 Thank you for joining us for the October 28th, COVID-19 update. It is one of our fortunate to be joined by Dr. Steven Leffler, Chief Operating Officer of the UVM Medical Center. Thank you Dr. Leffler for going through extra links to make this work today. I understand that we're sort of a tech crash. So thanks for joining us from being part of this. Really excited to have you on today because I know yesterday you announced big news with respect to the Medical Center's involvement in the pandemic response. The launch of a vaccine trial, one of the major vaccine trials that the world has been waiting and watching with kind of bated breath about and hope about. And it is quite exciting to know that UVM Medical Center will be involved, there'll be an opportunity soon for some Vermonters to participate in this trial. What else can you tell us about it Dr. Leffler? So this is really exciting for Vermonters. It's a way to participate in helping to solve the problem of COVID-19 and help get us out of this pandemic. We were approached by AstraZeneca and we were able to meet the requirements to join the trial. And we were going to be able to enroll approximately 400 Vermonters into the trial. We will start rolling, we have hotline open now and I'm happy to tell you that people have been calling and so I'm very confident we'll be able to get 400 people to be enrolled in the trial. We're the trial specifically looking for people that are at risk for COVID-19, meaning if you've already caught COVID-19 you wouldn't be able to participate, but they're looking for people who have risk of catching it like healthcare workers, frontline workers like grocery store workers. And the vaccine, like this slide says, will show two major things. How well does the vaccine work? We do have some strong evidence. The vaccine does help people make an antibody response which is the first step in proving that it'll work, but the next step is to see if it actually helps people not catch COVID and we wanna study how well the vaccine is tolerated. Across the United States, there'll be 30,000 people enrolled in the trial at the Medical Center in Burlington. We'll enroll approximately 400. Next slide, please. So this is important, go ahead, you can trigger it. There'll be some important criteria. Only people over the age of 18, we want people in stable health. As I've mentioned, people who are increased risk of catching COVID-19 and we're really looking for people who are older, potentially have a job that we've mentioned. Maybe school teachers might be good candidates and people have high blood pressure, diabetes or obesity, which we know has had some, those populations that increase risk of having COVID complications. We're also looking for our BIPOC community members who we also know have suffered greater consequences of COVID than other people and so we will enroll those people if they come forward and are interested. And we're starting information sessions next week to inform the monitors about this work. Excellent. Dr. Leffler, am I right? And this is a stage three trial now, is that the way to think of it? And maybe could you just review for people what that means? Yes, so the simplest way to think about it is stage one basically means it might work, but they don't even test it in people. Stage two tells you that the vaccine actually has the response in a human body that you want to see. It makes antibodies. Stage three actually means it works in a real world. The people who get vaccinated have a decreased risk of catching COVID-19 and so this is gonna enroll 30,000 people across the US. They'll be followed for two years and we will know if people who got the vaccine were immune to catching COVID, essentially is what it's studying. Excellent. And why did they choose UVM Medical Center, AstraZeneca, to partner with? Yeah, so there's a good number of reasons. I would tell you the best reason is because on the faculty at the College of Medicine, we have some of our doctors who are true world experts in vaccines. Dr. Kirkpatrick, Dr. Pierce, they actually studies vaccines around the world and are nationally renowned. And so they approached Dr. Kirkpatrick about participating because they actually want her expertise and we're very, very lucky to have her here in Vermont's. The other reason is because we have a population that to this point is mainly not been exposed to COVID. So there's a really good reason to believe that the 400 people who get the vaccine haven't gotten it yet. And as the course goes on, could get it. We have an older population which they're very interested in in this trial. And we were able to set up the tools and pieces necessary to complete the requirements of the vaccine trial, which we're not small. We've been working on this for about six weeks now, really hard to be able to meet the criteria to enroll Vermonters. Is it all academic medical centers that they're working with to push this out or is that a key element of it? In general, yeah. So though a lot of our health networks like we have, and so we firmly believe that people from across the state of Vermont will be able to enroll, but they'll have to come to the Burlington campus to receive the vaccine and the followup work. So our community partner hospitals may help us enroll people, but the trial will run out of Burlington. Great, well, excellent. Any last thoughts on this? Again, there's the information for if you wanna learn more there will be this general information session, anything else you wanna add about the trial? I mean, we couldn't be more excited to bring this opportunity to Vermont's and the work that we're doing to set up this trial will help us when a vaccine is ready to distribute broadly to Vermonters. So this is prep work, both for the research aspect of COVID-19 to make sure the vaccines are coming out. We participate in that work, but also this will help us be ready when there is a vaccine for everybody to know the distribution mechanisms and how do you do it? So it's doubly good for Vermonters. That's a really interesting point. So this is another step towards preparing for the broad distribution of the vaccine. Since we last talked, I think Dr. Leffler, the state released its vaccine plan. It is definitely starting to feel like this is getting closer the moment when there will be shifting into the actual distribution broadly to a vaccine is getting closer. Do you wanna say anything more about how you're looking out of the future months and setting, thinking about expectations? Yeah, so I'm very confident. Actually, I've been confident since it started that we'd eventually have a vaccine. It's getting closer to reality. It's moving quickly. What I think people have to realize is that first of all, I think there might be multiple choices. So we'll need our experts like Dr. Kirkpatrick to help us decide what is the best vaccine, what one has the best immune response, help us protect us, which one is the safest. And so there may be some work to do on exactly that. It's possible it might be different for different people. So there's some work to do there. And even as vaccine starts to come out, not everyone will be able to be vaccinated in the first week or even month. I mean, once we have vaccine in mass amounts, it could take three or four months to get everyone vaccinated. So super encouraging news, but the other things that we're doing, masks, social distancing, washing our hands, all those things, they're gonna be with us for a while. They are the number one mechanism still right now to keep us safe and each other safe. Well, that's a good segue because we do wanna talk about the kind of current status of the virus here in Vermont. We've talked many times over the months and looked at these and seen a different map than we're putting up here now. This is a site that I've found very helpful in terms of monitoring what's going on with this, up to the minute, essentially up to the day, state of the virus that's on the left. That's the COVID act now website. Site with a ton of information on it, broken down by state, even by county, led by data scientists and public health experts. And often when we put this map up here, Vermont has been the only state in the country or one of just two or three states in the country that has been in the green. That is not where we are today. We're in the orange, which they classify as at risk. And that is consistent, I think, with the Commissioner Levine's statement yesterday that there is some community transmission occurring at this point. And there has been a measurable uptick in the total amount of kind of virus transmission, new infections taking place here. You can see that on the graph on the right where those are the Chittenden County numbers, the seven day average, just a little under 10 right now, which I think last time we looked at this graph, it was back right at the end of September where we were at one of the low points and we were right around one a day basically in the county. So there has been a significant change. At the same time, my sense is that there's a lot to be seen the numbers that should keep us from panicking. And a lot of indications of Vermont continues to do quite well with this, but we're in a different place. What are your thoughts on this? I actually think you summarized it pretty well. We're clearly in a different place than we were a month ago. So when you look at this map, there's a lot of red on there across the center of the country. And we're seeing more cases on a daily basis in Vermont. Now we're seeing more community spread than we've seen really since mid-May. It's not surprising we're together more. I mean, we have our children in school, we have more people doing things. And I wouldn't be surprised if it gets a little worse. We have Halloween coming up this weekend. We have Thanksgiving just a little ways out. So this is not a time to either give up and it's not a time to panic. It's a time to keep doing the things that we know are keeping Vermonters safe. The really good news is right now today at the medical center, there's only one person in the hospital with COVID. So we have plenty of ICU capacity. We have plenty of ability to take care of people with COVID right now and the flu hasn't really started much. So that's the really important news. But I think we're planning that. We're really preparing full on for an uptick in cases. What'll really make a big difference though, in that situation is if we can get Vermonters to continue doing all the things they've done that have gotten us to here. So when we see an outbreak, if we can contain it, not let it really spin out of control, that's how we'll keep most people safe. So there was an outbreak in central Vermont. There was an outbreak recently at St. Michael's. Contact tracing, getting those people in quarantine, being very careful about who came into contact with them, getting them tested and out of the general public is really how you keep this at bay as much as possible. But if you look around us, for a little while we were still green and we were circled by orange and red and now we've kicked into orange. But right now today our hospital capacity is excellent in terms of being able to manage what's happening right now with COVID. So this is a time to be careful and thoughtful and really think about what we're doing with our families. Think about how we're gonna move forward over the next, I personally believe six to eight weeks through the holidays is really gonna determine how Vermont does in what people are calling the third phase of the pandemic. You know, I appreciate the way you just framed it up. So we, a couple just reactions to that. I mean, if you look at this graph now, a place that looks similar to it here in Chinden County, you go back to the beginning of June and we had that outbreak in the old North end and Winooski and for a few days there, you know, we were on a steep part of the graph. We had just reopened and there was a lot of reason to think, wow, is this gonna get out of control? It didn't, we got it back under control. These boxed in strategies work. The one, and I'll just reiterate what Dr. Leffler just said, the contact tracing, testing, quarantine and isolation got that outbreak under control. We had, we're gonna talk a little bit later in the briefing today about the cluster of cases that we had within one city building last week where we're kind of pleased to add some detail today that essentially we've followed the same course there and that cluster was contained and that building is back open again now. So we know we can do this here in Vermont. We've done it repeatedly and it's, we're gonna have to rise to the challenge again. I think it is a little bit harder now with the additional activity. Like you suggested, Dr. Leffler, also with the increased amount of indoor activity with the weather shifting and that actually is a good transition to, I think the last topic, then we'll let you go. This other, there's another tool. In addition to that list, you just went through an important public health tool that frankly, I think has gotten less attention than many of the other strategies, but it's time is now, I think it is a key strategy as activities move inside is ventilation, a focus on the ventilation of buildings. And we're gonna talk a lot about that one. We say, let me let you go here. We have some new initiatives to roll out, but what, maybe you could speak to the public health. What does ventilation do? Why is it such an important strategy? So we've known since the virus started that the virus doesn't spread easily when you're outside. When you're outside and the wind is blowing in the air, the virus is small and it just doesn't spread that easily. It's not impossible to spread it outside, but it's much harder. And we've known that the big risk is inside and closed spaces where people are close together. And so one of the things that I think helped Vermont over the summer was that people were outside. They were enjoying being in their backyards and being outside. And those things really didn't have much risk for COVID. To your point, as we get back inside and we're closer together, one of the things that we know can make a difference is how well the space that you're in is ventilated. And how many times the air is exchanged in an hour really seems to have some impact on who catches it. So the way I think about it is if someone is in the room with you and they cough and they cough out, let's say 10,000 virus particles of COVID and the air exchanges quickly and gets all of those out into the atmosphere, not that many people will catch it. If the air doesn't exchange at all in that hour, you're all in there walking around in that space, it's gonna catch a lot more people gonna catch it. So turning the air over more quickly, if you don't have that using HEPA filters and things like that, really seems to make both the difference scientifically, like we know it can work and also intuitively make sense too that getting fresh, clean air into those rooms and getting the COVID virus germs out is gonna keep people safe. So in places where we know people are gonna be inside, schools, places of work, things like that, making sure the ventilation system is maximized for efficiency, it's working well, it's doing all the right things, will keep people safe and will drive down the number of infections that we see. So it's really important. It's the thing that everyone can do. You can have your home system checked but more importantly, where you work, where your kids go to school, it's a good thing to look into right now. That's the way we've been thinking about it, right? It's like, especially where you have people from different households spending time with each other so office spaces, schools, commercial spaces and great, I think that's, we're gonna bring on Brian Lowe in a moment here to continue the conversation about ventilation. Any last thoughts, Dr. Leffler, before we let you go? Just where we started, Vermonters can make a difference in this. This is really mostly in our control. If we do the right things, if we wear masks, socially distance, do smart things, we can keep Vermont safe. And if we let down our guard, we will look red like the middle part of the country right now. So this really, I mean, we can talk about this every week but it really relies on our citizens to help us by being vigilant still. And even though they're tired of this, not giving in. Well said, thank you. I think that's right, there is, you can feel a sense of fatigue out there being talked about countrywide but we can't let ourselves give in to that. We've got a rally here and stay strong through these coming weeks here in months. So thank you, Dr. Leffler. Thanks for the pep talk and the information and great news again. Congratulations on the trial being located at the UVM Medical Center. We look forward to updates on how that's going and we'll see you again soon. All right, we'll talk soon. Thanks everyone. All right, so let's keep talking about ventilation. I'm joined now by Brian Lowe who's been on this briefing many times. He's the city's chief innovation officer and he's picked up an additional title in recent weeks. He has become our internal COVID response leader. He is really the point person within the city on making sure all our systems and policies are in place, leading the efforts to do that, making sure our buildings are calibrated properly on this ventilation point and when we have had infections helping to make sure that the response to that is coordinated. And I do think this is a role within all organizations of any size that can be a really helpful role to have. We've seen that throughout the pandemic and working with partners. And I appreciate Brian that you stepped up to have this role with the city. We also, I know Nancy Stetson from the analytics team, one of our data analysts has been working to develop the city's thinking about ventilation. We have developed a graphic, I'm gonna turn it over to you, Brian, what can you add? We just had a little bit of an initial conversation with Dr. Leffler about ventilation. I think this next graphic really kind of shows how important it is. This is kind of another layer of defense or slice of defense, if you will. Brian, take it from here. Hey, thank you, Mayor. Thank you for what you said there. And I think we've obviously got a lot of work ahead of us as the weather cools here, but it's a really good city team. And I think we're building on a strong foundation here. So the graphic that you see in front of you is a graphic developed by a virologist out of the University of Queensland, actually. So truly a global effort to develop this graphic. And what it is showing is that every... Not that graphic. It's all like the one graphic from Japan for the three Cs, and now we got it from Queensland. Excellent. We are trying to cover our bases. We might have an idea for you from Germany too, Mayor, soon. But this particular one, what it's showing is that as a city, as a community, we are trying to put in place these different interventions that reduce the risk of transmission, right? To reduce the probability of the disease spreading. Each intervention has imperfections. Nothing is perfect against an airborne pathogen like this. And nothing that we can do at this level is perfect against something like that. And so you see these layer protections, PPE gear or masks, distancing, and here we're talking specifically about ventilation. And so I think if we shift over to the next slide, we can talk a little bit more about it. But I think the first concept is really getting out there that these layers of defense are really helpful in reducing the probability of spread. And I'm happy to jump in here, Mayor, if you'd like, or I can defer back to you. Well, the, I mean, I do think that's been a recurring theme of the virus defense. Since the beginning, we've been really clear that no one solution was kind of a silver bullet, a panacea, even, you know, people say, even when we have the vaccine, and we just heard it from Dr. Leffler, it's not gonna mean overnight we can abandon all of these other strategies, it is, you know, it is, but the, when we saw it in the hospitals and the early stages of the pandemic, when you layer these different defenses on top of each other, they can become quite powerful and really working together keep, you know, really shut the virus down, largely box it in. So the graphic on the right is another new graphic that we have developed here, and Brian, why don't you say a little bit more about the ABCs here? Sure. So this vaccine is covering what we're considering kind of the ABCs of air quality, although I know it, the order is BCA and how we've listed it here, but, you know, a critical piece here is, you know, you're wearing a mask and we're coming to these colder months in these shared workspaces, shared locations where you have a lot of people working together. In an enclosed space, even if people are more than six feet apart, and this is something that Dr. Lefler was referencing as well, you still need to be masked up, right? I mean, it gets to that, you know, the way I think of it is, if someone walks into a room with lots of cloned or heavy perfume on, even if you're 20 feet away from that person, you'll smell that over time. And an airborne virus works in similar ways. Keeping that mask on in these shared spaces is really important, even if you're further than six feet apart when you're indoors. So, you know, even if you're further than six feet apart when you're indoors. Cleaning and filtering the virus out of the air. There are small interventions that you can do that, again, are not silver bullets, but reduce the probability of transmission. And that, that's things like air purifiers, like HEPA filters, in spaces that have square footage that reflects the capacity of the model that you choose, you can filter out a significant percentage of the virus particles that Dr. Lefler was talking about. Obviously, you know, HVAC systems, like air circulation is an even better intervention in that if you're able to exchange a significant number of air changes per hour, or ACHs, and the kind of standard for those varies depending on the building and the function of the building. But you, if you can keep up good air exchange, you can also reduce the probability of transmission. And so those things layered together, particularly as we go into the cooler months, are gonna be important for reducing the probability of spread within worksites or other enclosed spaces. Great, so one, I think that story is started to be understood, but we're gonna, we wanna make sure that everyone who needs to know about those facts about ventilation is clear on that this graphic is available on the city website as a fact sheet and is easily shareable there and distributable, postable. And we encourage people to do that. In addition to the fact sheet, we are internally within the city, within our public spaces. I think the public should be reassured to know if you are coming into a city building that we are working, we've been working to optimize the air quality in the city buildings. And Brian, what can you share about that? I think it's interesting to know both for anyone interested in coming, just wondering what things are like within the city buildings, but also in terms of its lessons for other organizations. Great question, Marin. I think you pushed us on this back in May or June. And so the city facilities team, led by Martha Keenan and others, Chris Bodry and others has gone through and made sure that each HVAC system where appropriate is set to kind of maximize air circulation within each of these different spaces. In a perfect world, your HVAC system would be able to accommodate what's called a level 13 MIRV filter, M-E-R-V filter. And that filter is dense enough that it actually could screen out a number of the virus particles that are extremely small, but this would still catch them. The challenge is that for city buildings, which are typical of many buildings in the community, these are older buildings. And while we have upgraded a significant number of HVAC systems in the last couple of years, it's very hard to accommodate that kind of level of filtration on those systems. So if you can't put that high level filter on, maximizing airflow and air circulation and then choosing spots that have less air circulation or higher traffic, kind of limited square footage locations that meet some of those criteria, adding HEPA filters in there to supplement your HVAC system is an important step. And so the city is doing all those things or has already done many of those things in response to your direction there. Great. And my understanding, Brian, is we found like if, and this is sort of a cautionary tale a little bit that there were a number of places that if that proactive work hadn't been done, we would not, there were some real interventions to make there that improve the system. Like if we, and that especially owners of older buildings should be aware of that and be thinking about that and may well find if they put some attention here that there are some improvements to make or actually some holes in the, some limitations on the existing system that they might wanna consider supplementing in other ways, right? I think that's right. And I mean, it gets into details, but exhaust fans in the bathrooms, those are shared spaces where people will be for extended periods at points. Like you wanna make sure the air is circulating in those rooms and details like that. And also questions about occupancy. I mean, if we had a thanks in part to luck and good decisions across the state, it feels like we did not have high prevalence here in Vermont over the summer. If that's gonna change, maybe it's time to reassess how occupied your work site is and reduce that occupancy load where possible. For those that need to be there and makes the work site safer if there's fewer people that could be transmitting or transmitted to on that site. And in some ways it can reduce some of the burdens on your HVAC systems. Great. So an additional city step, if we wanna advance the slide, we are going to be following up. We are going to, the city maintains a database of property owners and we for not residential spaces, but commercial spaces where you do have the potential of households, different households mixing. We are going to be sending out a communication with some of the information we've been having here today. We're gonna make sure every property owner of commercial spaces gets a notice from the city of these principles and of this information and encouragement to review and optimize their HVAC systems. Do you wanna add anything to that, Brian? No, I mean, I think there are potentially some other interventions that could be of value here around things like mass policy, but I'm wondering maybe that's something you're thinking about discussing later in the briefing. Okay. Finally on ventilation, we are announcing here now a micro-grant program just as an additional encouragement and assistance to our small businesses which are, we know I've been, many of them have been hit so hard during this pandemic. We are going to launch on Friday a small business or nonprofit, any owner of a space where you have commercial buildings where you have the possibility of people from different households coming into contact with each other. A small matching grant of up to $500 for owners or tenants of spaces. And the basically the city will pay, will reimburse owners for up to 50%, 450% of any ventilation related expense. We will, we're envisioning funding 50 of these micro-grants initially. If there's huge response to this, we may be able to expand that but this will be a first come, first serve program. And really it's intended to encourage people to think about this as an additional defense and additional layer of security in the battle against the virus here. This could go, some of these interventions are relatively inexpensive. So I'm not, I don't think you mentioned it, Brian. Sorry if I didn't hear you, but the, we know one way to address the quality of the air if there are limitations on what the kind of built-in ventilation system can accommodate and what kind of air changes that it can meet are these portable air purifiers, HEPA filters that can just be plugged into a room and just clean the existing area of air. They don't kind of meet the classical definition of ventilation of changing air to the outside, but they do clean the air and have been shown to be effective at removing the virus. This is this kind of micro-grant. Those can run in the low, you know, 100 to $500. I've heard a range of different things. This, the cities can help pay for half of that. You want to add anything, Brian? No, that's exactly right, Mayor. I mean, those HEPA filters, the models are determined by a number of factors primarily square footage that need to be cleaned. 200 square foot area with a HEPA filter would probably run around $180. And so a grant like this can be very helpful in deferring the cost if you have one or more of those that you need to purchase. Those filters do need to be changed over time, so there's a modest additional cost over time. And there are also some, you know, kind of fascinating ways that people have developed to mimic HEPA filters using box fans and furnace filters, but HEPA filters are pretty good and would really be a benefit here. So this application will open on Friday. It will, the application will be posted on Friday to the city's resource and recovery website. We will also be sending it out by email, notification of this from Kara Alnazrawi who has been our point person, communicating with small businesses throughout this. We will use our trustee community voices program and rapid response teams as well to get the word out. But this is, notice that it's coming. Any last thoughts on ventilation, Brian, before we shift to a couple final topics? No, Mayor. Okay, thank you. Why you stick around, the next topic, we did want to give the public an update on the cluster of positive cases that we reported last week at 645 Pine Street, the building that houses the Department of Public Works and Department of Perming Inspections and Parks and Recreation. The building was closed in response to a COVID-19 infection. There ultimately were numerous people within the building that were tested and quarantined and ultimately there were three confirmed cases. We worked very closely with the Vermont Department of Health to identify everyone who needed to be quarantined and receive a test and notably we worked with them. They took a, we kind of worked under that what has now become the new CDC guidance of expanded not just what we had thought of as people in close contact, but people who had been in intermittent accumulative contact over a 24 hour period. And so a significant number of people were quarantined, which is why the building was closed for the better for basically a week. But since Monday, the building has been back open. All the, my understanding is all the employees, except for the three who tested positive and now tested negative. There was no reason the Department of Health did not believe that there was reason for concern that any member of the public had come in to contact with any of the infected people in the building and this basically we are, we have a growing optimism that this cluster has been contained at this level. Do you wanna add anything to that, Brent? No, just I think it's possible there's one individual still waiting for a result and in quarantine therefore, but I think everything you said makes sense there, Mayor. And I think it's very hard to know the counterfactual, but it does seem that it emphasizes, at least to me it emphasizes the importance of these different interventions around in particular mask use in shared spaces and these ventilation protocols. You could envision a scenario where it wasn't just three. And so I think those are really important interventions for us to be continuing. We did, this is really the most significant cluster of infections that we've seen among city of Burlington employees since the beginning of the pandemic. So it did cause us to kind of take stock of our various policies and procedures. And we have, we're starting to work on this already, but we have now updated our city mask policy. It's an update, we came out with a mask policy quite early in the pandemic. We were very committed to masks going all the way back to, we started working on various masking initiatives in March even. This update to the mask policy reflects our current understanding, full understanding of the science and how these aerosols work. And it is, I think it's a good policy. I did, I'm not sure we have it on the slide deck here. And I hope I'm not speaking out of school, but I thought we should post the policy on the webpage so that other organizations that are looking, I think can look to this as a solid, modern, kind of current policy if they're looking, considering mask policies for their employees. We also have been reviewing and updating our daily screening protocols and looking at some potentially using some new technologies we haven't completely settled on. We've been going, we've had a paper-based system up until now. We're considering adding to that also an app-based system. So, I share this again, just in the spirit that I think as we are headed into the fall here, I know that we are facing new challenges. It's a time for all of us, anyone who's running an organization to be reviewing your protocols, reviewing your systems and making sure they're up to date with the current thinking, the current science, which is, given how quickly we've been learning and things have been evolving, it takes some real vigilance and ongoing review to keep them current. You wanna go ahead, Brian. No, Mayor, I think you said it well. I think that makes a lot of sense. And I'm sure we can find a way to get that policy online. Great. And just the last point on masking, I know people have heard a lot about masks, but it did just, this is a stat I hadn't seen before and just really starkly reminds us all what's at stake in using masks and using them correctly. NPR reported this week that if 95% of the people in the US wore masks from September to February, it could make the difference in 130,000 lives being saved. So, that's why it's important to get these policies, right? Okay, I think we have one last topic and then we will take some questions. The outdoor activity of the week is Halloween. We are gonna continue to bring attention to outdoor activities through this period. We know getting outside, like we talked about last week is a key for mental health and physical health and outdoor activities are relatively quite safe with respect to virus transmission, especially when accompanied by, when you are anywhere near others, awareness about social distancing, trying to keep six feet of spaces, keeping masks on faces and avoiding crowded places, as you can see there on the graph, graphic. If you do those things and you avoid the things on the right, close contact, no masks, crowds, really the converse, you can, we can have a great Halloween and keep everybody safe. Probably the most significant thing to remember and Dr. Leffler referenced this and earlier and I saw mentioned in the governor's press conference yesterday too. Historically, Halloween has also been a time for parties and indoor gatherings and adult gatherings in addition to the kids being outside and this is not the year for that. We do encourage, we don't just encourage it, it's actually, we do ask that people keep in mind the limitations on group size that are in place. No more than 10 people in an indoor space is actually legal within the city right now and you should use some real care and thought if you are going to consider even a gathering of that size about how you keep people safe and how you structure it. So I get out there, everyone, enjoy the trick or treating, just keep in mind these simple rules and our kids, we can have a bit of normalcy here and keep everyone safe. All right, we covered a lot of ground. I'm happy to take some questions if there are any at this point. We do have a few in the queue and reminder for members of the media who are tuning in, you can let me know, you have a question by emailing me and then I will call on you and enable your microphone. So first up is Ross and Ross, could you just use the raise hand function in Zoom? I think I see you, but yes, great, you are who I thought you were. You should be able to enable your microphone now. Are you guys able to hear me okay? Yes, we can, Ross, go ahead. Great, so my question's about the micro grants. I've spoken over the last few months to a lot of businesses who say that part of their reopening strategy is along with maybe say moving tables apart and requiring masks has been making upgrades to their HVAC filters and some of those HEPA filters, I've seen those around a lot. Will people be able to apply to these grants retroactively if they've already gone in and made some upgrades since reopening from the spring shutdown? You know, great question, Ross. You know, and we have had other business assistance grants available at various times up until now. So, you know, this isn't the first time we're putting some money out to try to help with the businesses. This is one more timing for right now just to make sure that this is on people's minds. I think it's a fair question. The final rules about this will be out on Friday and that will specify this is intended as a reimbursement program. So, you know, I just don't want to miss feet, Ross. We'll narrow down exactly that question in the release of the final details on Friday. Fair to say that that details still being worked out then. There, yes, there are a few last touches on the program being put in place but it will all be out on Friday. Great, and we just love to get your thoughts on the police commission's recommendation now to the city council that they approved last night on the update to BPD's body camera policy. So, Ross, I have to say I haven't gotten the full briefing on what came out last night. I'm glad to, as you may remember, I had asked the commission to approve a new policy by the end of October and we had shared with them some thinking from the administration side and from the police department side about what should be in such a policy. I think it's been, it's been too long without a clear policy about body cam footage release. It's one of the things that's caused distrust and some of the problems we've had, frankly, over the last couple of years the lack of such policy, it's time to have one in place. So I can't comment on the details but I'm very pleased to hear that there's been progress and that they have taken that step. Thank you. Great, next question is from Ike at WCIX. Ike, you should be able to enable your microphone now. Hello, Ike. Ike, you do need to unmute on your end also. Mayor, can you hear me now? I can, yes. Appreciate it. I guess first before is Dr. Leffler still on or did he leave? Dr. Leffler is not still with us. All right, I guess, do you know anything about the outages at UVM? I was gonna, that was gonna be my first question. From my understanding there's outages at the hospital there. I don't, I don't know anything further on that I'd heard that there was a tech issue with getting the camera going but I don't know anything further than that. Is it a power outage? I'm looking for more detail, so that's all I know. Following up then, one thing with the air purifiers, do you know if there are just any available in any of the hardware stores in Burlington? I know things like freezers are still in a back order just to give an example since the start of the pandemic. And I know also that purifiers were one of the first things to go as well. So are these even available locally? You know, I think it depends day by day on many of these things. I have been impressed by how quickly when we've had shortages of various supplies, those shortages that have then been met. It's one of the ways in which our system works in response to demand quickly. Brian, it looks like you have something to share on that. Well, just to add, I know we've acquired a couple of the last couple of days without issue. So I think there may be some shortages at different points in different stores, Ike, but I can't speak to overall inventory. Like in Vermont or in the Northeast, but we definitely did not run into trouble acquiring a variety of different types of filters in the last couple of days. All right, thank you. Outdoor heaters, I've personally had a different experience with Ike, but I think there is definitely that this pandemic has caused shortages, but that's thanks for reporting that experience, Brian. Thank you. Okay. Next in the queue is Grace from BT Digger. Grace, you should be able to enable your microphone now. Great, can you hear me? Yes, go ahead, Grace. Awesome. So the city council is going to propose a resolution tonight supporting the peaceful transfer of power, post-election results, and in support of peaceful demonstrations. Do you support this resolution and are you concerned at all about post-election day violence or election day intimidation in Burlington? Yeah, I mean, I support the resolution. I think many of the president's statements about the elections and are quite concerning. And I have his unwillingness to say in response to questions in national debates that he's committed to that peaceful transfer of power has been quite disconcerting. So I think that's why this resolution is coming forward. And I think Burlingtonians are, Americans are right to have some concern that, like this president has flaunted many norms and really pushed up against the boundaries and gone over the boundaries of many other important traditions and conventions. I think there's a legitimate reason to be concerned that if this turns out to be a very close election that there may be an attempt to do that again. I am concerned about that. I'm not particularly concerned about violence or problems here in Burlington. We've seen no indication of that so far. And I think, let's hope this is one of the many areas where Vermonters and Burlingtonians continue to distinguish themselves from some of the problems we've seen elsewhere in the country. It's certainly something that we will be watching very closely and our election team is doing everything it can to make sure that the election goes very smoothly. So far, so good. I know something like 13,000 ballots have already been collected by the city clerk's office that blows out of the water. The typical number of ballots that would be collected by this time, so far things are going smoothly and we'll do everything we can to see that continue. Great, thank you. All right, and that is all the questions we have for today. Great, thank you everyone. Thank you, Brian, and we'll see everybody again soon. Take care.