'Assume you have it' : Vermont now confirms 19 coronavirus cases Gov. Scott orders child care facilities closed, with exceptions, asking all residents to take threat seriously Share Shares Copy Link Copy

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for NBC. Five News. This is breaking news Right now. Vermont state officials are giving an update about the new education and child care guidance put in place by the governor because of the Corona virus. Let's listen in good morning. As we face a growing number of cases of Corona virus here in Vermont and across the country, there's no doubt these air difficult and uncertain times. It's important for everyone to understand our mission, which is to slow down the spread of this virus in order to protect those at risk of getting very sick, which includes the elderly and the very ill. It's also important to understand that even though most of us will have mild to moderate symptoms, if we get it, we can all transmit it. So we all have a rule to play, and making sure we don't pass it on to those were the highest risk. They're further in the point. The best information we currently have from the experts learning from other countries says it's slowing it down is the best way to make sure the care is available to those who need it, especially the most vulnerable who may need hospitalization this is literally in our hands. We need everyone to accept this reality and be part of this effort. Slowing this down or flattening the curve is the most important thing we can do mitigation, along with simple steps like washing your hands a lot. Staying home when you're when you can. In social distancing can help protect loved ones, friends and neighbors who aren't higher risk. On Friday tacked on this strategy. I declared a state of emergency, and we put in place a wide range of measures to slow this pandemic from limiting public gatherings in restricting visitors in long term care facilities and hospitals. Disbanding state employees work travel, encouraging in facilitating tele work, extending unemployment benefits for those who have to be self isolated and much, much more. Sunday, I ordered the dismissal of pre K through 12 schools, which began today. With it came the challenge of coming up with education plan so kids can continue to learn. Monday I ordered the closure of bars and restaurants statewide so they can still offer takeout, and yesterday I directed the closure of licensed child care centers across the state. However, I've asked centers in schools to provide childcare service is that those deemed essential personnel. This includes healthcare and public health workers, first responders and those involved in our state emergency operations centers and many others knowing we may need to add to this list. I realize even as we asked many to step back to help slow the spread of this virus, we're asking others, including educators and childcare providers, to step up and provide a critical service. So those who are on the front lines can continue to care for the sick, protect the public and manage this ever evolving challenge. Now I know some won't be able to, and that's okay. But for those who can, we appreciate your help because filling the need by teachers, childcare providers in school support staff, it's critical to our response. Understanding how challenging but important these directors are have also asked you, London Bill and Liz Miller to leave this effort to sport the agency of education with this critical work lives Lives, who served under Governor Shumlin and Neil, who served under Governor Douglas, have a wealth of experience in state government in the private sector and have already hit the ground running. And they're working on other projects. A cz Well, I want to again remind Vermonters that more measures are inevitable. We're already working on a directive for hospitals. Postpone elective procedures. More details will come on this and others. But I will continue to make decisions based on science data and the guidance of an incredible team of leaders and experts. I have working with me. This is a moment of service for all of us knows, working on the front lines and health care to those who are simply following our social distancing guidance to protect others. We're all in this together, and we will get through it just like during Irene. We're facing new challenges every single day, and I know some are feeling scared, worried and overwhelmed, just like after Irene. But we made it through, and we'll do it again because we're Vermont strong. In times like this, from honors rise to the occasion, we help our neighbors. We answer the call of duty and we get creative. The solve big problems. I'm seeing it every day from health care workers, state employees, school administrators and business owners knows adjusting hours at grocery stores and adding curbside service organizing online car drives to send love to the grand parents who can't have visitors right now. And so many more initiatives. These people, with their compassion and commitment to service, show me that we will get through this and we'll do it together. So I'm now going to turn this over to the education secretary Dee in French to share more details on our latest education. Thank you, Governor. Good morning. This is an unprecedented situation that's calling on everyone to make difficult decisions and to take quick actions. I wanted to highlight a few aspects of this work. Firstly, childcare. We issued new guidance to schools last night to support the prevention of child care for the Children of essential personnel of these essential persons include currently educators, health care providers in emergency workers, first responders, servicemen and women in our National Guard who have been activated for Kobe, 19 and state employees working on the coding. 19 emergency response schools have been directed to provide care to enrolled students upto at least great eight and were necessary to students from other towns or district's. And we're currently working with district this morning to support them and organizing this work. Our guidance also directs the continued payment of pre K tuition to private providers as established under Act 1 66 These funds are already in school budgets and paid for out of the education funds mentioned our work. Under feeding students, we've received the necessary waiver from the USDA to offer reimburse stewed meals on a distributed basis. 39 of our approximately 60 supervised readings have applications approved are ready to start serving meals. Many are doing so today. Seven other s use air in the process of having their applications finalized and we're working directly with the remaining s used to expedite their application process. Labor issues have emerged as a concern. We're asking a lot of her education labor force during the state of emergency. We need their expertise and dedication as we navigate these uncharted and unprecedented times. We have directed education staff to report to work during this two week period of school closure to accomplish three main objectives. One to maintain the education programs of students to to support our most vulnerable students. And three the plan for the continuity of education programs in the event of a prolonged school closures we're not expecting school staff to report to work. They have concerns about their personal personal health. Specifically, the following Educators are not required to be in public school buildings. Educators with compromised immune conditions. Educators who reside with someone with a compromised immune condition. Educators suffering from anxiety, expecting educators, educators with infants and educators over 60. In other words, anyone with a serious physical or mental health issue is not being required to be in a public building. Also directed schools to ensure all staff get paid for their regular scheduled hours during this period. Lastly, I just want to mention work we're doing around this issue of continuity of education. As I mentioned, we're using this two week closure period. Prepare for an extended period school closure. If that becomes necessary, we are actively engaged in planning work at the agency and at the local level to ensure all students will be able to continue to make academic progress. In the event of a longer period of school closure, many of our high schools can deliver instruction online. Even though student access to the Internet and computers at home is uneven around the state. We will need to be more creative with the provisions of educational service is at the elementary and primary grades. We will work closely with District's to start plan this work together, and I'm very optimistic about our ability to creatively solve that issue. Now turn it over to Dr Levin. Thank you. First, I'd like to give somewhat of a situational update. At the moment we have 19 total positive tests in Vermont. Put that in perspective. That's out of a total testing, uh, run of about 600 tests so clearly far more negative than positive. But obviously, we're gonna focus on the positives very intently. We always discuss how many people were still monitoring in the state as a health department. And I'm not going to give you a precise number because that changes so rapidly. Each time you have a positive test result. There's abundance of surveillance and phone calls, and interactions with people may or may not have had contact with the actual case. And if that case happens to be in a health care setting, the numbers can get quite large. So just accept the fact that there are hundreds over. Mourners are being monitored and interacted with regarding these 19 positive tests, I wanted to just spend a few moments on dhe feed off of a bit what the government governor was saying about Theo. Overall strategy. Just so people can sort of see with some clarity why all this is happening so fast and where we're going both as a state and stomach expects as a nation. So there are some fancy words, But everything began with the word containment containment. It's kind of just what it says you identified cases toe identified cases means you have to be testing, so you need to have some capacity to test, and you have to have some ability to prioritize those tests. Having done that, you begin to identify cases and you rapidly isolate those cases, assuming there in the community still and not requiring hospitals and shit. And we've had plenty who are still in the community that did not require hospitalization to be clear about that, and then we do something called contact tracing so that we make sure that those who may have had some contact with the case know exactly what it is they should do to prevent further transmission of covert 19 across our communities. We're still doing that. And that's what I would term a parallel strategy to the now more significant strategy of mitigation. Trying to slow but not necessarily stop the viral spread because we know we can't stop it at this point, but we can slow it down. We've shown you curves before in the past that really focus on our ability to not have a rapid spike and overwhelm our health care system. But to have a more gradual, flattened curve, which frankly may take longer to dissipate, that will have a much lower burden on the population at large and on the health care system's ability to cope. The prime mitigation strategy goes under the other fancy term social distancing, which I hope everyone sees. We're trying to practice up here on the podium today, maintaining that distance from others that as human beings, we don't do every day. That's not what we're accustomed to. High five. We shake hands, we embrace well. We're asking for models to go through a significant amount of behavior change, and that's uncomfortable. And that's something you have to kind of be actually conscious of every time because your tendency is to do the things you've always done. So we understand that that's hard and may require a lot of support. And all the strategies that have occurred since we really call this an emergency in a state of emergency are really falling into place in that social distance in category. Some of them had to do with protecting our most vulnerable in our elderly regarding visitation policies to hospitals, so long term care facilities, nursing homes, et cetera. Some of them had to do with how we tend to gather in groups, and you've heard numbers go from 250 down to 50 and to me the number is irrelevant because people are already understanding that it's probably not a good idea to be in a crowd a time when you're talking about an infectious disease that could be easily transmitted through the air from one person to another. So people are already falling into line with that, and it's just the idea that we don't get into congregate settings that are very crowded. Then they have all of the issues of schools, which you've just heard about, which won't for separate on changes in work policies changes in the way that workers can or cannot travel. And then really, um, it's part of the gregarious nature of human beings. Where do we usually do that? Well, we do that sometimes in restaurants and bars, and you've heard new policies regarding those, and the only thing I want to say about those is again every step of the way in managing this, I think very manageable epidemic requires resourcefulness, creativity, innovation and even restaurants and bars can be innovative as they're all learning now with bring something to your car, take out a priority interacting with people in ways that they have to to deliver food but still being able to actually do that, even though people can't sit down at a table with one another inside their premises. So again, I know this requires significant behavior change in hard work. Um, and nobody's going to deny how hard it may be, really does require sort of a social compact in an idea that we're all here to cooperate with one another on, I'm confident that we as a state, can rally to that cause the final stage of one of where we're going and the aspiration of all of us in the United States. Never mind. Just Vermont is the state where sometimes call it suppression. So you've slowed the growth of the curve. It's been flattened out. Eventually you wanted to come down, and that's when you entered that state. We have good experience now just by watching the rest of the world. Because, as you know, the U. S. Was not the first country to be affected. So even though China has received a lot of criticism there now in a phase where things are much more controlled and they're seeing decreasing numbers of cases all the time, especially in that hot zone. But even in the rest of their country, South Korea's another example of that and soon we hope, will have some European examples of that. We need to observe critically and learn from those experiences, and I'm confident that we will. We will also learn about the timing of these things. We consent arbitrary dates of two weeks of this or three weeks of that, maybe a month, maybe two months. But we'll actually get a little more certainty about how we actually figure that out because we'll learn from their experiences and see, as they've eased up on some of these more restrictive policies, how things have gone. And is this something that in the short term can be managed very well? Or is it something that we're really in for a long term kind of approach to until vaccines developed sometime in the next 12 to 12 plus months? So again, thes, we know these things have a lot of impact. They have impacts socially, economically, healthwise, et cetera. But we will learn from other experiences, and I think benefit from those and really begin to see where the light is at the end of the total. In terms of how the strategies you've heard outlined today, I can play out in the future. I believe I'm the last speaker. I'm happy to turn over to questions right now. We're taking one from the floor first. Well, sing or Liza? Hi. Maybe I That is now Linnea, between Vermont residents hoping 19. And why is that you that, um yeah, thank you very much. The question was about how we report the numbers of those who have positive tests in Vermont. Um, that was a bit of ah, miscommunication. on our part. To be quite frank. Yesterday I wanted to make sure that we're adjusted. We had just one number of both non resident resident positive tests and to carry that forward. What happened was they eliminated the non resident and carried the Vermont number. So the point was, and we've clarified this and now it's rectified. We'll be reporting just one number of those affected. Have the positive test in Vermont from now going forward. Okay, so the next question Molly, from seven days you I was wondering every friend, if you speak to any, continues as the child care facilities caring for help. Obviously your order of clear was designed to reduce the bread. But are there any under you? Keep addressing that spread of the Ford LTD. I'll have Secretary French offer a few words and then maybe someone else. Secretary Smith. Uh, thank you. Yes. In our guidance that was published last night, we talked about social distancing measures and our continued disinfection measures to ensure that these workplaces are safe. But it is a priority to ensure that those those employees and workers that are on the front line of this emergency don't have to worry about their child care needs, and we're working hard to accomplish both of those goals. Molly, this is Mike Smith at HS. As you know, we've limited the size of the classroom size for these facilities down to 10. That means no more than 10 people in that room. We've also put the various sanitation requirements in place. And if we need to make those stricter, we will. Both Dan and myself have the ability to make stricter recommendations as we move forward. So right now, we we limited the class size. We've put in fairly strict sanitation sort of requirements, and we feel that will ensure or att. Least, um, make people feel comfortable about the safety of the decision we've made. Thank you. Cover your reactions of President announced earlier today that joining benefits can to close the northern border except for essential traffic. I wasn't aware of the directive from the president, so I don't know the details of that. Obviously, we have a few concerns. We have employees who live in Canada, that part of our health care system in the Northeast region and maybe in the Northwest region, so that's a concern. I would think they would qualify as being essential. And we have to do everything we can. I know Canada has taken some extreme steps a swell in Quebec and across the whole, the whole country. On dhe. We're going to have to do the same. So I would assume that in conjunction with With Canada of this the right step to take while understanding that we have a lot of trade on, we still rely on a number of employees from there. Anyone else want it? Have anything to that? Hi. I was wondering our ability mandate to provide child care. Especially importantly that right? It might be a lot of day. I No, I don't myself or you, right? Yes. I mean, it is a concern. We've been actively engaged with District's this morning as they're trying to navigate it both the provisional continuity of education and child care service a same time. I think we've seen some really creative responses and really positive, supportive teacher stepping up to help assist in this moment of emergency. So it's gonna be challenges, but just one in a series of challenges that we're gonna have to navigate. But doctor will be in, the governor said. Our priority now is to bend that curve as best we can. And I think it is a moment service for all of us. And I know educators and teachers will step up and help in that regard. What about orders? Will have you know, you have three year old and you're a nurse. Uh, you and your down. Can you bring them in our guidance, we had to make a delineation between students 8056 through eighth grade. So currently, public schools are equipped to handle a six up to eighth grade fairly easily, both from a safety. In an educational standpoint, we were less comfortable making a provision for younger, younger Children under five. But we'll certainly re evaluated for need becomes unnecessary. Let me let me just, uh, this is Mike Smith. Let me just sort of bring the pre K where we are right now. As you know, we've way have instituted a pretty great pre K program for essential Children, and those childcare centers were starting to contact now. Last night we contacted 41 programs and just 11 and 1/2 hours. So far, 288 Children have been identified as essential people. Uh, I got to emphasize this. There has been enormous collaboration among the private childcare providers, and we can't thank them enough in terms of what we're doing and how we're moving forward to this. We've actually I d'd many potential additional staff to deploy the other facilities that may be limited thio a facility that needs those employees. So we really are seeing the healthcare. Excuse me. The, uh, in so many different realms here, but the child care, uh, community really stepping up to this and many Senate many centers have told us that they're willing to work extra shifts. So we are grateful to all the kids. All the centers were working with organizations like Lex grow kids to bring all this together. And I've got to say, just in what I'm hearing in the feedback that's coming back, it's incredible. However, monitors are trying to help her monitors get through this time. Did you hear me? OK, we can. Okay, That was expanding. A one point for people have stable with Blake Children as Vermont considered inactive. I'm going to have our Commissioner of Labor Answer that sure. So, um, I had a chance to review the legislation that came out of New Hampshire and, well, I haven't been able to do the background on it. One thing that needs to be considered is it looks like there was some legislation passed that allowed those individuals to become eligible on. That is something we're working with the Vermont Legislature right now to expand benefits to those that have to stay home with a family member who becomes ill or his quarantined or isolated. So yes, we are considering it on it is moving through the legislative process, but it does require a change in state statute. I would also I would also add that the Legislature has been very receptive to any of our needs, and it's a very willing partner. So we're working through many of those initiatives as well as many others. At this point in time, her Thank you, Pete R. Oh, about being popular are you individuals that are entering the current system right now, as in age, talk about any other mitigation strategies you're using Thio address. Sure, we are testing in terms of screen testing inmates that are coming in to the facilities of If you're talking coverted 19 testing the answer is no because they aren't showing symptoms of covert 19 or they wouldn't be allowed into the facility. So we are screening those. We've also put video visiting, um, apparatus so that visitors are now. I can't meet personally with inmates, but they can meet the video conferencing. We also are looking at how we segregate our population to be in smaller groups when they're in recreation areas. We have contingency plans that have been put in place in case we do have a illness within our facility. So they're the social distancing things that you see are a little bit different in in in our correctional facilities. But we're putting in place those social distancing where we can, and in many cases you'll see the social distancing, um, happen within our correctional facilities. I do want to emphasize that we were pretty were being pretty stringent on making sure that those screening process happening on entrance are really diligent, a cz. We move forward. We cannot allow our case to come into the correctional facility. One last thing. Peter, we are stocking up on supplies a little bit more than we normally would. In case we have an outbreak that includes Matt. Supplies for those who are have are under medical treatment for addiction. So we're we're doing all that right now and there's other contingency plans in place are being worked on. We have enough in place. They have a wide spread way. No. How widespread. No, we're still hearing from people that are sick, but they can't get that from doctor because they don't have a problem. Yeah, make sure Levine, thank you for asking about testing. So I I don't want to get the appearance. I'm talking out of both sides of my mouth, but I do want to show reality and optimism at the same time. We have testing capacity now to do all of the testing that we've currently been asked to do in terms of physicians coming to the clinical judgment that their patients should have testing grouping those in tow higher and lower priority. I think you'll understand that those in the higher priority group may be in a hospital bed or in I c. U bed. They may be a health care worker who has to know if they can continue to work in the health care system, etcetera. We have done all of our testing in state at our public health lab because like most states, that's what we have available to us right now. And in that public health lab we have supplies of test kits and re agents and everything that's needed to do the test that we are limited in how far that supply will take us. We have literally 10 or 12 pathways that we're looking at simultaneously for obtaining Maur test kits, re agent supplies, machinery to do the testing with personnel to do the testing on. That's at all levels. Local, regional, national that's public and private. So it's quite expensive. Vermont is no different than any other state in the country, with regards to not being able to do what I would call expensive health surveillance, knowing in the entire population how much disease is present, whether there are people who are asymptomatic, only mildly symptomatic compared to those who are acutely ill in a hospital setting. But I think as a country you're going to find in the next week or two, we are all going to catch up rather rapidly So we're working very closely with the healthy Human Service's apparatus in Washington with the FDA and with CDC. All in actually separate strategies were working very closely with UVM College of Medicine and UVM Medical Center. And we're working very closely with the partnership you've often heard about from the federal level off public private partnership with companies that are commercial and we'll have testing capability as we speak. They're just coming online now. So what I envision is that we will have greater local support through our affiliation and partnering with the UVM College of Medicine Medical Center. And that will help us with this more high priority group, which will continue to maintain in ST and we'll have opportunities to doom or of the lower priority, but necessary not only public health work, but reassuring. Our citizens work about their conditions through these more national lab testing opportunities. But I have to provide a realistic exportation expectation that these national opportunities won't have the turnaround time we've come to expect locally, which is within 24 hours. They may be 72 hours, maybe even as long as 96 hours, but we'll be careful to make sure that they are in the group. That is lower priority. I do want all Vermonters to know that we still need to have a rational and reasonable expectations of who should be tested, who should not be tested. And our clinical community understands that, and we'll work with their patients. Thio help them understand that because at the present time it could overwhelm the system if everybody felt that their test was the most important and that they needed to have it done immediately because it was certainly not in this situation where we could do that today. Thank you. Thinning? Yeah, Bennington banner. Oh, the view. But I think the guys here that during the closing creates school are directed to provide care to a minimum students enrolled in their pool up to great. Would that be? That doesn't include a pretty correct French mentioned kindergarten after great that are currently holding that fool. The guidance speaks through age six is being cut off, not necessarily distinguishing between pre K. The guidance also speaks that the eventuality is giving those essential employees the opportunity to place their student in a district other than their home district. So, for instance, if it was more convenient for them. Thio access care in a school that's located in the community where they work, we want to provide for the maximum flexibility in that regard. So they have here be cool for a up to grade eight currently, as of right now the dude that are holding in that pool and for eventually and if there's a need for those essential workers that might be working in those communities and find it more convenient to access care in that in that location, I thank you. I want you Yes way have you? Yes, we can. Okay, I wonder they are going to be put down because order you have any idea? Another point Governor's order requires all childcare centers to be closed down with, with the exception of of meeting the needs of the essential persons we don't have, it will have an accurate picture of that by the end of the day of how money that will be. But one of the things that I just want to emphasize, as we're looking at this is we wanted to make sure that the help that the child care system was still in place as we rolled through this crisis, and what we have decided to do is continue the subsidies for the for the health for the child care system as we as we move forward. So if a child care system does close down, we will continue the subsidies for that child care system and, if they take essential people, essential personnel's Children. Well, look at how we can make that more of an incentive for that child care facility to take those Children. And that's something we're looking at right now. Yeah, home with. I'll take that one first. Dr Levin here. I'll take the nursing home, Um, when it comes to nursing homes, Obviously, by definition, everyone there's a vulnerable population. So we have to have consistently across nursing homes adequate guidelines in place, an adequate regulatory structure that would make it important for them to adhere to. And I want people to be reassured that that does exist in Vermont and indeed, this particular facility that we're focusing on if I could use the word passed with flying colors without any deficiencies about four or five months ago, um, all nursing homes are, of course, petrified in the wintertime of infectious diseases that can take hold there. Not just Cove in 19 but other viruses, including the flu. So they have to have effective infection control programs in place. They have to have good advisement about those programs, and they do. So we're certain that they have programs at this facility. The Health Department and Dale were instrumental in sending on abundant communications as the cove. It epidemic began regarding good prevention strategies, good surveillance strategies, etcetera. And now that we have a case, obviously we have embarked on a significant venture here to work with the nursing home to identify all those in the nursing home, specifically those who work there but others as well, who may have had contact with this index case. In addition to that, we have part of our public health team with skills and infection prevention actually going to the nursing home to actually work with them and support them and their activities and make sure that all the appropriate containment processes and prevention practices are in place. Yeah. Wait. Okay. I believe you said furloughed prisoners, furloughed inmates. Is that what your question was? What are we doing in terms of those well furloughed furloughed inmates are are usually outside the facility is what you're talking about. They are under the sort of the same guidance that everybody would be under in terms of making sure yourself screen and making sure that you know, you're Yeah, Maybe you're right now may be vulnerable at this moment in time, given the fact where we are right now, the answer is no. They're looking about it. Um, yeah, yeah. It's, uh, Mike Charlie from the Department of Public Safety. Uh, the emergency Operation Center has a task order which is basically a knave anew of work that is assessing who is essential and adding to that list over the course of the morning and through the day, eh? So we can get that out to the child care centers and grocery store workers, folks, folks who are distributing food and people in the supply chain that supply that food are essential people. So we expect additional guidance to be available as that list evolves over the course of the day. It is we've we've shown over this short period of time, this is evolving and we're making changes, and we see necessary so we'll be reflecting on that over the next 24 hours and thank you for questions. I wonder what model material? Uh, Nash, there's a difference between, uh, infection free and actually right here. Tend to dirty tires. What? Reporting right now? 100. What? Here, Dr Levine, We're relying to some extent on those models, and we're developing our own as well as we speak. Suffice it to say that the countries like South Korea that show the lowest case fatality rates have the most testing capability and have tested huge swaths of their population. So they're denominator of cases is very large. And since the mortality rate we think around the world is around 1% they can show numbers that are significantly lower than 1% because they've identified mild, possibly even asymptomatic case is with the abundance of testing. So there's no question that when we identify 19 cases in Vermont that there were more than 19 cases in Vermont that we haven't fully identified. Likely, though, is that the majority of those other cases are not very ill, or they would have come to the attention of the health care system and been taken care of appropriately so they would tend to be in the pre are mildly symptomatic or moderately symptomatic range. And we'll do well with their illness, etcetera. But having said that and I know Dr Levin will emphasize this, but that's why we put into place so many of these steps and measures because knowing that there are some who might have this and not even know it, they're still transmitting to others. And that's why social distancing, keeping away from others, taking all the precautions that we've been talking about is so important for everyone to adhere to. Just I would, you know, if you if you don't know for sure. Just assume you have it in some respects on. I'm not trying to create panic. I'm just saying, keep a distance. Make sure you're doing the right things. You're not infecting others because you may be okay, but you may be harming someone else who is vulnerable. So keep that in mind. Sure. Yeah, go ahead. Thank you very much, General, I have have have What would we do that other states? Three. Trump. Yeah. I mean, it was it was slightly nuance from that, but yes, I was on that call when other governors were showing some apprehension in that regard. But I'll let the secretary Smithy answer the question about the ventilators in bed space and Mike Smith. We currently have 273 available beds in the state. As of this morning, that does not include possible surge beds. It does not include the capability to open up temporary facilities, usually in the National Guard or other sort of temporary facilities. We have 245 of ventilators that are available in this state again. If this was a CZ, the governor had mentioned, we are trying to ramp up toe add capability as we move forward here. And and I think one of the things that the governor has always told us is, Think ahead, think ahead the next 72 hours to know what we need and where we're going in terms of our needs. And I think that's an important message. What do you think? We're uncertain right now, and we're working on that modeling in case we have to use it. But right now all I have for you is the number of available ventilators to 73 when we're modeling be done. We're working on it and I'll let you know when I can. Like love. People live going to be over. What are you? Yeah, well, obviously, this is going to affect our entire country entire world from an economic standpoint. And it's just not a question of if it's going to happen. It's just a question of magnitude. I've been in constant contact with our federal delegation. Congressman. Well, Senator Leahy, I had a call from Senator Sanders yesterday afternoon. All talking About what? What is it you need? What do you need to get through this? And obviously, we don't know at this point other than we're going to need federal assistance flexibility in in all kinds of different ways. And I know they're working recently on this thing effort. Right now, it looks like it's going to be over a trillion dollar package that will will be coming to the States of Suffice it to say, we don't know what our needs are, but we know we're going to need some assistance in order to get through this. Thank you. Taking center stage monitoring pleasure. People connected to the 19 confirmed cases are there any companies that do not have people being monitored. And can you speak specifically saying that six. Yeah, About half of our counties have documented cases in half. Don't. But I have to be careful. When you're talking about who we're monitoring as a result of a case, they may live outside the county that we're concerned about it. They rather gathering with person or what have you so hard to say? God, consider the fact that half the state has documented cases and that half is geographically Hedorah genius. So it's not like any corner of the state is exempt. And we, you know, we have asked that those who have been have a travel to other countries to self isolate, so there may be some self isolating in Caledonia County as well. I would expect most counties have some were self isolating him more monitor my question. I do love any indicators. They're learning program. We could trigger the free, inappropriate double education. As I read your document, these will be four complicated that just kids I started early. Hi, this is Dan French secretary of Education. We put out guidance last night on special education compliance and We're certainly waiting for more guidance from the federal government on this During this two week period, we're expecting District's to just maintain academic performance in progress of students. So at this point during the two week period, it's not triggering necessarily a change in student's individual education programs under special ed law. So we do have to start planning for that eventuality. If school closures prolonged along beyond the two week period again, I want to thank everyone, everyone on the phone as well as those who are here from the media for your great work and trying to keep your listeners informed and your readers informed. It's really important that we get this right that we give all the facts we can to try and do whatever we can to help assist people as well as to calm their fears because this is going to be, ah, long haul. It's not going to be solved overnight, and we're all going to have to work together in order to get to the to the end of this

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