 Good morning everyone. As was previously announced, Governor Scott is not participating in today's press conference in deference to the fact that it is election day and is sensitivity to media concerns covering this news conference if a candidate was participating. I'm Julie Moore, the Secretary of Natural Resources, and I'm going to kick things off this morning talking about school-based winter sports and the guidelines that will be available later this afternoon on the Agency of Education's website. Deputy Secretary of Commerce Ted Brady will then continue and outline guidelines for the operations of our ski areas this winter. And then, because it's Tuesday, Ted will be followed by Commissioner Pichak with his weekly update of modeled COVID trends and the travel map and then the health update from Dr. Levine. As with school-based fall sports, things will look different this winter. School-based winter sports typically offered in Vermont include Nordic skiing, downhill skiing, snowboarding, basketball, bowling, competitive cheer, dance, gymnastics, hockey, indoor track, and wrestling. Fully appreciating the important physical and mental health benefits school-based sports provide to our student athletes, supporting in-person instruction remains the priority. And as we continue to see clear evidence of just how fragile this can be, with growing case counts and positivity rates, both regionally and also here in Vermont, we are taking necessary precautions. The guidance presents an appropriately cautious approach and was developed with input from health experts and educators, as well as reviewed by the Department of Health and Agency of Education. We know that the risk associated with different sports types of sports programs is a function of the degree of contact between the participants and the type of setting or format in which the contest is held. Because of this, we were unable to identify ways to sufficiently mitigate the risk for two sports this winter and concluded there simply isn't a way to offer wrestling or indoor track. In addition, because of the increased risk of transmission associated with vocalization, cheerleading squads may not perform vocal routines in practice sessions or competitions during the winter 2021 season. Further, recognizing that gathering indoors inherently presents more health risks than outdoor events, and that schools continue efforts to minimize any visitors to their buildings, the guidance establishes that spectators will not be allowed at school-based indoor sports events, practices, or games this winter. This includes basketball, bowling, competitive cheer, dance, gymnastics, and hockey. We recognize this will come as a disappointment to parents and fans of local teams, but minimizing the number of people present is essential to appropriately manage the risk associated with indoor sports events. The masking mandate that was put in place this fall for all players and staff is going to be continued and extended to referees and officials for indoor sports events. The guidance establishes that winter sports practices may begin on or after November 30, and that teams may initiate inter-scholastic games, meets, and competitions no earlier than January 11, 2021. Providing six weeks between the start of practice and the first games is intentional, allowing time for health officials to look for any trends that may emerge and make further adjustments if and as needed. I want to be upfront in highlighting that should data emerge that indicates COVID-19 transmission as a result of sports-related activities, this could result in further delaying or suspending games, practices, meets, and competitions. And finally, as we've seen both locally and in case studies from across the country, COVID transmission often occurs during team-based social gatherings as opposed to the athletic event itself. While team-based social events are often considered an integral part of sports programs in the interest of reducing preventable transmission, the guidance strongly discourages any such in-person team-based social gatherings this winter. And on a more personal note, as a mother of two teenagers, both of whom played soccer this fall, I take seriously the need to do what we can to provide a sense of normalcy in these far from normal times. The guidance represents dozens and dozens of hours of collective work in balancing the health risks associated with COVID against the benefits, the very real benefits, mental and physical of sporting opportunities for our youth. And with that, I will turn it over to Deputy Secretary Brady to talk about ski area guidelines. Thank you so much, Secretary Moore. Well, no one's on the ground today, so of course, time to talk about the heat. So today, thanks to e-commerce and team development, we'll actually already have updated our work-stay guidance, which is available at accd.vermont.gov, also at vermontvocation.com, to include a new section on Vermont e-resort COVID-19 winter operations guidance. The guidance we're issuing today aims to provide skiers and riders with the safest skiing and riding experience in the country. It aims to ensure the health and safety of the thousands of riders who work in the industry at the mountains, and perhaps most importantly, it aims to protect the health and safety of the communities that host these mountains. Over the past two months, ACPD, the AC Econor, the Department of Health, Vermont Department of Public Safety, the Vermont Agency of Active Resources, with Secretary Moore's leadership and others' work-development guidance. The end result is what I believe to be the safest and the strongest skieria guidance in the country. The guidance, and Secretary Moore just said about winter sports guidance, it requires people to do things differently. It requires skiers to considerably alter how they're going to do businesses winter. In addition to following all of the existing health and safety measures in the work-state guidance, skierias have another layer, so let's be clear. Without this guidance, we believe skierias could have opened under the less restricted work-state guidance. Today, we're announcing a new layer of security and safety for reminders. So what's in the guidance? There are several, I'll say six specific areas that add additional layers of safety for the skier, for the workers, and for the reminders. One, and this is an enormous undertaking. The guidance requires all customers to attest to the comply with the state's travel and quarantine guidance, and they show up at a resort. When you go to a resort this year, what's like going to the hotel currently? You're going to have to attest that you read, understand, and most importantly comply with the state's existing travel guidance. Two, another big layer of safety. Skierias are going to be collecting and maintaining contact tracing information for every guest that's on the mountain every day, and to be able to give that information to the Department of Health in the event of a contact tracing date. Three, we're directing skierias to reduce the reliance on out-of-state staff. When you think about weekend warriors, come up to do key patrols or key instruction. They commute up from more areas in southern New England and New York. We're acting skierias to reduce the number of people they rely on to do that. Skierias are already doing it. They're already trying to reduce the number of people that they need to bring from out-of-state, but this guy has clearly said they have to do it. Four, lift operations will look different. In addition to managing lift lines, a little differently where you're not elbow to shoulder to shoulder, they're going to have to reduce the capacity of it. New guidance, direct skierias to reduce lift capacity to 50%. Except for a party traveling together. So let's be clear, if you're a family of four, if you're skiing together, if you can get on a quad and get on it. If you're a two-seller or a single, you're not going to be riding your lift with anybody else like me. You close lifts like gondolas. They're only going to be able to serve a single party unless the gondola is big enough, where the bubble lift is big enough to ensure 60 between customers and guests. Think a good example of this would be the famous JP Tram. That tram could hold multiple parties in there and those parties could be 60 of them. A five. He clarified guidance on base lodges. I think Vermonters know that we have some beautiful base lodges, places of it are comfortable, great place to warm up and get a cup of cocoa. The guidance clearly says that skierias need to reduce day use lodges to 50% fire oxygen fee, with a maximum of 75 people in any one unique space. No matter how big that one unique space is. Again, 50% fire oxygen fee for a maximum of 75 people in that space. And then finally, the final thing I want to really highlight is that it works with a skieria to ensure that they're offering very immediate calculation policies to discourage guests who are sick or those impacted by a change in the state's travel policy from coming to Vermont because we're going to lose a few thousand dollars if they don't. Today's skieria guidance will mean speeding and riding will look different. There is no doubt about it. In addition to 6 steps, we have about a 10-page guidance document at accd.vermont.gov and you can see it at vermonfication.gov.com, vermonfication.com also. I need to be clear that this is going to take a lot of preparation and adaptation by both the skieria and the guests of the skieria. That's one of the reasons why the governor and the agency of commerce and the legislature work together to dedicate $2.5 million in skieria safety recreation grants to help skieria implement safety improvements to the resort. In light of the fact that we just announced the guidance today, the agency has extended the deadline for that grant program from last week to the end of this week. And skieria can apply for a cost to make safety improvements. I also want to point out that more than a dozen resorts have also taken advantage of the economic recovery grant program that the agency of commerce is running to replace lost revenue. As I said before, the skieria has worked hard to come up with a guidance. But I want to thank the Vermont Skieria Association for working with the state to develop the guidance, especially the president of the Vermont Skieria Association, Molly Mahar, who has proactively come to us and said here are some suggestions. What do you think it worked with us as we went back and forth? Since last spring, it's important to note that our resorts have put Vermont first repeatedly. They voluntarily closed when this pandemic began in March. They put restrictive rules in place over the summer to operate safely, which is worth noting we did not have major problems if the ski resort this summer or this fall. And they were operating everything from mountain biking to mountain coasters to at least keeping sheriff's rights. And the skierias are so actively approaching us to the framework. I also want to point out that our resorts have already started changing the way they're doing things. Look at Killington. Killington has surprised itself for decades of being the first to open and last to close. They made a strategic decision this year to wait to open until they had enough to wait and enough to operate to spread that crowd over their mouths. There are skierias around the state that are putting in novel innovative ideas such as Holton, where they're offering ski combatants so that people don't crowd into a lot. Or skierias that have eliminated cruise lessons so that you have a private lesson setting. Before closing, I want to point out that the Vermont Department of Tourism and Marketing is one of the work cooperators of the ski area to educate those who love to play and dream out how to do so safely. We're asking skierias and riders to know before you go. Visitors should visit VermontVacation.com to know how to visit Vermont State League and read the most up-to-date travel guidance. I need to be crystal clear. Our travel guidance is not a suggestion. Our travel guidance is not an idea. Our travel guidance is mandatory restrictions that say you can only come to Vermont if you do need certain things. All skiers and riders are going to have to alter their routine. As Steve Vermont has said already, maybe you want to bring a sandwich this year. Maybe you want to boot up in your car. Maybe you want to make sure you're not skiing alone. Remember, if a lot of things will show up at the ski area, you're going to have a lot of quads between the riders on them. That's going to create a long lift line. Most importantly, stay home if you're sick. Finally, skiing and riding may look different this year. Our guidance is to do what Vermont has always done best. Provide an unparalleled winter spirit. In addition to having the best snow, the best resort, the best free skiing, this year Vermont is going to have the safest skiing and riding season in the country because of this guidance in the cooperation versus resort. We're creating an experience that's safe and healthy for both those on the mountain and even more importantly, those off the mountain. Thank you, Secretary Mora. I hand it back to you. Thank you, Ted. I'll now turn the podium over to Commissioner Pichek who will present the COVID-19 modeled trends as well as the updated travel map. Thank you very much, Secretary Moore and good morning everybody. As always, you can find our DFR presentations at dfr.vermont.gov including today's presentation and all past presentations as well. Looking at our first slide, we're looking at new case growth across the country. You can see the story is pretty similar as it has been the last few weeks. We see a clearly defined third peak across the country. You can notice that back in the spring. We had about 32,000 new cases per day across the country. In the summer when we saw the resurgence that was about 67,000 per day. Now we're approaching close to 85,000 per day on a seven day average. So that number continues to rise and it is not showing any signs at the moment of slowing down. On the next side, you can see where these cases are spread out across the country. Again, geographically they're more diverse than they were previously. You can see from a week to week comparison that we have more cases in places like Utah and Michigan and even in the northeast as well. But generally the story here that cases are spread out more broadly. Looking a little closer to home in the region, you can see that new case growth is up 23 percent week over week. We now have 40,000 cases in the region. So again, we're seeing regional increases as well. When we look to all of the other regions across the country, the west, the midwest, the south, and then also the northeast. You can see even though we are continuing to increase and increasing at 23 percent, the rest of the country, the rest of the regions are seeing greater increases than we are in the northeast. So similar to the summer, similar to the fall, cases are going up everywhere but they're going up more slowly in the northeast even though they're going up more quickly when we compare ourselves to our own experience earlier in the pandemic. Now I want to show on the next slide a time lapse of our travel map. We just saw that cases in the region are going up. Therefore that's obviously impacting our travel map. This is something that will be or is available on our website as well for anyone that's interested in seeing it. But you can see here on the first slide June 26th. This is the first day that we expanded the travel map to include all of the current states that are in the travel map. You'll notice there are a lot of parts of the region particularly more rural parts of the region in Ohio and in West Virginia and Virginia and New York and Pennsylvania that had a lot of green and most of the cases were bunched up in more urban areas. If we time lapse through now the summer and into September, into July 31st rather, you'll see that the travel map already started to change quite dramatically. Those places in Ohio and Virginia and places in Pennsylvania that got swept up with that summer surge quickly turned red and yellow. The number of people that could come to Vermont went from 19 million down to 4.8 million. So again largely the northeast was spared from this increase but certainly that mid-Atlantic and that midwest area saw quite a dramatic hit. Now if we fast forward to September 11th right at the beginning of the fall season, you'll see that there was some slight improvement. We went up to 5.5 million and we were looking generally good heading into the fall weather. The northeast looked relatively strong. The mid-Atlantic, the midwest could not quite shake the cases that they saw from the summer. They continue to be red and yellow but again things changed quite dramatically when we now fast forward through today. You can see that today there is essentially red and yellow everywhere across our travel map. It's on our borders. It's even in Vermont. 11 of our own 14 counties are above the current threshold for Vermont. That's something that's unique as well. Generally in past times we might have had a county or two over our threshold but now it's quite clear that the cases are in the northeast. You can see it on the map. You can see that they're on our borders and you can see that cases are going up even when comparing within the Vermont borders as well. All of that boils down to the fact that we only had two counties moved to green this past week while 13 moved to red or yellow. That nets out at a decrease of about half a million people that are no longer eligible to come into Vermont without a quarantine bringing the travel map number down to 332,000. So obviously this is the lowest the travel map has been since we published it and it's down quite considerably from that 19 million number that we started with on June 26th. So quite a bit of change obviously throughout the summer but more importantly quite a bit of change in the fall as it relates to the northeast in Vermont. Talking more specifically about Vermont we do want to highlight just a few things you know because our case counts have stayed higher but there have been some improvements. You know we had 132 new cases reported this week. We showed this slide last week with the three different peaks in Vermont. You will notice that now playing it out for another week. That peak that we saw last week that really was on the rise and you weren't quite sure what was going to happen to it. It has at least slowed down and you can see it sort of cresting down. We don't know if that obviously even in the short or long term is going to stay in that trajectory but it is good to see that that has crested at least for now. Then when we compare that to New Hampshire and to Maine on the next slide you can see that that's not the story that they're experiencing right now. Last week they were seeing case increases and those cases have continued to increase this week. Both New Hampshire and Maine on a seven-day average are having more cases now than they did at any other point during the pandemic. So in terms of the Vermont news this changed our forecast. If you remember last week the forecast was quite dramatically different because we had seen such dramatic case growth and cases did seem to be trending up. Because they're more stable in the last week even though they're more elevated the forecast has improved. It shows that you know we should have a slower level of growth over the next three to six weeks peaking at about 40 cases a day. But again just as we said last week this can change based on Vermont's behavior both for the good and for the worse. We certainly want Vermonters to continue all the good public health protocols that are in place. Looking ahead on the week over week comparison across Vermont the only thing we wanted to point out was that Coas County in northern New Hampshire has been seen a dramatic increase in cases. In Vermont we saw four cases in Essex County a very small county for us and we've never had that many cases reported there in one week. So maybe there is some spillover from what's happening in New Hampshire that's obviously a community that's quite one community in some of those places up there in the northeast kingdom. So just a reminder for those that live in the northeast kingdom be to be careful and cautious about traveling to that part of New Hampshire now whether for essential or non essential reasons. Now again all of this put into context even though cases continue to be on the rise across the country in the region and to some degree in Vermont things like hospitalizations and deaths remain very low. You'll see here in Vermont that we had a slight uptick although it's pretty minor and we've had similar upticks in other parts of the summer in terms of our hospitalization and ICU usage so nothing that really stands out for concern. And then when we compare that to ourselves to the national average and to northern New England you can see just how good shape we are here in Vermont compared to the national average. You can see hospitalizations are going up nationally but in Vermont they're pretty minuscule and this is on a per capita basis and northern New England as a whole is performing quite well on this metric. Similarly when you look at fatalities you know those are going up nationally but again in northern New England and particularly in Vermont those remain very low fortunately. On the next slide you'll see that in fact this week for the first time we can confidently say that we have the lowest fatality rate in the country since the start of the pandemic. Again obviously good news from that perspective so it's not all bad news in terms of what's happening in northern New England and Vermont but it is certainly a cause for concern when you see cases because that's a leading indicator hospital and deaths unfortunately are sort of a lagging indicator in terms of the result that you might see from those case growth. In terms of the restart metrics we'll just mention they're all trending favorably. There's no need to call out one in particular. I'll just mention though that in terms of positivity we do remain to have the lowest positivity rate in the country so again everywhere is seeing some impact from the spread of the virus. We're seeing it here in Vermont but we continue to stand out when compared to our peers locally and nationally as well. Just a couple of other updates on flu data you'll see that we just got over 150,000 Vermonters vaccinated as of last week. We are about 50 percent to our goal for vaccination so we continue to see a good uptick in the in the flu vaccine. I want to encourage everyone to still get their vaccine. Everyone that can avoid getting the flu, avoid spreading it to someone else, avoid hospitalization will be helpful to all of us as we enter into the later fall and winter potential surge for COVID-19. Last on the K-12 and higher ed update you'll see that Vermont added about 14 cases to its K-12 case count this past week. New Hampshire added about 55 cases, Maine 23 cases so we continue to trend favorably when compared to the rest of northern New England. And then last when we look at the higher ed numbers Vermont added 36 new cases this week. Most of those associated with St. Michael's College, beyond St. Michael's College, the numbers are really stable in the higher education space. So with that I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Levine. Thank you. I'll start off by saying I hope everybody had a happy Halloween. I was glad to see and hear about all the creative ways Vermonters found to trick or treat safely. From Halloween themed face masks to decorated tables and candy slides Vermonters showed they understand how to protect each other. We can follow the guidance and still have fun. Some of those ideas may even become a more permanent part of our Halloween traditions. Let's all keep that creativity in mind as we navigate the coming months of the pandemic. The kids in our neighborhood said it was one of the best Halloween's ever and their parents said the same. Everyone was at the end of their driveways physically distanced across tables and decorations but very socially connected. Now I also know that some people may have had different Halloween celebrations. Maybe what was supposed to be a small gathering was a little more crowded than you expected or maybe you just slipped and ended up in a riskier situation at a party or in a bar. If that's the case I'm not here to yell at you. We're all human but please know that it's not too late to protect people around you. Consider staying closer to home for a while and avoid seeing anyone who's at higher risk of COVID-19. And after seven days have passed it's a good idea to get tested. So you might want to plan that out now. As much as we want to avoid these kinds of high risk situations they are going to happen and the more we can acknowledge them the greater chance we have of stopping any potential spread of the virus. Speaking of higher risk let's return again to that travel map that we just saw. I know that a sea of red isn't what any of us want to see right now. We are tired of this pandemic. Maybe we're just trying to tune out the bad news now. We miss our family and friends and we just want to look ahead to joyful holiday traditions together. But unfortunately as the map tells us we need to face the reality of our current situation. The latest surge of coronavirus cases is hitting many parts of the country including the northeast. We're seeing a rollback of reopening plans restrictions being imposed in various states. Here in Vermont we continue to see more cases reported every day and growing numbers of small outbreaks. As I've said before Vermont is not safe from COVID-19. It's our job to keep each other as safe as we can. That's why as we make our holiday plans it's probably a good idea to avoid travel if you can. Travel will increase your chance of getting and spreading COVID-19. That same message applies to any visitors you may be inviting to your home who come from outside of Vermont. Those visitors would need to quarantine in your home including your returning college student. I want to emphasize that quarantining in someone else's home does not just mean you can't go out to the store. If your guests are in quarantine they should wear a mask in common places. Use a separate bathroom. Eat separately. That's really important to note if a Thanksgiving meal is being planned. Stay six feet apart and otherwise not be in close contact with other household members. You can find more information like this on our newly updated webpage regarding isolation and quarantine. Without taking these steps you could easily be exposed to COVID by one of your visitors who unknowingly brought the virus into your home because they didn't know they were infected and might be in their pre-symptomatic period. If you do leave Vermont remember that you need to quarantine for 14 days when you return so plan ahead. Of course you can also get a negative test after seven days and quarantine early if you have no symptoms and end your quarantine early. We know that social gatherings often among trusted family and friends are a driving force behind much of the virus is spread right now across the nation. Adding the element of travel to the mix only adds to the risk. Celebrating the holidays at home will be different for many people this year but maybe like Halloween we can come up with some new holiday traditions and innovations. Maybe even a few will want to keep and we can be thankful we're all doing our part to protect one another. Since today is election day if you haven't voted yet you can still drop your ballot off or vote in person safely as all voting sites through Vermont have integrated specific public health guidance into their protocols this year. Now to move to cases and outbreaks we continue to see daily totals of cases in the teens and twenties. Some days though heavily influenced by our ongoing central Vermont hockey outbreak or as it has as it has become to be called though more accurately ice sports teams Washington County. As of last night there were a total of 112 cases. I've noted previously there were six schools that had in some small way been impacted beyond the Union Elementary School. We told you we report on which schools they were and they were South Burlington High School, Williston Central School, Francis C. Richmond Middle School, Barry Elementary, Montpelier High School, and Oxbowl High School. But the major impact from this outbreak of course currently has of course been St. Michael's College. The total count there is now 65, 17 having been reported yesterday after campus-wide testing. Fortunately the majority of cases on this campus have been asymptomatic. The campus remains on remote learning. Now we can move on to the question period. So some resorts have implemented those and basically we're telling resorts here the frame, here the guidelines that need to operate within to reduce capacities in your lodges, on your lifts, and other places. And few resorts are going to take different approaches to meet that guidance. So no, there is no state requirement that you have to have a reservation before you go to a C resort. You're going to want to check with your resort ahead of time to see what policies that resort's putting in place to comply with their guidance. And then I guess a quick follow-up too. I mean there's lots of red counties around. How are we going to make sure that people are actually following the quarantine rules, right? I mean we've already heard from some owners of hotels and E&B's over the summer that there were you know visitors that weren't, that they were basically lying on the honor form. So I'm just wondering how you can work that out. Sure, well one we need to do a big education campaign. And the department tourism is working with the PRS marketing money that was afforded to by the legislature and the governor at court. And we're going to do some doing a lot of marketing to make sure people know what our travel policy is. That's the number one thing. Two, the theory of doing the same. In addition to an educational campaign, they're also required to be by your ticket that you attest that you have read and understand and comply with the state travel guidance. This is the most restrictive policy in the country when it comes to you know the resort interaction with the hear. So we're putting in place a level of protection that other states are not. In addition to that we're asking theories to hold peers accountable so that if peers don't do this they have to be sent back but also that there are implications for not being there. The existing guidance specifically speaks to that and saying that you're skiing and riding for religious could be revolted if you violate that if you violate the state travel guidance. And then just one follow-up while on the winter sports school guidance. You mentioned that the state is highly discouraging gatherings off the ice and off the court. I'm wondering if there will be any disciplinary action if that's in the guidance or if that's something that the district has. So the Vermont Principles Association, the VPA, is going to be issuing a companion guidance document with a lot more details on their expectations around conduct for teams. I expect that will be that guidance document will be released later this week. Let me be clear that the thing that's most restrictive is what Deputy Secretary Brady was talking about with regard to the policy around the ski industry's interaction with the customer and the need for quarantine. But quarantine as a public health measure is pretty standard around the country and just so I can reassure Vermonters we're actually on the more progressive side if I could use that word because we do provide this opportunity to test out on day seven of what otherwise would be a 14-day quarantine. And if you add in a couple of days that it might take to get your test result back you're still significantly shorter time than 14 days. So it's a it's a pretty progressive policy that has really stood up over time very well here in Vermont and allowed a lot of people a lot more freedom without endangering anybody in the population in terms of new disease exposure. In the school sports guidance with I can imagine there's going to be a lot of pushback a little bit on the on the parent side not being able to attend games and things like that. What about covering these games for us? So we are looking at what opportunities and tools there might be available to promote broadcasting games online on TV or even on the radio. I know that that some local access channels have been providing that service throughout the fall because there have been limitations on the number of spectators allowed to attend games and we're looking right now at ways we might be able to bolster and further support that sort of activity. There's people here in Maine and yes there are major differences. Sure your major differences so the the perhaps the most notable is the space lodge area and the requirement is to have a capped number to be aligned with our social distancing or matching the gathering size of 75 that's perhaps the most notable but also as I said before the year the other state's requiring the attestation of people are meeting the travel guidance and our lift guidance is a little different. The capacity restrictions on our lift guidance is a little more restrictive. Okay thank you. All right Lisa Lumis the Valley Reporter. Good morning my question is also about the p-reserve attestation. The results must require a guess to attest that they're in compliance with the state travel policies. The point is they'll ticket and then purchase in the past. Why don't we see those in live installments required to do this when restaurants, retail shops, grocery stores and other states don't fulfill our requirements? Sure well first let's realize that the hospitality sector has been the most impacted sector of this crisis that the governor said again again and that's why we've stood up the economic recovery grant program to recognize that. We also recognize the hospitality sector and the fee resort are in the unique position of drawing a lot of people through Vermont and it is the place where out-of-stateers interact with other Vermonters. So it makes sense that these are places where we put these additional travel safety measures in place because we know these are the places the travelers come to. We know these are the places where we can interact with that traveler, educate that traveler and make sure that travel isn't compliant with their guidance. So the obvious reason is this is where out-of-stateers go. So we're checking them at the point of contact when they come here to the state. And then the follow-up. Can we work legally to send or transfer people's passes? In particular if the attestation requirement is not in place, we'll make a purchase. Many people purchased their fee passes last spring this time earlier this fall before this requirement existed. Was it a fee? Sure, well I think, I certainly think it does. A few resorts have the right to suspend service to people who violate whole hostages rules. Whether you're skiing out of bounds or skiing them safely or as we're skiing and have circumstances of poor behavior that's not conducive to resort operating safely. It's safe to say that if you violate our travel policy you're putting reminders at risk, you're putting the people that work at the ski area at risk, and you're putting our community at risk. So we certainly believe that you could suspend somebody's right to ski and ride based on an out-of-state behavior. Thank you. Pat, WCNS? Good morning. We've had 464 cases in the past month which is 21 percent of all the COVID cases that we've had since the start of the pandemic. And in just the past two weeks we've had 273 cases which is 12 percent of all the cases since the pandemic started and 136 of those were in the past seven days in a row. At what point do you become alarmed by the rising numbers and what is the benchmark for implementing new restrictions? What's the number on that? Hi, Dr. Levine here. Thanks for those questions. Numbers of that magnitude in Vermont always pique our interest, needless to say. I don't want to use the word alarmed because such a substantial proportion of those numbers that you just recited are with this one major outbreak. We went through a similar experience as you saw on the graph with that sort of second peak that we had on our curve which was the Burlington-Wanooski outbreak that had well over 100 people in it as well. The nice downslope that Commissioner Pechak just showed us at the end of the graph hopefully will be the beginning of a trend because we actually are not seeing a lot of spread of this central Vermont ice sports teams outbreak in other sectors. It's mainly limited to the St. Michael's College now and there are great measures instituted on this campus to make sure that those numbers don't grow substantially more. So we would hope that when that outbreak itself tails off and comes to an end we'll see much more of what we expect to see which is an increase in cases over where we've been over the summer but not an increase to the degree we've experienced that you just mentioned in the last several weeks. That's where I would hope in an optimistic frame we would settle out. Now with regard to your second question about what would push us to do more one thing would push us would be if any of those four metrics that Commissioner Pechak appropriately kind of brushed over today because they're not alarmingly changing in any one way we still have the lowest positivity rate. Our hospitalizations went up a little notch and that's it. So you know and the other two metrics likewise so they're not approaching the so-called guard rails that we would be concerned about that's one thing. But there's part of this game that isn't just reacting to data it's being proactive and we want to be exceedingly proactive the ski guidance that we've just been hearing a lot of questions about and discussion on is a great example of that. It's like we need to open the ski industry we want to people will need that for their physical and mental health people will want to be outdoors in the winter doing something like that and there is a way to do it. However the way to do it is not the way we've done it every year for the last century it's going to be a very novel way just like halloween was different this year. So we're trying to be proactive with that guidance to be an example if you will of the kinds of things we want to watch out for and the things we want to watch out for which i've messaged a little bit today are an inordinate degree of travel that would not involve quarantine because pretty much you've seen the map all travel involves quarantine at this point and the other thing would be the size of gatherings because we know that this virus thrives when people are close together in crowded settings and add to that questions about ventilation and it would be even worse. So that's the science behind the virus and the kinds of guidance that we're proactively talking about here today but nothing further than that if you're thinking because again none of our guardrails are really being approached and the data doesn't support us getting super aggressive as a reaction to the recent increase in cases. They are the fundamental four we actually we actually look at more than that but we certainly want to respect those the most I think in a hierarchy of guardrails and if Commissioner Petriek wants to say any more he can but you know that's really a hierarchy of guardrails those are the four that are the most critical for us to watch but again we want to be pre-emptive and proactive too so sometimes without a guardrail we'll do something like you just heard with the ski industry which is more restrictive than it's been in the past but I think passes the it's reasonable test to most observers. Of the fire capacity, is that correct? Close it's 50 percent of your fire occupancy with no more than 75 so let's say that your fire occupancy is only a hundred you could only have 55 even though we have that 75 upper limit but if your fire capacity was 500 you could only have 75 really important to know that most of our ski lodges that were not one single space you might have a big space upstairs and big space downstairs and both of those would be considered unique individual spaces that you'd have up to 75 in each. The other question I had was the ski areas are pretty much have a pretty solid plan on their food and beverage services obviously very important to their economy because we all know how much of a temperature the ski resort is frankly. If they have outdoor, you know heated tents something like that what is the procedure what is the limitation of the capacity for those? Sure so it looks the same as the indoor spaces so you know when you when you have a if you add additional space outside put up a tent you're likely going to have walls the tent has walls that's an indoor space so you couldn't have more than 75 people with a asterisk of no more than 50 percent of your fire occupancy of that outdoor space. If a ski lodge is operating as a restaurant so where they're you know they actually have table service they should operate as that restaurant got and take out a little bit of a different story that to take out meal you could take it to one of your spaces but the space needs to still be managed to no more than 50 percent of occupancy and no more than 75 people per space. Now with with the governor issue the the original restaurant guide he allowed for basically cocktails to go is is that thing would be that same sort of policy on alcohol service? Hi I'm not familiar enough with how which type of permits each of these ski resorts have but yes the the restaurant guide applies to a restaurant service so if they have a liquor license and they're able to serve liquor they'd be able to follow the same rules other restaurants could follow. Joe the Barton Chronicle? I think this is probably for Dr. Leving but I've been wrong before. I know that um rather than the very large increase in the number of cases of COVID around the country um you're already predicting some kind of increase in Vermont just due to people coming indoors. I understand county you know the causes of that and similarly the discussion earlier on suggested that there might be some store over from Karros County into Essex County but for the remainder of the increase in cases do you see that as simply what you were expecting in the first place or is that merely selective of the large-scale increase in the states around us all of them and in that case is does that suggest that people are not following the quarantine restrictions properly? Yeah so you've you've loaded a lot into that so you're correct we did predict there would be more cases as the fall and winterish weather made itself apparent because of people moving indoors. We do have some concerns on the part of the map that Commissioner Peechak showed from Essex County joining a hotter area in New Hampshire and we also notice what's happening in the map in general all the states around us with significant increases in cases. Southern New England particularly but even Maine and New Hampshire now are both reporting much different levels of caseloads than they have previously with some attendant increase in hospitalizations as well. So lately what we've noticed in Vermont is that we have very small clusters or when the cluster qualifies for an outbreak outbreaks that might be occurring at a work site at a daycare and a health care facility here and there but very small numbers. I could use the word randomly but you know not not in a very coherent fashion. We do know that if you look at for instance all the cases over the course of a month that we understand for cases that we understand where there might have been an association because about half of the cases it's hard to know but where we do know household contacts play the biggest role and it's almost always family or roommates or extended family much less likely small numbers friends things of that sort and then second to that is travel sometimes there are multiple reasons so it's hard to sort them out clearly but that's sort of how it plays out recently and again the expectation was being indoors just provides more of an environment that the virus thrives in with regard to the drier weather the ventilation the tendency to be crowded sometimes to not have a mask on if you're with familiar people all of that so those are the expectations for this kind of weather this time of year and I wouldn't expect that to change markedly but again it's a matter of try not to let your guard down at every moment because that one time you do could put you in the situation where you might actually contract the virus or endanger somebody else did I get to the crux of your question Joe just one either a firework which is given that 11 of Vermont counties if that weren't in Vermont would be considered areas that one would need to quarantine if you visited are there special additional precautions other than what you've been talking about before that people should take if they live in these areas now I think the the precautions apply no matter where you live whether it's even in Vermont or outside Vermont but certainly we only have control for what we as Vermonters do within Vermont and again there's a brilliant team taking care of this pandemic here but I want to say that nothing we're telling Vermonters is rocket science stay home when you're sick personal hygiene like hand washing physical distancing but social connectivity wearing masks and not getting into crowded situations indoors it really can be distilled down to that simple and until we have you know more vaccine availability and we have another sort of river in our arrows here in our bows the fact is we need to follow these dual paths getting hopefully vaccines that are safe and effective approved getting them into the state starting to have uptake by the population but while that's going on everybody doing all the things I just said next we have Erin at vt digger people with symptoms of COVID-19 or even people who are quarantined with the virus still be able to go out and go in person I was wondering if Dr. Lee you've had any thoughts on safety of masks I did see that the Secretary of State's website published guidance saying if you happen to stay home and contact the housework before election day to ballot yeah I was um frankly myself a little surprised at the CDC guidance but uh they're they're trying to do the right thing for the majority of people some of whom might not avail themselves of the opportunity to vote if they didn't remove themselves from quarantine to do that so what they're doing is saying essentially that the voting experience in 2020 has been made so public health aware and public health conscience and had so much guidance built in that if you abide by that you and even said you can let people at the polling station know that you want to be sort of separate from other people that you can actually continue to be distanced continue to be masked avoid being anywhere near a bunch of people and certainly not in a crowd and kind of do your business and move on um that seemed to me um I guess parsimonious maybe the word um certainly allowing people to go a little further than we usually guide them with quarantine but making sure they understood that it was going to be a safe and experience as possible yeah would you compare it to the process where you know there were concerns about the size gatherings but people said what was important for them for saying yes like were the people from other sides that's hard for me to compare it to that because here people are exercising their right to vote there they're exercising their right to be in a protest but putting yourself in a protest does endanger yourself and others who are in contact with you to a much greater degree because of the crowding and the inability to socially distance at all times even though I know people wore masks pretty consistently um so that's a little bit higher risk and um not as considerate of your fellow citizen if you will as what the cdc envisioned the voting experience would look like there's a lot of concern that they could become super better and then understanding if they didn't really can and if you correct me I'm asking are you concerned um you know basic function of our democracy could become unfortunately better I think yeah there's always a concern about that but I think um the fact that compliance with all of the basic guidance is part of the deal makes it much less likely and if I can compare for instance the protests where I really you know again my guide is other state health officials and the watching the television everybody was really trying to stay distances they could and wearing a mask consistently if I could contrast that with uh South Dakota and the Sturgis motorcycle event where it's been now well proven that through God knows how many states numerous numerous cases have arisen from that event that was at an event where people actually were completely discarding the public health guidance there was no such thing as a physical distance there was no such thing for many as masking so there are very different kinds of experiences and I guess it shows you that an outdoors event that's done well uh can't actually not turn into a super spreader event whereas one that is done poorly with little regard for compliance uh can become a disaster thank you very much Eric the time's our guess this is for Commissioner Shirley uh polls have been open for a few hours now any issues to report any voter intimidation anything any issues that people are trying to vote thanks for the questions no uh so far knock on wood all has been well as we anticipate here in Vermont um we're in consistent contact with uh agencies around the state and the secretary state's office and so far nothing to report okay thank you A3 WCIS Dr. Levine the American Society from microbiology to the survey of various labs across the country and they reported that there was a shortage of commercial test kits for COVID-19 as well as test kits for struck road pneumonia, bronchitis, some sexually transmitted infection what have you been seeing in terms of the testing supplies and how it's affecting Vermont? Yeah I haven't seen the exact survey you're referring to but we are concerned actually about testing supplies for another area of public health which is sexually transmitted infections and we've actually just been sending out some guidance regarding that to the clinical community but with regard to the COVID and other respiratory kind of pathogen testing um I know that has been a concern we uh as you know have been adopting a policy internally of stockpiling as much as we can the other policy we've had is diversifying the portfolio of test platforms we have throughout the state and we've recently acquired uh for five of the hospitals across the state that did not have testing capacity we've acquired Cepheid platforms for them for testing and they're all undergoing installation and training as we speak right now and we've also gotten from the manufacturer some assurance regarding a supply of the actual reagents that'll be needed to manage that platform so nothing alarming happening in Vermont at this point in time but obviously we're always a little nervous about that based on what the country went through back in March and we don't want that situation to arise again John vpr areas uh it seems like looking at the travel map and listening to the guidance about ski areas there's sort of a discordance here um the travel map would seem to indicate that only people from northern Maine and maybe a county in New York maybe one in Pennsylvania can come here without quarantining for 14 days or seven days and getting a test and the ski areas are hoping to have as much business as usual but they draw from the places that are all in the red realistically what kind of ski season based on out of state business can we expect it's a it's a huge industry you know billion dollars wages and almost 400 million in taxes in Vermont I'm wondering you know really I guess this is for Ted um how can how can this gear is have these uh or how can it how can skiers follow this guidance and actually come here and ski sure thanks uh the the most important uh piece of this is that you're right that people should be quarantined if they're coming from a red county before coming to Vermont uh and that's a very real opportunity to come out of Ford's people you can quarantine at your home for 14 days or for seven days and test and then come straight to Vermont by personal vehicle so despite the status the travel map there is a way to get here you know it's worth the quarantine folks if you want to come to Vermont it's worth working from home for a week it's worth finding a way to come here but we fully recognize that the travel policy is going to lead to let people being able to come here and we expect here is to have a decreased customer count if you look at a place like JP they depend upon a plurality of their customers to cross the international border to come to their ski resort that border is closed right now will it be closed in two months I don't know for sure I when you look at places down in southern Vermont those counties likely will be red for a while or yellow so we're asking people to plan ahead if you want to come here for Christmas break you need to quarantine before coming here we recognize that the skiers are going to have a difficult year economically that's why we've created the economic recovery grant program that gives up to $300,000 per business to replace lost revenue due to COVID-19 it's why we created the $2.5 million skier safety grant program and that's not enough but that's why we've done those programs because the travel policies the pandemic is going to impact the bottom line of our skier is I will say that when we look at outdoor recreation across the country it has boomed in the pandemic for monitors are hiking more for monitors are biking more for monitors are boating more we think for monitors will be more but this could be the year to take up skiing if you're a promoter and John I might just sorry I might just ask them to push your paycheck to just quickly um just give a reminder about the travel map and how it changes weekly it's not static so that might be the full answer but just a quick just to your point about the question of the travel map this week um and the ski season being a few more months yeah I think that's right I mean the ski resorts may open more you know in the near future I know the guidance is out and snow is on the ground but the map obviously updates every week we'll see what happens regionally you know we've seen these peaks um you know really with rapid rises and then things people settle down behavior changes and they get things under control and we do see improvements so hopefully we see that in the northeast but um you know also as Ted mentioned quarantining before you come to Vermont is a real option as well and again it's up to the ski resort to get the sort of affirmation from the visitor that that he or she has done so that's the enforcement on this it well that's really the education and compliant point of compliance where we're going to ask people and when uh if there is ever an event that needs to be followed up on as we look to this area to present those attestations and if we find that somebody hasn't followed those attestations uh they're repercussions and the most notable one in the existing guidance is the loss of skiing and riding privileges at that at that resort going forward thank you Liz the Burlington Free Cross hi there I have a few questions on the ski guidance as well my first question is you know we've seen a couple of ski resorts put out their own I guess rules and regulations for the upcoming ski season and one of them is some of them are requiring reservation I wonder if that's going to be required for all ski resorts or if people can go to the mountain the same day sure the existing guidance does not require mountains to put reservation systems in place it requires them to make the capacity reductions and talk about some of them have decided it anticipated this decided that the reservation policy is the best way but no it does not require a reservation policy I also wanted to ask about the attestations that that people have read and understand the state travel guidance when they sign up for tickets it kind of sounds to me like you know the people who click the box that says they understand the terms of terms and conditions for whatever they're signing up for so I guess I wonder what the I guess the enforceability of that is and whether you are anticipating that people will actually follow and follow through with and do that you know we we do anticipate people will actually say the truth and test the truth this isn't a 10 page document this isn't a real complicated thing as if you're from an area that has a high COVID case count you need to quarantine before you came here or you need to plan to quarantine when you get here that's a lot simpler than legally is that you read on those disclosures as far as as far as actual enforceability you get partners in an education campaign let's not pretend like everybody understands and goes to vermontvocation.com or vccv.vermont.gov to learn about the travel policy we need to educate people what better time to educate them than whether that's make a purchase come to Vermont to see in Vermont we put a real a real consequence of breaking that policy in the guidance and we'll look to force it through that policy this is a living document you know if things get worse our guidance is going to get stricter if things get better perhaps our guidance will get more relaxed but right now where we are today given the state of the virus this is the safest way for us to open schools. Thank you I also have a question about the winter sports guidance um I wonder whether the experience from um school sports influence to any of the decisions for the winter sports guidance like do things go according to that plan and did the experience make the thought of having winter sports so more conceivable? Certainly for school-based fall sports we think that overall they were were highly successful we know that that athletes had concerns about some of the modifications that have been proposed particularly for football and volleyball but in the end I think that those athletes that chose to participate had an enjoyable experience we're also learning from our experiences related to recreational sports in particular the central Vermont outbreak that Dr. Levine referred to as we move indoors with school-based sports looking for ways to take some lessons learned and additional mitigation measures and an endeavor to ensure that those sport activities remain safe and that kids can remain in school. Vermont Statehouse we'll move to Mike Donahue the islander. This is a question for Ed Brady I think. So somebody violating the rules doesn't say get get out of the cell what stopping them from moving down to Bolton or Dr. Boyd are the resources going to be able to hear the things with people that are violating the rules? Sure that's not contemplated in the guidance largely because you know this is about educating people about what our travel policy is so asking people to do the honorable thing and tell us whether or not they've complied and then we do have an accountability measure in place. Our problem is not going to be that a few people have made through or our problem is going to be if people don't understand what the expectation is they can never live up to that expectation. When we're setting a crystal clear expectation we're educating people about that expectation and we're putting measures in place to hold you accountable if you violate that expectation. If they've invested a considerable amount of money to rent a condo and maybe rent keys whatever they aren't likely to want to give that up very quickly without taking another condo and another resort. Well we hope that people will see our guidance understand our guidance and make plans around that. So hey this is a great time to start remote working from Vermont for the winter. This is a great time to look into Vermont real estate and move to Vermont but we certainly understand people are making big investments. That's part of the reason we're requiring resorts to offer liberal cancellation policies. When you look through the resorts right now you see so many of them have past protection plans that allow for a refund if the security can't operate or can't open all of these things on those lines. But you know we can't can't account for every possibility but I think we've done a pretty good job of trying to protect Vermonters and trying to protect the people that work in this area and trying to provide a safe surrounding experience in Vermont. And the other question is so I know that you're saying the resorts are being encouraged not to hire out-of-state workers to keep the rollers for the weekend whatever. Is the state commonplace putting like eight percent on the number of out-of-state employees like ten percent in an effort to really give guidance to the fee resort are they realizing that they've got operate and need people there they're going to basically do a safe effort but the reality is they may end up with a considerable amount of out-of-state employees coming in. Yeah we've worked with the series to identify how many they normally have coming in and all of them have said we intend to reduce that number period. So the goal here is to reduce the risk and I think the existing policy that we just announced will reduce that risk. Where also the policies remind people who are coming here to work whether it's serious or not because our current travel guide allows people to come to Vermont for authorized work without quarantining. If you're coming to work that's what you're coming to do you don't have an exemption to go socialize you don't have an exemption to go to the bar you don't have an exemption to go live it up in Vermont while you're here for work. And so we're that's another thing we're asking senior resorts to remind their employees if you're coming up to patrol which let's be clear as here it cannot operate if it doesn't have the right amount of seat controllers they can't run the lift they can't provide the service they need to and the resort couldn't open so they're clearly essential workers but when they're here essentially doing essential work we're saying please uh you need to you need to step back and put the monitors first you train to be a life-saving professional that goes out into negative 15 degree weather and fixes people's femurs we think you probably care enough to not spread COVID-19 across Vermont. And one clarification for sex caring more are our middle schools included or enclosed and if excluded why not use the agreement for them? No middle schools are included under the school-based sports guidance also understanding that in some communities elementary and middle school programs are run through recreational recreation departments as opposed to being administered by school districts the recreational sports guidance specifically speaks to recreational sports programs that take place in a school building. Here's the thank you very much. VT Digger, VT Digger move to A Newport Daily Express, Newport Daily Express. Okay we'll move to Allen the Vermont Standard star six to unmute Dana local 22 Andrew Caledonian record yes I'm here looks like I've got plenty of time for questions. The gold star for unmuting. Very good well I have a quick one for Secretary Morris I know that with the sports guidance you've tried to have recreational guidance be in line with the with the school-based guidance particularly interested in spectators at indoor events are you going to adjust the recreational guidance to to eliminate the ability of people to to watch sports games indoor sports games? So the the recreational sports guidance an updated version of that was released a week ago Monday and it includes restrictions on spectators as well it's slightly less restrictive than the school-based sports guidance in part because schools under the agency of education safe and healthy restart document are discouraged from allowing any visitors into their school buildings so the recreational sports guidance provides for for one adult or one family member to accompany a child or children participating in a sports activity it discourages that to the extent possible but but does make that allowance and again there is that connection where it recognizes to the extent school facilities are being used for recreational sports programs that the the recreational sports program will need to follow the school-based guidance you envisioned that one parent per child staying in effect at least with time being for the recreational sports correct and and just to be clear it's one parent per family so that if there was a parent with more than one child participating it would still be one one one adult even for those multiple children okay and then a couple of questions for Dr. Levine heading into cold season and I know anecdotally that there's more symptoms floating around in the community sniffles in the occasional cough I'm wondering what is the guidance for when people should reach out to their primary health care provider and constantly attached it is any single symptom and not to to do that or are there parameters that people should still follow well I that's a great question because as you know when you look at the list of potential symptoms one can have from covid there's a lot of overlap with a whole bunch of winter illnesses so we have a pretty low threshold at this point in time for having a test especially if it really involves somebody not able to go to a work site and they have no other way to to work other than to be present physically there so it's often a judgment call so it would be it would be the same kind of call you would make to your health care provider regarding your symptoms just questioning what should I do and see if the response is you should get a covid test versus why don't you take this allergy medicine because it sounds like you're having a flare up of your respiratory allergens so it's individualized but I would just seek the appropriate guidance for that are there any differentiation between symptoms with adults versus symptoms with kids I mean I know I know schools require if you're symptomatic that you don't attend in person but say you've got a little one home because they've got a money note should you just wait out that money note or should you think about going to your pediatrician and requesting a test so there's guidance in our school guidance and what what we've given with the pediatrics community that has to do with symptoms just like you mentioned some of which can be watched for a day or two versus get a covid test necessarily for that child some of it still has to do with what we're seeing in the specific community that the child is present in whether it's the school community or the greater community around them and what their pediatrician is experiencing in terms of the patients that they've been seeing so it's again going to be up to judgment but we we do have guidance out there in both areas to make sure that people understand that the first day of a runny nose does not necessarily mean every young child is sent for a covid test and there's flexibility in that guidance but again not being so flexible that we're gonna just miss cases that could be important to the classmates in that school so always always being airing on the side of doing more not less just for general purpose guidance if you if you have symptoms one or two from the list that last more than a day or two is that the point where you should start following your your primary health character by for an adult you're referring to predominantly I'm not about both it seems like we have plenty of time so the answer is probably yes if you've got a couple of symptoms that could be covid symptoms you're already symptomatic so that would be the ideal time to get tested so I would definitely suggest that at that point what's the average turnaround time for a test I've heard from one person who travels and got the seventh day test that it's now been five days and they're still waiting on getting their responses is that typical or yeah the rate the latest data that we have is still I think a maximum of 48 hours and that's across I believe five laboratories both in-state and out-state but that again may not account for every place that a test is sent so that individual may have had a bad experience but we've been actually tracking this and feeling quite positive and the 48 hours that accounts for the majority of tests that are administered in the state or is it different between the pop-ups and state run versus getting it as say a hospital or a health care provider no that accounts for the majority of tests including the ones run in the state lab the ones run in conjunction with UVM Medical Center the ones sent to Broad and the ones sent to several of the commercial laboratories and I've just been handed some extra data that also includes Dartmouth and some of our hospitals within the state who do their own testing so the turnaround has been pretty uniformly on target sorry the person you are aware did not have such a good experience I guess that's all the time I can bear all right I think that concludes everything I'm I'm told that concludes the number of our questioners thank you all I know we all looked really good today but we will definitely have the governor back on Friday