 Good morning, everyone. And I hope everyone had a very nice Mother's Day and you found some time to celebrate the moms in your life. So as we talked about on Friday, our data continues to show we're moving in the right direction and slowing the spread of the virus. In fact, we have the third lowest rate of case growth in the country. And yesterday, we had no positive tests or deaths reported. But as I've said, we must still be cautious and Vermonters must still remain vigilant, knowing how this virus has affected some of our neighboring states. It's really important to remember there's been about 45,000 deaths within a radius of 350 miles of us here in Vermont. So even as we continue to reopen, I urge Vermonters not to let up on physical distancing, washing your hands, staying home when ill, limiting travel, and wearing masks when around others. Because it's due to these types of precautions and the sacrifice of Vermonters have made that even with what we're seeing in other states, we could continue to slowly reopen. So you can expect when the emergency order is extended on Friday, it will include additional openings. And I want to share some of those steps with you today. I've asked the Agency of Commerce to work with the Department of Health and the Department of Public Safety to develop and release guidance this week for a gradual reopening of retail one week from today on May 18th. It's important to note that when we do reopen, they will need to meet or exceed the same health and safety requirements all other businesses and nonprofits have had to meet thus far. So all employees will be required to wear a facial covering and everyone must maintain a minimum distance of six feet between themselves. And for this first phase of reopening, there will also be an occupancy limit, meaning no more than 25% of their maximum legal capacity. Operations must have and abide by a detailed COVID-19 health and safety training. Or if they have fewer than 10 employees, they can use the Department of Labor's VOSHA course, which you can find at labor.vermont.gov. And remember, while there would be mass requirements for employees, we're still encouraging customers to cover up as well. Again, to be clear, the guidance we will release this week is under development by the Agency of Commerce in coordination with Dr. Levine's team at the Health Department and Commissioner Shirley's team at the Department of Public Safety. While I know many are eager to shop for clothing and other supplies, waiting a week gives these businesses time to develop their safety plans, do their training, modify their stores and work with the agency to understand all the steps needed to reopen and operate safely. As with all the steps we've taken, it also gives us time to closely monitor the data and adjust if we need to. Because we want to make sure the steps we've already taken, like opening thousands of jobs and manufacturing, construction and some medical services, are not having a negative impact on the rate of spread, hospitalization rates or other trends. As I said many times, our decisions are going to be driven by the data and the science and the recommendations of our experts and by taking a cautious approach, we'll be stronger and healthier when we get to the finish line. Instead of taking two steps forward and one step back, we've chosen to take one-and-a-half steps forward without having to retreat. So speaking of data, science and experts, I've also asked Dr. Levine to give us an update today on our expanded testing program. We continue to work towards our goal of testing more than 1,000 Vermonters each day, which is essential to our ability to find, contain and suppress this virus. Without a vaccine, testing is one of the keys to managing the virus over the long term and getting life back to normal. I've also asked Human Services Secretary Mike Smith to make sure Vermonters know what services they can access and when we hope to open up other services like dental care. So with that, I'll turn it over to Dr. Levine for an update on expanding testing. Dr. Levine. Thank you, Governor. As you all know, we're on a mission to greatly increase the number of tests and expand the groups of people being covered and tested so we can quickly identify and isolate outbreaks of COVID-19 and better understand the extent of spread of the virus in our state. We expect there are many more people who are infected than the 900 plus who have tested positive to date. Our capacity for testing is no longer limited as it was at the start of the pandemic. We now have the ability to conduct 1,000 tests a day and we are encouraging people with symptoms no matter how mild to call their healthcare provider for a referral to testing. And we are urging healthcare providers to refer their patients, including children, who have even mild symptoms for testing. The clinician will refer you to a hospital or health center near you that can perform the test at no cost. If you don't have a healthcare provider, call 2-1-1 to connect with a community or hospital-connected clinic. And be aware that the list of symptoms recognized to be associated with COVID-19 has expanded. In addition to the triad of fever, cough, and shortness of breath, other symptoms can include chills, repeated shaking with chills, muscle pain, headache, sore throat, and new loss of taste or smell. When you receive the test, it will be the PCR nasal swab test, which tells you if you have a current infection. It is not a serology or antibody test from the blood, which means it will not tell you if you were infected in the past. The working group that I had convened several weeks ago to examine those tests is meeting again later this week. We are also now testing all staff in all correctional facilities, as well as every person in a prison, long-term care facility, or other group setting where even one person, resident or staff, has tested positive. And we've begun offering testing to asymptomatic frontline workers at a series of pop-up testing sites around the state. Just on Saturday, we hosted the second such event, in the Health Department Lab parking lot in Colchester. In spite of polar vortex conditions, Health Department staff and EMS volunteers collected samples from 138 first responders, health care workers, and providers of childcare for essential workers. We have three more pop-up testing events coming this week, Tuesday at Bennington College, Thursday at Brattabower Union High School, and Saturday at the Upper Valley Aquatic Center in White River Junction, again staffed by Health Department with help from EMS and Vermont National Guard volunteers. These pop-up events are by appointment only for symptom-free first responders, including EMS, fire and law enforcement, health care workers, and childcare providers serving essential workers. One of our highest priorities for prevention is to make sure people returning to Vermont from another state, those who may have spent the winter outside of Vermont, second home owners, or college students, quarantine themselves for 14 days. In a novel program now, if they are without symptoms of COVID at day seven of their quarantine, we are allowing them to be tested at one of these pop-up sites. And if their test is negative, they will be free to end their quarantine period. If you are our first responder, health care worker, childcare provider, or returning from another state and without symptoms, who will be at day seven of your quarantine, you can schedule an appointment now. The Department of Human Resources is set up in an online portal. HumanResources.vermont.gov. I'd like to move now to talking a little more about some general concepts and principles. With Governor Scott's gradual and careful turn of the spigot to safely restart Vermont and reconnect Vermonters, it's really now more important than ever that we all do everything we can to keep this virus from sparking up again and spreading in our communities. This means each of us must stay home and away from others if you're sick or have recently been in contact with someone who has COVID-19. And again, if you have any symptoms, call your health care provider and ask to be referred for testing. Wash hands often and well for two full minutes with soap and water or use a hand sanitizer if soap and water are not at hand. Wear a facial covering when you're around people outside of your household. It is the new fashion and keep a physical distance of at least six feet from others. Proof that Vermonters are actually taking these measures seriously are in the thoughtful questions they have been asking and that we are receiving from them. Following are some basic guidelines from those questions about when, where, and how to wear a mask. Always have a full face covering with you when you go out. Keep it around your neck, in your pocket or bag. Even if you are out alone in the open air, be ready to slip it on when you happen to be near others. If you enter an enclosed space with other people, put it on and keep it on. Make room for all. We commonly get questions about people on trails and in other public settings. Just like how we pull over to make room for emergency vehicles, if you're out someplace like a narrow trail or bike path, pull over and walk, jog, or ride in single file when passing by others. Maximize the space available. Know when to wear the facial cover. Even in small gatherings of ten or fewer people, you should still keep your physical distance and wear the facial cover. When you're alone, of course, with members of your own household, you can go without. And know how to wear it. It should fully cover your nose and mouth and be snug enough that it won't slip down as you talk or move. Understand that some people should not wear a mask, children under age two, pregnant people, and those who have trouble breathing. But it's all the more important that the rest of us do so to protect them. Keep your social circles small. This will make it easier to know who else may have been exposed and needs to self-isolate if someone gets sick. Choose one other trusted household that is also taking health and safety precautions. This could be another family or members of your own family who live in a separate household. People over age 65 and with underlying medical conditions are more likely to develop more severe illness and should continue to stay home. Find ways to connect by phone, computer, or video. And finally, as I mentioned at the end of last week, keep a daily log of your contacts, of any people outside of your household that you've been in close contact with. That way, if you do become ill, it will be easier to know who else may be at risk of contracting the virus and allow the health department to more quickly or accurately conduct contact tracing. As health commissioner, I wish to thank you for all that you're doing to keep yourselves and others safe and healthy. I recognize how tremendous a sacrifice this has been and urge you all to keep it up. Thank you. Hi, I'm Mike Smith, Secretary of Human Services. I just wanted to take a moment to refine Vermonters and healthcare providers what services we have allowed to resume, those that we're working on to possibly allow in the future, and what services are still closed due to COVID-19. As you remember last week, working with providers represented by the Vermont Association of Hospitals and Health Systems, the Vermont Medical Society by State Primary Care Association, and Health First, we began allowing certain healthcare services in Vermont that were discontinued at the outset of the COVID-19 virus impacting, that were impacting Vermonters. Last week on May 4th, we announced that limited elective medical procedures could resume on a clinic or outpatient basis as long as the healthcare provider adhered to guidelines issued by the commissioner of the Department of Health. As was articulated, though these were intended as physician and hospital medical-based elective services, but the guidance broadly defined healthcare workers as nurses, physicians, emergency medical personnel, medical and nursing students, laboratory technicians, pharmacists, hospital volunteers, administrative staff, or any other employee who may come in contact with a patient. The Secretary of State's office through the Office of Professional Regulation is inquired about the applicability of the resumption of certain healthcare services to other clinical services such as acupuncturists, applied behavior analysts, chiropractic services, hearing aid dispensers, naturopathic services, ophthalmology, and physical therapy, psychoanalysts, psychological examiners, and others. We will, the Commissioner of Health issued guidance to the Office of Professional Regulation last week to send out to these other clinical services. The Commissioner stated that he will continue to work with the Office of Professional Regulation to send out a message to make clear to their health provider licensees that they must adhere to the guidance published last Monday, and actually making many of those practices closed as a practical manner. Also, draft, the Commissioner will help and guide sector-specific guidance that will allow their licensees to safely see patients, and then help with the drafting of guidance for a dental community for the time being for them to resume services as well. Therefore, many of the healthcare services under the auspices of the Office of Professional Regulation remain closed until sector-specific guidance can be established and approved by the Commissioner of Health, ensuring that they can safely open while COVID-19 remains a health threat to Vermonters. Let me also address the issue of dentistry. On Monday, May 4th, when Governor Scott announced that limited elective medical procedures could resume, this did not include routine or non-urgent dental procedures, only emergency and urgent dental care. Although the Governor's order to postpone routine or non-urgent dental care currently extends until midnight, May 15th, I want to emphasize this. It would be premature to conclude that this ban will be lifted at that time. I have seen some dental practices and notices to their patients that they intend to resume non-urgent dental procedures on May 18th. That decision to open dental offices to non-urgent procedures has not yet been made, and I would caution practices for making premature announcements. The state thanks the countless dental professionals who continue to observe the important limitations now in place. So here is what is happening. The Health Department is working with the Office of Professional Regulation and members of the Board of Dental Examiners to develop evidence-based recommendation for reopening. The Board of Dental Examiners will convene a virtual board meeting on Monday the 12th to deliberate on guidelines and advise the governor on the best guidelines for future reopening. I also want to be clear on the issue of what is called PPE, which is personal protective equipment, not to be confused with PPP, the unemployment program. Just so that everyone knows, I want to talk about PPP, PPE for those healthcare organizations authorized to reopen. When allowed, the healthcare entity is expected to adhere to the guidelines issued for the reopening. We understand that some may not wish or will find it difficult to reopen under the guidelines. However, these guidelines are in place to protect Vermonters. The state will not be able to provide PPE for elective, routine or non-urgent healthcare. Worldwide supply lines remain impaired and the state warehouse stock must be directed to frontline COVID workers and outbreak response and prevention efforts. To safely offer elective, non-urgent healthcare services in compliance with the commissioner's guidance, healthcare providers must obtain the necessary PPE through their own sources and suppliers. And lastly, last week when we announced the opening of some elective procedures, either in a clinical setting or in outpatient settings, we stated that this was phase one of a two-phase strategy, with the second phase being the opening of elective procedures on an inpatient basis. Of course, with the proper guidelines to ensure patient safety and to be ready in case of a surge in capacity should there be a flare-up of the virus. We are still evaluating the impact on the healthcare system and the impacts on our effective containment and mitigation strategies for the most recent announcement on elective surgeries. But if the data continues to be favorable, we could see inpatient elective procedures being allowed in the near future. Although we have had encouraging results in the past few weeks, primarily because of the virus mitigation and containment strategies that we put in place, the virus still remains amongst us. So these measures and processes are important to protect for monitors. This, we will be resolute in achieving and deciding what and when to reopen these various entities. I do want to thank you all for your time. I know it's been a difficult period for both patients and providers. I just wanted to spend a few minutes making sure that everyone understood where we stood in terms of reopening our healthcare system. Thank you, Secretary Smith. We'll now open it up to questions. Calvin? Thank you. Governor, on Friday, regarding the Department of Labor, we still have this backlog. You said that the Department of Labor had until again Saturday night to clear this backlog, and everybody still left over to transfer to the PUA. How many people were left over and sort of what's the latest one? Yeah, from what I understand, I'm going to ask Commissioner Harrington to also expand upon this, but from what I understand, they were successful in taking about 9,000 claimants, and they are now being pushed into the PUA, have been pushed into the PUA. They are doing some testing over the day today, and hopefully once they get the testing done, then the applicant, the claimant, can finish their filing, which takes little or no time, can do it online, and just to get through that one last step. But it looks as though it was successful, and they'll be able to 9,000 more claimants will receive benefits this week. Commissioner Harrington? I believe you said it best, Governor. Again, we expect that that number will be around 9,000 give or take. There were some people who were still falling for our adjudication process, but the majority, if not, you know, almost 90% of all of those are going to be put into the system if they haven't been already, and once the testing, both for that group and for our updated payment process is done, those people will receive a notification letting them know that they can complete the rest of their application, the TUA portion of their application. And then just a quick follow-up. Every time we code around these issues, or kind of clear these issues and take it into our own hands, you and the commissioner said that we risk basically retaliation from the federal government, whether it's that we sit in benefits or some sort of thing. I guess from a point, do we stop coding around or stop, I guess, trying to go around the system if the, or because of the risk of retaliation from the federal government is too late? Yeah, it's a great question. We've chosen to put people over policy in this case and trying to get money in the hands of Vermonters that they desperately need and it's long overdue. So we'll continue this path until everyone receives the benefits that they are entitled to. So it might be a little bit longer, but every week it seems as though we're able to do the work around and start to clear up some of those cases. Once the overall ramp up swell of the number of people coming into the system starts to decline and we'll see some of that. I mean, we'll put a lot of people back to work today. So common sense would tell you that we should be able to see some of our unemployment numbers drop and when that happens and when we bring more of the call takers from Maximus online as well, we'll be able to use our experts to go back through and make sure that we're getting the people in the right categories and taking a look to make sure it's appropriate. So it's going to take a little bit more time, but first things first, getting money in the hands of Vermonters that we are entitled and we should provide for that. In this one last call, today have we seen any retaliation from the federal government? I think the federal government is fairly busy in all the states because everyone has been impacted by the vast number of people who have signed up for unemployment. So we're not alone. It's going to take them some time to come back in and take a look and to account for this. So I think it will be a little bit of time before that happens. Stuart? Thanks. Governor, AARP this morning added its name and voice to the controversy over going by mail in November. Reading your letter Friday night, it appears you are holding firm to not wanting to make the decision before the August primary. Their point seems to be that you can make a decision in the middle of August and have an outbreak on the 1st of October and seniors would be terrified by part of the polls. What is your response to that given that this is a fluid situation and the need to protect the vote? Yeah, well again, what I've said is let's move forward, just like we did with every other emergency situation. Let's put the plan in place. Let's get the ballots, let's get the machines, let's get everything that we need in place, like we're going to do it. But I'm just saying we can't print the ballots until after the primary anyhow. I'm a little concerned about the August primary myself. I mean, there's still 100 or 200,000 people who are going to vote in that election. So I'm concerned about that one first, but having said that, we do have absentee ballots that could be available for that. And the Secretary of State doesn't seem to be as concerned about that one as the general. So he's the expert. I'll take his advisement on that. We'll get through the primary and then you'll determine who is on in line on the general. And then you'll have to print the ballots at that point. So I'm just saying at that point we can determine whether to continue down this path as we started with this plan in place or not. We will know a lot more. Just think back. I mean, it was just two, two and a half months ago, less than two months ago, or just a little bit more than two months ago that we started down this path was March 13th that the state of emergency came into place. We'll know a lot more in August about where we're going with this, whether it's more testing in place and so forth. And again, I'm not saying no, I'm not. This isn't philosophical. This isn't political. I'm just saying we don't need to make this the final decision until August. So it seems pretty easy to me move down this path, put the plan in place like you're going to do it. But in August, make the final decision as to whether it's going to happen in November because there still is a primary to go through in between that time. But even in August, you would still have the risk of a late breaking outbreak that you couldn't foresee. We run the risk every single day, right? We don't know where this is going. There are so many variables in this whole pandemic. But I can't tell you what's going to happen a year from then, either. I can't tell you what's happening next week. So we're just watching the trends, the data and the science. I believe that the measures we've taken thus far have kept us safe. And we'll determine that from my perspective in August. And I would add that I wasn't added into this process until the legislature took action on another bill and with an amendment put me in place with my approval moving forward on any of these elections coming up. I'm just saying I'm not comfortable making this decision right now. If the legislature wants to take other action, I'm not going to stand in their way. If they want to take this in bill form and force this election in November, I'm okay with that. I will not stand in the way of that happening. So are you taking a risk then by holding up the decision until August when you might have an outbreak at the last minute? What's the risk? Well, you wouldn't be ready to pull the trigger. Yep, we would be though. I'm saying start today like we're going to do it today. I said this last week just move forward like it's going to happen in November. But not say yes for certain until August. But I'm not standing in the way at all. Steve? Governor as of today the Roman Catholic Bishop in Burlington has allowed the various churches to open under pretty strict conditions and everything. A limit of people in the church at a time and there are a lot of folks who really want to get the church and their large buildings. So what is going to be happening with the churches? Have we gotten any guidance on that? It will come in time. I think what you'll see with all of our approaches they're very measured, right? Moderate stances. So in terms of retail for instance that up to 25% of whatever the occupancy is. I think you can expect that we'll be doing that with other areas as well. Social distancing making sure people are wearing masks so forth and so on. So we're taking this one step at a time at this point. We have a limit of 10 mass gatherings of 10. I would expect as we did when we first started with I don't even remember what it was in the beginning but we stepped down from there and we got all the way down from 250 to 100 to 50 to 10 eventually. So I think what you'll see is the same type of ramp up from there so that we can continue to take these minor steps as we move forward to make sure that we're watching the data and the science to be sure that there's not any negative effects. So I think you can expect with the churches in particular that you would be doing the same thing. Going from 10 to maybe 25 to maybe 50 and moving in that way. So you're thinking percentage is 25% of the capacity of the building? Well that's what we're doing for retail for instance because it's very difficult because there are all different sizes of retail and if you limited it to just 10 for instance the ones with 100,000 square feet would be pretty lonely like that and 10 would be overwhelming in a small retail store. So we thought having it determined by the percentage of occupancy would be the better approach. We move to the phones now. We have Avery WCAX My question is around the reopening of dental practices. So as Secretary Smith mentioned the stock of PPE is limited. You say the dental hygienists and dentists who are kind of nervous about reopening and where they will be able to get PPE from. Secretary Smith. Not everybody's going to be able to comply with these guidelines. We recognize that. The various practices are going to have to make a decision of whether they can comply with the the guidance that we put out. That includes PPE as we move forward on this. But they're going to have to make the decision of whether they can comply or not and if they can't comply then they will have to make the decision of what they're going to do either reach out and try to get some supplies of PPE or not open. Our main concern, especially with dentistry, is the both the employees of the dentist, the dental hygienist as well as the dentist. But also the people that are the patients that are coming here. This is very close contact with the mouth and we want to make sure that and I'm not the doctor, I'll let Dr. Levine talk about the sort of the medical science of this. We just want to make sure that there is sufficient protection for everyone. So to answer your question we're not saying you have to open we're just saying how you have to open and how you have to open is with PPE. Thank you. My question pertains to the retail store reopening. I've been speaking to experts about this topic and one thing they seem to believe as a general rule is that we can't do retail store reopening no matter what social distancing guidelines you have in place without job protections like sick leave or the ability to stay home if workers feel unsafe. Are there any considerations specifically for hourly workers about those job protections, any considerations of expanding the job protections that they have for a response to that assessment? Well, first of all, I think with the safety plans it would talk about those safety precautions that we're asking to be put in place. I'd be curious as to who the experts are you're speaking with, some of the experts we're talking with feel as though the retail would be safe under the guidance that's being put forward. I think that it has a lot to do with the feeling that if people are forced to go into work and feel well or when they have underlying health conditions it could lead to long term problems for a second wave. Yeah, well again I'd be interested in who the experts are but what has been laid out in the guidance is if you don't feel well we're saying don't come in so employees are asked to stay home if that's the case as well. There are a number of provisions in place to protect employees and again there's nothing perfect about this system we're learning more every single day the science seems to change a bit but at the same time we continue to see record low number of positives in this state. Again yesterday we had zero with zero deaths. Now that doesn't mean that it's not going to change. I've been saying all along that the more we open up some of the businesses and manufacturing construction and so forth and expand our testing that we are going to see more positives in this state but until there's a vaccine in place I'm not sure that we can fully stop this from spreading. Might ask Dr. Levine if there's anything else I'm missing on that. Anything more I'm trying to be clear Erin but have I answered the question? Yes I'd be curious what specific provisions you have and new guidance related to protecting employees. Are you referring to social distancing protocols? Well the mass social distancing taking temperatures for instance is some of the manufacturing construction entities but knowing that thermometers are in short supply I mean we're tearing to take steps to protect both employees and customers as well we are encouraging those businesses to adopt measures like Costco did some other stores have done to make sure they have facial coverings when they come into their places of business but that part is up to them again those with chronic conditions and so forth I believe and maybe Commissioner Harrington can weigh in but I believe those with chronic conditions that would prevent them from going back into work they could continue to stay on unemployment. Am I correct on that Commissioner Harrington? Yes sir so if an individual felt like they were being placed in undue harm however if the employer was taking all the necessary steps following CDC guidance following the Department of Health guidance and Vermont's Occupational Safety and Health Administration protocols and guidance then again that would allow them the opportunity to go back to work so they would have to be able to validate or show that the employer was not taking the appropriate safety precautions Okay and how is the state setting to enforce these rules? Sorry to interrupt someone? Nope still here My understanding is that right now OSHA is providing guidance to employees not holding them to a specific standard is that still accurate? Well they have to submit a plan and they have to adhere to the plan that they've submitted and it has to be approved before they open their place of business so I would say there's a few steps that would prevent or help the employee in many respects from contracting the virus we do not want to put them in unsafe conditions that's why we're doing this in such a phase step process to be sure we're both protecting the employee and the customers as well Thank you Mike Donahue, the Islander Thanks very much Before I ask my question today, I was wondering if Commissioner Pietschak could give us an update on the two statistics that were promised on Friday the number of out-of-staters that tested positive in Vermont but were sent out of state in the number of Vermonters that tested positive out-of-state and those tests have been shared with Vermont and I must say I was shocked when your office commissioner emailed on Friday saying they would have to coordinate your response with the health department about the public statistics I'm just wondering why these public numbers are so elusive when you do your weekly projection Mike, can I just this is Rebecca, I'm sorry can I just make sure we're all understanding your question because I think that might be part of the challenge here are you asking if the total number of cases that we are reporting is not in fact the total number of positive tests that the health department finds is that what your question is? Well I'm not sure what the numbers are to be honest I'm totally confused by the reporting numbers and that's why we're trying to get at these we were told Commissioner Levine at one point said the numbers that were here in Vermont such as workers tourists family visiting long term that test positive and live out of state those numbers were sent back to those states and were not included in the Vermont numbers even though like 200 300 people might have tested positive here they were not included in the county by county numbers or whatever Mike I'm going to have Dr. Levine or Secretary Smith one of the two because I don't believe that's the case but actually to make sure he checked about it he can weigh in as well but I first want to make sure that we're solid on this I believe that everyone who has tested positive in the state is listed as being positive in the state but I'll let Dr. Levine answer first so in our total numbers those include every positive test in the state however we do also report back to the state of origin if there is a positive test for a resident of their state and to answer the question about modeling we use the total number because anyone that is in Vermont that receives a positive test has the possibility of transmission in the state even if they are only here temporarily and each one of our modelers doesn't distinguish between in state or out of state residents it's really confirmed in the state yeah no exactly and that's why I want to make sure that we're apples and apples here so Commissioner Levine if I can just double check on what you just said so if somebody is on a work crew construction company here temporarily or was it tourist and they happen to be living in Chittenden County or staying in Chittenden County or Grand Isle County or wherever would show up in the county by county stats that you've been releasing they show up in the total number of positive tests in the state and as I said on Friday our health surveillance section is going to be connecting with you so we can be very specific about all the different categories they could not do that Friday and they will be doing it this week I was interested in the commissioner's projections and what he's basing those on not I wasn't looking for a coordinated response between the two departments but what Commissioner Pichek was basing his projections on yeah so I think I'll just let you have to coordinate well no I just wanted to be clear we're doing it on the total number we don't we don't none of our modelers nor do we break it down by in-state or out-of-state so that information would have to come most reliably from the health department but you know I think that's pretty much the clearest answer I can give okay well I'll wait for the response whenever it comes so the question today the number of people still not wearing masks seems to be troubling and now you're going to have more people coming and everything like that I stop when I stop at traffic lights I look at the convenience stores nearby and see most people walk in without masks on and I don't think it's going to get any better with retail opening and I stopped at one store and counted 12 people going in 10 did not wear masks and when I spoke to the store clerk she said yeah that's about average I'm just wondering how you're going to be able to somehow get compliance and with the legislature or the governor or somebody mandate or sign legislation that would allow the stores to charge say an extra 10% for those coming through the checkout without a mask and that that money would be used to help fund the hazardous pay that has been proposed Mike from my standpoint I continue to try and promote guidance and education as my first step we'll watch the data watch the science and if we see that we're having a problem we're seeing difficulty in our compliance rates then we have to take more steps but that's not my first first preference so we'll see what happens obviously the legislature can propose anything it wants in terms of making this mandatory for all Vermonters but what I'm seeing again across the country this is having mixed results it creates a lot of controversy it puts people at odds and I believe that it's counterproductive to what we're trying to do today I think the more people wear masks the more socially acceptable it is that's why we're making it mandatory for the businesses that are opening back up and I believe that there'll be some social acceptance eventually but again it's difficult culture change is difficult but I'm seeing more masks today than I saw a month ago and I would expect in another month's time I'd see more than I see today so again that's my prerogative if the legislature decided to take additional steps to make this mandatory or have some type of a scheme to force people to do this that's their prerogative as well and I'll consider that if it comes across my desk 10% searcher wouldn't be mandatory it would be the customer would have a choice that's not making it mandatory well it's kind of making it's kind of making it mandatory I mean in terms of charging more again if that's what the legislature wants to do that's something that I would consider but that wouldn't be my first choice we've got a question Courtney, 7 days Hi Governor you might have addressed this with the last question but it's a little bit hard to hear you so maybe if you could step a little closer to the mic but could you clarify why are employees at retail shops required to wear masks but not customers and I'm sorry if you just addressed this but again it was a little bit hard to hear you I'm not sure why I don't know if others are having trouble but I'm literally about 8 inches away from the mics right now so I don't want to get any closer I would again offer that this is a way for us to induce some education we can have some control over the employees and so forth we can take forcing Vermonters to take this step to mandatory face coverings if we see that it becomes if the science and there's evidence that would support this in the future we might have to change but at this point in time I think education and guidance is the best approach Vermonters have done very well thus far our compliance rate is one of the highest in the nation as well we are seeing the results of that we are seeing zero like I said yesterday we saw zero positives and zero deaths so there's not many other states that can that have that going for them and I'm very proud of what everyone's doing so we'll continue with this approach and hopefully that will be more socially acceptable in the future and the culture will change and this will become more habit forming just a quick follow-up to that are you concerned or have you already heard about conflicts if a store such as Costco has instituted its own mass policy but a customer who wants a shock there refuses to put one on because it's not mandated is it something that you're hearing about and does that concern you? that's what I had answered before I think it sets up a controversy that I don't think is necessary and I haven't seen that in the state I don't know if that's happened in Vermont but I have seen that across some of the national reports where we're seeing some controversy and conflict between store clerks and customers so I would like to avoid that and continue to try and give guidance and education as to why it's an important thing to do okay thank you very much Greg the county courier Greg the county courier okay we'll go to Sean at the Chester telegraph thank you Governor this morning we got a call from a reader who said he had just seen road crews working on route 11 here in Andover and that's always a cause for celebration around here but he also noted the trucks that were doing the work for New York State so we haven't had a chance to verify this yet but you've spoken many times about Vermont being surrounded by states where there are more infections than Vermont so our reader wondered why the state would bring workers in from out of state and also what restrictions do they have to observe especially if they're staying here longer than just the day that they're working and going home they're under the same restrictions as everyone else when you have a contract you have a contractor from another state that bids on a project in Vermont they are allowed to obviously perform the duties under the contract we have asked that they have a higher level of compliance in terms of the safety measures surrounding the COVID-19 so they've taken courses individually and we've again asked for anyone coming into the state unless it's for for work purposes we've also had a little bit of leeway throughout this whole process because as you might recall there are some from Platsburg let's say they work at UVM Medical Center as well as those who are from Vermont that might work at Dartmouth Hitchcock so we have allowed for a little bit of variance but in this case we're asking those companies to not commute and for them to come into the state and stay a while so if they're coming into the state and they're staying a while is there anything for 14 days? Well that's our hope obviously nothing perfect about this system and there are no nobody is verifying in some respects but we're asking these businesses to come up with their own plans that are approved and they are adhering to the plans so there's no verification and I mean you've spoken about embers coming from other states there's no verification that we couldn't have they're under the left in and over and that's in anticipation of some of what we're going to see in the future that's why we've increased our testing and tracing capacity and program because we want to make sure that we're out there being proactive and to try and identify some of these embers as they come into our state because we haven't from the very beginning we haven't had anyone verifying anyone coming into the state from other states and our ports of entry to determine whether they are indeed coming in and quarantining or not so this is not a perfect system and admittedly so and we're trying to do the best we can under the conditions to try and again continue to have one of the best highest compliance in the nation as well as some of the lowest rates in the nation in terms of positive and in the number of deaths just the last thing so are these workers who are under contract coming in from out of state being tested they are not at this point in time some of them could be but we're hoping to expand the testing enough so that we can have more universal testing in the future that we can provide for some of what we're seeing some of these businesses that are coming in but it's not universal at this point but that's where we're going, hopefully going in the future. Tim, Vermont Business Magazine. Hi, good morning. Dr. Levine, there was a report in the paper this morning about a third of Americans believe there is a vaccine and it's not being used which I guess tells us something about the state of the nation at the moment. I was wondering if we are holding out too much hope for a vaccine there's not a vaccine for HIV AIDS, Lyme disease or any other coronavirus should we better assume that there will not be a vaccine and just go from there? Those are great questions wouldn't it be nice if the third of Americans were correct but unfortunately you're right there is no vaccine now and and the rosiest of pictures where there would be a vaccine I think people are often being sometimes falsely misled other times just having a false sense of hope that that vaccine would be readily available and vaccines go through such extensive testing that the minimum point would be a year and most people are talking in terms of one to two years but your observation about other coronaviruses is correct it's not the same as some of the other viral illnesses that we clearly do have vaccines established for I don't want to relate it to HIV because that's a very different type of virus but at the same time your conclusion is correct HIV has been around a long long time and we do not have a vaccine to offer anybody at this point in time so I would still try to err on the side of being optimistic about a vaccine for coronavirus based on its structural properties but at the same time not being overly optimistic about the timeline part of it because to think about within a year while it would be wonderful it really wouldn't be that plausible to me it would be in the couple year window having said that though that doesn't mean we wouldn't have more effective antiviral therapeutics developed within that time period so even if we don't have a vaccine as quickly as we'd like it we might have medications and other treatments that would be successful treating coronavirus of this sort so that we would at least have something to offer people other than the kind of supportive care we're offering right now you think those antivirals would be better if you know we've talked about a second wave in the fall or perhaps next winter you think there will be those kind of treatments available by then I'm very optimistic there will be there have been trials that are ongoing as we speak that are being done in very rapid fashion even under extreme circumstances if you will there was actually in the New England Journal of Medicine a trial just reported out of China that sort of at the peak of the issues in Wuhan they were able to carry out a clinical trial unfortunately it didn't turn out as positively as people would have wanted with the drugs that were used but the fact that it could be done under those circumstances at all is a great testimony to the whole medical and scientific community there I'll also say that the federal government has notified states and we are one of the states that will be receiving a shipment of the one antiviral drug that has recently been studied and found to be effective in shortening the duration of symptoms in people who are hospitalized with severe illness and so our hospitals in Vermont will this week actually have access to that medication is that the Remdesivir? Remdesivir, yes alright, well thank you very much alright, Joe Barton Chronicle this is another question for Dr. Levine in a way following from the last round you talked about additional symptoms that people should be and it makes me not understood at the beginning of this and what major questions remain can affect the decisions that are being made do you have a few hours? I've got all the time in the world thank you so let's start with symptoms since that's what triggered the conversation originally it was really a lot of emphasis put on fever cough, shortness of breath and as you heard this list now has expanded quite a bit to some things that we traditionally call viral illness in general when we look at our Vermont experience and we've been putting out notifications periodically as we accumulate more and more cases cough is rather common but fever turned out to be far less common than we anticipated which has big implications of course if everything that you're doing at a work site hinges on a person having a temperature or not because not all of them will have fever even if they are having symptoms of COVID that are ongoing so we've learned a lot about the symptom presentation we've learned that we were completely right with regard to the vulnerable population and who is going to get the most severe illness who is going to get into an ICU potentially who may not survive we've learned a lot about that we've learned a tremendous amount about how to protect the most vulnerable and I think our track record has been quite good in Vermont with regard to long-term care facilities longer get settings even like correctional facilities because around the country this really is epidemic in all of those sites and you've heard news reports regarding that what we still don't know we've learned a little more about this pre-symptomatic time period of 48 hours but is that really 48 hours should we be actually looking longer well one of the principles of our new contact tracing program is we're going to look back 14 days not necessarily because that one person may have been infectious that whole 14 days but maybe we'll actually get at the cause of that localized outbreak by looking at the experience 14 days back we've also learned a lot about when most people will become symptomatic and it seems to be by day 5 or 6 and really almost 100% just shy of a couple percent almost 100% will have been symptomatic by day 11 in this time course of illness the other thing we don't know as much as we'd like to know about is how much asymptomatic disease there is present in the population not just in Vermont but in general and how much of a threat that is to the general population if you will if those people can eventually become infectious or not and we're learning more and more about the lack of disease in kids but at the same time what are the implications of that for the adults and our kids very capable transmitters of virus even if they don't appear to be ill at the time we would love to learn more and more about that as well so plenty of stuff that we're kind of becoming more and more aware of plenty of stuff that we would still love to have answers for and in terms of translating our management of the pandemic I think the biggest things we want the answers for that no society can give us just quite yet is how to do exactly what you hear us talking about on the stage three times a week how to restart Vermont how to reopen business how to do it in a phased and deliberate and cautious way without letting that infectivity factor they are not increase or any of the other statistics that we follow increase and how much within the population can we begin to congregate again in terms of these congregate settings whether you talk 10, 25, 50 what have you where will that go how safely can we do that those are really answers that unfortunately the whole world is trying to find the answers simultaneously and we try to learn from places that had an experience a little earlier than ours and see what we can do in that regard but those are really the very challenging questions that we're dealing with and probably the most challenging will be which epidemic curve will coronavirus COVID-19 illness I should say follow will it be the initial peak that we've had and then months and months go by before another peak occurs will it be more off and on lots of modeling lots of good guesswork by very well intentioned and scientifically credible people but the bottom line is we really don't know and that's what we're going to be watching very very carefully and that's why all of our talk about increasing testing and increasing contact tracing is so important because if something should occur in the future with regard to a resurgence of disease we want to know about it really early and not get to our crisis point in the management of that subsequent resurgence thanks for the question thank you very much doctor back to Greg from the county hi governor I'm a little less prepared today than I normally am as you know I'm a volunteer firefighter and I just got back from a fire call which is why I wasn't able to connect earlier but it's also why I have the question I have today I was fortunate to be one of the 138 non-symptomatic people that were tested over the weekend in Colchester and I noticed that at no point did they actually ask the town of residents that I was from and in the information that they collected they asked for a mailing address and I guess I'm under the assumption that in order to make the math that you've made public for where these cases are coming from you're going by a mailing address or a zip code but that really brings up an issue in frankincounty where Georgia does not have its own post office either does Fletcher which are both showing zero cases so in the case of Georgia if somebody gets a positive test in Georgia it's actually going to come up as a St. Albans Milton or Fairfax positive result in Enosburg where I'm from our Enosburg post office serves parts of Franklin, Berkshire Bakersfield, Montgomery Fairfield and so you know it's showing that Enosburg has six cases but it seems to me like that's a pretty flawed number because Sheldon and I believe Berkshire and maybe Montgomery aren't showing any cases so I'm wondering why you're not collecting data on where people live and just maybe their mailing address and if that kind of just highlights a little bit of a bigger problem in the sense that we're not collecting enough data to really know where stuff is and what's going on well I'm going to let Dr. Levine first of all thank you very much for your public service and stepping up when you need more volunteers doing their public duty and performing public service but I would just add that we do collect the data we do know the number of positive cases that are in Vermont first of all and we know the region at that point and I would assume tracing and testing program that we would then trace from there if a positive case came up to determine who you came in contact with for instance and at that point trying to make sure that we hunted out and we try and find out who has the virus so we can contain it but I don't have the answers to the rest of it I'll ask Dr. Levine to answer. Yeah thanks again for your service and thank you for being tested and may you not have a positive test but my answer to your question I'll make sure I'm correct and we'll get back to you if I'm not but let's say you do become a positive test that will precipitate a rather exhaustive interview over the telephone with one of our public health epidemiology staff and I believe as part of the questioning that you're going to get it will include where you live and then as the governor was just alluding to who else lives with you there and go back in your history for all of the connections with other people that you might have but if it starts with where do you live the post office box was important to get because you're probably going to get a result sent to you if people can't get hold of you any other way but at the same time on the phone call it'll become much clearer where you are a resident of. But you're still not gathering data as far as where the tests are coming from so I guess in your data unless there's a positive you wouldn't know that there's maybe 37 you know tests being taken from the town of Georgia or 52 from the town of Fletcher. We would know the county. Well you might not know the county because Georgia is right on the border with Chittin County and if you live in the southern portion of Georgia you actually have a milk and mailing address even if you have a mailbox out in front of your house it's technically a milk and mailing address. I get it so we'll get back to you to see if there's anything more that we learn at the time of the testing. Certainly if your test was because you had symptoms and you're a physician ordered to test we would probably have more information regarding your town than in this kind of setting that we were just describing. But I understand where you're coming from. All right thank you guys. Everybody it's 20 past 12 and we're only halfway through the questioners. Lisa AP can you hear me? Yes we can hear you Lisa. Yes please ask a question. It looks like we had an increase in the number of cases reported in Bennington over the weekend Bennington County and I was just wondering if there anything going on there were they you know in a particular area I think five of the six cases were in Bennington. Sure so I don't know if five of the six fall under this category but there is a very small localized outbreak in Bennington at a facility where the majority of people actually are not positive but there were a small number that were positive. Was it in a neighborhood or something or a family or a congregate living setting? I'm sorry I couldn't hear that anything. A congregate living setting. Oh I see okay can you give us any more details which where it was? In Bennington. Okay and along those lines yes why do we not test every person in a prison or long term care facility rather than waiting until someone has symptoms at six. Is that because of the number of tests we have available? Yeah that's a great question the fact of the matter is I would say that we probably would have enough tests available if that were our chosen tech for that kind of major testing across all facilities, staff and residents we would really want to think about what is best public health practice and guidance and right now at least from the Centers for Disease Control that is not the best public health guidance. We actually are piloting with them a very aggressive testing program that involves new admissions to any of our facilities or that involves if a positive order be found and it's not just testing everybody in the facility but it's testing four times actually in a two week period. So that part is not standard practice either it's a pilot that we and the CDC are working on together and it's very aggressive but the CDC to this point in time has not really guided states in testing every facility on a blanket basis and I think you've heard Secretary Smith talk in the past that sure we could do that but that would give us the reassurance on that one day that a facility had no infections and that could change within a day or two based on someone bringing the infection into the facility so you'd have to decide then do you do that several times a week forever and ever throughout this epidemic or what? So that's why we're following the practice we're following now. Okay, thank you. I have a quick question so I was wondering last Friday you announced that childcare will be able to start up again in summer camps and we can be expecting to see guidelines about that this week when those guidelines will be coming out. Secretary Smith. Sure I didn't expect this question on Monday but we're hoping to get them out this week probably you'll see at least on the childcare center centers probably midweek to Thursday on those but maybe even before I know they're working on it I have a meeting this afternoon on where we are on the guidance so I don't have a specific answer for you right now it probably won't be today but I would say soon probably midweek. Okay, thank you so much. Hi Governor you mentioned earlier that you'd be planning to extend the state of emergency on Friday and I was wondering if people should also expect that you'll be extending the stay at home order. I think you'll see a combination in the future on Friday we will be extending the state of emergency that's the vehicle we need to make sure that we roll out some of this the openings and phases like the approach we've taken thus far and so I would I would assume again we'll get through this week and continue to watch the data and the science and talk to all the experts but I would say that you would see a relaxation relaxation of that as well that we will be going to something something less than the stay home stay safe order that's in place today. Okay but still it sounds like some there will be some guidance restricting people's movement to some degree it seems like yeah I mean this again we don't want to throw the switch on and allow everything to go back to normal like we had two or three months ago we're very much still watching this virus the tremendous spread the transmission of this has been so quick that we want to make sure we stay on top of this so again I would I think you should expect that we want people to limit their travels limit their interaction making sure that we're not that we're social distancing and we're not getting into congregate settings so that we can prevent the spread from happening quickly so you'll see a variance of what we have in place but I would say that there's going to be some relaxing of that order okay and with these new retail businesses that will be allowed to open will you be conducting any sort of compliance checks to make sure they're abiding by the order similar to what you get with the hotels at the beginning of the pandemic well again what we're asking is for each individual business and sector to come up with their own plans that they have to adhere to and abide by and so if we see that there is a situation where they're not abiding by the plan we'll ask them for the plan and then take action from there giving more guidance and hopefully that they will do the right thing because it's really important we put these plans into place to protect both the employees and the employerers as well as the customers that come through the doors so we want to make sure that they adhere to the plan that they put in place we've asked them for this and they've done so willingly and so we expect them to make sure that they follow the plan they've put into place and they've submitted mm-hmm thank you Elizabeth Murray Burlington Free Press hi can you hear me we can it kind of goes along with one of the figures that you mentioned earlier about how almost 100% of individuals develop symptoms within 11 days of contracting the virus we actually obtained an advisory that was sent from the health department to health care providers saying that in light of this now the recommended period for quarantine after coming into contact with a COVID positive patient was now 12 days instead of 14 and I was wondering why this distinction was being made for health care providers why it's not also 12 for the general public so sure so we're actually going to be trying to simplify life completely and have it be 14 days period but still with this opportunity to be tested on or after day 7 and if negative will remain off of quarantine keep in mind that if you are on a quarantine you are going to be being followed by the health department as part of contact tracing and you'll be on the SARA alert system which we're using for that purpose which feeds out information to you as the end user regarding symptoms to report regarding education about the virus regarding what you should or shouldn't be doing as part of quarantine and also allows you on a daily basis to refer back to those in the health department to inform them if anything has changed about your condition so I'm sorry just to help me understand that you're going to simplify it so that the quarantine period for everyone is 14 days or did you mean 12 days it seems like this is a change it will be coming out with an updated health advisory okay for the health care providers correct all right thank you patricia bennington banner hello can you hear me hello can you hear me go ahead patricia thank you I have a similar question to one that was asked a little while back this might be for Dr. Levine I think it was Lisa who asked the question regarding the increase in Bennington at a congregate living facility I know you mentioned there was a very small localized outbreak and I'm wondering was the reported outbreak at the Bennington school for girls some people know it as a VPI yes what's the Bennington school for girls and has everyone at that location been tested both staff both staff both staff and residents okay all of them have been tested correct and I think you mentioned earlier Dr. Levine that you actually don't know if all five of the increase in cases in Bennington is from that site you don't know if that's the case that's correct I don't know each one of those five is from there but I do know that there were positives from there and that the majority residents and staff were negative so did more residents and staff test positive than the ones that had originally triggered the outbreak I don't believe so you don't believe any more tested positive I'd have to relook at all of our data because it's now several days old all the residents and staff were tested like over a couple of days or over like one day that's about weekend end of the week and the weekend as you might end of the weekend end of the weekend I'm sorry end of the weekend as you might imagine not all the staff are there every day yeah of course Bonnie thank you hello this question is about personal care industries the you know hair and nail salon spa etc when might those reopen and given some of the services that they offer and the level of contact that's required for those is it actually possible for them to reopen safely well I'm not sure when we'll be opening those entities but obviously it's something that's on the list we're hoping to do this in phases I might ask Dr. Levine I think it's difficult for those that are in close contact whether they be chiropractors massage therapists or hair salons and so forth are in direct contact so that is a concern to us so that's why they haven't been opened up thus far but knowing that we're going to continue to do what we can in phases while watching the data and the science that will be one entity that we'll take a look at in the future and maybe this might be a question that Lindsay Curley could help with what kind of conversations are happening right now in the restart group around this and around this how we might keep people who work in those industries safe when we go back like what are some of the ideas that are being discussed can I have Dr. Levine answer part of that first question and then Secretary Curley absolutely so as you appropriately apprised the situation it is a close contact circumstance but having said that all of the rules that we use for everywhere still go into effect whether it be socially distancing when possible masking personal hygiene, respiratory etiquette all of that continues the reason you certainly are seeing across the country a heterogeneity of when hairdressers are reopened or not, when healthcare is reopened or not some of it makes sense some of it you would say I wonder why that state did this and this state does that I can tell you that in our state we're doing this very very carefully and we just reopen the sector healthcare where there is abundant person-to-person interaction we're sitting in a physician's clinic whether you're in an operating room or wherever so the opportunities to have more close contact that can't be avoided are occurring so our goal is to really see how that does or does not have an impact on the data that we collect on a continuing basis and make sure that if you will, there's no early warning alarm that goes off based on the fact that we've created more opportunities for people to be close to one another in those limited circumstances so that's why as the governor says the phased approach is the cautious approach Kat, what was your follow-up question for Secretary Kerry? Right, the follow-up question was what kinds of conversations are happening in the restart group around this right now what guidance is being discussed that might ease some of the fears among I think some people who would like to return back to work but are really concerned about whether that's possible to do safely for instance, I can imagine a situation of someone getting a facial per se they're probably not wearing their mask for that so how do you balance all those very specific needs when you're doing this kind of restart guidance? Yes, hi Kat it's Secretary Curley here I appreciate the we are Dr. Levine mentioned there's a whole host of things that we're looking at in this restart but at the agency we started by asking the team there to work with experts around the state to offer input about how they work and the type of work that they offer so as you can imagine we've accumulated a lot of information and this would very much lend to a very phased opening so again I can't comment yet on exactly which aspects would be would be encouraged to open in the early phases but we do recognize that this one's a really tricky one we're getting probably as many people that are anxious and ready to get started from an employer's perspective as ones that are anxious about it so we're very much working on how this would look and when the governor gets to the announcement it would be a situation where he would be permitting certain aspects of the industry to start their phased opening with lots of health and safety guidelines around it so again he wouldn't be forcing anybody to do it if they can't do it safely The question stemmed from the analogy for health care but you know obviously a lot of most I would say health care workers are trained professionally in avoiding cross contamination and things like that where I don't know that that's the case for every single person who works in a personal care industry so I was I think we got a lot of the similar inquiries that you were hearing from people who were concerned about that Yes, understood And if I could just pipe in quickly again these conversations are very broad and most of the industries whether they be the dentists as we heard earlier or even hairdressers most of them are actually thinking very intensively about this because it goes across the country and across their discipline and they all have professional organizations and they're actually coming through with some very very cautious as well as well informed suggestions and guidance for those in their industry that we can review and take into consideration as we make decisions and public health is definitely always at the table so none of these decisions have been in a void if you will without having public health able to at least help shed some light on the important issues Thanks for those questions Thank you Cat, I will say this is what happens when we're trying to make some of these decisions and that's why we have to base everything on the data and the science as well as the experts we have in public safety and in economic development but in the end within the health department so when the epidemiologists and Dr. Levine sign off on something we have comfort that it's gone through all of that to come to the decisions that we are taking today so it's a long process it's not perfect and we always try to contemplate the ripple effect in the comfort and the safety of those who are going to be put into that that setting Good afternoon I had a follow up question on the Bennington cases I was wondering one of the first case identified at the Vermont school for girls how did that come about and how quickly was the blanket testing done Dr. Levine I can't give you the exact date but it was mid to late last week and as I've alluded to earlier we have a pretty much blanket rule than any congregate living situation like that whether it be a nursing home whether it be a school for young women whether it be a correctional facility it doesn't really matter there's an immediate response from public health that staff and residents get tested About this latest order reopening retail I'm wondering if big box stores will be allowed to sell non-essential items again Yes it'll be opening up the retail 25% if everything goes right I want people to be prepared for next week but if something changes during the week this is not an order resigning today it'll be part of the order on Friday Thank you Secretary Smith I was wondering if you could speak about how the state is dealing with homeless populations I know some of the leases were set to expire in the next few days on the hotels that there's some downsizing in Burlington and I'm just wondering can you sort of assure people that the status quo will continue beyond this week well this new status quo I guess well this new status quo will continue for the short term we do have to think of a long term plan here because we cannot have people in motels as the permanent solution for homeless in the future so the status quo will continue here for the short term but there are plans now and again I'm meeting on this as well this afternoon sort of developing plans for the long term status of how do we address homelessness here in Vermont When you say short term are we talking about two weeks or two months or what are you going to do that at? I don't have a specific answer to that we'll just have to see how things how things progress both with the virus and with our planning as we move people out of these facilities If hotels are allowed to start taking reservations again in the middle of June would you say that something needs to change before then? I'm not going to speculate on that I think probably we would like to see a solution I'll say this Colin we would like to see a solution as quick as possible on moving people to more permanent housing what that permanent housing looks like may vary in terms of what we're looking at but going back to shelters or that sort of thing those are the things that we're looking at right now and we'd like to do as expeditiously as possible but as safely as possible and right now you asked me if there was any immediate plans to move them out the answers no I appreciate your time and everyone else's Thank you Mike True North reports Thank you I just have two quick questions about the proposal for sending out absentee ballots to all remoners of the board roles so the status quo is currently any remoner who gains the virus of concern for going to the polls can ask for one from either their town clerk or the Secretary of State's office this morning who said it is not a prohibitive process at all so my first question is why would we need to change that system well again probably a better question for the Secretary of State this is part of his plan I believe that is going to be the case for the primary in August that it will continue to be as traditional that you could ask for a ballot by absentee request and it will be the same and the polls will be open status quo so I am not sure that there is going to be any change for the primary I think the concern for the Secretary of State is what happens in November and there is so many people who may need an absentee ballot because we do have a fairly robust system in place right now I believe again you should probably ask him but I believe his concern is that the system the town clerks will be overwhelmed at that point if everyone was requesting an absentee ballot and a quick follow up will your administration be looking at how elections are being done in other nations for example it is being reported yesterday in Brutus that South Korea a nation that does not allow any mail in ballots for election security concerns they recently had their elections and there was no new uptake in COVID cases again I think that is probably a better question for the experts I rely on our health experts for questions like that I will let the election experts answer that in the Secretary of State's office I would say the legislature will have some time as well if they want to contemplate a different way of conducting elections here in the state to utilize both forms the absentee ballots has been quite successful and there's been more people using those over the years so that system is in place we're fortunate to have that but I don't know if there's a wholesale change that is going to have the appetite of anyone at this point but that's probably a better question with the legislature as well as the Secretary of State Thank you Governor, can you tell me how many complaints have been made using the executive order reporting tool put out by the state police and how that's worked I can ask I don't know myself but is Commissioner Sherling on the line? Commissioner Sherling had to yeah, this is Erica Borneman Director of Modernized Management Commissioner Sherling had to attend another meeting I don't have the current statistics but that's something we can follow up on We can get that to you guy Thank you Okay, thanks very much again for tuning in and we'll see you on Wednesday