed fewer than half of the trained contact tracers at any given time. When there's a positive case, schools will communicate with staff, students, families and their communities but I wanna make it clear that when it comes to contact tracing it's essential that the health department's trained teams are the ones who determine potential exposures and reach out to their contacts. Contact tracing is not a notification system. A contact tracer determines the epidemiological facts, things like when a person was actually contagious and then identifying who they may have been within six feet of for at least 15 minutes. They ensure the person knows how to isolate or quarantine, answer questions, provide support and protect patient privacy. So just as we tell Vermont businesses if you're a school official and learn of a possible exposure or a case, contact the health department at 863-724-0 and encourage anyone who tests positive to get in touch with us as well. All this will help ensure we can do the essential and proven work to contain this virus. Thank you and I'll turn it over to Commissioner Pechak. Thank you, Dr. Calso. Good morning, everyone. I'm Mike Pechak. I've been leading the COVID forecast and modeling team since the start of the pandemic and today we'll start with a brief overview of some national data before moving to Vermont data, talking about higher ed restart, K through 12 restart and then regional data and our travel map. So again, for those that are watching at home just a reminder that our presentation can be found on our website, dfr.vermont.gov. Turning to the national forecast, you can see again that cases are on the downside of the peak that we experienced over the summer. However, cases still do remain high between 40,000 to 50,000 new cases reported every single day, which is not really a good number for the country, but of course those cases are spread out throughout the country in the Northeast. We'll get into this a little bit more. We're continuing to look strong. But another point, and this sort of follows up on the point that the governor and Dr. Kelso made, if you look at when these cases really saw their explosive growth, you look two or three weeks after Memorial Day, you look at the period after the 4th of July weekend and you do see cases grow quite rapidly. There are many variables causing the cases to go up, but certainly the way that people behaved over those weekends, not following proper health guidance certainly contributed to what the nation saw in terms of increases. So just another reminder to be safe this weekend. Turning to the data that we have here in Vermont, like we said, numbers are pretty consistent here. You saw that we added 52 new cases this week. Vermont continues to have the lowest per capita infection rate in the country from the start of the pandemic. Similarly for the last seven days, the lowest infection rate per capita in the country and the lowest positivity rate as well. So still the top on all of those metrics, which is certainly what you want to see going into reopening higher ed and reopening K through 12. Looking at the month that just ended, August, we saw that for the month of August, we did a record 68,000 tests. Now this is tests, not individuals, but 68,000 tests were administered. Many of those in connection with the higher ed restart, but that is the most for Vermont by far. We had 214 cases for a very low positivity rate for the month of August. And we also had really low hospitalization for the month as well. On average, we had two people on any given day in the hospital and less than a person in ICU across the state. So those numbers are very, very favorable. And then fortunately, no Vermont are passed away for the month of August as well. So a lot of good news, again, leading into the restart for K through 12. Looking again at the monthly totals, you can see if you want to spend more time here that basically all of these indicators are moving in the right direction. You see that tests have increased month over month. You see that cases are really flat throughout the summer that the positivity rate has gone down month over month. And similarly, the fatality rate in Vermont has been very low throughout the summer. All, again, very favorable metrics pointing to very positive signs for us here in Vermont. Talking about our restart metrics that we talk about every week, similarly with our other numbers trending so well that it's not surprising that these four metrics continue to trend well also. We see syndromic surveillance at a very low level. These are people reporting to the emergency room or an urgent care facility with COVID-like illness. Those are well below our guardrail. Similarly with the growth rate, we're well below our guardrail on that. Very low growth and then very low positivity. We talked about how we're the, still the lowest in the country. And then with so few individuals needing hospitalization for COVID in Vermont, our hospital resources continue to be quite strong also. So again, all of those restart metrics continue to trend very favorably now, three or four months into our restart, which is great to see. Turning to some topics that are really on people's mind, higher ed in the K through 12 restart. I wanna start with the K through 12 restart. And if we go to the next slide, we'll see, again, I talked about how cases are really high in the country. And you can see by this map, the last two weeks where cases have popped up across the entire nation. And you'll see that in the Northeast, we have really low level case count, not just in Vermont, but really all across the Northeast as well. And I make this point because Dr. Fauci reiterated this week that the prevalence of your community is really gonna be one of the big factors in determining how safe it is to reopen your schools. You can see here in the Northeast, we have the lowest prevalence rates in the country. So that is a really good indicator and good sign for us on the cusp of K through 12 reopening. Looking now at a model that we created this week working with Oliver Wyman, we obviously have been working with them since the start of the pandemic. They have been providing us forecasts, but we asked them to include specifically what will change in September and October with the start of K through 12. Things that factor into this forecast include, the communities across Vermont being more mobile, parents being able to go back to work potentially, parents being able to run more errands and be more mobile because their children are back in school. And basically just the society in general being more mobile. You'll see that the purple forecast is sort of what we would expect without K through 12 reopening. And then the yellow forecast is what we would expect with those factors I just mentioned included. So the forecast trend very closely to each other, the type of trend that does not give us concern. They're really reinforcing I think of the message that the low prevalence that we're seeing in Vermont should really be to our benefit as we continue higher ed reopening and K through 12 reopening as well. So that was really a good thing to see when factoring in the K through 12 restart. Turning to higher education, we talked about last week how many students are coming back to Vermont, how many were back to Vermont. Now at this point we can say approximately all of them just under a few hundred are left to come back to Vermont from out of state. So basically all of the out of state college students are now back, they're being tested or have been tested. And we've gotten a considerable number of test results back. If we look at the next slide, you'll see that we conducted this week over 24,000 tests. Again, those are tests, not unique individuals but 24,000 tests. So some college students already got their day seven test for example, and in any event, quite a bit of testing going on our higher ed campuses, which is good to see. And then also the results are good to see as well. If we go down to the next slide, you'll see that we have conducted over 27,000 tests across higher ed in Vermont with only 33 positives to date. So a very, very low positivity rate, very, very low number of cases considering that we have 21,000 students on campus, whether living on campus or taking a class on campus. So that is a very good result. We see also in the Burlington area, similarly represented here from a number of colleges in the Burlington area, we did about 15, just under 16,000 tests with only 13 positives. So a very similar picture in the Burlington area when compared to the entire state as a whole. So again, the re-entry part of the higher ed restart is complete, the students are back on campus, and now it's just a matter of making sure they follow through on the public health guidance throughout the semester, but so far so good on the higher ed restart certainly. Turning to our regional data, we'll get through this pretty quickly. We did see an increase in cases this week from across the region. You'll see that we were up just under 15%, but I do wanna emphasize that the increased testing that was going on in Vermont was going on similarly across the Northeast as college students came back to campus. So across our region, an increase in testing this week of about 9%, so that partly explains why we see that increase across the region. But you will see we have trended up the last two weeks when we look at the region as a whole. But again, with college restart and K through 12 restart happening throughout the region, a lot of testing going on that's not all that unexpected. And then last but not least, turning to the update on our travel map, you'll see that those cases that did creep up in the Northeast did have an impact on our map. Now, down from 6.6 million that could come into Vermont last week, we're just above 5.2 million that can come into Vermont this week, quarantine free. Of course, anyone can come to our state if they quarantine, but the green counties, the population living in green counties this week is 5.2 million. And when you look at the map, you'll see some areas that are still red in Maine, associated with that Maine outbreak with the wedding. You'll see Essex County in New Hampshire is still high. They were one of the highest counties in New York this past week based on population because of that outbreak at the long-term care facility. So they're still dealing with that situation, but tests from that county for the last three days or four days have been much lower. So that's good news, certainly. So with that, I'll turn it back over to the governor. All right, we'll open it up to questions. For clarification on Vermont, those out of the amount positive, how many were out of state versus not? Maybe that's something Dr. Kelso could answer. Yeah, Dr. Kelso. All of the cases to date are Vermont residents. We may or may not actually learn of cases who have, or individuals who have since gone home to their home states who end up being cases. Got it. And we've had a couple weeks with college students back to no major case fights as you noted in the data. Is it too early to declare success in the reopening? And what does this tell us about moving forward? I think the reopening has clearly been a success. As Commissioner Pichek said, the vast majority of students are back on campus at this point and virtually all have had their day zero tests. Most have had their day seven test as well. So we don't expect to see any new big spikes on college campuses due to the reopening. Of course, going forward depends on how colleges and students manage the situation when there are cases, quickly identifying them, getting them isolated and getting close contacts into quarantine. If that continues to happen, we shouldn't have major problems. And then I have one last one for you. The CDC told states to be ready for a vaccine by November 1st. Ramonik knows already been preparing for the vaccine whenever it's available. But is there concern that this might be too soon November 1st? And do you think we'll have a viable vaccine by then? It's never too soon to be prepared. And we've been working on that in earnest for several weeks. I think we are pretty well prepared to begin with because of the robust immunization program we have in Vermont with adult and pediatric healthcare providers getting vaccines at no cost from the health department and distributing them. So we have lots of enrolled providers already will be ready when the vaccine is available and it gets shipped by the distributor to Vermont and we'll be ready to get that out. We're working on things now like identifying the key priority populations for what we anticipate will happen is that the first doses we get will be small amount, small numbers of doses and we'll have to allocate them to the highest risk groups. And then as we get more and more vaccine, open it up more. And then some of the data and IT issues we're continuing to work on with making sure that providers can access our electronic ordering system to access Vermont's allocation of vaccine. And then as doses are administered to get that data into the CDC reporting system and back into our state immunization registry. So there's lots of work going on. We're pretty well prepared to begin with and we'll be ready when the vaccine is. Thank you. Just to go back to the college's university for just a minute. Just we can't as a state, we can't as colleges and universities rest on our laurels. It has been successful thus far but we have to remain vigilant. We have to make sure that we're not bringing people in from other states that maybe at high risk counties to come visit students. That's my biggest concern and that we will become lax and complacent. So that's what we have to keep our eye on and I know the college and universities understand that as well and we keep reinforcing that. But that would be a concern in the future. So we don't want to declare victory. We have to remain vigilant. Sure, thanks for the question. You know, we announced this program just to give those that may not know a little bit of background. We announced this program about two and a half weeks ago and initiative to stand up regional what are called childcare hubs as a key component of our initiative to provide expanded school age care on remote learning days. Since Tuesday, which is the last day I reported on this, we've had more local partners step forward to help meet the need. Vermont After School and DCF are reviewing those applications and we are pleased to say that we have more potential hubs and locations in the works. Vermont After School and Let's Grow Kids are having community conversations across the state to encourage participation in this new system that is being stood up. We now have 21 identified hub programs up from 12 that I reported on Tuesday. That will run approximately 58. You want to sort of visualize this. A hub is sort of a center and then there's sort of the spokes that go out where the locations are. And so you can have one hub with multiple locations within the childcare setup. These hubs and their locations will be coming online through the next few weeks. At full capacity, the hubs and all the locations that we have identified so far can serve approximately 4,600 children because the sites identified so far are all in school districts that have split schedules for attendance. The first week of school, 17 hubs report that they will be opening 34 locations with 22 more locations coming online in the following week. These 34 locations are expected to serve 1,317 children the first week of school. This number will increase as additional locations come online. We will keep providing childcare opportunities, childcare slots, but ultimately, it's up to the parents to take advantage of those opportunities. We haven't stopped identifying hubs in their locations. Vermont Afterschool and DCF are still working with community partners to find locations throughout the state, for example. There are some places where we know there is an interest but conversations are ongoing to finalize the actual location in a town. In developing the hub program, careful thought, just so we all know, careful thought is being given to establishing a system that helps the immediate childcare needs for school-aged children on remote learning days without harming the existing network of early childhood afterschool or youth-serving organizations in this state. Remember, hopefully, this is a temporary infrastructure that we're setting up in record-breaking time. Wherever we can, we'll continue to build upon the investments that the state has made in Vermont's childcare system throughout this COVID pandemic. So I hope I gave you enough numbers there to give you the update of where we are. Just saying from the virus while they're in these hubs. We've had quite a bit of experience in childcare with minimal impact in terms of the virus. As you may remember, we never shut down the childcare system. We had childcare for essential workers during the height of the pandemic and we kept the infrastructure in place during the height of the pandemic. We may not have kids, but we paid for the infrastructure to stay in place so that when we opened up the 1st of June, we would have the infrastructure in place. We've had great success since the 1st of June in these sort of either after school or childcare programs. So I really think we're gonna have continued success as we move forward given the health guidelines that we have imposed on these sort of operations and the fact that we have experience in doing this. So I'm pretty confident that we're gonna have the same success moving forward that we've had in the past. Steve? Governor, the Vermont NEA gave you the administration a D for preparedness yesterday. Do you have any comment on that at all? Well, first of all, I think it was a D plus. We have to keep track of things like that. And I think it was for the schools. I don't know if it was towards me. I hope it wasn't just towards me. I know that we've had a bigger bit of a rocky road with the NEA over the last four years, but this situation, this issue is too important to the kids. And I hope that this isn't some sort of targeted approach at me because we need to work together. And I don't, I understand how difficult it is for teachers, administrators, the custodial staff, support staff, everyone to try and put this together, the kids, the parents, but it's really important. This, we know, we've heard during these press conferences from some of the pediatricians about how important it is to get the kids back into school because we're losing some of the momentum we were gaining and they're slipping through the cracks and it's just too important to get stuck in some of these details. So again, we want to hear if there are schools, again, that aren't prepared. We gave them an extra couple of weeks to prepare for this, but if they're still not prepared, we'll continue to work with them to make sure they had everything they need to open up back up on Tuesday. But we haven't heard from a lot of schools individually that have said or any from my standpoint that needs some additional help over the next two or three days. But if they're out there, we want to hear from them. And I might defer to Secretary French to see if I'm on track with that or if there's anything that he'd like to add. Yeah, thank you, Governor. Yeah, I certainly support our guidance. I think this is definitely high quality and I'm really proud of the work that our school has done this summer. It's been a tremendous challenge and I think likewise, our team of the agency is not a really good job, but it is a very challenging work. And we literally non-stop are answering questions and they're reaching out to us, the district. So we stand by to do what's necessary to help them reopen. But I think for the most part, I think you're on track, Governor, that districts are climbing a path forward. And I think it was important that we provided them some flexibility doing that. But I expect us to have a very successful initial launch. I did stop by the Washington School this week and spoke to the principal there. It's not without apprehension, but they're ready to go. And they're looking forward to having the kids back. I think there's about 60 kids that are in the K through four program at the Washington School. So they're actually looking forward to the kids getting back and the teachers are as well. So again, a lot of apprehension, but we'll know a lot more after Tuesday. They're, I think Washington School's in for, I think she said four and a half days per week. So we'll see how that works out. I guess is the Vermont NEA putting politics ahead of the kids? You know, I know they're concerned. I mean, they're representing their members. But I would say that there's a vast amount of members, teachers that are really doing a tremendous amount of work to make this happen. And I don't want people to, if there's any animosity towards me in particular, we don't want our schools to fail. We want our schools to succeed. So I hope everyone can put that aside, put the politics aside. Let's do what's right for our kids. Thanks. All right, moving to the phones, we'll start with Lisa at the Associated Press. Thanks. I wanted to go back to the letter from the CDC director to the governor. Governor, what do you make of this letter about the vaccine kind of permission coming out at the state to prepare by November for just a couple of days before the election? Yeah, well, again, we want to be prepared. We've had this working group for months now, trying to make sure that when and if, if and when or when the vaccine does come to be when it's safe to distribute, that we're prepared for that. And so we've been working at this again for the last few months. So I think this is from the CDC's perspective. It's just to tell us, just to make sure that we're ready by that date. I'm not convinced that there'll be a vaccine ready by then, but we'll learn over the next month or so, whether that's something that is, have been tried and tested and is safe. So we'll see what happens. But I took the letter as just make sure you're prepared. If there are any permitting or any issues of that nature for some of the facilities that will be warehousing this vaccine, make sure you clear the way. If you can and just wanting to make sure that there aren't any obstacles to having the vaccines come into your state if and when they're ready to go. And do you think an effective vaccine can be available by then? Well, again, I'm not a doctor. I'm not an epidemiologist. I think that's a very aggressive timeline from my perspective, but I know that they're making a lot of ground at this point. And again, I hope, they're successful in some respects. A vaccine is going to give us an opportunity if it's safe and proven, it's going to give us an opportunity to get back to normal. And that's what we all want. We want this to be behind us, not in front of us. So if they're successful, then I'm cheering them on, but again, it has to be from my standpoint, has to be safe. We don't want this to be a political gimmick. We want this to be a success story. Maybe Dr. Calso, do you want to add anything to that? Nothing, okay. Okay, thank you. Thanks. Greg, the county courier. Hi, Governor. I hear that there's been some progress with law enforcement situation at Richford, the one that I've talked to you about the last two news conferences. I've heard that they've had much more patrols. They've gotten some arrests and they've made contact with a sex offender who was living in very close proximity to the young families at the motel that the state positioned those families at. Could you give us an update on what's going on in Richford and I might have one or two follow-ups, I'm not sure. Yeah, you probably have better knowledge of that than I do. Some of that is news to me, but I'm happy to hear that there has been progress made, but I know we received a letter from the select board maybe narrowing some of their concerns and there were concerns about some of the children there and I understand that. And I believe that the Department of Children and Families is working on that as we speak. I might ask Secretary Smith to comment on that. And in terms of the law enforcement, I don't know if Commissioner Scherling, if you have anything to offer from a law enforcement perspective, but again, this has only been a few days in passing, so I'm just not sure where we're at in that respect. Thank you, Governor. I'll imagine Secretary Smith is walking to the podium, so I'll take that quickly and then turn it to him. We did receive some more detailed information and concerns, so let's take a leaf followed up. Again, I think the details shared today is a little bit more than I has been relayed back to me, but I'm glad that all of that has occurred. And I know what we've been working with Department of Children and Families to ensure safety in the area and we've also done some call-in-the-lame assessments to ensure that things are on track there. Thank you, Commissioner Scherling. This is Mike Smith, AHS through the General Assistance Program does house approximately 15 individuals at what is called the crossing in Richford. We have used the crossing as one of our Motel Hotel locations. It hasn't been just recent. We've done that for the last several years and as always, we encourage those that see something that is concerning to child welfare to report that to the DCF hotline. If you suspect a child is being abused or neglected, please call 1-800-649-5285 to report it. 24 hours a day, seven days a week for matters related to behavior in the community. I think the commissioner just addressed some of those and DCF will follow up on any individuals in terms of what's been reported to us by the select board member. If you're done. I think I just have a couple of quick follow-ups for the governor tonight at the meeting, which does happen every Thursday night. Several citizens mentioned that maybe the governor should attend so that he could hear some of these concerns in person. Governor, would you be willing to attend a socially distanced meeting in Richford on a coming Thursday night? Well, yeah, I mean, I'm always willing to listen. Maybe we could do something remotely in the future, but I have a lot of requests. Obviously, we're trying to deal with the pandemic. We're dealing with the legislature at this point in time. There's a little campaign going on as well, but I do my best to listen. I could send a surrogate or maybe they're doing, hopefully they're doing things by Zoom, and so there's a lot of interaction with community members as well, but maybe there's something we could put together there, but I turned over to my scheduler and others, and if it's not me, obviously, we want to have representatives of the administration there to hear the concerns of communities. Okay, and lastly, at last week's meeting, Representative Hangle from Berkshire, who covers Richford in her district, said that the political climate right now in Montpellier, and more specifically in the state, and I'm paraphrasing here, is not in a way that would support more manpower with Vermont State Police. Do you share in her view that the political climate wouldn't support more state police law enforcement, and do you agree with that? Well, again, I think even pre-pandemic over the last number of years, it's been challenging in terms of trying to have enough of a workforce in terms of law enforcement and so forth, and in terms of some of the local communities. I know that they're struggling to try and have their own law enforcement as well as some of their contractual relationships with other of the sheriffs and so forth, and I think I believe I understood that maybe Richford had not moved forward with their contract with the local sheriff, which is, you know, I get that part because it's a fiscal concern, but it does put a little bit more pressure on the state police as well. So we're struggling, obviously. I mean, as a state and country with some of the political climate that we're seeing, but I think all in all, I don't believe we are any worse off than we were pre-pandemic in terms of law enforcement, but we continue to make one to better ourselves and to provide for the public safety of all of our monitors. I think Greg dropped off the line, so we'll go to the next caller. Erin, BT Digger. Erin, BT Digger. Erin, I think we hear you. All right, Mike Donahue, the Islander. Good morning. Thanks, Rebecca. Governor, I hope to get back to remind NEA and their P-Flush grade or whatever. There's certainly a bit of irony there that that's the first time anybody can recall where a teacher gave a grade anonymously. I mean, usually teachers, everybody knows what the grade is and where it's coming from. Do you believe the Vermont NEA effort should actually identify their own school districts, which they are saying are totally unprepared or not fully prepared? I mean, bathrooms don't water or so. Placid rooms are without sanitizer. They're claiming the school districts as poor maintenance about air conditioning and heating ventilating. I mean, should these teachers be a little more forthcoming than they should be working with people? Well, again, you know, I'd like to focus on how we get better rather than what, how they utilize the survey. As I, I'm not sure that it went to the right people either. I'm not sure who the experts are. Or I would say when it comes to some of the HVAC, some of the water issues and so forth, probably the maintenance staff would be better able to answer some of those questions and to provide the information to us. But getting back to your initial question, if there is a school that is unprepared and needs some help in some way, we'd like to hear about them so that we can assist to give the best experience for the kids. So yeah, in some respects, if they could tell us which schools are deficient, we're there to try and do whatever we can to help them. I think that there's some people that were sort of, there was other questions like, has the administration coordinated with local health officials? I don't know how a teacher would know that necessarily that the superintendent or a principal could talk with health officials and that it just seemed like it was, might have been a survey that was thrown together at the last minute or something, but. Yeah, again, it was based on averages as well. I think that there are some schools that are doing very, very well and very prepared. And maybe others, there is some question. But again, if we know about them, please let us know. And we'll do whatever we can to assist them. Okay. As a follow-up to Secretary French, just wondering if you've made any new effort to try to be a little more transparent when it comes to the schools, when they get an outbreak, when they reopen, let's say we got a lot of negative reaction about the plan for monitors in the dark, they were really shocked at your stance that in some cases that you wouldn't identify the schools and or whether it was the teachers. Yeah. Have you reached out to anybody on the transparency side? I know you have your usual people that watch things kept confidential working for you, but have you reached out to any transparency side people? And just to unfairness, I just, Secretary French can answer this, but I believe he was talking about 11 or 12 schools, and that was under 25. I think that was the total magnitude of the number of schools that they would have the hesitant to give out the information, but I'll let Secretary French change that. But he did talk about earlier the benefit school that was tiny and everything like that. So again, it's another case of, sometimes we do, sometimes the state does, our parents, sometimes they aren't in the totally consistency, like I talked to Dr. Levine last time about, I think that was right for monitors is inconsistency. Secretary French? Yeah, I mean, yeah, sir, thanks, Governor. You know, certainly, you know, what I was attempting to do on Tuesday was to sort of foreshadow our latest thinking on that in an attempt to be fully transparent. I think the issues, especially as I checked in with my peers from around the country, depending on England, these issues on the same ones they're working on as well. There needs to be a balance between the two. And as the governor alluded to, I, you know, we're by far and away thinking we're gonna have data for every school. There's only a handful of schools under our current thinking capacity excluded from that. But we haven't made any further progress. Other than, you know, we're working closely with Department of Health to develop those guidelines. And I think by next week we'll have them finalized. Is there transparency in that plan anywhere? Yeah, I think our intention would be to, as we do with other status to fully describe our thinking and our parameters around how we're doing the reporting. I think it would be a Vermont plan. I mean, I know you're talking about there's no English state, but things that sometimes fly in math students that may not fly in Vermont and vice versa. So, I mean, I- No, absolutely. I agree. Yeah, we also have the other side of that, though, is that we have extremely small schools. So I think, you know, we definitely have to check in, you know, to your point about reaching out to people. So we do that. We have a strong network of folks who work nationally in that regard. But we do, as we've done with all our guidance, is apply to the very specific circumstances of Vermont. And we do still have to strike that balance between privacy and the public's interests that we acknowledge that both are equally important. But when schools have a flu and everything like that, it's well known and the kids are out, so it doesn't take too much to figure out when people have a flu. So it's not gonna take too much to figure out if people may have COVID, either. Yeah, that very well might be the case. But it's a question of whether the state reports the data. So we'll strike that balance, but hopefully have that finalized next week. Right, thank you all very much, have a good weekend. Thank you. Jolie, Local 22. That specifically with UVM, they're undergoing the weekly testing. And I'm wondering in K through 12 education, if there's gonna be a point, or if there's ever been consideration for that age group to undergo any kind of, whether it's weekly or bi-weekly testing. Thanks for that question. I know that question has come up a lot lately. I wanna explain a little bit about different types of tests or reasons to do tests. So there's diagnostic tests when someone is symptomatic. Then there's screening testing when people are asymptomatic. And we're doing a fair amount of screening testing in Vermont at our health department pop-up sites and routinely at correctional facilities and long-term care facilities and other congregate sites. The challenge with asymptomatic screening testing is that your likelihood of finding positives is really low. And we've seen that in Vermont when we've done facility-wide testing. The vast majority of our results are negative. In order to have a screening testing program that's really gonna give you information that you can act on, you have to set it up so that you're testing people repeatedly on a regular schedule over and over because the prevalence of disease in Vermont is very low. So very few people have it to begin with. And then depending on what day you test them, they could be positive or negative. So in order to find people, if you're gonna just screen people who are asymptomatic, you need to do it on a regular basis over and over. We don't currently have plans for that. We feel like with the low disease prevalence that we have in Vermont, there's not a need for that, but we'll reevaluate that if it changes. And we'll continue the efforts that we have ongoing in correctional and long-term care and other congregate sites in the meantime. Thank you. Mike, True North reports. Hello, thank you for taking my question. So we've all seen the headlines now about the demonstrations in Burlington and the demands to fire the three police officers who are involved in a controversial youth force incident. And now the police union is saying they can't just fire the three these three officers despite these demands. We've also all seen around the nation all the headlines out of Portland, Seattle, D.C., Minneapolis, Kenosha, and more. Of hundreds of businesses getting destroyed, people getting killed, and general payoffs. So my question is, what are you doing to ensure that this scenario in Burlington does not turn into looting and rioting and burning down the city? Well, obviously here in Vermont, we've been fortunate not to have any of the violence that we've seen across the country. And I support peaceful protests. The protests that's happening in Burlington, again, thus far has been peaceful. So as long as it maintains that peaceful nature, no one will have to intervene. I have, it's our largest city in the state. They have a very qualified police force. The mayor is on top of this. And if there is anything that we can do to assist, obviously we're there to help. But at this point in time, they appear to have things well in hand. So if they did turn into a situation where they needed help, you would be willing to get that help, be it the National Guard or whatever was available or offered? Yeah, I won't get into the specifics of what we would do. But we're here to help. I mean, that's part of what the state government, any government is there to assist for the public safety of its citizens. This is no different. So if there was a request for help from the mayor, we would obviously engage and do whatever we could to assist. But I want to stress these are peaceful protests. They haven't, there hasn't been the violence that we've seen in other states and other communities. And we hope that continues. And if it does, then we won't have a problem. Okay, well, thank you as always. Thank you. All right, I'm going to go back to Aaron at BT Digger. Yes, the state has relied heavily on the CDC for its guidance in combating the coronavirus pandemic. But recently there's been a couple of instances with changing of the guidelines and testing and now with this letter asking state to be ready for a vaccine by November 1st. Is there concern on your part about the CDC losing some credibility as it kind of takes a turn more into the political sphere? Well, again, who's, I'm confused now, who's this on the line? Eric, the time's up. Hi, Aaron, if you can hold off, Eric, we'll continue with this question. Yeah, sorry, Eric, I didn't get confused there for a minute. Yeah, I think that's my question after Eric. I think he already got it out. Can you hear me? Yes, yeah, we'll take your question after Eric then. All right, cool, thank you. Eric, your basic question is about the lack of trust in the CDC at this point due to politics. Yeah, do you have any concerns about the credibility of the CDC with this letter that some are saying it's political two days before the election? They're saying you're ready for a vaccine and rolling back a little bit, testing guidelines after the president has talked about how we test too much. Yeah, well, I can understand why people are questioning this in particular, but I do wanna stress there are a lot of good people at the CDC doing things for the right reason. We need to make sure that they are continuing to provide the best guidance, the best information possible for us in the states to follow and we've been watching that. But having said that, again, before they told us to prepare for the vaccine, we've had a working group working for months on this very subject so that we are prepared when and if. So from our standpoint, we will continue to seek guidance from the CDC, but I feel blessed to have a really talented team here in Vermont, the Secretary Smith, Dr. Levine, Dr. Kelso, many pediatricians and health experts, UVM and so forth. And we have a good team here that we rely on. So if there is anything that comes out of the CDC that's questionable, I know I'm certain that our team will call them out. But thus far, again, they provide us with a lot of good information and we should take heed. And I don't see that the letter from my perspective was anything more than be prepared and we are prepared. We are getting prepared. So I think I'd leave it at that. Thank you. All right, we'll try Erin from BT Digger again. Hi, is this Gary? Yes. Okay, perfect. So we have heard from a student at UVM who I have heard through the grapevine of an outbreak at Redstone campus in UVM, which I don't know if you can actually verify that there has been an outbreak there, but it kind of got us wondering, has there been any treaty transfers of virus at any of the colleges that we've tried these cases to? And also, would students be notified if they're educated in their field, in their floor, in their dorm, in a class, or if they're more the general contract or if they're more specific in their place of thought? I'm going to ask Dr. Kelso to answer some of that, particularly the contact tracing and so forth. From my perspective, and I just want to, if I could, did you say that you heard from a student that heard through the grapevine that there may be an outbreak? Is that what I heard? Yeah, I heard from a friend who worked on RA that there's an outbreak on Redstone campus. Yeah, I don't think we've heard anything officially, and that doesn't sound like an official report from my perspective, but that's how rumors get started. We are all obviously in constant contact with the universities throughout Vermont, colleges and universities, and want them to report, and they have been reporting the number of positive cases, and then we go to work with our team to contact trace, to make sure that there isn't, that we do contain it, that it doesn't spread. So if there is a case or an outbreak of some sort, I would have to believe, I have to have faith in the institutions to come forward and tell us so that we can contain it, which, again, would be in their best interests, and I know that they would want this so that they don't have a huge outbreak. So again, Dr. Kelso, anything you can add to that? Yeah, first of all, I'll say there is not an outbreak at UVM or any of the other colleges, and there, to my knowledge, has been no transmission from cases at colleges into communities in Vermont. I think the governor's points are spot on. We need to let the Health Department contact tracing do its thing, and in the last couple of weeks, either 97 or 99% of all of our cases, within 24 hours of them being reported to the Health Department, the contact tracers have reached those people, interviewed them, gotten to work on the important work of making sure they're isolated, identifying their close contacts, getting them into quarantine. That's how we stop disease spread. It's not through rumors or the buzz in the community. So the contact tracing team is on top of every situation really, really quickly, and we're also on top. We hear those same types of rumors or questions about is there an outbreak at a certain establishment, and just because there's a case who maybe ate at a restaurant or worked in a business doesn't necessarily mean they were even there while they were infectious, and that's the work that the contact tracing team does. They find out when the symptoms started or when the test was done, they figure out, therefore, when the person was infectious and at risk to other people and then who they were around while they were infectious. But just because somebody who has confirmed COVID was somewhere doesn't mean that those people were exposed. So reach out to the health department if you have questions. If you don't hear from the health department, it means you were not identified as a close contact, even if there is a case in your dorm or work site or school or other setting. And Erin, I just wanna make sure you saw Commissioner Pechek's data presentation which showed 33 cases total out of all the, what was it, 17, 27,000 tests of college students. That's in today's deck. Yeah, yeah, I did see that. I guess, you know, there's just a lot of fear from students that they're thinking, oh, someone could, in my dorm could have COVID and I could not know if that's kind of the fear that I'm hearing from students, even though, you know, I've heard from you guys many for us is that, you know, if someone has a significant contact, they will, you know, identify. Yes, I mean, the contact tracers will be in touch with anyone that the person may have come in contact with. We wanna hear from them. Again, it's in all of our best interests to identify this and be transparent so that we can contain it so that we don't have this outbreak. We wanna continue to open up the economy. We wanna continue to have more in-person instruction for our schools. Again, it takes all of us to make that happen. So sometimes, you know, the fear is, we have to acknowledge that there's a lot of fear, a lot of apprehension out there, but sometimes the fear is worse than the virus itself. So we have to get a handle on that too. And we have to, again, as a government provide for that faith and trust so that they, you know, will lessen the fear. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you. Tim, Vermont Business Magazine. Hi, Governor, I've been on the UVM campus several times in the last week or so. I didn't see a single person of mask on the student or staff member and I didn't sense any fear on campus at all. It seemed almost normal, but fewer students, I would say, than usual. So I'm not sure. The only other side to that is that people get complacent and that's what we wanna, you know, there's gotta be a certain amount of respect for the virus without the fear so that we continue to do the right things. But I'm happy to hear that there is such a prevalence of mask wearing across the campus. Yeah, I didn't see any. Anyone's not asked. Great. Hundreds of students and staff. The question I had is over the CARES Act money that's still left over here in Vermont, it's pretty substantial. It doesn't look like Washington is going to do anything soon and that money is going to expire at the end of the year. I know you're working with the legislature, but is the time come to redistribute that money perhaps the money to businesses and employers? Yeah, well, as you know, we put a plan forward to the legislature that did utilize all the CARES money. So we have a plan in place, just in case that there isn't any more flexibility given to the states that would put the money in the hands of needy Vermonters as well as to the businesses that are the economic driver of revenue for the state and putting people back to work. So we have a plan that we put forward. We think it's solid and if Congress doesn't take action to give us more flexibility, we can use that money. But again, it's going to take, you know, we're gonna have to do it at least a couple of months before the end of the year if Congress isn't going to act because we don't wanna send any money back to Washington. We sure could use it here and put it to good use. Well, I just think there seems to be more of a sense of urgency now to act. And I'm just wondering what your interaction with the legislature has been on that. You know, it's still, we're only about a week and a half in, in terms of the legislature. So we're hoping that they will pay attention. I think they are and working on the budget and so forth and what we can do to get some of this money out the door. Sooner we can get it out the door, the better off we're all going to be. All right, great, thank you. Peter Hirschfeld, BPR. Yeah, first, just a quick clarification on the 27,000 tests of college students that have yielded 33 confirmed positive cases. Did I hear Patsy Kelso correctly when she said that that total number of positive does not include students who are from out of state came to Vermont, tested positive here and then went back to the state that they originated from? I will ask Mr. Pichek or Dr. Kelso, but I believe it didn't include the students that maybe had the test before they came into the state. Is she shaking her head? Yes, it's for those students that had the test done before they came to the state and didn't come to the state at that point. It doesn't include those students. They were tested. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Pichek, I noticed in the slide deck that there's the side-by-side modeling of average daily cases without school opening and average daily cases with school opening. Under both of those scenarios, it looks like you're forecasting an almost doubling of the average daily case count in the state over the next month. And I understand that that's not a huge increase in terms of law numbers, but I'm hoping you can explain why you're anticipating that increase in September. Yeah, for sure. Thanks, Pete. So first, just think about those 33 students that just were tested from higher ed. That's basically on top of our normal case count that we might have had in any given week. So that gets factored into the forecast, basically. What's the recent number of positives that you've had? So that's part of what explains the uptick, generally. And then when you layer on K through 12 on top of that, you see that there is, again, what I'd consider a slight uptick beyond that, but really that increased mobility from the K through 12 from students going back to school to parents being more mobile was pretty mild. And just to give you a perspective, the forecast for New Hampshire and Maine, they're forecasting 30 to 40 cases a day through September. So our numbers continue to look pretty good relative to Vermont and relative to the Northeast as well. And then I'm gonna squeeze one more in here. I apologize. Governor, has it relate to the NEA report card that they gave you? One of the biggest criticisms is that you didn't use your authority to create a more consistent reopening plan across district lines. Can you talk about why you chose not to maybe have a stronger hand in telling districts how many days they were gonna have to be opened as opposed to just leaving it to them to decide? Yeah, well, thanks for that question. As you might remember, it was my wish. And those of those pediatricians and health experts that came to this press conference and advocated for more in-person instruction. I still am a proponent of more in-person instruction, but there was a lot of pushback from members, NEA in particular. So we acknowledge that and tried to give as much flexibility as possible, not knowing exactly. Again, I tend to try and give flexibility so that we can prove ourselves and build the faith and trust that's needed in the programs as they exist. With so many different schools doing different, taking different approaches, I think we can learn from one another. We learned that from here in the United States when we saw states reopening quicker than I wanted to open, for instance. And I said then, I don't know if we're right or wrong, but we'll learn from them. And again, when I look at Georgia or Arizona or Texas and Florida and so forth, I think we made the right decision and we learned from them. I think we'll see the same thing here. My hope is that we'll have a very safe opening, that there will be less apprehension two weeks from now than there is today. And this will be successful and that they will be able to transition to more in-person instruction, which is, as we've seen, the data tells us, the experts tell us, that's the right approach. But again, we can't push too hard because we don't want to have this trepidation continue and we don't want it to be a political fight. It's really about what's best for the kids. Thank you very much. Ann Wallace Allen, BT Digger. Hi, can you hear me? We can. So we know that the hospitality, the leisure and hospitality industry has been hit the hardest of all the factors as a result of the pandemic closures. And the business owners have had a pretty tough summer because of the quarantine and the capacity limits, but mainly because of people not coming up at all. And I'm wondering, are you thinking of easing up the quarantine restrictions at all this autumn? And on a related note, with the weather getting colder, it's going to be more difficult for people to eat outside. And I'm wondering if you guys have any plans to increase the capacity limits for indoor dining and restaurant? Yeah, we talked about this a little bit, I think, last week and my view is that we need to get through this school reopening, both from the college and university's perspective, as well as the K through 12, and do so successfully. And if we get through this successfully over the next couple of weeks, then my focus will then be, because that's a priority. Our kids are the priority from my perspective right now. And then two weeks from now, if it's successful and we don't have any major, major outbreaks, then we'll focus on it back on the economy. And I believe that we're going to have to give some aid, some assistance to those restaurants and lodging facilities so that they can hopefully make it through this upcoming winter season. So it is going to be difficult. They've had a lot of headwind over the last few months. Obviously, the hardest hit sector of the economy. So we want to give them some relief and we have some plans to do so. But again, priority is school reopenings at this point. But in a couple of weeks, if we're successful, then we'll hopefully give some relief to those in the hospitality sector. Do you mean relief in the form of easing up restrictions or relief in the form of grant? No, I'm hoping for both, actually. They need more dollars. We've put forward plans to do just that with the legislature, but also in terms of restrictions. All righty. Thanks so much. Guy Page. Hi, Governor, the agency of natural resources announced it will enforce the three acre runoff rule that puts all landowners with three or more acres of impervious surfaces like loose, dry waves, and parking lots. Put them on the hook for a very expensive runoff plan. At the same time, your administration supports changes in Act 250 that some critics say could actually make municipal sewer and stormwater overflow worse. Do you see the compass there? And is there anything that you want to do about it? And what is the opportunity of getting federal funding to really overhaul our municipal sewer system? Yeah, there's no doubt that what we've seen with climate change and the amount of rainfall and the amount of these storms, the catastrophic nature of these storms has led to overwhelming some of the sewer systems in our state. So we want to continue to do whatever we can to provide for relief in that respect. I believe the federal government will give us a sum in the future. But the three acre parcel plan that we put together is going to be difficult for those in business. We acknowledge that. We're going to be utilizing some of the money that we have for the lakes and streams to try and assist in doing that. But it was necessary. This was a plan that was put together before I took office. But we had to fulfill that in order to satisfy the EPA. So in doing so, we can move forward. But I don't see the conflict between the changes in Act 250 to what we're doing here. I might ask Secretary Moore, she's on the line if she might be able to clear that up a little bit further. Sure, I would be happy to, Governor. You are exactly right that there isn't really an inherent conflict between the three acre permit and the concerns that many have raised regarding sewer overflows. Both of those are complex and important projects. And we have programs in place to work to address both of them. The combined sewer overflows and some of the concerns that have been raised regarding the potential for increasing sewer overflows as a result of the increases in development in our downtown safety designated centers are being addressed through the development and implementation by those municipalities of long-term control plans that will eventually see the combined sewer overflows eliminated. And the three acre permit kicked at one of the important sources of phosphorus pollution that we know is having an impact on Lake Champlain. Runoff from developed lands contributes up to 20% of the phosphorus reaching the lake. And this three acre permit is an important step in reducing that contribution in achieving our overall water quality goal. Can you tell us a little bit more about those long-term control programs to control the sewer runoff? Sure. They are facility and community specific plans that look at ways to first try to develop stormwater management practices. And in some areas, the three acre project may actually be in service of the goal of reducing combined sewer overflows, keeping stormwater out of those single pipe systems. And then the next step, which is it's tending more extensive, complicated, but also has the unfortunate or unintended consequence of removing stormwater from the combined sewer system through separate pipes means that at times those stormwater discharges no longer received treatment. These are long projects with extended timelines in large part because this requires separating literally miles of sewer that going to other pieces of important infrastructure, whether it's streets or buildings or homes. And so that it takes time and it's complicated and expensive, but each of the communities with a combined sewer system at the point has entered into an order with the agency that prescribed the path forward with clear milestones. Okay. Thank you, Madam Secretary. Governor, a question about your executive order on policing, can you tell us when that's gonna be and a little bit, a few more details on what it will be. We saw a report coming up from the state police about the co-directors for heroin and partial policing. What can you tell us about that? Yeah, the executive order is online at this point. We haven't issued a press release, but it's been on online for a couple of weeks. Press release should go out today. Yeah, we should have the press release out today. Well, I'll look online. All right, thank you. Yes. Mara Barton Chronicle, Mara Brooks Barton Chronicle, star six to unmute. All right, we'll go to Steve, N-E-K-T-V. Hello, can you hear me? We can. Great, thank you very much. Governor, what's the amount of people is illegal for large-cathering? I believe, I may have to ask Secretary Curle, but I believe it's 150 outside, 75 inside, but I'm not positive of that. So, yeah, the... Yeah, Secretary Curle. Secretary Curle, yeah, you got that, right? I will say Burlington, I believe, made a change to that. So, I think they are gathering size of 25, but it's a double-testing on that as well. Yeah, we did allow for flexibility with the municipalities to make that stricter, and Burlington was one community that did take advantage of that, so they have stricter limits. I believe it's maybe 25 outside, 10 inside, or something of that nature. So, the large gathering or the party that they had at Killington was perfectly legal? Yes, yeah, and we actually confirmed that. I mean, we talked about how the owner did all the right things, and the staff did, and from there it was just about trying to contact Trace and we weren't getting as much cooperation as we had hoped in the beginning, but it all turned out for the best, and we were able to get ahold of everyone. It was a private function, though. Sure, sure, I understand. And regarding your D-plus grade from the NEA, considering Vermont's per pupil cost, the school outcomes and the dropout rate, wouldn't you consider this like a badge of honor? Well, no, I think any, I don't know. I'm not sure, I wouldn't want to characterize the D-plus as them pointing directly at me unless I have this wrong. I think the D-plus, they said, was in preparedness for schools from their perspective, from the teachers or the union representative's perspective, that they, some schools weren't ready and gave a failing grade, others were doing very well and then they averaged it all together and came up with the D-plus, but again, we need to move on from this. We're going to open up schools on Tuesday, and I think it's going to take all of us to make sure that's successful, and I would hope that we could put everything aside in order to give the best experience possible for our kids and keep them safe under these circumstances. So we're in the midst of a once in a century pandemic. These are unusual times. There is no playbook for this, but what we do know, as I've said before, from the experts, pediatricians, health experts, Dr. Levine, Dr. Kelso and others who've been on this in these press conferences, what's best for the kids is to get them back into the schools, back in in-person instruction. That's what's best, so if we can all do our part, work together and make this happen successfully, our kids are going to be better off. So we can save the political battles for January if I'm successful in November. Sure, a quick question about philosophers. I keep hearing about phosphorus loads coming from paved and unpaved services. I don't quite understand how this mechanism works. I know, I've seen them spread salt in the winter on unpaved and paved services, but where does the phosphorus actually come from on paved and unpaved services, if I may? Yeah, I can refer to Secretary Moore on this, but because they're impervious, obviously, there's no capacity for those areas to have the phosphorus soak in and then naturally try and filter that. So that's where the problem is, but in terms of where it comes from, I'll refer to Secretary Moore. Thank you. Thank you, Governor. Yeah, the sources of phosphorus are variable, but probably one of the more significant ones is organic debris that lands on the road surfaces. There are studies that have been done in a number of communities across the Midwest and Northeast that show that particularly in fall during leaf season, the accumulation of leaf matter on our roads is a really significant source of phosphorus and stormwater. And the same might be said for dirt roads and vegetators that became and dying vegetation matter that accumulates in roadside ditches. There's a very trace amount of phosphorus in rainwater itself, but it's contact with organic matter and as the governor indicated, it's inability to soak away are really the reasons that stormwater is a significant contributor of phosphorus. Okay, and does leaf debris in cityscapes and particularly urban areas, and don't the leaves also have a saturation with PAHs, the polyaromatic hydrocarbons? They certainly can. And one of the best management practices that we've been evaluating is frequent leaf removal and sleep sleeping and the impact that beneficial impacts of that can have not only on phosphorus, but other pollutants as well. Sure, because I knew they wouldn't take them at a composting facility a few years ago because of the hydrocarbons. All right, well, thank you all very much. Thank you, Steve. Olivia, WCAX. Good afternoon. So a while back, there had been discussion about teacher shortages. So I was wondering if you're seeing those now, I mean, school starts in three days, are schools prepared with teachers, police, staff? And again, I'll refer to Secretary French, but I just want to remind everyone when we're talking about shortages of any sort in terms of labor, teachers, and other areas, remember where we were like a year ago where we had the lowest unemployment rate in the country? We were really suffering from, we had more jobs and we had unemployed people to fill them. And that was problematic in this state. The number of, I look back, a year over the last few years the need for more bus drivers, for instance, that was here before this pandemic. So this is further escalated, I believe, in some respects. It's going to be challenging for us. It was challenging for us before, and I'm sure it's going to be challenging for us now. But Secretary French, can you add anything to that? Yes, thank you, Governor. No, we haven't heard the reports of widespread shortages at this point. I know districts are, to the governor's point, actively beefing up their substitute teacher rosters. So I know folks are interested in substituting your local district will be interested in adding it to the roster. But so far, I'm not unaware of shortages in terms of real estate schools. Okay, and then I also have another question for you, Secretary French. So I've been looking at hybrid models and on remote days, some students or some schools require students to join classes virtually through a live stream. Other schools will assign work and expect students to complete it on their own. Is this worrisome that some students will not receive formal instruction on their remote days? Like, will some students qualify because they're not receiving as much instruction as some of their peers at another school? No, I don't think it's worrisome, personally. I think the idea of hybrid instruction applies a lot of different things. And certainly, I think what you're pointing to is sort of the differences. It's what we call synchronous versus asynchronous instruction. And I think there's districts are provisioning both. Both can be successful. Of course, to your point about how do we know they work successful, we have to work at how are we gonna assess the impact of that instruction, what we call formative assessment. And that's still a very critical approach regardless of the methodology. So I think this will be the important work going forward as schools are reopened if we begin to assess the impact of the emergency on student learning. But I think all these different methodologies are useful to a certain extent, but they need to be evaluated based on looking at the impact on student learning. Thank you very much. And again, Olivia, it is our intent to try and prove ourselves and to have a successful opening so that we can get back to normalize in-person instruction, which we know is best for our kids. Thank you both. Colin, seven days. Hi, Governor. I'd like to ask you about yesterday's report in the Atlantic regarding comments President Trump has made about the armed forces. According to the magazine reporting, which I should be clear, the White House has denied. The President may just bear you comments about certain World War II Marines who died in battle calling them suckers and losers. And they kind of ended with other disparaging comments about modern veterans who were wounded in war. I know your father was severely wounded during D-Day. And I just wanted to ask you, what do you make the President's alleged comment? And have you given any further thought to whether you will be voting for Vice President Biden? Yeah, a couple of things as you might have acknowledged. I have a great deal of respect for anyone who serves in the military. Specifically those from the greatest generation, World War II, I take great exception to anyone disparaging them in any respect. Anyone who serves in the military should get our appreciation and be thanked every single day for that. And I've said that over the last four years, you get a chance, you see a veteran, thank them, thank them for their service and the sacrifices they made for all of us so that we could stand here today and do the things that we enjoy as well as have some of our free independence and liberties that we sometimes take for granted. So again, I take great exception to that. I have not read the Atlantic article, but I did see the headlines and I intend to read it over the weekends, but it's just if true, I remember some of the things that the President had said about one of my favorite politicians, John McCain, who was a POW and came back again after that experience to serve his country in a much different way, a Maverick and said what was on his mind and I've really appreciated everything that he did for us and in our country and I remember some of the statements he made about him in particular and I take great offense to that. So in terms of whether I've said before, I won't be voting for President Trump haven't decided as to whether Vice President, former Vice President Biden will get my vote, but I would not rule that out. Thank you. That's it. Well, thank you very much for tuning in again. We'll see you on Tuesday and again, have a very safe, hopefully uneventful Labor Day observance and make sure you mask up and stay away from large gatherings so that we can have a successful opening of the schools on Tuesday. Thanks again.