Will give some opening remarks and an update on where we are in the state with regards to ealth. Well start this morning with a few Public Health data slides and then a little look t where were going. You have seen this before. It is updated. The gray are the cumulative cases that we have had in vermont. We are in the low 8507bs for cases. These 800s for cases. These are the new cases. It is coming into that more plateaued type of phase. This is called anepicurve. The new cases on a daytoday basis. We were pretty accustomed to an average of 3040 cases with occasional times where we peaked here in middle here. At 50 there. This is way back in early march. Started doing things like limits on mass gatherings, closing the restaurants and bars and eventually schools. And then in this time frame the actual stay home, Stay Safe Program began. Several weeks beyond that, we have come from a peak and generally below 10 cases over he last week on a daytoday basis and finally this is a graph of the number of tests we have done in verbatim. Vermont. You see they range from 300 to 00 or 700 over time. This is the percentage of tests that were done in a given day that were targeted for covid19. It goes as high as 12 down to 2 and you can definitely see the slope of that curve diminishing as well. It is a rough indicator of how much disease is in the population showing decreasing number of positive tests over time. And most recently we were in the low single digits. So our focus now from now into the foreseeable future remains to protect the most vulnerable, i would say even more aggressively than before, to the to avoid capacity of the Healthcare System and help protect as many as possible from encounting infection until we have effective antiviral therapies and a vaccine. The timeline on the effective antiviral therapies could be just months. The timeline on the vaccine as you know is commonly stated as 1218 months. So as we look into the future and you heard on fridays press way were bout the going, from the Health Department point of view, number one, keep our eyes on the data. So youll see similar data to what im showing you now but also well be expanding to really understand what the rate of immunity in the whole population of vermont and continue to look at how the Healthcare System is being utilized. I. C. U. Usage, ventilator needs, hospital visits, visits to primary care for flulike mple comes, covidlike symptoms. What percentage of the population is reporting. Understanding that the category that the cdc has come out with, probable infection meaning it looks like covid but a test was never done to confirm that and then an understanding of llness in children and adolescents. Well also be continuing to try to assess individual behaviors to see how much the population is complying with social distancing, mask wearing, ty must remembers, measurements. And how well employers are providing a safe working environment for their employees and their customers. We have heard a lot on the National News about some areas that the Health Department is going to be focused on very closely in the near future. We already are and will continue to focus aggressively on these. First will be to maintain an aggressive strategy with regards to testing and having the adequate supplies to do that testing. There will be emphasis on rapid test results. Rapid is still pretty good in 24 hours but there are times one needs more rapid, perhaps 20 minutes. Well be working again to validate point of care testing machines that we could hope to istribute to the population at large. Well be working more on that integration piece with pediatrics as i just mentioned. And the simple nasal swab in front nose rather than omething way back in the nose. Obviously if you test, you need to have that followed up with n aggressive Contact Tracing workforce and stance, both of which we have already here in vermont and the opportunity to make sure we appropriately isolate and quarantine to again keep that level of disease in the population very, very low. When you put those two factors together, testing and contact tration along with the fact that we will be going 14 days without an increase in cases hopefully. Thats very significant and well continue to have good hospital readiness without having to report to crisis standards of care, these are all things that need to be in place to move along the continuum that the governor has outlined previously into what has now nationally been called phase 2, if you will. Lastly, we need to and will continue to be as aggressive as possible and intensify our efforts to keep all longterm care facilities as safe and uneffected as possible. Something i think we have done very well with over the a number of weeks in vermont since we had the two larger outbreaks to start with. Were not seeing consistent evidence for major outbreaks throughout the state in longterm care. That will have to be a major focus as well. Ill turn it back to the overnor now. Gov. Scott thank you, doctor. The last few weeks, i know how difficult and frustrating it has been for too many as they have repeatedly tried to get through the Unemployment Office and especially for those still waiting for their very first check and for many this is the first time in their lives they have ever been laid off and so they have no experience using the system. In order to help our vermonters to get through on the phone, were adding another 50 state flows and 50 agents to bring the total number answering the phones to 150. And the total of over 200 people now processing claims. Getting through on the phones was not the only obstacle. This is why i directed the department of labor to clear tens of thousands of issues which has been holding up vermonters benefits. This past thursday the government identified 4,500 claimants with issues holding up claims. Under normal circumstances, investigating these issues is were d to make sure adhering to federal regulations, but these are not normal times. These very restrictive federal standards have made it difficult if not impossible to keep up with demands this pandemic has placed on the system. It has made an already complicated and bureaucratic program more difficult while i greatly appreciate the funding available through the cares act, our ability to get the benefits to people quickly has been burdened by stringent requirements set by the feds. So we were forced to make a choice. Allowing a cumbersome process delay money needed to family or find a way around it. In the end, we opened our ahead of put people process. The department of labor rolled up their sleeves and found a way to clear issues to help payments go through when vermonters file claims this eek. We will follow up after the fact to verify eligibility. By saturday night nearly 32,000 issues have been cleared with means over 20,000 people will be cleared to file their weekly claims to start receiving their benefits. Have old you friday, we helped those who did not have issues cleared get some relief as well. We issued 1,200 checks to over 8300 vermonters yesterday. I personally brought them to the mail center this morning. The treasurer will share more on this team effort in a moment. We did this to get money to those in need. But for most, it is likely only a prepayment of their full benefits with the remainder being paid through regular process. Again, i understand these delays have been devastating for vermonters who are staying home to stop the spread and save lives. There is still a need to put food on the table and pay their bills. Because there are risks to federal funding, we hope these issued could be resolved through normal process but it became Crystal Clear to most this was not happening fast enough so we needed to find another way. These steps could help provide some leaf. Stopping were not until everyone who gets a check every week. I want to thank everyone for helping to stop the spread of this virus which is saving lives. We have pearce on the phone. Thank you for all of your efforts from you and your team yesterday. Thank you. Thanks for your efforts. 8284 the payment for individuals for over 10 million. This required our staff working ver 10 hours each on sunday. Myself and our i. T. Staff. I want to thank deputy treasurer for coordinating this effort. I was pleased to see that the department of labor cleared a substantial number of those claims saturday night which lowered the volume for my staff sunday which allowed us to process the payment in a timely manner. We Work Together in times of crisis and i see we were able to process payments so that vermonters will have funds to meet their family needs in this this severe and unprecedented crisis. Gov. Scott thank you treasurer pearce and thank your team again for me as well. With that, i think were going to open it up to questions at this pointed. Do you have the commissioner in the room or on the phone to answer questions along with secretary smith, the usual team on the phone. Secretary quinn. Commissioner sterling. Were going to start in the room with thanks. Governor, the we did have some additional debts for the weekend. Deaths for the weekend. Im wondering if the numbers you saw friday gave you some indication whether youre going to be able to gov. Scott im going to let the commissioner answer part of that. Im always watching the data. I keep track on a daily basis. How were doing. How New Hampshire is doing. How new york is doing. How were doing as a country. I keep track of that. Death is not the only indicator and every death is tragic, but we have to watch the other number of positives as well. So were tracking everything and that will be more of an ndicator as to one category. I would like to comment on he deaths. There is not like a rapid increase in deaths. There are steady trends of deaths across the board. Obviously none of these all of these are tragic, but the fact that they occur in the ntext of this epidemic is two or three is not an exception to what has been oing on pretty much all along. We want to focus on it but i would not want to focus on it in way that would derail any of our future plans because the data doesnt indicate that should happen. Can you characterize the people who died . Give us demographic information . A couple of the most recents were in longterm care facilities. Eedless to say, elderly. Were doing an assessment. Well have it out very soon. It is almost 100 people in their 60s and much older. Were not seeing a lot of ounger people. I want to stress that every death is tragic in the state but when you compare massachusetts for instance, they have 10 times the population but they have probably three to four times the death rate than we do. At this point in time. A lot of people pretty upset about the potential plan to Close College campuses. In an already strained system gov. Scott again, sometimes democracy is noisy and dis ruptive and they have err every right to show their displeasure. We accept that. This may be the tip of the iceberg in some respects. We are going to have a lot of pending needs throughout. Our Healthcare System. Our hospitals, other institutions as well as education. Hat could be on a case for k12 and higher ed as well. The past couple of years, you remember the first and then we had southern vermont college, Marlborough College and others on the brink at this point. Again, this is our State College system. We want to protect that. This is something the trustees and theness chancellor have been talking about for a number of years. We have been trying to do whatever we can as you probably remember from my budget addresses and state of the state addresses, i have acknowledged that we have some problems and we have throughout our system whether it is Early Learning or Higher Education in the amount we appropriate bills. So suffice it to say, this is some of the decisions that were going to have to make over the coming months, maybe as difficult or not more difficult than what we have made thus far so it is going to be challenging. Thats why i want to make sure that we have the legislature involved in this. I know other states have questioned whether the legislature should be involved at all in some of the covid money and i have embraced the fact that we do things different in vermont. I want their involvement. I think we need their consideration. We all need to Work Together and try to find solution a solution. This is a great topic for us to consider. There is not an infinite amount of money available either. Whatever we do now, we have to consider what are the longterm effects . Is it sustainable . If we just inject money into any institution, is that necessarily going to mean youre going to be able to survive in the long run . Because they had financial challenges previous to this. Again, a lot of considerations over the next few months but im thankful they put off the vote for at least a week and are giving everyone time to settle in and consider. Governor, do you over the weekend you brought up the act that money could not be used that way. Over the weekend, several 75 ni were idea that million in covid relief and said if we could take that money and put it toward the State College system and that could float them. Gov. Scott lets be clear what the State College system is asking for at this point too. Even with a condensed proposal they are bringing forward, they re asking for their ongoing i think it is 25 million. They want another 30 million just for this new package. Additional money would be needed. Again, this is not just for this one single instance. What do we do in the future . This is ongoing. This injection at this point in time is not going to fix the longterm problem that they are facing. The structural changes that are necessary. So again, we will take this into consideration. U. V. M. Has asked for money as well as will other institutions. Again, our hospitals are going to be in great need when this none of you recall, the procedures, elected surgeries and so forth, where they make their money are able to be utilized at this point in time. So they are going to be in desperate need as well. Our k12 system, in other parts of government. All the while, were not taking any money in either. Our individual municipalities as well. This is going to be challenging. I know its sounds like again, im appreciative of everything our congressional delegation did to get us some money for relief but that is not going to fix all of our problems. Well have to make some choices collectively with the legislature and we will do that and try to find solutions to problems as they come forward. Has there been any talk or discussion about the private sector getting involved . U talked about education around the state. Is there a chance we could gov. Scott possibly. Again, i would say the businesses themselves are going to be challenged in the aftermath as well. This is widespread. No one is going to be left untouched as a result of this pandemic. So again, it just reinforces the fact that we have to Work Together on this. Remain unified in trying to do everything we can to be smarter and better in future about where we make these vems. Investments. We want to make sure were making the investment so that we contemplate the future. Were not going to make everybody whole as a result of this. That is not going to fix some of the systemic problems. Over the last number of years, i have talked toobt demographics. No one hasnt heard me talk about the deaf graphic challenges we face as a state. The number of cases in our k12 has decreased by 30,000. That has anfect on our Higher Education. When you dont have the students enrolling, that means they have a problem on the other end. It is all about enrollment and overhead costs and were going to have to work at this together. First of all, there is the poa. That is the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance Program that wasnt failed was unveiled by the senate, by congress. That will allow those who are selfemployed to receive unemployment benefits. This program is not up and going. We are hoping it will this week. Loans that are desperately needed by those in vermont and across the country. We have heard some good news. This morning, it appears that there may be an answer to the logjam in washington so that they can appropriate more money for that program. So we will hear more from them, but its really a congressional problem at this point. Governor. Ou, and regards to the pandemic the Fund Assistance program, we are doing final testing today and tomorrow. As soon as that is complete, we will go live with the system. In a recent conversation that we had with others, it seems that that is on par with what other states are doing, in terms of timeline. I just recently spoke with the state of massachusetts and their program is also going live this week as well. In terms of that perspective. There are a number of reasons why someone might not be eligible for unemployment insurance. This answers the question, though, if they are selfemployed. It also looks like they are looking for business support as well. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, governor. Good morning. Thank you for all the data that you have been pumping out. With other states, one statistic that has been missing are the number of cases for individual towns. How soon will the state of vermont be able to start providing town by town listings, the number of cases each one has . So instead of Washington County just having 32, are those all in barry city or montpelier . I noticed the numbers in Franklin County say 93. I have to assume some of those are the inmates. Not sure the numbers actually match up to where people are these days. I dont have the answer to that. Im sure the data is being collected but im not sure how it is being implemented. This is a partial answer. When it gets out in small numbers, you actually exceed, even though you try not to succeed and identify the visuals who are the cases the individuals who are the cases. It may be one or two people. We have to always be conscious making violations and sure the way that we portray the withouts not isnt consequence, i should say. Hard ifr aspect is very youre looking for statistical differences amongst various communities. It is often challenging enough just within geographic region to have statistical significance. When you get down to a town level, it gets impossible. Want to know if anybody in their town has it. Small obviously provided groups, if you will. I am sure their population is considerably less than some of the small towns in vermont. Obviously, there is a way to try to i understand hepa may or may not apply. Obviously, New England States and other places are giving the numbers. Im not sure why vermont is different from these other states and not providing taxpayers casebycase by town. We can actually work on a more thorough way for you at a later time. I will make a general statement now that you have given me the opportunity. I would think that any vermonter, no matter what town they live in, would be foolish to think there was not a case in their town. This is a condition that travels across state borders, as we know, cross town borders, and it has Community Level transmission at this time. In theirf the person town that has it does not know they have covid, but they have other symptoms, they probably have it. So, you know, it would not be reassuring for someone to think that their town was not affected. Thank you. No, i understand that and i understand that people still want to know this statistics in their town the statistics in the town. One other followup question. , how much is it costing taxpayers and how long is it for . This is mike smith, secretary of human services. Let me answer the first question, which is the data. We will look at the data and see what data we can provide and what data we cant at that point. We will get back to you on that and then i will turn it over. Thank you very much. A comment. In the beginning, when we started hearing some of the cases of those who tested positive, protecting the those, and so forth, and may be socially, just acknowledging or not acknowledging that someone has it. I think that we are going to get to a point where it is going to be beneficial to actually have had it and that you might be immune to it in the future. That may change at some point in time. People are talking about it. We talked about it. Its not like some other diseases that people may not want to. I think in the beginning, it was viewed differently than it is today and possibly in the future. We will have to contemplate that as we move forward. In terms of the contract, i believe it is a three month contract. , ifre able to continue that possible. We will be able to use some covid money to reimburse us for that, so its all taxpayer money, but it will come from the feds. Im going to let the answered the specifics because i dont have the dollar amount at the top of my head. With regards to the management contract, it is a three month contract with the or, three renew month contract with the ability to renew every three months for about a year. From there, we also pay a per Customer Service representative you mount amount. We may start at 50 Customer Service representatives. We have a contingency plan for up to 70. We can go higher than the. If we find that demand shrinks over time, we can reduce that. We pay a per Customer Service representative amount. Next color. Caller. What is that amount . So the maximum allowable limit on the contract is 2 million. Roughly, it is probably about 100 150,000 per month. We still have 20 people. Yes, commissioner spoke again today of aggressive testing on the strategy for reopening. I still think we dont have enough Testing Capacity to screen entire groups, populations in the prison system or Long Term Care health, for instance. I am wondering if you can be more specific about where capacity stands today, in terms of tests that can be conducted per day or per week and where it needs to be to move substantially along this continuum. Gov. Scott i will let dr. Levine answer that. I do believe that we do have the Testing Capacity that has increased dramatically over the last three or four weeks. Secretary smith . Levinell give it to dr. In just a minute. I want to clarify something you said. We have expanded our testing to a number of facilities, longterm care facilities, for example, psychiatric, stay owned psychiatric facilities, residential treatment facilities, those with disabilities, and disabled facilities, correctional facilities. Whereas if we have a case, we will test the entire population of those facilities. For example, we just tested the vermont Veterans Home, for example. So we have expanded it. The cdc hashink given us some congratulations on an testing ability in terms of what we are doing. Dr. Levine, do you want to continue on that . Levine the cdc the cdc just recognized us for the amount of testing we are doing and some of these longterm care facilities. We are not just going into facilities who have no problems and testing the entire population, although you might recognize a couple of the more recent ones that we have done actually may have proven that policy. O be acceptable because we were finding, other than the index case that precipitated the entire testing, we were finding very little, if any, disease in those populations. But back to your broader question, which was, what kind of Testing Capacity we have. We calculate Testing Capacity every day based on the level of testing that i showed you in one of the sites, whether it be slides, whether it be 300, 6 or 700 tests per day. We also calculate on the basis of an even higher maximum level, including with our current supplies, we have several months of opportunity for testing at those levels. But we are trying to actually acquire more so that if there comes a time when we need to do more expensive testing, we will always have some insurance in our back pocket, so to speak. Does that answer your question . Yes. I am aware of the expanded capacity. The limitations were referenced in terms of why the state couldnt test every inmate and in every prison, for example. If we dont have the capacity to do testing that brought aware there havent been documented cases, if we need to get to that point before it makes sense to . Ry to return to normalcy even if we did test every prison right now, we would still have plenty of Testing Capacity for well over a month for the rest of the population. Mentioned last week in terms of a question, why dont we go in and just pretest every facility that there is . If we did that with every facility in the state in accordance to the list that we have, there would be a capacity issue, not just corrections, but a capacity issue as we move forward. We have 600 tests we can do daily. That is where we are. Ourre continuing to look at testing ability and rapidly, within the last week, we have a robust testing system. But it isnt unlimited. So we continue to do that. By the way, when we tested the Veterans Home down in bennington, we found no positive cases. There was a positive in march positivese found no there. We will continue to test correctional facilities if we have a reason to. Where do you stop if you test and you have no positives . Do you test the next day and the next day after that . Because what you will have is no positives for that day. Positive before we test and a universal way in a facility. Beondly, we are going to following up with northwest next week and the second set of tests that we would do at that facility to make sure that we 19ve found every covid positive in may and correctional officer in the facility inmate and correctional officer in that facility. Haveats the case, we inmates that are in st. Johns berries, thats the case, we will move them. If it comes back claim, we will move them back to saint albans. Northwest its been state correctional facility, which we have had an issue with and we have acted real quick on the facility. Hi given the continued plateauing of the curve and the loosening up of some restrictions already, can you give any vermonters a sense of which businesses may be the one to the ones to ease up and open up next . Its difficult at this point in time. We will be contemplating those over the next few days. We have a list we are considering. They have a group trying to put together certain requirements, kind of a plan for each opportunity as we open up businesses. I will say, there is a bit of a lag time as well. We want to keep track of the data and the trajectory and watch the modeling, but there could be a lag time between when we start. Like for instance, today, we are opening up the spigots just a little bit to allow for one or two person operations to start in vermont. We wont know whether thats the over seven days, over probably 14 days before we are able to calculate some of that. But we want to make sure that we are hitting the right direction. If we continue to see the numbers not grow over the next few days, we would like to open it up just a little bit more. We will probably make some sort of an announcement on friday if that number holds. But again, it all depends what happens. We are watching the data on a daily basis, make sure we are not putting vermonters at risk. We have done a great job thus far. We dont want to go backwards. We want to move forwards. Just to clarify what you were going tos it you are wait the 714 days . Or is it that youre going to wait a few days . Gov. Scott again, we will just continue to watch the data everyday. But just understanding and i hope that we can make make some announcement every week. We may not know what we are doing today and the results wont show up for 714 days. Even then, we might make another adjustment on friday, the following week on friday we may see an uptick. If we see an uptick, we may back off just a bit to make sure we are not putting people at risk. Got it. Thank you very much. Hello, governor. Down thebe looking line a little ways, but it seems that the problems that the College System are having may have existed in some form before, but they have been exacerbated by the situation around the coronavirus. , hospitals are facing similar situations. Revenues are down and they are going to continue to be down if people arent earning money. So at the end of this, vermont and all the other states, it have huge be holes in their budgets and almost all the rest of them unlike vermont can to run deficits. What i cant run deficits. Have youwondering is, begun to be in contact with governors from other states to talk about pushing for help from the federal government to backfill some of the damage that state governments are going to suffer from the coronavirus . Gov. Scott the short answer is yes. The National Governors association and i talked with members of the Association Almost every other date, certain people. There is a mixed response, but for the most part, most of us would like to see some assistance from the feds to fill those budgetary holes that you described. But thats been debated in d. C. Being debated in d. C. At this point in time in congress. I know some are trying to attach it to the sba increase in funding for sba loans. I am not sure that is going to hold at this point. I think it is more important from my perspective to get the sba money funded so that businesses can get relief. I would hope that we continue to have this discussion and debate as to what to do next. Because each and every community, each and every state, each and every business is going financial incredible challenges in the future. This is going to be an issue for all of us. I am hopeful the National Governors association will continue to take the lead. I know Governor Hogan has talked a lot about this and has testified on this in congress as well. This point,ve, at how a ballpark figure for much of the state of vermont to deal with the damage from the coronavirus pandemic . Gov. Scott yes, its very difficult to determine at this point in time, because it is ongoing. By where weday goes dont have businesses moving, we are not receiving any money either. We willer this goes on, be at a further disadvantage. Hard to put a number on this right now. We are already in conversation with the legislature about how we close out fiscal year 20 and then what do we do then . 21 do we build a budget for based on reality . What can we expect from the federal government, if anything at all . At this point in time, i would will probably build a budget based on nobody from the federal government coming through and then work from there. Because we have to be realistic. We cant build a budget based on hopes and dreams. We have to base the budget on reality. Thank you very much. You. Ank this is a question for commissioner sherling. I am wondering if you can give us an update on what the 911 call centers are seeing in terms of Domestic Abuse calls . Gov. Scott commissioner, are you on . I am, sir. Thanks for the question. The overall statewide call volumes remain down. I dont have the specific Domestic Violence numbers but we can get those for you. We have not seen an uptick at this stage but we can verify that get back to you. When we last spoke, you mentioned there was a slight uptick on suicides. Anything on that . Also a great question. We are pretty confident that you will, blip, if sort of a confluence of events that had occurred over the prior weekend. The one month rolling average at that point was about average. We are monitoring them on an ongoing basis. And we want to recognize the great work that the department of Mental Health has been doing over the last few weeks to accelerate overall Mental Health messaging on a variety of platforms. Thank you. Wilson, ap. Inks for lining up and taking all these questions thanks for lining up and taking all these questions. Nationally, there has been so much discussion about testing and lack of testing supplies and states competing with each other for testing supplies. Sounds like here in vermont, we are pretty fresh. How did we become so flush. How did we become so flush with testing supplies . Do you think the federal response to the need for testing supplies has been adequate . I just looked at the Health Departments chart. It says there are currently 49 patients hospitalized statewide either covid positive or suspected positives. Re, 600 hospital beds in vermont more or less . Given that, when do you think it would start to be possible to gov. Scott im going to ask some of the experts to chime in as well. I will say that in the beginning, we were challenged a bit in terms of testing. We have increased that Testing Capacity. But not for the great work of many, we wouldnt to be in the position we are today and looking for every creative opportunity that we can. For instance, when we found that we can have testing done in mail , but knowing that it would take two or three days or more to get the test results because of everything would have to go by parcel package, so to speak. So we had flights, daily flights. I think we talked about this last week. That a number of people had committed to so that helped us out tremendously in getting realtime information back. We have been able to open up another door in boston that will give us more opportunities. Everything that we have done has been the result of work by many trying to expand the testing. I am sure we would like to expand further, if we can. In terms of your second part of the question was about elective surgeries. I would say that is on the list. We are watching those numbers. I have had some conversations with other Regional Governors as , you know, what we can do to open up the spigot and little bit so that hep replacements and knee replacements and so forth can start again. There is no timeframe for that at this point. It is on our list, it is on our minds, and we just want to make sure that we are continuing this trend before we, again, take away some of our capacity in our health care. Thats important. There are two we are watching things we are watching, the capacity of the Health Care System as well as the number of positives we see on a daily basis. We want to make sure we protect that health care capacity. Quick followup. Gov. Scott im just going to ask dr. Levine to supplement what i said and then you can ask your followup. Ok, thanks. There are some principles to be learned about testing for sure. I can just read you what testing is. Testing starts with collecting a specimen from the patient so you need the appropriate swabs to do that. Sounds simple but thats complicated. You need to have the testing facility in the right place at the right time for the right patients. Have a viable transport medium so the swab that you got goes into something where it will be preserved until the test is actually performed. You need to transport the specimen so you need all the right conditions in terms of temperature and humidity, etc. Then, you get to the lab and you need to have the actual test. The test requires chemical reagents and buffers, an ,xtraction step where the rna the nucleic acid components from the virus is extracted so you have that ready. Pcr,eed a second step, which identifies the rna as belonging to covid19, that specific coronavirus, as opposed to any other organism in the universe. A lot of complicated steps along the way. For the collection part, we have had to really work on make sure making sure we have the swabs for the test. For the transport, we have partnered with the university of vermont. Our Public Health lab and university of vermont are making ulture samples are being brought from faraway parts of the state where they then get distributed. When it comes to the chemical reagent, principal one is, dont rely on one test platform alone. So have several kinds of tests that accomplish the same thing but on different machines with a different chemical reagents. So at the state health lab, we have two platforms we use testing on. We have got at the university of vermont two new ones that have just come online. They are having hoping to have enough reagents to continue to do that for a while. We are partnering with mayo and the institute in boston. We have other platforms to take advantage of. Way, thep of the principles are, have multiple platforms, partner with your academic institutions in the state, because they can be invaluable and ingenious in many ways in solving problems. Work with washington in as many parts of the federal government as you can, whether it be fema, health and human services, cdc, because you need to go down all of those avenues. Year other part of the question had to do with, nationally, is this a problem. If it wasnt, we wouldnt have to be this ingenious about how we go about solving the problem. Its really taken a herculean effort. Thats why we are actually talking about stockpiling, because we know demand is going to continue to persist. I will let secretary smith talk about the hospital beds. Smith wilson, first of all, i did want to sort of follow up on what the governor and dr. Levine said. There is a tremendous amount of work that continues until today to build our capacity build our Testing Capacity. Through ingenious work, through and work, through some luck some vermonters and other people coming through for us, we have built that robust system that i just talked about a little earlier. Vm, the state lab, others that were flying samples all deserve credit in terms of building what i would consider a robust Testing Capacity. Now, we have to continue every day to build that and stockpile that capacity, as we move forward. , weerms of hospital beds are in very good shape. In terms of hospital beds, we have thus far been able not to extend half the capacity of our hospitals. In fact, we have trended pretty we hadwer than originally expected, in terms of use of hospital beds, including icu beds. All of that is very good news. It is through the ability of certain planning that weird to have hospital beds that we did to have hospital beds and the ability to flatten the curve through all the things that the governor did, that put us in of both Testing Capacity and are hospital beds. Our hospital beds. Thank you. You answered my followup question that i was going to ask the governor so thank you. Gov. Scott i want to give credit where credit is due. There was that point in time that secretary smith had mentioned we were down to about two days worth of testing ability. I got on the phone with the Vice President and the Vice President , i told him about our situation and they came through. They delivered us tests to get us over the hump. As much as sometimes i criticize the administration, i want to give credit as well. They helped us out during a time of need. Ok, thank you very much. Crag, county courier courier. Unty ok, we are going to move to and wallace ann wallace. Thanks for taking my question. I know i have been hearing from people who want the states economy opened up and are saying that the governor or the administration is being too conservative. Have you been hearing anything about protests . What are you hearing from your constituents about your decisionmaking . Gov. Scott we dont hear them saying i am too conservative. At this point in time, we will take that. I am cautious. Again, through the work that we have done thus far, the actions we have taken has put us in this situation. We are in the driver seat, so to speak. We save lives as a result and we should benefit from the as well. As we can, ily want to open the spigot. I came from business. I understand. I feel their pain and i understand their frustration. As soon as we possibly can, we will do this responsibly, open a little bit at a time. We have to be clear, regardless of what we do, we are going to see, i believe, on increase in the number of people being infected by the coronavirus. I think i as i said, said this last week, there are many people who think we are moving way to slow and that we should just flip the switch and opened the economy back up. There are those who think we are moving way too fast and we really need to slow down and not do anything for a period of time. Again, if we can manage through that, like i have done through my whole political life, i will try to manage it through the middle. I think we will be successful. All right. Thank you. A question for dr. Levine. You mentioned that there was some new understanding regarding children and adolescents. What is that . Is there some idea about a physical effect on children and adolescents that we had not heard about before . No, i think more of an understanding of the potential value of how much the disease is present in that population and what state of symptoms they may are may not have at the time when they could transmit the disease to adults. I see. Thanks. This question i think is for mike harrington. 0here are the extra 5 Customer Service reps provided by maximus located . I dont necessarily have the information. I do know they have multiple call centers. My understanding is that they are actually doing most of their Call Center Work virtually, similar to our staff. So where they will be located when they can go back to a facility, i dont know that. Time, i believe most of them will be virtual. I want to make sure that i get that number out there. The number per month cost could range anywhere from 200,000 400,000 depending on how many Customer Service representatives we are using at any one time. All right. The other question i had is that you had mentioned that now there could be as many as 200 150 people answering the phones. Is that right . What was it before . Prior to covid19, we had roughly 15 people answering the phone. You can see the jump. That has been onboarding people each week to go through our training process, pulling state staff. I should just call them out specifically, we had a number of people who came out of retirement to come back to the department to provide resources. We have another 40 state staff being trained today as we speak and should be able to go live on our cause does calls as well. I dont think we are trying to reach a certain level. We will just onboard people as they become available. Ok. My last question and its back to governor scott. If the measurements on your desk that would raise pay for essential workers, this is sort of to counteract the effect of employers saying that workers are leaving because they can make more money getting unemployment, is that something that you would find . Do you approve the idea of giving money to private Sector Workers to keep them on the job . Gov. Scott heres what i can tell you. And again, im so grateful for those on the front lines doing incredible work to keep us all safe and keep some of these potential services going. At the same time, and i will work with the legislature on would have to imagine that we would have the conversation and work on this together throughout the process. Again, there is not an infinite amount of money. Weekend, two of the State Colleges in their need, the state hospitals, our own all, the ongoing emergency, kinds of things are going to be factored in in terms of how much money we have to spend and our highest priority. What can we release . What are our expectations . At the end of the day, when we ourld our budget for 21, new budget, its going to be significantly less than before because we dont have the revenue. Revenues have dried up. Thats going to put a tremendous hole in our budget. Its all about prioritizing. I know the legislature understands this. We are just going to have to put everything on the table and see where we go from here. Thank you. Thats it for me. Governor, we have heard that there might be a hiring freeze in the state government. Is that something currently happening or something in discussion right now . Gov. Scott i think secretary young is on the phone. I believe that we have stopped hiring at this point in time just so that we can let things settle out. Secretary young, are you on the phone . Secretary young yes, governor, thank you, i am on the phone. We have directed state agencies and departments to limit Discretionary Spending in all areas and to limit any new hires, except for those that are critical and essential to emergency. Ough the that is projected through the end of the fiscal year, the next 2. 5 months. Thank you. All right. Standard. T neil . Sorry. How are you . The tion is about towns and cities about tax abatement. Is this something the legislature is working on . How long might it be before something is voted on . Gov. Scott i believe the legislature is working on this. It may be a better question for them at this point. I just dont recall but i believe that they are. Iybody else on the dont know if secretary french or secretary young, if either of you have the answer to that . Secretary young yes, governor. I do know that the legislature has been working to figure out some relief in that respect. Again, the state does not have control over those payments and when they are due. That clearly is a legislative issue. Is there a significant concern that the education taxes will not be paid . And that towns wont have tax money coming in in general . Gov. Scott thank you. I will answer that. The simple answer is yes. Yes, we are concerned about every fund, every source of revenue. We are seeing this across the board, whether its in the private sector or the public sector. This is a concern for all of us. I would advocate, while i can, if anyone can pay their property taxes who are employed at this point in time, please do. Help your town out. Help your community out. Pay your taxes if you can. All right. Thats it, thank you. Gov. Scott thank you. Hello. Can you hear me . Gov. Scott we can. Wonderful. I believe this is probably a question for commissioner harrington. I just wanted to make sure i have this correct. Were all the individuals who were still waiting for checks to be issued to them and unemployment, assuming they qualified, have all of their issues been resolved . Have they otherwise been issued 1200 checks by now . Or is there anyone who has not been issued a 1200 check or has not gotten the claims resolved . Is there anybody hanging out in the ether, so to speak . Gov. Scott that is a concern of ours, too. We took everybody that opened an initial claim through the month of march and first week of april , within that population, and said, how many of these people were determined to be monetarily eligible . You can be monetarily eligible but not eligible for an employment insurance. We took those that were at least monetarily eligible and then began looking at the various issues that stopped payments on claims. We were able to move a significant remove a significant number of those. We were able to whittle that down from what looked like probably 35,000 people down to the 8000 that the governor mentioned. There are some people that still had issues on their claims. These were for us, issues we could not waive. There were concerns about the legitimacy of claims. There is a variety of others that just, we were not comfortable making payments. I would say that for those people who had very lowlevel issues on their claims, they were either paid through benefits that went out friday or today and some will go out today and some will go out tomorrow, or they received that hundred dollars, which will be cash they received the 1200 they received the 1200. You said for people that had a lowlevel issues with their claims, they were paid through their benefits released last friday, today, or tomorrow . And the others with those such claims that didnt get that, they received the 1200 issued on sunday . If i understood you correctly, only the individuals with more serious issues with their claims have not been given either of those two things, correct correct correct . Gov. Scott correct. We have released the issue but not resolve the issue. Part of our job now has to move towards quality control, where we will be following that up with those who have had their issues released to make sure they are resolved to ensure compliance. You could, if you know the number or if you have an idea of the number, approximately how many of those about 35,000 people have those serious issues, like the last holdouts, as it were, that were not issued money because there were concerns about serious issues with their claims . About how many people . Gov. Scott i can give a rough number but there is no way to capture that because people can have multiple issues. Or i should say claims can have multiple issues. It can range anything from on issue number for if an individual is incarcerated, if someone voluntarily quits suitable work, there is an issue fired,if they were previously fired, for misconduct. So those are ones where we really felt in good conscious that we had to make sure we had a direct connection with those individuals before we issued payments on those. That could range, i would say, 3000, although i dont think its that much. In the 10003000 person range . Gov. Scott yes, or claims range. Again, we measure things in terms of claims. Some of these claims may also go back to precovid times as well. So they could be claims that were in the adjudication process prior to march 15. Again, thats why its hard for me to give you a total number, because it includes a number of different populations. Claims at 10003000 this point could not be resolved in the sense of issued funding and those were for things primarily related to suspected fraud or other types of claims t issues . Gov. Scott it could be any of those issues, whether its fraud or just misunderstanding. I am not passing judgment on those. These people, its not that they are not going to get paid, unless deemed ineligible. This gives us a smaller subset to reach out to and adjudicate those claims, as opposed to going through, you know, 30,000 claims. Our focus will be on adjudicating those that are left. Thank you. Gov. Scott thank you. Governor, this is i just want to clarify something with patricia. Mayre assuming you still get calls about those who have not received benefits because they are selfemployed. Under the pandemic unemployment act, something passed by congress, and new to the inside congress, new to the entire united states. No one has been paid as a self proprietor in the past and now they are eligible for unemployment benefits. They can be processed starting this week. You are still going to hear from those who are selfemployed. They have not received money at this point but we try to make that clear. This was guidance just given to us may be a week or so ago. To tryworking feverishly to get that program stood up to start processing these claims. We need to make sure that we are ewarning everyone about gov. Scott i think its a good number for us to put out there. Typically on an average day, under current circumstances, we have been averaging anywhere from 700012,000 claims that are processed on friday. Gov. Scott that was 17,000. We saw over 30,000 people actually file their weekly claim on sunday alone. We know that in terms of this spigot, that spigot has been opened up. More people are able to get through and they are filing their weekly claims. We expect that volume to continue throughout the week. I governor, do you mind if add something to this conversation . Gov. Scott i would love you to. Areooking at this, there Financial Issues associated with that. There is no question that the needs of vermonters came first, hence the authorization by the governor to release the checks. I just want to say that i think the governor made the right decision. We are in unprecedented circumstances and very much uncharted territory. I want to thank the administration for taking that step. I think it really made a difference in the lives of many people in vermont so thank you, governor. Gov. Scott thank you again, treasurer pearson. Who knows, we may be leaning on you again if we can to get this moving forward. Thank you, sir. All right. Can you hear me . Gov. Scott yeah. Thanks, governor. For ay, you called these are questions regarding the vermont state election system color system. Uke College System. K16u envision a sort of scenario where public colleges and universities are funded on some new, expanded version of the Education Fund . Do you see this as an opportunity to look at overhauling the entire k12 funding and governance overall . Gov. Scott maybe all of the above. We have an opportunity at this point in time to rethink our Education System in its entirety. Ive talked about this over the last three or four years. I dont think there has been a stay of the state or budget address that i have not mentioned the problems that we have with our Education System, the amount of dollars that we spent, property taxes are a big issue for many in the state. Right now, we spent 1. 8 billion for k12 and over that. In terms of us helping out those anotherr ed, probably 100 million. I saw a need where we needed to find early care and learning as well. I just think that we are spending a lot of money for education. If we can better coordinate in some way, that we can, without raising taxes, we could have a much, much different scenario, much better situation in terms of education. Ive used this before. Theres a lot of smart people watching this right now. If i went to them and gave you a billion to educate our kids in k12, i would dare say our system would look much different than it does today. If you could wipe the slate clean and start over. So i am saying in this pandemic, in these unusual times, this may be the opportunity for us to get creative and develop the best Education System possible, the best system possibly in the country, may be the world. We are so small, unique, and nimble. We should be able to do this but we are all going to have to Work Together. Think outside the box so we can preserve some of what we have but give a better product for our kids in the end. Meanen you say kids, you adults as well . College education is part of that package, i guess. Gov. Scott more early care and learning and more higher ed. It obviously involves the fullspectrum. All right. My second question is, over governor, the combined Northern Vermont UniversityFaculty Assembly voted noconfidence in the chancellor, saying his recommendation was made withouttously transparency, adequate consultation and data. As a member of the vermont state caller systems board of trustees, do you still support mr. Spalding as chancellor . Gov. Scott they have been dealing with this for a number of years. There has been opportunities where chancellor spalding has come to the legislature to talk about those needs and to advocate for more money. Respects, we should have seen this coming. I think many of us did. I have been trying to put more money in the State Colleges over the last two years. It is obviously not enough. It is not as though the trustees and chancellor spalding have not been advocating for this for quite some time. But this, again, with this pandemic, it has just accelerated and exacerbated the situation. So we just have to deal with this crisis now. There will be plenty of time to figure out the other parts of this in the aftermath. But i think it is time for us to Work Together with the legislature, with the State Colleges, with higher ed to see what we can do in terms of education throughout the state, from early care and learning all the way to the Higher Education. Do you think the chancellor got out too far ahead of this by making that recommendation on friday afternoon . It kind of came as a big surprise to a lot of people and a lots of people reacted very quickly over the weekend. Do you think that was the wrong move to make, that recommendation so abruptly . Is this something we should also see coming . Gov. Scott i think it was a little swift in some respects on friday and then have a vote on monday. I am pleased they decided to wait at least a week so we could observe this absorb this and consider this over the next seven days at least. From that standpoint, it could have been rolled out differently. That, i have to reiterate this was something that the chancellor and the trustees had been advocating for for quite some time. They came to the legislature and the administration with a plan asking for increased amounts of up to 25 million for them to stay afloat this year. Isnts is, again, this unexpected. This, again, accelerated the situation, this pandemic. Thank you, governor. Everybody a time check, 12 30. Please, one question. Questioning, especially for those outlets with multiple colors on callers on. Andrew, you are up next. Andrew . Good afternoon. Can you hear me . Yes. So you have already addressed some of the questions i was going to open with in terms of the noconfidence vote coming from the faculty. I am wondering if you could speak to, if the schools should what, ifnclosed, anything, will the state be able to do to address the oaken on mccann social consequences that would occur the economic and social consequences that would occur . The schools being both a significant employer and really one of the principal pathways for gov. Scott obviously, im very concerned about the rural part of our state. A lot of the Economic Activity is focused on chitlins county. It has become public at this point that part of the mission or the deal with putting more investment in that county is being answered as they close these other two facilities. Standpoint, if we are going to invest money, i would countysee the chittenden operations closed and keep the other rural campus is open. Again, these are some of the conversations and discussions that we need to have as we move forward. Are we willing to prioritize this and what are we going to do about it if we do decide to move forward to help the State College system continue to operate . Followup on that note. Complaintsprincipal from the large outcry is that folks feel the sacrifices of the cuts not being evenly distributed around the state. Is that something you recognize and acknowledge . That it favors Chittenden County more than others . Gov. Scott absolutely. I believe the Ripple Effect it will have in the rural parts of the state is significant. Again, we see time and time that wee see statistics are fortunate to have Chittenden County in the mix as a napkin on ane engine in some race economic engine in some respects, but my goal is to help all 14 counties. One county is doing pretty well, but the other 13 are struggling. We are seeing that from the demographic trend all the way through to education opportunities. , im of the mindset that we should be focusing on what we can do to help the rural parts of the state, as well. Chittenden county is doing ok right now. Ok, thank you. [indiscernible] i had a question around unemployment. [indiscernible] the backlog of the thousands of folks who have not been paid over the last month. Im wondering if you feel you have sufficient capacity to make sure that those thousands of people are going to be regularly receiving those benefits for the foreseeable future . Gov. Scott i will answer part of that from my standpoint. I certainly hope so. We will continue to monitor it on a daily basis and if we see the need to add more people or take other initiatives, we will do so, because it is important. When we identify the challenges, the stumbling blocks, and rectify those. We have done that over the last 35 days. If we find more roadblocks, we will make other changes, as well. If we need to add more people, we will do that. Commissioner harrington . Mr. Harrington i think that the governor nailed it. Some of these were system changes. Some of these were one time , soase of issues on claims we still have work ahead of us. Have methods in place to expedite some of these. Some of it goes back to individual claimants. They need to be filing weekly and going in each week to file for the prior week, so again i would just encourage those who hear this message to make sure you are going in and filing weekly and only those who are coming to sums some type of standstill, then they should be contacting the department. We have multiple ways to do that now. In terms of bandwidth and capacity, we are getting there with the call center. We will move through the issues as quickly as we can. The 8300 terms of folks or so who are still waiting for their more regular benefits to becoming in, will you be able to go through that this week so they can still have regular benefits paid out . Cases, theyhese were individuals or claims that we had opened the door for them to file again. It is much more complex and we can go into detail some other time, but they havent. Some of the issue is they will be able to file going forward, they just werent going to receive payments in a timely fashion. Thats why we felt we needed to move forward with this alternative step. All 8000 hadhat some lock on their account, some just needed to go in and file. Others will have to manage through. Thank you. [indiscernible] question is for governor scott. [indiscernible] checks that were distributed this weekend. You said you put the people above the process. Im wondering, what went into making that decision . Do you expect any backlash from the federal government because we went around them . People, i i watch see people who are suffering throughout vermont through no fault of their own. We did not ask for it. We have a responsibility to take care of them. It is not working as well as we hoped or expected, i thought we needed to get this step. I give great credit to many in the labor department, as well as the treasurers office, the finance department, everyone coming together to find a way to get money in the pockets of vermont. We decided to take some risks in doing so. We may see some repercussions from this from the federal government. Time will tell. But we will work through that and try to give comfort again to those who are in need and do what is expected of us. We just took that move that i believe is of most benefit to vermonters at this point. Thank you. [indiscernible] this question is for dr. Levine. According to a New York Times saye, harvard researchers [indiscernible] analysis their [indiscernible] im wondering if you agree with that assessment. Dr. Levine i heard all of the question except when you were talking about the numbers. You cut out. So, the number they said 152 acute infection tests to day for 100,000 people reopen and that means vermont would need to double the amount of testing to reopen. I was wondering if you agree with that assessment. Are testing in the 500 range per day. Population. Of the we are close to that, we are not quite there yet. I can understand where they are coming from. States thatly from have a lot more disease activity then we have been showing more recently. I cant argue with it by any means, but im not sure it is a goal we have to achieve because i think we are doing pretty well right now. The one slide i didnt show you is what we call our syndrome x surveillance data, how many people are complaining of covid19 symptoms right now . That curve actually goes steadily downhill, just like all the other curves i showed. A couplelly just percent of the population right now. We would probably be testing a lot more asymptomatic people by the policy you mentioned that harvard was talking about. Now, we areright close to achieving that and dont have to go that much further to get there. You mentioned earlier in the press conference [indiscernible] we have had declining test numbers the past few days. Is that trend problematic to you . Dr. Levine not really, because it is a weekend. Often, on weekends, especially on sundays, we see that drop. I would want to see that during the course of the next couple days to fully be able to answer your question, but i dont excel. Dont think so. [indiscernible] can you hear me . All right. You said that you got on a phone get with mike pence to help vermont testing supplies early on. Can you tell us exactly when that conversation happened and what happens during the conversation . How would went down . Gov. Scott i can only tell you it was sometime in march, mid march. Alarmvine had sounded the and said we were running low on testing supplies and it is going to take some action in order for us to continue to test, which we knew we needed at that point. I first of all had contacted governor sununu in New Hampshire to see if he had extra Testing Capacity that he could lend us in our time of need. When i spoke to him, he thought he was all set. He did not know that he could share any with us, that they had enough or whatever their needs were, but he said he would get back to me. He called me back and said they did not have as much capacity as we did at that point in time, so they were going to be in need, so we decided to do a joint call to the Vice President , which we did. Again, hes listened to our concerns. He asked specific questions about what it is that we needed, how many we needed to get through the next week or so. After answering all those questions, he said he would see what he could do. We had another followup call and he was able to assist us and we received some test supplies as a result. Ok, thank you. I have a quick followup. If the state is not able to release [indiscernible] is there any possibility they could release just a number of cases in burlington itself because it is a large city and it could be connected with a large number of cases . I will give you the same answer i gave let us look into it and see what we can come up with. Thanks. [indiscernible] ok, thank you. [indiscernible] can you hear me . Ive got two questions. The first question is a combination of the governor and dr. Levine. Im curious, governor, whether in your job of turning the spigot on with getting the economy running again whether you have seen your people ,ave run the curve run out stripping out the strictly confined populations like Nursing Homes and prisons and so that you can measure what the real management job it seems to me in opening the economy is with what is happening in the virus in the general population, not the confined population have you seen those curves done that way . Gov. Scott i cant say that i have seen those done exactly the way you are referring to. I will say that every decision we are making is in consultation with the team. They weigh in on any proposals we are contemplating. Again, the step we took last today was an consultation and in discussion with them, so they were fully aware of what we are doing and gave us the thumbs up to proceed. A cautious nature in this regard, i want to listen to the experts and make sure we are following their guidance. Ok. Ive got a question for dr. Levine. Contactn is tracing has been a huge weapon particularlytries, south korea and germany. Thereontact tracing means is tracing in the general population, including people who do not have symptoms. Mike smithng to what set about his confidence in the in the Nursing Homes, because that system robust. Is there any chance you are going to be able to get Contact Tracing into the general population as you try to figure out how to get the spigot turned fully on . Thanks for that question. [indiscernible] find it is actually already in the general population. By definition, Contact Tracing occurs after a case has been identified, usually by a test. That person is isolated. Contacts forown that person are then spoken with. Whether they have symptoms or not. Of the, the majority ,ime, they dont have symptoms but the importance of Contact Tracings to see how significant the [indiscernible] was with the case. The likelihood of getting infected was high. So, that person usually hasnt developed symptoms at the time you were talking with them. They may in the future develop symptoms. Individualised that quarantinea 14day so that the entire incubation period of the virus can play out in them if it is going to play out in them while they are separate from other members of , so that they themselves cant infect other people. That is the whole principle behind Contact Tracing and why it can be very effective, because you have allowed those people who are either asymptomatic or presymptomatic to isolate themselves so no one else is in danger. So, thank you very much for that. [indiscernible] i thank you for that. Ive got one more question for mike smith. Whether when you are thinking about a little bit of a forward, i as we go think it is absolutely clear that the major issue it is not visible yet, but it is there now and that is the financing of the vermont Hospital System, whose budgets have to be approved by the greenmount care board. My question is would you be willing to report not town by report,t would you would you report the casesbution of confirmed hospital by hospital and also include dartmouth hitchcock, because that does not get into the town . You were going to have three or four towns around small hospitals, seven or eight or nine towns regular feeding into dartmouth hitchcock. Could we see, in order to have a sense of how to manage the Hospital System going forward, especially with reform in the budget, we need to know what is going on in each hospital, not just in each county. To what are two answers i think is two questions. Let me take the first one, hospital finances. Obviously, we have been tracking hospital finances very carefully through this covid19 crisis and making sure that our Health Care System stays viable during this time. Now, that means not only hospitals, that means providers, as well as those people who provide services. Crisis, weut this have been really monitoring that, and in some instances we have had to help out various Health Care Facilities in terms of finances. Given the open fact that this comes up hopefully every 100 years, im open to anything that gives us more data in terms of how we react and how we sort of look at our Health Care Reform and Health Care System. So everything is on the table, including what you just mentioned. I dontant to know if this is what you are , whether a hospital has had covid cases were not, they have been impacted by the pandemic because we have restricted the number of elective surgeries. So, every single one of them has been impacted by the pandemic. [indiscernible] governor, ive heard there was a coordinated project [indiscernible] to build a new unemployment computer system. It wasnt going well and you pulled the plug on the project earlier this year. Can you confirm that and tell us what the product problem was . Gov. Scott that is true. I can tell you we had a project with idaho and there were some other states this was previous to this administration, but there was a consortium working on a joint effort. Idaho was the lead on it. Once they dropped out, north dakota joined in. Then we werent getting the results that we wanted. It was not working well at all. Decision, it seems like a few years ago, but it was probably two months ago, that we needed to pull the plug on that. We got together, the three governors, and had a conversation about our expectations and what we could do to rectify it. We came to the conclusion that it wasnt going to work. We were going to try to salvage everything we could out of it and that possibly we consider working with north dakota on the future. But at this point in time, then , so wedemic kit hit have not that im aware of work do know anything at this point anything atorked on this point in time. We may learn something as a result of what we are doing in this pandemic to guide us into what our needs are in the future, but we were working on a consortium that did not work out. Thank you. [indiscernible] michael harrington, i was asking about the pua people. Some may be 1099 employees or parttime employees. Until the puait system is up or should they file claims through the regular system . What should those folks be doing . Mr. Harrington the process remains in terms of internally that they have to be in eligible for general ui before they can be eligible for pandemic assistance. There are two ways they could do that. They could certainly apply through general ui. They would have to know they are going to receive something in the mail that will tell them they are not eligible. They just have to be prepared for that. Until the first phase of the pua program is up, that will send them through both systems at the same time and so they thank you, everyone. Gov. Scott thank you very much and we will see you on wednesday. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] making rs negotiating a bill providing additional funding for Small Business loans and other resources for combating the pandemic. The senate is back today for what is tentatively a pro forma wasion but the session added specifically and the could be a voice vote on any legislation. Follow the senate life on 4 00 on cspan two. On cspan, we are featuring the winners of our studentcam documentary competition. Middleton high school