 Yesterday, as we marked eight months since our first death from COVID-19, we lost another remonder, bringing the total to 62. After months without a single death, we've sadly lost four more of our monitors in the last two weeks. With over 148 positive cases reported yesterday and 146 will be reported today, we continue to see very concerning growth. Every single one of us has a responsibility to help slow this down, protect our loved ones and preserve our hospital capacity. What we need from you is to follow the restrictions we announced last week, including avoiding travel as well as social gatherings with other households. I know this is especially hard with Thanksgiving less than a week away, but I urge you to take a look at our numbers. Look at the rising hospitalizations and deaths and look at the states around the country who are exceeding their hospital capacity. Also, think about the Vermonters we've lost. They were grandmothers, grandfathers, moms, dads, husbands, wives and friends. The fact is these deaths are increasing because the amount of virus in the community is increasing and it's getting into facilities that care for our seniors. I'm pretty sure no one is doing this on purpose, but the fact is this disease spreads so quickly and easily. It only takes one party where mass aren't worn, followed by an in person meeting in a small room and a coworker returning home to a family member who happens to work at a nursing home. That's when it all becomes very real. This virus is so crafty and spreads so fast and the consequences are severe. Maybe not for you or your household, but for others. That's why it's so important to follow our latest restrictions. As I told you what we do by today, we went through the guidance to help clear things up and make sure everyone understands what we need from them while also making sure what you can do is done safely. So first, to make sure no one feels trapped in an unsafe environment, the updated guidance makes clear. If you're in a dangerous or unhealthy situation, you can leave and take shelter with another household. Next, individuals who live alone may gather with one other household so they can stay connected with them with the immediate family, but they must still limit contacts. And finally, outdoor fitness activities involving no more than two people from different households are allowed. This means you can take a walk with a friend, but you have to maintain your distance and wear a mask. I also want to reiterate that because cases continue to rise, recreational sports are unfortunately still on hold and all our actions announced last week will remain in place. Again, I cannot stress this enough. We need people to limit their contacts with others. Why I know this is hard and I know many feel that after eight months, they've learned how to get together with others without risk. But that's just not the case. According to our contact tracing data, which is why we have to do this and do it now. The CDC has also come out this week urging Americans across the country to avoid travel and avoid getting together with other households for Thanksgiving. Look, I know we're asking a lot and it's hard, but as Dr. Fauci has said, there is light at the end of this tunnel, but we need to get to that light with all our friends and family there with us so we can celebrate in the months and years ahead. So that means we'll have to continue to make sacrifices each and every one of us. And let's not forget that our sacrifices this spring and summer put us in a position to methodically reopen our economy, most of which is still open and let us safely reopen our schools this fall. That was and is a huge win for our kids who greatly benefit from being physically back in their schools. Making sure we can continue to give them the chance to be in school with friends, getting the help they need from teachers, which is best delivered face to face is one of our top priorities. So to help remind everyone what we're all working towards, I've invited a couple of students here today to talk about why they're grateful to be back in school and the results of a survey they gave to their fellow students. Sabina and on the elite. Thank you so much for being here today. So I'll now turn it over to both of you. So much, government. I really appreciate you inviting us to be here. And, you know, both of us are so happy to be able to share this data with the state and people beyond the state board. I'm going to deny this presentation to say for this Wednesday, that was a part of our student report. And we chose to do it in this fashion because in the past, I've been on the state board for a year now. And in the past, my student reports have been a simple just checking as to how I'm doing at school and what life is like for me. And with a global pandemic going on, it came to my mind that we need to provide people with an understanding of what's going on on a broader platform. It's how are all students feeling, not just how I'm going to deny our feeling at school. So I decided that a great way to do this would be to create a survey and send it out to different kids across the state. And so I want to say thank you to all the principals who made this possible and sent this survey out to their students and to the students who responded because without them, we wouldn't have this data that's here in front of you today. I'm going to look at that. So in total, we received 1077 responses. And those responses were gathered between the fifth and 17th of October. And I think it's important to note that during that time frame, we had an average of 11 new cases a day. In the past week, we've had an average of 104 new cases a day. So this data obviously reflects a very different time. And if I can urge the launchers to help us to get back to a time and place where we have 11 new cases a day on average, this will then allow us to look at this data and see this is actually how kids are doing because what we're about to show you is not going to exactly reflect how students currently feel at school. Next slide, please. So we surveyed a bunch of different high schools. And we thought it was important to kind of show the breakdown of the high schools because I myself am from CBU. And we have such a large student body that almost 30% of our responses were from that school. But we did our best to get other schools and so that way the data would not be extremely biased with one high school. It is important to note that it was only high schools that were surveyed here and not any middle or elementary schools. Next slide, please. We also collected what grade people were in. This isn't really that important. It was just something that when we sent the data to principals, we thought they would watch now and so we thought we would include it because we collected the data. Next slide, please. So this slide is done in school. Most schools have been operating on two days a week and have been sending children school Monday, Tuesday through Thursday and Friday. Again, not middle school. Middle school has been doing five days a week and this does not represent some of the two leaders because their cohorts are morning and afternoon. So that does not have to be there. So as we can see, a majority of the students have been going two days a week and the rest have been staying home or been going one, three or five days a week. Next slide, please. So this is just a hydra on basic how do students feel protected at school. It's just the majority over how students feel protected, 544 and then 21% have said that they feel people protected and then the others feel that they're very protected, not really better in this and work. Next slide, please. So then we broke down the data by high school just to kind of provide another way to look at it because obviously different high schools have different precautions in place and different numbers of students and that can affect how students feel. It's also important to note that this would have students feel so there is no real measure of how protected students actually are at school. But I felt that it was very important for people to know how the students physically feel while they're at school and not just, you know, what principle they're saying here is what we're doing. The students for the most part feel somewhat protected while they're at school and that's really important. Next slide, please. So this is just going over why students over how they're saying they deserve that other kids are wearing their masks properly, this is awesome. There's been really good panification on people using hand sanitizer cleaning anything that students touch. So distancing has been pretty good. I think that this is based on the school and I can get more into that in the next slide. And outdoor classrooms I know have also been a rarity for some schools, but personal experience, my school has been pretty good with outdoor classrooms when we scan and the weather is what keeps cold. And my school has also been doing a really good job in sanitization. Because of the slide that says while at school makes you feel not protected, there are three good ones. So for this one, we kind of wanted to see so other students who were saying that they only felt somewhat protected, you know, what was making them not feel protected. And so not following social distancing was the biggest one. And I personally feel that while at school, that is definitely something that can contribute to our personal feeling of safety, but also the improper mask usage is definitely something that kind of is a little scary when I see someone not wearing a mask properly. So definitely just remembering the 60 and wearing a mask properly is going to be a great way to help students feel protected. The next slide should be what extracurriculars have you participated in since starting school this year. So we decided to serve the kids on what they were doing outside of your classes from eight to three o'clock, because this is a huge part of the services that will provide to students, they provide outlets for kids emotionally and physically to be able to go run around on a field after having a stressful day of learning inside is really helpful and beneficial for kids and their mental health. And so as you can see, a large majority of students participate in extracurriculars and this is kind of a part of that because our monsters to please be safe because if we're not safe over breaking schools have to go fully virtual, a lot of these services and activities won't be available to kids and kids won't be able to participate in their winter sports season or attend school clubs in person. And simply having that touch point of attending, perhaps you know, GSA or RAC in person and seeing other spaces not just over a spring, create a great sense of community for a lot of kids. Next slide, please. But that majority of the sports we saw were outdoor sports such as soccer, field hockey, we'll have the same ball and pass it to another. That's not much of an issue. We saw only three affected or not protected at all. And others that are not suspected, which could be because of not full college or just basic, not wearing Next slide, please. We decided to talk to ask you how they felt their online education was being provided, because that was a huge part of going online last spring was we were fine by the use of our pants. Kids didn't know how to learn online, which is just not how to teach online. And so we wanted to see how to develop that particular aspect of their learning this ball was happening with the majority of kids doing some form of hybrid learning, where a portion out there learning was done online. And so as you can tell teachers who lost their goals have put in so much work over the summer to try to learn how to teach online, have done it. Students feel that they are learning better online. However, online learning is not the same as in person. So if you do have to go fully virtual, I think kids will be receiving a better education than they were in the spring. But it probably will not be better than an in person education. Next slide, please. See that majority of students feel that it's worse, which is in person. We did not have this issue of having to go home and learn. Or it's the same. We could obviously make assumptions that most of these students are interested in learning. But I think the key is we have to look at this and be like, wow, there are things that are really struggling. And I can obviously add my students, I know people that are really struggling that are failing their courses. And this, we need to go back to school. And there are people that need to go back to school. People are students are struggling to do online learning. They're saying it's worse and much worse. And there are more things that is worse or much worse. This is the thing that is better in our school, everything is the same. And obviously, watching is the same. But we want to be a little better than students who want them to go to school. And I think today, students are not like in school. It's hard. It's trouble. There are some teachers that have not utilized materials they've had. Obviously, there are teachers that have utilized and have adapted and they are helping students as much as they can. They also need to take care of students that don't come to school at all that come on the other course. So it's becoming a bit of an issue, for instance, and most students are struggling. And that is why we need to bring things back to how they were left off. I feel like this graph really shows it all. Yeah, I think another important thing to know about that is that at least at my school, we've had a change in how classes are taught because we're not able to be in school five days a week. So I haven't taken French or spoken a word of French since June. And I'm not taking French until next semester, meaning I don't have home seven months without speaking that language. And having to now go into French for, you know, having more than just three months off that I would in the summer is going to be different. And it's definitely, you know, something that we need to understand is that our students are doing the best they can. But we also need to, as a community, support them and be safe with what we do because without mitigating the spread, you know, students are going to continue to suffer more and more, as I mean to say. For higher learning, because a lot of students are doing this one, we kind of wanted to learn the kids and how they felt the workload was because I would mainly expect for a lot of kids while at home, it's very difficult to learn if you're not an independent learner, you know, having a classroom setting an environment where there's a teacher there to provide support. And other students who are doing the same work with you is extremely beneficial and is a great support system for kids who struggle to learn independently. And so we wanted to see how kids felt their workload was. And I would say it is a lonely place, which is to be expected of different kids of different levels, taking different level courses with different teachers. But I think, you know, it's important to note that we don't want kids to have to feel like they're having too much work or they're not getting being given enough work while they're on their high grade days. I was hoping enough that my teachers have it great about, you know, providing straightforward directions with online work. And there have been times that I felt it was a sufficient amount of work. And it felt like I was, you know, getting a supplemental day in class, but just at home on my computer. But it's really not the same. And I think that's important. But just next slide, please. So I can really hit home for them. So we don't have to see, but the back of color means that teachers have not struggled to reach out to students. The students do that they have not been getting the guidance that they need from staff. And the light of color means that they do feel that teachers have reached out and been a good support for students and that they have informed students of information. Like, are there any questions or comments that they had? So some schools have been feeling great. Some schools have been answering staff. They've been feeling great with students. They've been answering questions. And then some schools have not been. I think it's the Mount Abraham Union. This is my school. I can say that there are last year I had one or two teachers that I just emailed them something and they would get back to me in a month. And about a quarter of that was already sent in. I understand that family life is crazy that they have to figure this all out and do. And these were trying to figure out all of that. And how to reach out to students. And it was hard. And internet sometimes doesn't work. There's a crazy bunch of factors. But this is the guy that needs to learn this. And this shows that there are times when some staff don't reach out to students. And that can be another level of barrier for students to learn. And it can be another barrier for students not completing the work at the level that they are capable of because we don't have the information. And we don't have the teachers around to explain for them. And they answer all the questions that we have. And sometimes, you know, we're too nervous not to send an email and they won't respond because we have to be not happy with some teachers. So we choose to just not email them or just be silent about it. And I think we would have this problem if we went out of school. And if we were with our teachers and other students, we would not have the struggles of completing our family work. And doing work as great as we can. And it's a good thing that some teachers aren't reaching out to students. But it's often to see that a majority of teachers are. But I think what's important is that we focus on the various teachers that aren't doing their jobs at the maximum level. And that are, these teachers might be struggling as well. And we need to be able to support them so that they can support their students. This whole thing, I understand. But if you keep going out and you're not wearing a mask properly and you're going to gatherings, even though people look at you shouldn't, you are putting your kids at risk. But out of it, you are putting yourself in a situation where we're going to have to go back to school, back to home, to be school. And I think that our back students are failing. And they're not passing their passes. And they may not have them this year. And we need to get our kids back to school. Teachers are struggling. Like I know that I've gone to school and this is really just a start. Like I don't know if I could juggle all of this. And I was talking that I did a month ago finally be graded. Yeah, I know. It is really difficult. I mean, the in-person is such a huge importance. And for the people who are like, well, I just want to see my family as a race. You know, we just want to be in school in person. And so we have to want to make those small sacrifices so that kids can go back to feeling protected while they're at school. Because I know I'm scared to go to school after things get great. I don't know that I want to go into the building because I know for a fact that there are going to be kids that are going to travel and get exposed and possibly bring it to school. And I don't want to bring that home to my family. And so taking the proper precautions, if you do travel, please, quarantine to 14 days or get tested after seven because, you know, kids are the future of Vermont. And, you know, we don't want to be putting them or their education. We want Vermont students to be being provided the best education you can provide them. And having online learning is not how we do that. There's a reason school has been five days a week in person in the past because that's how it works best. So I want to say everyone in the house make this happen and open it up to questions. Thank you so much, Sabina and Anyalita. I'm very well done and we get a better picture of what's going on with you. And I hope adults who are listening as well because we need to make sure our students not only are safe in schools, but feel safe in schools as well. And both are linked to how much virus we're seeing in our communities. At this point in time, I'm going to turn it over to Secretary French for more on our schools. Thank you, Governor. Good morning and thank you Sabina and Anyalita. They're both really exceptionally strong student representatives to the State Board of Education. And I think it's something we should encourage all our boards to include student representatives because they do add a lot of value to board deliberations, particularly in education. So, you know, the case counts are increasing. Our schools, however, continue to operate safely. I was discussing the situation with Dr. Rasko is one of our infectious disease experts this week. He observed that the data in Vermont across the nation, particularly in Western Europe, is reassuring and that schools can operate safely during this pandemic. Yesterday, the Vermont Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics issued a statement supporting this perspective. In their statement, they said, we have always known that there would be cases of COVID-19 in schools because schools reflect what is happening in the community. We continue to see that schools are not a main driver of transmission in this pandemic. The fact that there have been a number of cases where an infectious person has entered a K-12 learning environment and has not transmitted the virus highlights the effectiveness of the mitigation strategies we have in place in Vermont. The Children's Hospital at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center also issued a statement this week and underscores the importance of keeping our schools open for in-person instruction and recommended that schools remain open even as case counts increase. To quote from their statement, our recommendation is based on our assessment that the considerable detriment to the long-term education and mental health of an entire generation due to school closure outweighs the low rates of infection in children, the generally mild severity of illness when they are infected, and the lower likelihood of transmission from children than adults. Indeed, based on our experience so far, schools may be among the safest settings for children and staff. Our schools are operating safely thanks to the terrific work of our school staff and school board members. We continue to ask a lot of them, and they continue to step up in service of their students, their schools, and their communities. We asked more than this week when we implemented the first round of our testing, the surveillance testing for COVID-19 in our schools. Largely thanks to their efforts, this complex undertaking has gone very smoothly. We're completing the first week of this testing today. By the end of the day today, we expect to have tested about 45% of all school staff statewide. That's about 9,500 tests. The results of this testing will start to propagate over through the Normal Department of Health Reporting Processes, and next week we'll provide a more specific update on that information. We're now planning the second phase of the testing, which will start the week of November 30. During this phase, we'll test 25% of our schools each week during December, except for the last week of the month. Each school testing group will contain a mixed geographic sample of schools, so we'll have insight every week into the prevalence of the virus across the state. Also, every month we collect data on how schools are implementing in-person, remote, and hybrid learning. I'd like to make some observation on that data. I don't know if we have the slides on that or not. Do we have the power point up? If not, that's all right. I'll just go through it. This is the monthly survey we enacted at the start of school. The first time we did administer it, it was at the end of September, you might recall, so the results from September represented where schools were as a result of reopening. By the end of October, which are the results that we have this week, we can see that basically the amount of in-person instruction has doubled since the reopening of school. And this was as of the end of October as both Sabina and Annalita pointed to that's a moment in time before the case count increased significantly. But essentially, as we predicted, the in-person instruction would increase. It's essentially doubled through the month of October. And most of that increase occurred at the elementary level. We didn't see much change in the high school or middle levels, but essentially all of that change is attributed to elementary schools doubling the amount of in-person, which is really good considering those students are, let's say, more vulnerable from an educational and developmental perspective. There's not much change in the status of our independent schools. We surveyed them as well. They continue to offer about 50% of in-person instruction for their students, but we only we have a limited sample of the independent schools. Only 40% of them respond to the survey. That's not unusual. There's a lot of many very, very small independent schools across the state and there's a large number of them. So it's hard to draw further inferences from that data, but that's hardening to know that they continue to maintain a 50% in-person rate. And the last piece on our data is the CTE Centers. They continue to implement a hybrid learning format. I imagine this represents their shift that they did fairly early on with moving a lot of their academic side of their programs to online platforms and keeping the in-person for their shop or lab environments. They also have several programs such as their business fields that lend themselves fairly well to online learning. So I think we could expect that CTE Centers will stay in that hybrid format for some time. That concludes my update. I'll now turn it over to Dr. Levine. Morning everyone. We're continuing to see our case counts reach new heights. As you can see, we're closing in on 3,500 cases as a state. Yesterday, we reported our highest daily number of cases, 148. We will be reporting, as you can see in the very right bar, 146 today. This gives you a bit of a graphic visualization of this because the picture is always worth a thousand words to get a sense for just the months of September now through mid-November. As you would expect as we have more positive cases, we are keeping up with testing in abundance but our percent positivity rate will go higher as there are more cases. So our 7-day average percent positivity rate 1.87 percent. November 17th was 1.40 percent. Keep in mind most of the pandemic we've been in the 1% or even fraction of 1% range. These are still well within our guardrails as we've called them and just to give you some perspective states like New Jersey are now well in the 6-10% range. Some states in the Midwest are 10-20% South Dakotas close to 50-ish percent. One thing that we did note a little earlier in the month and it's subtle that the slight blip in our syndromic surveillance that means people presenting to urgent care centers or emergency departments with symptoms of COVID. That blip has somewhat come down a little since and we'll have to keep watching that very closely. And then finally just to round out I may not show another slide like this again the central Vermont ice teams outbreak beginning way back in the beginning of October we're now in mid November and since November 6 there have been only two cases related to the college campus actually which is the tertiary infection so we're seeing that outbreak truly decay if you will which is great this morning we reported 15 hospitalizations the peak we've had for hospitalizations has been 21 so that's a favorable direction at least and two of those were in the ICU and no one on a ventilator again I think testimony to the kind of care we're able to provide in hospitals and in ICUs now for COVID patients that's it for the slides yesterday we reported a total of 24 outbreaks in 163 situations and to remind people situations are instances when contact tracing identifies a possible exposure in a facility that warrants a follow-up with the facility above and beyond notifying the contacts most of the time these situations involve a few cases or even just one case but it might be present in a school in a workplace or a healthcare facility and that's why it becomes a situation when we learn about more than one case in a facility and it seems likely that transmission took place at the facility we then reclassify that as an outbreak though cases are up everywhere in the state we continue to see a significant proportion of new cases in Washington County residents who we have met with previously and they are taking extra steps the officials in these counties to help stop the spread of the virus such as closing town offices at least one community has opted to move their schools to remote learning though this is not a general public health recommendation at this time but we do certainly respect the considerations such as staffing that go into these very difficult decisions and as the governor stated we have now sadly had a total of four deaths in just the past two weeks this includes most recently residents of long-term care facilities the places where we know that COVID-19 has in Vermont been so devastating and can be so devastating each life we've lost to COVID-19 reminds us that many Vermonters simply can't protect themselves from the virus so it is up to us to protect one another and that is why we want every Vermonter even those who are young and healthy to avoid the virus by avoiding gatherings as this is how workers in schools and long-term care facilities and other work sites are innocently and unintentionally able to bring the virus into those facilities especially at a time where there is more prevalence of the virus in our communities now as we see case counts mount it's easy to think the worst that there's no end in sight but this is not a runaway train yet it's picking up speed but we can get it under control if we all work together our contact tracing teams are working around the clock under the increasing burden of cases we are training new people in their ranks and we're working with partners to help ensure that everyone who needs to be contacted is reached as quickly as possible because that is how one contains this virus but we can only do it with your help avoiding social gathering limiting non-essential travel quarantining when necessary and taking prevention steps will help stem this rising tide but only if our monitors follow the guidance it is still too soon to see an impact of the guidance we announced last Friday and that went into effect Saturday night on our case numbers and it may take many weeks yet cases we see today result from exposures before the new executive order went into effect cases will peak before they can come down but with a little patience and a lot of compliance I'm hopeful that we can make a real difference we've done it before and we can certainly do it again anecdotally I'm hearing from many Vermonters that they're noticing less people on the streets and less people in restaurants not that we've told them not to go into the restaurants by the way but they seem less crowded and I've personally heard multiple stories from friends and from people I don't even know who tell me that they've changed their Thanksgiving plans and though we all should have fewer people we're in contact with these days I also again ask Vermonters to keep track of anyone you do come into contact with whether you're writing down on a paper or noted on your phone this will make our contact tracing work much easier as we said before this is a new phase of the pandemic where we need to ensure hospitals are not overwhelmed keep as many Vermonters working as possible and certainly as you heard from these students help schools continue to offer in-person instruction we have seen cases in K-12 schools a reflection of the unfortunate reality in our communities right now but importantly instances of transmission of virus in school have been very limited and not led to large outbreaks this shows that they can operate safely and a case in a school rarely results in a closure of a school and only occasionally of a class though of course they are very disruptive to everyone there we know how critical in-person learning is not only for academics but also for kids health and social and developmental needs meanwhile as Secretary French told you our surveillance testing of teachers is well underway with 45% of the 18,000 school staff having been tested and we expect by the end of the day today slightly over 50% of the staff may have been tested which is truly a remarkable and gratifying turnout this is all to say it takes a lot of hard work from our schools parents and communities to get to the place where we could open safely now it's our job to keep them open by keeping COVID out of our communities we can keep them out of our schools I know it's hard to rethink our lives and daily activities again to plan a Thanksgiving in our own homes without other family or guests to still face uncertainty about what's coming next but if we can understand and accept what needs to be done now we can still prevent further spread and tragedy I have two things I'd like to end with first of which I'll call a reality check let's face it we all know there are some people out there hopefully a small minority who we don't want to follow the rules who don't want to follow the rules or might be pressuring you actually to come over for the holidays our website has what we call some COVID talk tips to help you navigate these situations but if you're in one of these situations know that you can tell others what you need to to feel safe blaming and shaming may actually increase pushback in the likelihood of risk-taking behaviors it's okay to be clear and straightforward to decline invitations or leave situations that feel too risky you should never have to feel bad or apologize for prioritizing your safety in fact your true friends will be very understanding the second thing I'd like to end on with another message of hope is an update on vaccines it's expected that by the end of the day today Pfizer will be filing for emergency use authorization for their vaccine candidate the advisory council on immunization practices which advises the CDC will be meeting next Monday but probably not in a voting fashion just for information only the council that advises the FDA will be meeting in the second week of December we expect that the committee that advises the CDC will again meet in an emergency sense shortly thereafter and perhaps the earliest Vermont could see a vaccine on its doorsteps for a limited number of doses would be in the range of December 10th I'll turn things back to the governor now thank you Dr. Levine we'll open it up to questions at this time five or 26 people in the queue so please keep your questions limited we'll start with Calvin thanks governor so you mentioned the slight changing guidance about outdoor fitness outdoor walks or ago what about outdoor recreation I'm thinking for kids playing with those sorts of things I think the recreation whatever we have for outdoor recreation at this point is the same as previously but we'll check on that to be sure but this is really about the household contacts bringing people together from different households and we had said as you recall last week that we didn't want any interaction whatsoever and there was some significant question about that and we wanted to inject some common sense and be sure that people who wanted to bike together or hike together or walk together could do so but no more than two at a time and I wanted to get your thoughts on the unemployment report that just came out this morning it's down to about 3.2% I think what are your overall thoughts on it and a second point as well it appears that PUA without further action from Congress will expire on the 26th of December how is the state preparing potentially for more programs yeah well again you know I've been concerned about the methods used in terms of determining what our employment and unemployment is so I'll leave that they are because I'm still very concerned and I believe we'll see an uptick in unemployment and those filing over the next month or two just because of the construction season and so forth as well I'm very very concerned about the PUA running out by the shortly in some respects certainly in this year and we've made our concerns now to the Secretary of Labor but also to try and determine what we can do about it with our congressional delegation but we need Congress to act we need to have them act on something and this in particular is going to be crucial I believe for many to get through this because we don't have the capacity we don't have the resources to pay unemployment without their changing the guidelines and rules so if there's one thing they should act on this is it but there certainly is other opportunities for more economic relief as well as taking care of people during these trying times because we have we have some light at the end of the tunnel we need to get there and we're going to need their help in order to do that David thank you so Killington opens today expecting to open up next week Killington on the website has a quote mentioning that they're given the name for the requirements I'll just read it here it says they're unable to verify a visitor to the resort meet the requirements but we urge you to do the right thing and not travel to Vermont or our resort if you don't meet the requirements so essentially another example of hoping asking people to do the right thing but without being able to verify it does the state have any further guidance to resorts or anything they can do to help try and make sure the requirements are met especially you know as the monitors are asked to sort well the resorts and ski areas do have that guidance and they have guidance and they have to attest to the restrictions we have in place if they fail to they can lose their privileges to ski in Vermont they'll get their passes pulled so I think there is some incentive for those coming from other states they need to quarantine plain and simple if they don't and if they not truthful and they're attesting and we find out we'll urge the ski areas to pull their passes and that was the agreement we have with the with the ski areas but I might ask Secretary Curley I believe to elaborate further on this Secretary Curley are you on yeah we can hear you now can you hear me yes we can okay sir about that yeah our team has worked closely with the ski industry and they've been incredibly good partners in developing guidelines they're the districts in the country and as you mentioned governor there are some strong strong let's say asks that that in terms of requiring attestations from those years that they have met the quarantine requirements and we've required them to provide a great deal of educational messages around our quarantine and our cross-stayed travel policy something that's also supported by our tourism and marketing team so we're really hopeful that they can provide a safe and healthy experience for vermoners and those that can meet the quarantine requirements so start to tell them the first day but things will go well do we know if how they're able to verify that or is it just a matter of asking people if they've applied and does it sort of get left there and I guess that's you know partly for ski resorts and partly for other businesses where we're sort of asking them to do that I guess I don't know if you heard that Secretary Curley or not what's the question how do the how do the areas determine that yeah or any business in some respects yeah so we've left it up to the ski area to find an appropriate path to do that so you might imagine that when they sell a ski ticket they would ask for that attestations to be signed at the same time there might be a variety of other ways that they have folks with ski passes annual passes for example they may be checking them as they're coming into this the resort and again we left that to them to figure out a path forward we're also seeing retailers for example and restaurant owners who are on their own doing the same thing asking folks who are coming into their business to attest that they understand the the guidelines and that they have met those guidelines so again feeling very really positive that Vermont employers want to stay open and they're doing everything they can to make sure that that we can keep the economy open and they have to make sure they have to give their contact information as well a full contact information for those in restaurants as well as those going to ski areas in particular now to the phones to Chris Roy Newport Daily Express yes good mall very the hospital was prepared for a set of certain patients that they had to save the staff and the equipment for the surge and what's going to happen if a medical staff member or if there's a certain medical staff member who gets sick and we're also hearing from people who can get doing your self-care down the line and why those results come in down to the 24 hours and someone's favorite but the hospital chance takes like five days that's something Secretary Smith Chris thank you for the question as you know we're the hospitals are getting ready with their surge plans and have have done a very good job in in preparing for any surge as you know we have seen an uptick in hospitalizations but nothing that comes to the limit that we have in the availability of both medical surgical beds as well as ICU beds we also have plenty of ventilators in in in stock as well and on the front line we also are opening up a surge capacity at the Champlain Valley Expo and we have surge capacity forward based in Rutland with a mobile hospital as well so I think we're in pretty good shape obviously health care in general it gets contracts to the virus probably in terms of any sort of health care workers in general usually contract a virus at a higher rate than the general public but at the same time the hospitals have been able to keep staffed during this entire pandemic and I don't expect anything to change in that regard now that I've been talking I forgot the second part of your question Chris yeah we're wondering why is it doing yourself kits that are available online come back so quickly in some cases within 24 hours while the hospital test takes about five days yeah there are right now we're we monitor the hospital testing as well as our own testing we make sure that it's about 48 hours at the most in our testing our state lab is within 24 hours there has been some backlog on national labs I bet that in a few days if there's more and more of those tests being used you're going to see a backlog on those as well because in many cases those have to go to a lab and in some cases those labs those national labs are being backed up because of the the incident of the virus in other states we've been fortunate the labs that we've been using at the state level both the state lab and Broad Institute have been very good in Brody's 1.8 days for a return of results our own state lab is about 24 hours in terms of results but we have seen in some of the systems that there are some delays in national labs we met with hospitals yesterday we asked them to suspend going to certain labs and go to labs that have faster turnarounds I met with the UVM network they have agreed to do that to move to different labs that have faster turnarounds and we will continue Dr. Levine do you have anything to add on sort of the self-administered test and I'll turn it over to Dr. Levine I'm thinking you're referring to the test that was just in the news I guess a few days ago that would naturally return within 24 hours because you actually do it at home and you get the result at home this is a similar test to PCR but not exactly identical it's a called a molecular amplification test it uses what's called LAMP technology I'm not aware that it's actually available everywhere yet and it was particularly targeted at two sort of settings where it was going to be piloted more however if there are actually people in the Vermont who have had it it probably will play a role at some point it's not clear yet if it's as sensitive as the current technology that we use and it would cost approximately $50 per test for the individual to purchase what they needed to do it but they would have a result very very quickly so at times when things are surging around the country that may be a very very useful test to have but I can't really comment on its use in Vermont at this time because we have really no awareness of it being here in Vermont okay thank you Joe the Barton Chronicle I have a pair of questions that I think are related both of them came from leaders in one of them a woman says her daughter who is a registered nurse at a hospital not in our area is very concerned because she said they have not been doing baseline testing for COVID at her hospital and in nearby businesses there has been such testing with results short 20% positivity I think it's over a border in that case and not in Vermont but and the second question is from someone who said that a business nearer his had a cluster of cases in one department five cases a sixth worker in that department was never contacted by contact tracing and also worked in another business in Burlington there the owner said there was no reason for him not to come to work because he hadn't been contacted by the contact tracers I don't know what to say to any of these people but I figure if you or Dr. Levine or Secretary Smith might have something to say I'll refer this to Dr. Levine on the second instance let me start there hard to say anything because obviously we need details and we need to understand the nature of the work site and if the sixth worker actually had an important exposure and opportunity to become a true contact in which case that worker should be quarantined so by our methodology if that worker was very much aligned with the other five and in their presence at all times if the work site versus worked in an office and never actually interacted with them that would be important for us to know so that's how we do contact tracing and make sure that we connect with people who need to be connected this would be considered one of those situations that I refer to in my talk because it's at a work site involving a number of people there so I'm sure we're on top of that and that the right outcome has occurred but without details I can't say anything more on the first question part of reopening the healthcare sector was surveillance testing on healthcare workers and each of the hospital sites had to submit a plan that they would actually acknowledge that they understood that and show the testing protocol they were going to employ for their employees so without knowing again further details all I can tell you is that is what we have been doing all along since we reopened the healthcare sector a number of months ago and we would hope that what your reader was questioning was not in violation of that Secretary Smith I want to fill in one more comment Joe I'm going to take this opportunity to also go a little bit outside the bounds of your question and just mention one of the things we also met with the University of Vermont yesterday and I believe St. Mike's is doing the same if you have a positive student on campus and you are releasing your students that positive student I hope the parents understand why this is being done that positive student will remain in isolation until the period that it's safe to release that student so that student would remain on campus in isolation until that student is free of the virus we are going to be reaching out to all colleges in Vermont to make sure that that policy implemented throughout the college and university system here in Vermont and the reason for that is that we do not want positive college students being sent home to their communities it's safer to keep them on campus at this moment in isolation until they have passed the infection period so Joe I took your question and went a little sideways on it because I needed the opportunity to say that thank you this is better my question anyway Joe can I I just want to clarify did you say that the the hospital in question might be outside of Vermont borders possibly in no hospital question was in Vermont it was outside of Arkansas got it okay all right thank you all right next is Liam from vpr hi um I was wondering about just I get some of the messaging that um that you've been doing this week governor um you know you've been talking a lot about people needing to follow these these guidelines and um been speaking in some way more strongly than we've heard throughout this pandemic about the need for people to to really follow these rules and go through patriotism and so I was wondering if you feel like the public health guidance that you're issuing right now is is really reaching everyone in Vermont and that that you're getting the the response that you need from that it can feel like you're concerned that that not everyone's hearing you and and so what other ways besides these trans responses are you trying to reach out to to tell people who might be who might not understand the situation yeah we thank you on Liam and we're using all the channels we have at our disposal within state government to get this out we're counting on all of you as well the media to send the message and and I've got to say you've you've done a great job over the last few days in trying to do that and we look for any opportunities to make sure that we message in the proper way because not everybody reads some of the stories that are that are printed some don't hear it on the radio some don't see it on TV and they certainly don't listen to our press conferences on twice a week so we just need all all of us pulling in the same direction and trying to get it out to the best of our ability because it really is in our individual hands to put to to try and confront this and defend this over the next few weeks until a vaccine is widely distributed and and I also would say we won't know whether we're having an effect for at least maybe a couple of weeks since the measures take a little bit time there's a lag time in between seeing if they were beneficial so I'm still hopeful but we we can't let up we need to continue to message this over the next couple of weeks to have an effect so again if you have any ideas we would welcome them and and try and again verge all of the media to do all you can to get that message out as well we young the state emergency operation center recently you know collected a bit of a list that came in for you of other ways that we're reaching out including partner outreach I'd be happy to provide you with sort of an itemized list if that helps you thank you and then I just kind of a quick follow-up around around that that kind of lag and we won't know how these guidelines work for a little while with the do we currently have the contact tracing staff to deal with the the high number of cases we've been seeing this week and we'll probably continue to see some high numbers for for a little while going forward I can reach that at the point where we're able to the contact tracing effectively yeah again the contact tracing team has been stressed as you might imagine at this point we did get a bit of a break on one day this week when it went down to like 50 and we're adding people all the time training and adding I think they have a great plan in place and and they're going to scale up to a point where we have probably two to three times the contact tracers that we've had initially and even over the last month or so so I feel good about the plan I don't know if Secretary Smith has anything you want to add to that to maybe give some numbers we've been spending and Dr. Levine can add on to this if he if he desires we've been spending a lot of time on two fundamental issues testing capacity which we've ramped up significantly in this state where we hope to have the capacity to do 30,000 Vermonters in a week in turn and that's excluding colleges who will be ramping down as they send their students home the second area is contact tracing and and we are bringing on staff in the next few days here yesterday we brought on 33 additional staff now I want them I don't want to confuse you because if I use staff I don't I want to use FTEs so we hope to have by today about about 55 to 56 FTEs doing contact tracing each of those contact tracers can do two to three cases a day so you can see that we are moving into the 150 range in terms of being able to handle the surge that we have seen but that's not where it's going to stop we're going to go up 20 in on by Monday we'll go up another 10 on the following Monday and we'll go up another 20 or so the following week so that we'll have the ability to contact trace large number of people we've also reorganized the contact tracing so that we can not only interview a case but for lack of better words I'll call it Tiger teams that will reach out to the cases that are identified as quickly as possible to get them to stay in place and give them the information including serial alerts to those con close contacts of those individuals so there's a lot going on at at the height of it we should be able to be between 250 and 300 a day over the course of the next couple of weeks Dr. Z by you you mean 203 to that um so it's 200 to 300 cases a day a case is a day to move to Eric at the time target yet this is for Dr. Levine you said we're not in the front of a train right now what would that look like as we work so obviously I showed you a lot of pictures this morning so obviously we'd see that graph going to exponential growth so there are states nearby who have gone from usual place in the low 100s to the mid 200s to the 300s to now the 500s all in a pretty quick time course we're not seeing that just yet so we're going to be obviously watching for that kind of growth but at the same time again I have to stress that Saturday night meaning Sunday really is not that many days back and we would we would anticipate continued increases in our case growth based on what was going on in our population prior to the new waters and the new restrictions so we have to learn to feel comfortable with the kinds of numbers we've been seeing the past couple nights or even a little higher because that would not be unexpected and we would hope that later on 10, 14 plus days after we started we would start to see the plateauing and decrease obviously we also look at all the other metrics I mentioned just the case growth but we would look at the percent positivity rate we would look at the hospitalization rate all of the usual metrics that we continue to follow literally daily if not more than once a day so we've heard that there might have been a handful of cases out of a Portland facility for older residents is there any information you can share about that well that's exactly what I could share what you said there's not there's not much else to say beyond that obviously a situation we're watching very closely and I can say that you know like I've said before there are schools there are long-term care facilities all throughout the state that are situations sometimes turn into outbreaks but they've been by and large modest and um been contained and very small the couple that we have watched and talked about here that have been bigger are the exceptions right now not the rule but we want them to remain the exceptions and that's why our communities have to have less virus being transmitted within them hence the changes we've made thank you Erin B.T. Digger you mentioned that four deaths that in the past couple or weeks are connected to long-term care facilities how many of those four are actually connected to long-term care exactly yeah I think you just said including yeah I I don't think I I think the right answer is three but I don't think I I said that they were all connected to long-term care facilities maybe you did Dr. Levine I didn't say all yeah sorry I just spoke but you said including long-term care facilities right I believe the answer is three okay and the facility has put out a release to them and the facility has facility has released the news release to that effect that there were three deaths okay I just wanted to confirm that and um you know which the Rutland the outbreak of Q and we even first heard about it is after a reporter asked that in press conference and for now we're hearing about the Berlin outbreak for potential situations because the reporter has better press conference why doesn't the state release facility by facility data the way it does for schools and prisons and other correctional facilities it seems like that the brain or death is something that is important to understanding the impact of COVID in the state absolutely to correct you though as we corrected the prior reporter one or two press conferences ago we did actually talk about the Rutland facility at a press conference initially and that's because it was a large event as I said today you know we're in the range of 200 situations I could just stand here and not have any comments each day and just read a list of every facility in the state that's been affected by the virus I would submit to you that would not be productive because we have enough virus in our communities that people are going to be going to their worksites schools and long-term care facilities and bringing the virus with them so that's why it would be just a random thing to pick one over another certainly we could give you within each category the number of schools the number of long-term cares the number of correctional facilities and that might be useful information and it would be easy to assemble again there's no effort here to not be transparent but we'd like to provide you with useful information and that's all I'll say I don't think that you should be off all 200 situations of the press conference that's why I'm asking why you don't believe that it's data as part of saying your data portal on the health department's website you know New Jersey which has a similar protection of death in tribute to long-term care publishes a daily portal of nursing home deaths in a state of dashboard and also publishes a PDF of every facility's cases buying them for long-term deaths and buying nursing homes that I refer to all long-term care for the record Yeah so we could provide that data if that's something that you're interested in having absolutely we tend to have such small we tend to have such small numbers in any one setting that we do risk preaching confidentiality for people in that setting so we have to be careful our numbers are usually very small I mean I would say that we have a similar concerns for schools and you guys arrived at a conference you found acceptable yes we have a website that we just list number of cases within the schools so so I agree we could do the same and we will definitely look into that and appreciate your recommendation Thanks Deco Mike, can I do the islander? Thanks Rebecca this is a follow-up while this press conference was underway I did get from the health department response to my public record request about the recent outbreaks still digesting it but what struck me that the list includes at least two pharmacies that are not publicly identified just for moderators who are seeking healthcare information during a pandemic when they go to their local pharmacy at least understand whether their pharmacy is one of those places I see on the list the UVM custodial staff to see value this solicit and the other part of that's the question is at what point does a private event outbreak whatever some of them having 16 or 17 people infected really become a public event one of those public private events present cases to a long-term facility or you're a really mail set Yeah Mike so thank you for giving me this opportunity there will be numerous pharmacies that will say that they have a case eventually and a case in a worker in a pharmacy is not necessarily mean a typhoid Mary situation where because you walk in the door that pharmacy you are indebted and and going to get COVID there are cases in some of our very large retailers across the country all the time almost never requiring those facilities to close and almost never providing a risk to the public who attends those facilities so it's it's a very fine line to walk with just identifying a place that someone may have been going to for 20 years for their prescription and then saying one of the workers there tested positive for COVID and that they should never go in the door again because that would be not the way things work and not the level of risk that the public would be exposed to as I keep saying as it's as the as the virus is in our community it comes with us to wherever we go in that community and that's why we are recommending what we're recommending these days period yeah and shouldn't the promoter have that choice rather than withholding it from them so they can't make their own personal choice as to whether they want to go to that pharmacy or move to somewhere else could it be the promoter and not who knows who not disclosing it well perhaps that promoter would have no choice then because there might be two pharmacies in their community and a supermarket in their community that has a pharmacy and there's been a case in each one of those what would they do then hopefully they would trust that the right isolation and quarantine processes have occurred and that there's no risk for them for entering that place on a specific day okay and as a follow-up we've been flooded with questions from across the state about the latest state order and one of the common themes is maybe the inconsistency in the state orders and like one reader knows they can't go their spouse can't go out for a long running partner for a watch with a long time running partner but there's three to go each school to 15 20 kids in a classroom that are coming in who knows where from and who they've been this other reader says why is it safe for all Vermonters to be out and in work and in schools but state office is management to be told to tell a word at home until the end of March why is it safe for children and workers to be completely safe but apparently the state doesn't think it's safe for their own workers yeah Mike so to reiterate the governor's comments from the beginning of the press conference the concern about having a running mate or a walking mate has been taken care of with a clarification and we do understand that the impact that will have on people's lives in a very positive way we certainly want to reduce the opportunity for an older Vermonter to be socially isolated if there's a person they habitually walk with every day outside the difference is for what you were asking there are some circumstances where things are highly regimented and where there is guidance provided and very specific guidance to ensure that social distancing and masking and avoidance of crowded situations is part of the conditions for being open at all then there are other circumstances for instance a group of walkers wanting to go on a trail together who are not wearing masks and who are within six feet of each other at numerous times that would be much more dangerous so that's the distinction in those areas in the areas of schools obviously we've made the case this morning for why in-person education is the preferable route and we have very specific guidance that schools have that I won't repeat today that ensure the safety of students and teachers and the students actually presented a very compelling case to us this morning about the fact that the majority of them actually feel some sense of safety in terms of masking, social distancing, etc but we're also able to express the times they feel uncomfortable and certainly the teachers and staff in those facilities do understand all of the rules too and if we get any complaint about those educational facilities it's that our guidance is too voluminous because we've been so meticulous about making sure safety goes first so it's a very different situation than other kinds that you've raised I'll see if the governor has anything she wants to add but that'll be the end of my comments In the inconsistency between the state employees and everybody else I think Yeah, it's not there's not something like that Mike, there's not an inconsistency we've asked all businesses if you can work remotely any employee employer who can make sure their employees work remotely should do so and that's what we've asked so state employees as well and it's not just about you know it's about trying to weigh inconvenience with need so if you don't need to don't do it it might be more convenient to meet in person in some respects but don't do it until we get through this and we're just asking everyone to use some common sense to step up and do the right thing and there is no you know to be specific and to be consistent throughout we want to keep the economy going as much as we can we've proved that we can do this but we had the economy open up throughout the summer into the fall and with very little prevalence of the virus so we were able to continue with that and we think it's really important as I think Anya Lita and Sabina had told us this morning it's really important for them to be in school we've had pediatricians tell us it's really important for kids to be in school for in-person instruction so that's our highest priority and it's much more of a priority to have them in school than it is for us to have state employees in meetings in person when they can do it remotely so we've made choices based on common sense the data, the science and so forth and we think it's a good approach and we want to see this through and we'll continue to try and keep the economy going as best we can while making sure that kids can stay in school but these are tough choices I hope the readers thank you I hope the readers understand that and appreciate what you're doing thank you very much thanks Pat, WCAX? WCAX? Hi, this question yes Hi, I'm here This question is for Dr. Levine It's about the Pfizer vaccine at a large press conference you said it could potentially have 20,000 doses in Vermont by the end of the year is our infrastructure all set up to get those given the extremely cold temperatures that that vaccine requires and also I had an older caller asked just a few minutes ago if you could elaborate on who will get those first, Sean Great, two questions so I believe the temperature needs to be 70 degrees below zero centigrade so really cold and we do have freezer capacity in much of the state for that fortunately there is a time period where you can take it out of that storage when it's being transported elsewhere and use more modest means like dry ice and not be as concerned about the temperature because you're delivering it to be administered if you will so we have already ramped up the infrastructure with regard to the freezers and the transporting capacity so that part I don't envision being a problem because we've seen that coming for a number of weeks that that will probably be the first one unless Moderna's vaccine comes alongside it the second question regards this sort of prioritization scheme so I can tell you how that stands today but it is subject to perhaps change only because we do want to wait to get the input of ASIP the advisory council on immunization practices to the CDC our plan is past muster with the CDC it's along the lines of what they are advising now but I'm just saying it could be subject to change when ASIP provides its recommendations to the CDC plus we have our own in-state implementation advisory committee which is also looking at the same questions but priority group 1A are high-risk healthcare workers priority group 1B are the more high-risk vulnerable members of our Vermont population who generally will be exceeding age 65 and will be having some element of chronic comorbid diseases that's how it's laid out at this point in time there will not be enough doses for every single person in that if we got 20 but the number 20,000 is really a very fluid number right now so don't say that that's been engraved in stone by any means and I noticed we have some good news about the AstraZeneca vaccine as well this week it seems to be performing well especially older adults given that that was being tested here in Vermont do you have any reaction to that early data? my reaction is just similar to yours early good news but not enough information to go on but I'm glad you raised one other point that I can make publicly is a lot of what we do when we assess these vaccines obviously are they effective are they safe but more importantly as you alluded to who are they effective in and who are they safe in and do they perform well on the average person in a volunteer trial who might be 35 or 40 years old and healthy versus did they have a group of people who are iller who are older or who are very young and was the sex breakdown appropriate with men and women so that we really can make conclusions on a population-wide basis about the vaccines that we might be getting thank you I just want to clarify one thing just to be sure and maybe Commissioner Scherling can answer part of that but it's my understanding we I think we have some freezer capacity here for those sub you know minus 70 degrees Celsius storage but we I think I believe we have a freezer that we've ordered for that and I'm not sure about the date of delivery and dry ice as well but we have we certainly have some in spotty locations throughout Vermont but we have a central location that I believe we're waiting for that freezer right now is that correct Commissioner Scherling that is correct Governor I believe that freezer has arrived and we also have at least one and possibly two freezers coming from the University so that capacity is in motion great okay just wanted to confirm that and also with all these different types of vaccines that are becoming available I think Moderna is Dr. Levine is maybe minus 20 degrees Celsius which maybe of four degrees minus four degrees Fahrenheit so we would have the storage capacity right now for that so all of this is good news but it's changing you know every week and if it's when they bring another one online they could be even at room temperature from what I understand so it's a lot to keep track of but I'm very thankful for Commissioner Scherling keeping track of this and public safety for an emergency operation center for keeping us going and making sure that we're ahead of this we'll go to Jolie local 22 hi can you hear me okay we can my questions are for Secretary Friend Secretary Friend do you know roughly what percentage of schools are fairly remote hybrids or fully improvement now yeah I don't know as of now but the data I was sort of generally reviewing earlier you know basically shows there's most of our schools still are in some sort of hybrid it's hard to pick that apart you know as I was using the example of CTE centers you know we think of their learning in particular being largely hands-on and they do are largely focused on in person but a better part of what they do is to deliver the academics online so they designate themselves of being in hybrid mode but I think it's fair to say particularly the high school middle school level about 70% of our schools at that level are in hybrid and remain in that status what we've seen at the end as of the end of October is basically a doubling of the amount of in person at the elementary level to about I think 60% of our elementary schools at the end of October were in person thank you and then I just wanted to ask about a survey when testing what does that look like in school how often our teachers and staff members tested yeah so what we've done this week is we've offered it to all school staff so it's inclusive of teachers but also all school employees bus drivers food service workers and so forth and this this week we offered it for once for each district once again three pretty phenomenal logistics involved involving the National Guard Department of Public Safety Agency of Human Services Department of Health taking a lead on that what we're planning for the next phase of this through the month of December is slightly different program so we'll have two days a week but we believe right now like Wednesday and Thursdays or perhaps Tuesdays and Wednesdays two days at any rate where we'll be testing 25 percent of our schools each week for the month of December and each week unlike what we did this week where we kind of focused on a region of a time during December we'll sort of mix up the group so we have a representative sample geographically speaking for each week so that's the play and right now it's as far as we've planned out through the month of December but it's certainly something we're hoping to continue and it is possible to get the grade level and school that Angelica and Sabina go through yeah sure just just reach out to the agency we can provide that information great thank you you're welcome from business magazine Hi Governor I had a couple of questions for final hearing that they don't look great it's only one tenth above what it was in March three pandemic and I wonder if he had provided what he what he guessed at what was the real what he felt like was the real on the climate great given methodology issues you have and also maybe he can explain he gets why he's legally on climate data has been going up to things that is going happy than before the seasonal variations that the government mentioned earlier yes sir hearing too uh I'll I'll do my best a lot of that is some speculation as well but to get to the first question which is you know certainly we have concerns about the methodology it's not that the data is incorrect you know based on what is collected our unemployment rate has gone down and and is only slightly above where we started at the start of 2020 however when we look at the number of people buying the claims that number is probably more likely around five percent but that's not you know unfortunately or traditionally we we don't typically count self-employed independent contractors so prior to what we're calculating the insured unemployment rate so if we also add in the folks that are currently filing in the pandemic unemployment assistance program I think that rate could could go up to you know probably somewhere between six and eight percent depending so you know again a lot of that is is just back in the napkin speculation based on claims there's a lot of components and variations and and variables in there when you talk about the second part of it and maybe you could just rephrase the second part so I can really understand what you're doing well that is uh easily on the phone things have been going up for about five weeks so which is these out of um uh boards will be the senility of it they're going up sort of higher than you would expect just based on what you're doing uh really I think uh I yeah I can we can certainly see if we can drill down into that data a little bit more but uh you know we typically begin to see that type of increase beginning October into November so the fact that it goes back into portions of October is not necessarily surprising as we look at everything from construction to the Granite Shed and dysphery and others we have as we even look at filing week over week we're not seeing anything that is outside of the ordinary in terms of the time of year so from that perspective we are seeing as more industry specific and seasonal but I can certainly drill down into that information and see if we have additional additional detail and how many people up to you right now do you know that yeah it's roughly just shy of 9,000 I believe that I'll have the most recent numbers later today but I think our last count was about 8,000 600-ish okay all right great thank you yes sir and Wallace Allen VT Digger hi thanks the state is in the process of reallocating some of the federal PRS money and performance grants for agencies who need it that's the money that's coming back from the agencies that weren't able to spend it for various reasons and I'm wondering if you know how much more of the money is going to be reallocated to business grants over the next few weeks when we can still do that and if so what kind of businesses are going to be prioritized? yeah we don't have we don't have any figures at this point in terms of what is going to be left and where we're going to put it this latest request the joint fiscal committee is to make sure that we can do our contact tracing and and testing which we need to ramp up and that I think is because of the numbers that we're seeing right now so with our increased capacity for contact tracing as well as as our testing we thought we should utilize some of the money that we see but I don't you know I don't have a sense as to if and how much money will be left and where we'll put it I think we'll just have to determine that as we move forward and see where the need the greatest need is okay thanks and also with the UVM outbreak has been assisted with any contact tracing to determine how it happened or if it's led to other cases women near by communities about the Berlin community at large Dr. Levine when you use the word UVM outbreak what exactly are you referring to UVM has 35 cases last week which is the highest by 16 and single week throughout the semester yeah so you're you're accumulating cases over several weeks so you're correct so you know those cases span they've been they've been keeping in close touch with us we haven't used the word outbreak necessarily there are off-campus students who have tested positive there are on-campus students that have tested positive there are members of the staff that have tested positive these are we think not reflective of a campus-wide problem where there's an outbreak on the campus in a certain facility or what have you but more just a reflection again of increasing cases in Shetland County more than anything the UVM health center staff work very closely with us and with our contact tracing and they're usually a step ahead when they get their data they're embarking very quickly on that pathway so there's a lot of close working relationships there so if you guys aren't really seeing it as an outbreak that means that you're not going to coordinate with them against anything like contact tracing which I don't actually know what they're doing either no we're we're we're I just said we're both coordinating contact tracing on that they they always they always take the lead right away because they are their first eyes on the data they're very quick so you know what one thing they have done which they began even before the most recent cases was allowing students if they show so chose to leave campus early and not wait till right before Thanksgiving I don't know how much uptake they've had in that but I know that that was something they offered their campus they continue to also make sure that students are tested within 48 hours of their departure okay speaking of Thanksgiving for students in general around the state do you have any concern that a lot of these students are going to be heading home for Thanksgiving I've realized that a lot of them are going to be traveling within Vermont but even for the students who are going home to households in Vermont are they going to be considered to be from different households and are they going to be passed a quarantine yes that's part of our specific guidance that we've been giving for a week or two now and we've been trying to telegraph that far and wide making sure that students who are returning to a household that they haven't seen in months and months are quarantining when they arrive sorry I shouldn't have asked sorry for the news thank you Lisa the Valley Reporter Good afternoon were cases increasing so rapidly in Washington County many of our viewers of the state's town-like town map of the Thomas Department Health website there was update on the member-in-law and then not again until December 18th is there a plan to update it more often? Thanks for the question Lisa we're looking at that right now on how we're going to update it and get information to you that is timely and at the same time is is done in a way that gives the information in a more I would say productive way so we're doing that right now Thank you and my our assessment is probably also for textures that this news has to do with long-term care I'm sorry it has to do with COVID patients who are being hospitalized and then sent home rather than to rehab facilities to get strong enough to return home safely our rehab facilities taking COVID positive patients on their discharge from hospitals is there a state protocol for such patients? There are state protocols for such patients in terms of coming back to a long-term care facility there are protocols at the hospital as well one thing that you have hit upon that I'm just going to to launch into that it's not directly related to your question we do have a backlog of patients trying to leave the hospitals to go back to long-term care facilities as you may know we had a appropriation from the reallocation of the coronavirus relief fund to open up beds at Burlington Health and Rehab this was a pretty significant problem at UVM we've got approval for that we're working forward with Burlington Health and Rehab to bring those patients out of the hospital setting back to a long-term care facility the Burlington Health and Rehab there are quarantine provisions as you come back into a facility thank you for that this is more a case as I understand it from a reader this is a case where some of you have not been in a long-term care facility was hospitalized for COVID and was not strong enough to go home but was sent home anyway and then ended up back in the hospital to be an ambulance because there was no way to get this person into a long-term care facility or rehab facility yeah I think I think this what we've done or what we're doing is going to help that situation more there is like I said bringing long-term care facilities particularly now are very careful in terms of who they're bringing in but I believe the ability to open up a long-term care we have available beds I've seen the available bed list so I can't comment specifically on this this particular case and why this particular person wasn't accepted but I will I will do this if you contact my office we'll try to make sure that Dale takes a look at this particular case thank you very much why I'm up here can I also because I've seen some conversations during this press conference through various social media outlets on testing and it's a complicated sort of procedure we're ramping up statewide testing through the state of Vermont and we have a state lab here in the state of Vermont that does a quick turnaround of various lab results and we prioritize those lab results for some of the outbreaks that are happening either in long-term care facilities or other facilities that are around the state the provider network also uses labs and you may go to a provider and they may use a lab some of those labs in the other what happens in some of those labs is they send those labs out they send the specimens out of state to out of state labs there has been a backlog in those out of state labs we met with the provider network the hospitals in particular I met personally with at UVM yesterday and asked them to switch labs that weren't switch their labs that weren't backlog to other labs that had capacity and could turn around labs faster than they are now again our state lab has a remarkable record of turning around labs they are prioritized though in different with different facilities the labs that we use for the pop-ups and now the on-demand testing excuse me the labs that we use for the on-demand testing is the Broad Lab that has a very good track record but we recognize that some providers are using labs that have a backlog and we're asking those providers to switch the labs the out of state labs that they use to other labs that don't have a backlog a backlog I just wanted to clarify that next up we have by page it's 1255 and there are 11 reporters left in the page go ahead guys Governor of the Vermont Field Dealers Association reports that the city of Burlington and other municipal energy committees are considering an outright ban on new home eating systems powered by fossil fuels it also says the state climate council which met for the first time today may also consider either a ban or financially prohibitive permit fees what do you think about banning new oil, natural gas and cocaine from each and also do you have any update on challenging the global warming solutions act you report yeah I don't have any updates for you on the constitutional challenge to the global warming solutions act but stay tuned in terms of banning certain energy sources it's something that some of these entities will be be talking about and will obviously listen but I don't have I don't have control over the panel the 23 member panel of the Global Warming Solutions Act so what they do is they're their own entity and they can discuss what they want but do you have a do you have a position on either third or again yeah without yeah without the data and just listening to hear what the why we would do this I mean I know why but is it practical is it is it something we can afford what what are the repercussions I mean there's so many questions that come along with that I couldn't stand here and say yes or no without knowing all the details and that's something that we'll we'll learn as they go through some of the debate and and some of I guess the liberations all right we're going to go to hand Davis at the Vermont Journal Amy we can can you hear me we can coming up on this is two questions for Dr. Levine we're coming up and hear what I sort of think is vaccine land and there are some very interesting questions about it that I've just not seen answered anyway I hope you can help here for example the two lead the two lead publicly leading anyway vaccines that are said to be no or not well over 90 percent 90 percent of more effective does that mean I'm curious whether that means that this 10 percent that would get the vaccine and they would not be protected from the from the virus and I'm curious whether that's right and the first question is if you took if you got back if you got vaccinated with one of the you know one of the approved vaccine and could you test with a serum test whether you had the back whether you were whether you were in a back immune or would you just have to live with the risk that's my first question so you are correct that somewhere in the 5 to 10 percent range of people in the trial actually were able to get covid even though they've gotten the vaccine but that means 90 to 95 percent were protected during the time period that elapsed of the trial your other question did you repeat the other question my question really is okay if you oh the adibon would a serum test tell you tell the person a given person any person whether he was in fact protected from the virus yeah so I'll answer it a different way because that's what's done in the first two phases of studies is they determine that your body can mount an immune response based on having received the vaccine and they do that by looking at antibody levels so the answer would be you would be able to know if getting the vaccine helped you mount an immune response that then might be useful if you ever came in contact with the virus okay but it would be it would not be just positive in other words it would not guarantee you that you just wouldn't get the virus otherwise the the number of the 10 percent wouldn't have any meaning right right it wouldn't be a guarantee correct I've got a second question and the according to the virology community there are three different attack routes for a vaccine to come into the come in and disable if you will the COVID virus and and the and all three attack routes are being utilized by different different vaccines if some person got a vaccine you could vaccinate with one of these vaccines and it did not help you you were in the in the in the small percentage that that was not were not protected then would it make sense you could figure that out would it make sense to try one of the other vaccines yeah so you know I don't want to get too complex here at this hour in the press conference but there are vaccines that respond that provide a protein that your body then reacts and produces antibodies against and there are vaccines that actually provide the nucleic acid or have the nucleic acid enter one of your cells and you produce antibodies against that so I guess hypothetically you could see if one vaccine was not effective if if another that was based on a different technology could be effective right now it's a little unclear how that's going to play out and how much meaning that would have right now what we need to find out is of all the vaccine candidates that are being tested are some of the ones that are being successful characterized by being based on a certain protein or nucleic acid profile versus the others so it's going to be challenging to answer your question this early in the game I do that thank you that can't help that I just I just think that question is hanging out there on the horizon it is and it'll be one that we would like to answer I guess as an aside I'd also like to hope that you've been hearing my guidance regarding Thanksgiving because I know we've talked about that at prior press conferences I'm totally isolated thank you all right we still have nine in the few minutes after one we'll go to Greg at the county courier Hi Governor following up on all of this which I believe was a follow-up on my question on Tuesday which I was told we'd get a response from still have occurred looking for count-by-count data on more than a daily basis a few minutes ago somebody said that you're looking to do within a different format that's why it's taking longer but why can't we just get it the existing format and hope that's figured out yeah I don't have the answer Greg so we'll just work our way through it I don't think the answer is going to change from the answer we gave Lisa at this point we'll we'll look into it and see what we can do okay it's certainly data that people are looking for moving on I kind of looked up help talks and sort of reached out said they contacted Health Department about a person in their town that had recently has been positive but has been seeing multiple times in the community not quarantining the caller the health officer said she did not get a response back from Health Department which she posted that question again I'm wondering I've looked through your governor's order obviously it's been updated several times but I have not seen anything with any specifics on if you test positive you have to quarantine and I'm also not seeing anything where if you don't quarantine there's some sort of penalty or enforcement so that would be part one of my questions is that in there am I missing it I can tell you on the penalty portion there isn't we have not put a penalty we haven't issued any a fine structure if you're not adhering to the guidelines and some of the restrictions we've talked about that a lot during the press conferences I just don't think that that's an effort that would provide any fruit so to speak so it's still a possibility we still have in the toolbox but it's not something that we've utilized thus far Dr. Levine and obviously as a public health department we do have opportunities to make sure that we protect the health of everyone around and if a person was thought to provide a danger to the public's health we have authority to intervene in that way I'm not familiar with the case you're talking about so I won't comment further on that sort of enforcement measures does the state or a business or a health officer even have if somebody in their town refuses to quarantine and they test the positive yeah they individually the entities you just mentioned probably don't have any specific authority but the health department does just leave it at that well that's vague but I by that's the one I'll take that all right we're going to move to Avery at WCIS Dr. Levine the World Health Organization AYPAN Health of the World Health Organization is recommended that remdesivir not be used to treat hospitalized patients I was wondering whether you've seen that and what is the current state of these discharging remarks yeah so you know this is a great example and I'll provide one other of how fast things move and and where do they come from kind of thing so there's been a lot of literature on remdesivir that was establishing it as one of the few things we could do for people in the hospital the good the bad news about it was it never really showed a survival advantage the better news was that it seemed to lessen the severity or duration of the illness those kinds of outcomes you know the lessening the severity or the duration might be important to an individual patient it's not as momentous as actually keeping more people alive I don't have the text in front of me of what the World Health Organization said to know exactly why they came out with their pronouncement if it was that kind of distinction or not it's the only antiviral drug right now that was in active use because none of the other trials of antiviral drugs were successful I've also talked up here recently about monoclonal antibody therapy which the federal government is trying to ship to states it requires an infusion center and a several-hour infusion and it's supposed to reduce the likelihood of getting hospitalized if you're in a severe risk group and have a moderate illness at the time in the last 24 hours literally the infectious disease society of America and the NIH have both come out with pronouncements that I would I would grade as less than enthusiastic about that drug that cocktail if you will of antibodies even though just prior to that people were utilizing what literature that was available and the federal government was feeling that this was going to be a benefit to ship to the states so that's how quick things change in a pandemic where we don't have the luxury of waiting around months and months and months or years for studies to come out and to be confirmed by subsequent studies etc it's just the environment we're in unfortunately I haven't talked to my colleagues in the ICUs of our hospitals in the last day or so to find out if it's impacted their practice with Remdesivir or not but I'll be sure to be getting that input from them Thank you Loa, BT Digger Loa Hi there, can you hear me? Yes Yes You guys Oh great Thanks for taking my question about two of them The first one is that you know as part of the school reopening plan New York City set a standard the schools would close when the seven-day average 2016 rate hit 3% that actually could happen I understand that Ramona taken stand that schools should be one of the very last things to close and that's something that public health experts have supported particularly given how little transmission has been occurring within schools However, are state officials working on a metric at which community transmission would be considered too high to keep schools open? There's obviously tremendous interest in it in knowing what the threshold would be given surging case count and if you guys are working on such metrics you know what it looks like would it be based on community transmission or perhaps the surveillance testing that we started doing Apolavine Yeah, these are great questions I will say from the outset that the level of 3% set by New York City was was or continues to be criticized widely not just by their governor but by others as well but you need to still put it in context with everything else that's going on around and I'm hoping that's what the mayor and the school officials in New York did it was not maybe an isolated metric and a decision based on one number but a constellation hopefully of findings As you see every Tuesday here we show our guardrails around different metrics and one of them is the percent positivity rate but again it is only one amongst literally six at minimum six metrics that we're following at any one time so I don't think we would arbitrarily say based on one metric alone that we needed to do something but I will remind you that we've done something very significant in the last week in Vermont to protect our schools and the percent positivity at that time was in the low one percent range but there are other indicators in alliance with that that made us say we need to do something so hopefully what we've done will protect that metric from ever getting higher than three percent not that that's the level that we are arbitrarily going to set So to be clear are you working on a set of metrics that would dictate when and in schools would close? I'm not saying it has to be in New York City as I'm just wondering if what I'm saying is you're not working yeah what I'm saying is it's the same set of metrics we're using in general every week on Tuesdays that we present to you to assess not just schools but other sectors of society that either should be open closed or what have you So it's really not isolating the schools out in any way Obviously as I said earlier there's a community in Washington County that felt that its rate is much too high and there was an impact on staff because staff had virus and it made sense for them to close the schools even without anybody directing them to because it was a pragmatic solution to a problem and it was their attempt to keep everyone else as safe as possible so we respect that but this would be one of many metrics and it wouldn't just be directed at schools I'd also say that our key goal here is to protect all students at all levels but there are places around the country that realize that high school students in terms of the virus are more like adults and some at some points actually close the higher level grades at the attempt to make sure that the lower level grades can stay open because of the way virus is not transmitted well among students to each other or to their adults who are in the building So a lot of things go into these decisions but we would never just pivot off of the positivity rate for the schools and it would be schools amongst all other sectors of society Sam, that it does not necessarily could be one metric but I'm just wondering if you know there is a plan in place is that some sort of standard and this could be a variable standard depending on the region or the type of school but Lolo, I think I'm not aware I think Dr. Leigh-Ean had answered maybe you didn't hear that part but they are not working on that at this point in time I think it's open-ended in terms of the districts consulting with the health department and we've been doing that right along if they want assistance they want some reaction or advice we're there to give it but at this point in time we're not working on a metrics to automatically shut down the school Okay, all right thank you, I appreciate it and then just one other question I've heard varying interpretations from schools of how basically how to deal with when either students, staff, particular students are socializing against the governor's order and what did you give them the fact that the order itself didn't include enforcement that mechanism right now schools are allowed to exclude a student from school as they spike a fever or have them been following the travel guidance but you know I think some superintendents say yes I can send a kid home if I know they went to a party and some superintendents say I have been told I cannot do that so I'm just wondering what schools are allowed to do Secretary French yeah thanks well it is something we're working on as you alluded to schools are required to implement the daily health check which asks students and staff on a daily basis to basically provide an adaptation that they don't have symptoms or they haven't traveled and that daily health check does not include anything about multi household gathering so we are taking a looking at look at that right now but schools aren't necessarily in a good position to essentially enforce that their primary function right now is to just keep promoting the education piece of that but certainly a daily health check does does force a certain amount of compliance on individuals including staff and students but it is where where the issue is something we're working on all right thank you we have six left in the queue I'm going to have to just ask for everybody to ask one question the remaining folks and I apologize that not everybody's limited to questions around the process but we've got to get this came out of here Austin Burlington Free Press one question please Hi yeah thanks for sticking it out with us here my question I'll give a do it why weren't the clarifications outlined earlier already in place with last week's announcement and when did you decide to make those amendments yeah good question you know we we had to impose restrictions in a in a quick fashion based on the expedited you know virus count this came to us quick as you might recall three weeks ago we didn't we didn't have this number of cases we're in the in the 20s I believe on an average and then all of a sudden they started to spike so we decided to take quick action so we imposed the restriction based on the data and the science and the contact tracing and which led us to believe it was all about social gathering so we had to impose something quick that was what we did and took decisive action based on some of the reaction some of the questions nothing's ever perfect so we wanted to reflect on that and we've been working throughout the week to to determine what can we do to alleviate some of the concerns and use some common sense in imposing these restrictions while everyone keeping everyone safe so that's basically what happened I mean it was just a time factor it wasn't as though we had a month to think about this we had to react quickly based on what we were seeing and a lot of it was about the again those social gatherings whether it was the Halloween parties or at the social clubs or at bars or whatever it was we at barbecues but it was all based on 71% of that were based on social neighborhood safe social gatherings of some sort and some of those other social events so we just took decisive action very quickly but but again we wanted to use some common sense and alleviate it as best we could Steve NEKTV one question please hello go ahead Steve can you hear me yeah go ahead okay thank you speaking of data and science in today's today's repress there was an AP study survey that showed for for every two COVID deaths in nursing homes there was one from either neglect lack of physical contact failure to thrive stealth salvation from depression et cetera and it seems to be the lack of contact and physical contact with friends and relatives might be might be harming on a lot of our elders and secondly I'm sure as you know there was a couple days ago there was an actual randomized trial with the Danish math study that showed case growth even with high compliance all the study was months in the making and basically concluded that there were no difference in cases for a level of transmission in the community for math and that appears to correlate with the with the charts and graphs that I've seen regarding math wearing and spiked after the math wearing and all different states and countries around the globe is is there any yeah let Dr. Levine answer that but I would ask you see you to take a look at the states that don't have have not had mass mandates and their rate of positivity versus states that do have mass mandates they're almost identical I would disagree Steve I mean if you take a look at South Dakota North Dakota versus Vermont I'm not in Wyoming I'm not sure you'd see the same thing so I'd I challenge you on that well I sent along the graphs to to your systems last last press conference Steve I'm up here to answer your question I can't answer the first one regarding the free press but I'll be delighted to have you send me the study that it's referring to and I can comment on a later time with regard to the mask study though I feel very qualified to discuss that and I want to again for viewers point out and listeners point out the opportunities to misapply science during the pandemic they're abundant and for people to cherry pick studies and say that that overturns every piece of prior literature is unfair but it happens constantly during the pandemic so this study did not show that the group that wore masks versus the group that didn't wear masks improved an outcome and the outcome was whether they contracted the virus or not however that does not mean that this proves that we should not wear masks I will quote from the lead author of the study even a small degree of protection is worth using the masks because you are protecting yourself against a potentially life-threatening disease that's the person who authored the study the journal I believe was the annals of internal medicine I'm actually our friends with the editor-in-chief her comment was that she felt it was an important study to publish not necessarily because of the result it found because there were lots of issues regarding the methodology of the study but because there are so few randomized studies looking at people wearing masks versus not wearing masks and she felt that this should be put under the microscope of scientific scrutiny if you will but she clearly states it did not answer the question about whether widespread masking mitigates SARS-CoV-2 infection but it was the only randomized trial so it was an important study for her to publish so lots of other people in public health have weighed in and really felt that we should not use this study to tell people to not use masks again failing to prove that there was a favorable impact and those who wore the masks in one study does not cut it in the scientific world and clearly does not use it as evidence to not wear the mask we're are pressed for time so I will stop there but thanks for the question Olivia WCIS Hi I have a question about education so some schools have already decided to go remote after things getting they expect that families won't comply with the travel or social gathering guidance and it sounds like the AOE is also looking at that incorporating that as a family health check but we've also heard from one district that says that they want to be able to stand in suspected of attending large family gatherings in addition one of the students did both said that she's scared to go back after things giving so why isn't the state ordering remote learning for two weeks after the holiday? Yeah I think our decision making is really grounded in the data and we don't have any real strong indication the data that schools contribute to the spread of the virus we do have data that indicates that the cause of what we're dealing with in the last several weeks is directly related to gathering so therefore the governor's revised order and our interesting going after this very specific issue precisely so we can keep schools open so if we had other data that indicated otherwise our policy would be different but right now we don't have any indication that schools are a cause of transmission we do also you know as was cited have strong indication from pediatrician and other health experts on the importance of in-person instruction that's why it's a priority so I disagree as I had I said a couple press conferences ago with a sort of a preemptive a decision not based on data at this point and on the other hand as we've acknowledged school districts do have very real logistical challenges with staffing and otherwise that can affect them and they have to be able to make those decisions but at this moment there isn't strong health or epidemiological data that would support of any any rationale to preemptively close schools and I am aware of that but do you truly think that all families will listen to the guidance and not gather and not see their friends and that there won't be any outbreaks if you do not go remotely well we certainly hope so but I would also just echo what I said previously that schools the mitigation strategies we do have in schools indicate that we can operate schools safely and we're seeing that kind of data represented internationally as well is the girl in the free press hi my question is for Dr. Levine I'm following up on Greg's question from the time three years and that the health department does have enforcement power if somebody needs first isolation I wanted to know what that power is yeah that that requires a legal response which I'm not prepared to give you today but we would have power to make sure that a person who needed to be isolated and was a risk to those around them was not able to be of risk it says local 22 I know I believe Thomas with B.T. Higger Tom Kearney Tom here yeah go ahead Tom yeah I'm ready can't just a suggestion you guys have a section press conference called important developments you know where we could run down things like the Rutland nursing home upgrade and anything else that comes up I know you got a lot of moving parts but if you had a moment where you had to say okay here's one thing that you all know about to be great but just a question just in terminology a week ago a walk with a friend was banned and now it's okay I understand you changed that but isn't that a change not a clarification sure all right we'll go to Andrew how do you refer yes good afternoon thanks for speaking with us all probably for Dr. Levine you've drawn attention of Washington and Orange counties this particularly recent in the last week or so are there other specific parts of the state that are also on your radar in that sense or are rising cases so pervasive at this point the bubble state is of equal concern yeah that's a great question so you've heard some discussion about the map this time and one of the modifications we're considering of the map to provide more useful information that would answer your question is not just to show where more cases are occurring so that a very hot part of the state would show a lot of cases and then another part of the state that's much more populated might have a similar number of cases but obviously the rate per 10,000 people would be markedly different because of the population densities so we think that perhaps portraying it in that way could be useful and that's what's undergoing active discussion right now the other parts of the state were always concerned in Washington County because it is more populous if there are more cases there so that remains this sort of the second ranking part of the proportion of cases that we see on a regular basis you know Washington and Orange County have been in the 40% range Chinne and County certainly not more than half of that and then beyond that we've been concerned about some of the counties that have joined the New Hampshire border like Essex County and to its west Orleans just because of the fact that we don't normally see a lot of activity in that part of the state and we've seen more activity than we're accustomed to some of which we can definitely correlate to border kind of issues with people using different facilities on both sides whether it be schools or business establishments what have you but I can't say that every part of the state is created equal in this sense so there are abundant parts of the state that have less air activity than what we're seeing in the places I've mentioned all right thank you very much we'll see you on Tuesday