I don't feel so nervous, okay. Welcome back to my channel and I don't know how obvious the change is gonna be but can you tell I have a new camera? I don't see it for me, but okay. I hope you can. I am so excited. I finally have a new camera. I've been like dreaming of this for so long. Hang on, let me show you. When I was 13, I had a YouTube channel. I bought this camera as a Canon 600D. I bought this camera when I was 13. I had that channel for a year. Don't go looking for it please. I don't think you'd be able to find it. It's very embarrassing. It doesn't really exist anymore. Sure, Jan. And when I started my booktree channel a couple of years ago, I just used this, but this is old. It did me a solid. I feel like, I feel like, you know, it did quite well for me over the years. Like for what I paid for it, for how long I've had it, I'm thankful to this camera, but I've been ready to move on to greener pastures for quite a while. One of the things I'm most excited for, you might have noticed in my videos that I can just sit down. Bitch, I can stand up and move around now because this has autofocus. This I had to always manually focus so I couldn't like move, but now I can. I'm just, I'm so happy. I'm genuinely so happy.  I've got some really fun stuff planned in the next couple of months that means like I can finally do that stuff. I wanted to do a video that kind of felt momentous enough to do with the camera for the first video. So what I decided to do, it feels like an anniversary, you know, it feels like very important to me.  It's a piece of fabric. So the video idea I came up with is we're going to chat about the favorite book, the best book I read from every month that I've had in my channel. So going back all the way to September 2019, almost three years ago, scary, we're going to chat about the best book I read every month. I feel like this is just a fun way to like, look back at the history of the channel. That's history. That's history. Oh, and just like have fun and appreciate where we've come to.  It feels pretty momentous for me. So you're gonna be like, girl, calm down, calm down. But anyways, let's just get into it. I'm going to put it on the screen the month that we're talking about. And I'll also put in brackets the number of books I read in that month. Just to give you an idea of how many we're fighting for the title. We're not going to speak about them for too long. You've heard me speak about all these books before. We're just looking back, appreciating and seeing the highlights from each month. Okay, September 2019, my favorite book I read. This is the only book I didn't physically own. I still need to get a physical version of it and reread it, but it's Sadie by Connie Summers. This was the moment when I started to really appreciate audiobooks and love audiobooks and go like, wow, I can have a five-star experience with an audiobook if I pick the right one. Because previously I'd kind of just listened to audiobooks that I didn't want to read physically and wasn't as excited for. So this was like that moment when I really realized how much I could love audiobooks. Like the year of just realizing stuff and everyone around me were all just like realizing things. Next month, it was Love or Breed by Suzanne Lafleur. So other months I haven't counted rereads, but technically, because this was a reread from when I was like 10, it's fine. This is probably my favorite book from when I was a kid. We follow Aubrey, whose dad and sister passed away and her mother abandons her. And it's kind of her dealing with all that grief and loss. And I just can't wait to give this book when I have kids and they're old enough to them because I think it teaches so much about compassion and it really like speaks to the kid as if they're like clever, you know?  It's heartbreaking, nothing. Not many other books have made me cry like this book. Next was Ninth House by Luba Dugo. I cannot tell you how excited I am for hellbent to come out. I am literally so excited. Ninth House was the first Luba Dugo I ever read and I just loved the writing. I know some people think it was confusing, but I loved the detail and the complexity of this fantasy world. I just think it's amazing. I think it is Luba Dugo's best. I wish it was more popular so that we could have like, you know, spin-offs. And I just want her to do adult. I don't, I'm not really interested in her doing like young YA ever again. I know Six of Crows from the Kingdom level I'm vibing with, but her adult stuff just hits different for me, absolutely. Next was The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern. Still one of my favorite like copies of a book that I own. I mean, if you have never seen this, look at this. Look at it. I think this is when I really started to learn what I loved in fantasy and that is complexity, that is detail, and that is a beautiful world, like beautiful writing, vivid, like complex. I know I've said complex like 200 times. By the way, if I keep touching my nose, my hay fever's really bad. I've taken anti-istimines, but it's hard. Like, I'm like. And I really scratched my head and I wonder where's God when you need him. The Starless Sea is like an impossible book to really give a synopsis of. Before this guy who reads a book that he's in, like an event in his life is written about and it kind of takes him on this wild journey into stories and magic and love of stories. And Erin Morgenstern, I just need a new book. Like, when are we gonna get the next one? I know it's like 10 years between every book and I think that's really unfair because I think Erin Morgenstern is one of my favorite writers I have ever read. Like, absolutely ever read. Next is Heartstop volume one. This was the month that I read graphic novels for the first time. I did a video like, oh my God, reading graphic novels for the first time and Heartstop volume one was the first graphic novel I ever read and I fell in love. We know my love for Heartstop. I've reread this one once. I've never reread the other one. So maybe I should do that at some point, but I mean, I need to say literally nothing anymore about this because of the show. But I just love the characters, the relationship, the realisticness of it, the coziness, the joy. I just love everything about it. Then we have Murder on the Orient Express. This was another one which at the time I only listened to the audiobook. I am gonna reread this maybe towards the end of this year with the audiobook and the physical book now that I own it. This is, I would still say my favorite Agatha Christie I've ever read. I did give Death on the Nile five stars recently and that's the only other one I've given. Well, Roger Acroyd, I gave like 4.75 or something. Yeah, I would say this is still my favorite. I just love the setting. I love how this book is conducted with like interviews. Basically most of the book is Occuporo just interviewing each of the people on the train. And then the reveal at the end of how the murder was done is absolutely incredible. Agatha Christie's mind. Oh, it amazes me sometimes. Next one of my favorite books of all time is Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter by Theodora Gus. I don't know why I love these so much, but I just do. They are just, I feel like they're me in a book, they're everything I've ever wanted in a book. I almost think this series will never be topped for me. It's just, it feels so special to me now. This was another one actually where I only read the audiobook the first time I read it. There's something about these audiobooks that is so, so special and amazing. And listen, it's mystery. It's monstrous girls. We have Sherlock and Watson. We have so many characters throughout from classic Victorian gothic literature and I just love it. I love the way it reimagines stuff. I've reread this one once and I'm just itching to reread the second one. If I was to probably read anything right now, I'd probably reread the second one, but I must make videos, so. I just wanna say that month, the March was a super hard month to pick. I mean, obviously that, but I also read the guest list in that month which those were my two favorite books of the year. And I read Heartstopper Volume 3 which was my favorite, my favorite volume of Heartstopper. So that month was like, I was living my best life. I don't know what, maybe I just had a lot of solace. I know I read, cause obviously lockdown then. I know I read the guest list in the strange case before lockdown, before COVID. Cause I think it's more towards the end of the month, but that probably like stress was still rumbling cause I had issues like the year prior in like the summer, well early 2019 with health anxiety and basically convinced I was dying all the time. So when COVID started, it was, I had to be really intentional to keep my health anxiety under control. I'd gone to therapy the previous summer for it and got it under control. But I remember almost not COVID happened but that time beforehand, when there was whisperings of it, I'd go to the cinema and if a guy next to me was coughing, I'd feel very like stressed out. And I think I probably found solace in books and read some of my favorite books ever because I was, you know, I needed them at that time. So next is one of only two non-fictions on this list and it is Bad Feminist by Roxanne Gay. Some of my favorite essays I've ever read. Actually, I never highlight or anything that I was like out here highlighting sections of this. No, I don't think you understand. I'm a bad. This is another one I would love to reread. I hope Roxanne Gay narrates the audiobook cause if so, I will get the audiobook and read along. But yeah, I think this is something I would love members of my family to read. I think it's so insightful. I think it's so wonderful and I need to read more Roxanne Gay like right now. Next month, my favorite was One By One by Ruth Ware. I would say this is my favorite Ruth Ware and it had a bad, like, I feel like it got a little bit of a bad rep because it is different from other Ruthwares in the sense that it's more mystery. It's more classic mystery. It's more Miss Agatha inspired. I love this book so much and it didn't get a good rep but I think it's your classic mystery done so well. We're following this work trip where they go on and they start getting killed off one by one in this kind of ski resort. And let me tell you, there is a seam towards the end of this book down some ski slopes that is one of the most tense scenes I have ever read. It was so, so good. And I want Ruth Ware to not be afraid to write more stuff like this. I feel like her next book is gonna be more like her classic thriller. I don't want her to be afraid to write more mysteries like this. I don't want her to be scared off of that because I want it. So that means it should be done. The next month was so hard. Let me tell you, this month we read No Exit, Middle Game and The Night Circus. This is so hard because these are all like five star books for me. I just don't know which one is my favorite out of these. They're hard to rank but I think right now what I'm finding is No Exit. I've never read a book like it, you know? Whereas The Night Circus, I think I do prefer The Star of the Sea and Middle Game I love but I don't know if it's had like, I don't know if I feel it's lasting effects in the way that I feel No Exit. Never has a book made me feel so sick. Never has a book made me feel so uncomfortable. Never has a book killed me in the way that this book did. It just did it. Right, the next two months, we were on a struggle bus. What a month is it? July and August 2020. These are the only two months of the whole time that happened and then next to each other. I didn't have any five stars in either of these months. So these are not favorite books of all time. The next I'm about to mention, they're both four stars but why did this happen? I can't remember. I just obviously wasn't having very good luck with what I was reading. July, I am picking The Last by Hannah Jameson. This one I would say is my top 15 murder mysteries of all time. It's a very interesting concept where nuclear war has happened. The world has ended and new and 20-ish other survivors are like in this Swiss hotel and you can't tell really. You don't wanna venture out of the safe space you have. You can't really tell what's going on in the rest of the world. The first half is five stars. Absolutely amazing. The second half is a four star because it goes on a strange tangent. It's very strange. August, it was even worse for me out here. I only read seven books and they were all not great. My favorite book I read this month was The Death of Mrs. West away by Ruth Ware. I think I've only read three Ruth Wares and this is by far my least favorite. So listen, it shows you this month was a struggle. You're following this girl who believes she's got this inheritance from this rich woman. It's very atmospheric. She goes to the house and gets to know the family and it's very atmospheric, very gothic. I feel like it's setting up a lot of what she then goes on to write in the turn of the key. Yeah, probably my least favorite is where I've read, but it was the best book I read that month. Then we turned things around and my favorite book was The Tea Dragon Society by Kay O'Neill. This is another one of my favorite graphic novels I have ever read.  I have the other two. I have the prequel and the sequel and I need to read them. I haven't read them yet and I just, this was such an amazing read. So I do need to get to them soon. Oh my God. The next book I used to talk about is on the bottom of another stack.  Ain't Deadly Serious. So the next book, my favorite book I read was Catherine House. I know this is another unpopular opinion. It's probably one of the lowest rated books I've ever read. I loved it. I loved the weirdness. I loved the claustrophobia. This book is crazy. It's absolutely crazy. It's very strange. You're in the house and the house is in the woods. You're in the house and the house is in you. It's very culty. It's very mysterious. The ending is very ambiguous. But I loved it and I'm so excited. I really want Elizabeth Thomas to publish another book and like I want nothing more. This is probably one of my favorite books I read that year. I just think it's a special kind of book and I wish everyone else loved it as much as I do. Listen, you ain't seen the last of this series. My favorite book this month was The European Travel for the Monster's Gentlemen. I would say this is my favorite in the series. I just love it so much. It's very long. It is how many pages? I think about, yeah, just over 700 pages. Listen, the book doesn't need to be this long. It really doesn't. It could have been edited down. But I'm not complaining because I get longer with my favorite characters and my favorite storyline ever. So I literally am in my best element. This is perfect for me. I just loved it. It's clever. It's a perfectly poised mystery. It's funny, joyous, perfect, perfect. Then I read one of my favorite kind of magical realism-y, fabulism-y books I ever read. You Must Not Miss by Katrina Leno.  But it was such a fun read. I remember I'd already done my best list for 2020. I'd already made that video and I was so upset. I read this right at the end of 2020 and I was so upset that this wasn't in there because it was one of my favorite books I read that year. All right, so I'm editing the video and turns out I messed it up. The next one I say is my favorite book for January 2021 but it wasn't. It's February's and I just missed out January's. So I'll just tell you quickly. January's was the sister mystery of the mesmerizing girl. What? Aka, my favorite series ever. We've seen all of this series in this video and generally nothing could top it. This one, I don't know. I perhaps can see it's not the strongest in the series. Here's the contest info. Siri, I can perhaps see that it's not the strongest in the series but there's a scene at the end of this that just really plays so much homage and recognizes the journey that the girls have been on throughout the series and what they've each been through individually and what they've overcome. And it makes me so emotional to think about. So I'm very excited to reread the second and third ones in this series at some point. And I'm just hoping so much that we get more in this series one day. Theodora Goss has said that she would. So like listen, we just need someone to buy it. It says in the acknowledgments right at the end, I hope you enjoyed spending time with Mary, Diana, Beatrice, Catherine, Justine, Lucinda, and Little Alice who learned in the end that even a kitchen maid can be a heroine. I know they all enjoyed spending time with you and would love to have you over for tea at 11 Park Terrace the next time you're in the vicinity. Mrs. Paul is already baking a treat called tart, dot, dot, dot. So it shows you that the possibility is there. We just need someone to buy it and I'll just be like happiest person forever. Like I want eight books in the series, I don't care. But yeah, back to the actual video. My favorite book of January, 2021 is The Five by Halle Rubinhold. This is nonfiction, the other nonfiction on this list. Probably not one of my top nonfictions ever, but again, it was like the best of that month. Halle Rubinhold tells us all about the lives of all the different victims of Jack the Ripper. Just learning about these women and their lives and the lives that were told about them in death and the way that they were abused even in death is terrible. And I think it's one of the best like historical works that I've ever read. I get so angry now and I'm watching historical programs and they just refer, oh, all of Jack the Ripper's victims are prostitutes. I'm like, no, they weren't. No, they weren't. And Halle Rubinhold has done her research and we should listen to her. In February, I read The Classic, The Wonderful, A Good Girl's Guide to Murder. One of the best YA mysteries I've ever read. Andy, no, not Andy. That is not correct. Pippa, Andy's the girl who went missing slash we believe was murdered and Pippa is investigating that. It is mixed media. We have police reports, interviews, emails and some of the best like Holly Jackson. I'm so beyond, beyond excited to see what Holly Jackson comes out with next because this is just, this whole series is just incredible. The story that goes on, the mysteries that are plotted. The writing is incredible. I mean, if you haven't read this yet, what are you doing? I didn't read much the next month but my favorite was Cooked Kingdom by Leigh Barduga. Leigh Barduga's out here with another one on the list. I read both Six of Crows and Cooked Kingdom this month but Cooked Kingdom was by far my favorite. She was that girl. She was that girlie. Yep, yep. I love this one being set in Ketterdam. The kind of plans and the heists and the hijinks that ensue feel even bigger and better. I sobbed. I was very emotional. I mean, I just got a look at a certain chapter. I know if I find that page I will be crying out here on this video. Extra tears. You don't have to cry over it. This is great. It's the great thing about the camera. You couldn't see. I'm not lying. I just read the chapter and oh, tears, tears. May 2021. My favorite book was The Traveling Cat Chronicles by Kira Awakawa, another book. Ooh, I shouldn't be emotional right now. I need to calm down. But this book, another book that made me sob like no other. We're reading this book from the cat's perspective as his owner. We don't know why, but his owner is trying to find him a new home to live. And as someone who love cats, has had cats all my life, I think there's only like a five month gap where we haven't had any cats in the house. So cats are like very important to me. Not five months actually. Maybe like eight months, nine months. But yeah, I've grown up with cats. I love cats. And this hit me in a way I don't want to be hit. I don't want to be hit. Oh my God, books are literally flying out at me. Okay, my room is a mess. Next is The Black Flamingo by Dean Atta. This is one of the best books I've ever read in verse. Dean Atta just kind of gets it. Just gets it. Listen, we're following this character from literally birth to kind of adulthood at university.  And it's just beautiful and gorgeous and lovely and wonderful. And I'm so excited to read Dean Atta's next book, which is already out. The next month I didn't have many standouts. So I don't know if I gave this five stars. I think I did. But it's Fat Chance Charlie Vega by Crystal Madinado. I have Crystal Madinado's 2022 release, I Own It, which is my filter and other lies. I love how they look together. I need to read this soon. That's not happening. All right. This is one of the favorite, just like YA contemporary romances I've ever read. I think it's the only one I've ever given five stars. And I love the exploration of Charlie Vega being fat and how identity around that and how she feels and her falling in love. And that being just so wonderful. I really remember enjoying reading this. It was just a really fun read. And if all contemporary romance was like this, I'd read way more. But I don't have the best success rate, but this is the best I've ever read. So I'm very excited to read her next book as well. Next, a top tier favorite for me is The Project by Courtney Summers. I love Courtney Summers. This is the second Courtney Summers on the list. It's the two Courtney Summers I've read. So we're a very good success rate. This is the story of two sisters, one of which is a member of a cult and the other one is trying to get in contact with her and talk to her and kind of kind of expose the cult, kind of talk to them. And the same Courtney Summers books just devastate me. There's a lot of books on the list that made me cry. I mean, I know it's easy to make me cry, but I think I really like that in books. If you can get that emotional reaction out of me, I'll always be more connected to it. Bro, this book, it was too much. It was too much. Then a thriller highlight for me is They Never Learned by Lane Fargo with, listen, we're killing shitty men in this book. We are killing shitty men with... Yup, yup, yup, yup, yup. We're following this kind of murderess who kills shitty men, but she's also a professor at this university and we're also following a young girl who's just joined the university and kind of both of their experiences with the patriarchy and shitty men and the way men abuse their power. And I just loved it. It was so good. There's a twist halfway in this book that you'll never see coming that's done so well. It completely blindsides you.  It kind of got a bit ridiculous at the end, but I enjoy that, so. I am making a mess of my shelves. Oh my God, don't even look at it. It's a mess. It's a mess. It's a mess. Next, one of my favorite books of last year, The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman. Yes, I know I need to read the second one. I actually had a nightmare I think last night that I hated it, that I read it and I really don't like it and I was like gonna give it two stars and everyone was really upset with me like everyone unsubscribed and it was like, it was a big deal, so. This is like a cozy mystery where we're following these old people uncovering mysteries together and it's a lot of fun and I love it. And Richard Osman, again, he gets what I want. And I just, oh, it was so good. I cared a lot for the characters. It made me cry again a couple of times and the mysteries were so, so good. And it's just cozy. I love the setting. Yeah, very, very good. And then we have my second favorite book of last year after that and that is The Once and Future Witches by Alex E. Harrow. We're following the sisters who are witches and it's them repairing their relationship and getting involved with the suffragettes. I'm not sure which one it is, but suffragists, yeah. Getting involved with the suffragists and using their kind of witchiness to pursue that aim. It was so good. It was so good. This is some of my favorite writing I've ever read. Again, made me sob. There's a running theme here. I'm telling ya. Like if you make me cry, we're on good terms. I love witchiness. I love fantasy that is complex once again and has a lot of layers, has a lot of character development. Again, some of my favorite characters I've ever read. And yeah, definitely need to reread this. December, 2021. I didn't have that many five stars, but I would say my favorite was Moon of the Crossed Snow by Will Beachick Rice. This is like kind of sci-fi almost where the world it seems to be has ended or something's happened. We're in this indigenous community and the power goes off and they're very disconnected from the rest of the world but it's them trying to survive essentially. And it's very atmospheric. I really loved the kind of look of how society will sustain itself and also crumble during a time like this. It's some of my favorite sci-fi, like post-apocalyptic sci-fi I've ever read because it felt very realistic and not just like completely out of the blue sci-fi. It felt like it could happen now. And the way that the characters acted in this I really enjoyed and there's, the ending was like interesting but I liked this kind of openness that this ending had. Okay, 2022. I did not read many books at the start of 2022 but my favorite was as Good as Dead by Holly Jackson. This book is so good. The best, maybe the best. I think this is my favorite in the series. Just now we're following Pip again and she's uncovering other mystery but this time it is personal to her. She's getting letters saying who will look for you when you're the one who disappears. And again, just like they never learn, huh. Yeah, it goes there. It goes there halfway. We're switching it up on the beaches and we're going in a direction you never thought we would. I'm begging you, if you have not read the series, please read this series cause it is just top tier. Then in February, my favorite book that I read was Malibu Rising by Tilda Jenkins-Reed. Now I didn't vlog this actually, well I did. I read this with my patrons for our Patreon book club so I did a vlog over there but we haven't had great luck with the book club. I haven't loved a lot of the books we've read but this is by far my favorite that we've read and I love Tilda Jenkins-Reed. Honestly, Tilda Jenkins-Reed, one of my favorite authors, three, five stars. There's not many authors I can say that I've given three, five stars to. There's a big party, right, that these Reaver siblings host but that's the second half of the book. The first half, half of the first half is the morning before the party, learning more about them, getting ready. And the other half is the story of their parents' meeting and the kind of kids growing up and that was just so beautiful and heartbreaking and Teddings-Reed just gets to the heart of humanity and just like, ah! Then I actually never thought I'd be saying this but my favorite the next month was Jade Legacy by Fonda Lee. I just never thought I'd be saying this because I didn't love Jade City that much but I loved Jade War and Jade Legacy. This is a mammoth masterpiece, a feat of human writing of a fancy book. It is absolutely incredible the way that this story builds from book one, this complexity, this detail, this, the way that details, these little details from the first book can become so important in this book. The characters, the family, ah! We're following in this a family, like almost like a mafia family in this world where Jade is their power and it's just, I mean, the series is so difficult to explain let alone this book but this book is kind of years, you know, later years, obviously it's the last book so the later years of them and the family and having to broker difficult deals and make difficult decisions and like, oh, it's so complex, the characters are so complex. I love it so much. Then who would say the next month was A Skin Full of Shadows by Frances Harding. I discovered this book completely on a whim. I did not expect to love it so much and we follow this girl called Makepeace who can kind of like do stuff with ghosts. Okay.  Her father is dead but he has a very rich family so she gets sent to live with them. It's again a gorgeous fantasy, gorgeous writing, so well plotted, I just could not stop reading it. Oh God, I'm not like having, I'm not reading a lot at the moment you guys and I'm finding reading a bit hard and I just need like a, just a quick succession of five star books would be really nice right now. And then the last month we need to talk about is last month, May. I really struggled with this one actually because if you watched my video with Mara from books like Woe, you know I had three, five stars in that video and it was The Rook, The Death in the Nile and The Broken Girls. And I really struggled to pick one of those. I still don't really know because I read them so close together. I don't know which is my favorite but I'm gonna go with The Broken Girls by Simone St. James. It's got a dual timeline which I never usually like. Part in the 1950s with these four roommates and part in the present day with this woman who's still discovering and uncovering and investigating the death of her sister 20 years ago and her body was found on the estate of the school that the girls went to in the 1950s. And a new body is found on the ground in the present day and it kind of opens up this mystery. And this book is heartbreaking. It is so well written, so compulsively readable. The ending was very, very satisfying and Simone St. James always has, from my understanding, this kind of element of the paranormal in it in her books. And I just loved that about this book. I thought it was just done so perfectly because often I read, the way that I understand Simone St. James in her book, I've only read the one, but I think this is how she does in all of her books, is there's a little paranormal element and it's neither like confirmed or denied but it's kind of left to be ambiguous. And I often read a lot of paranormal books that are pictures paranormal where the paranormal just ends up to be fake, right? It's like set in our wild and the paranormal is like, oop, I was tricking you bitches.  I don't know, like it's like not real, right? Whereas in this, without spoiling anything, that doesn't happen. So I really, really love this and I can't wait to read more Simone St. James. That is my favorite books from each month that I have been on Booktube. Wow, that was a lot. Let me know what your favorite book here is that I've mentioned. I would love to know where our tastes are similar. Hopefully, I will see you if you watch me. Probably have maybe read quite a few of these and liked them, but we shall see. And thank you so much for supporting me in my channel. I am so happy to have this camera and to get to do this. And I feel so, so lucky. So thank you so, so much. I will see you soon in another video. Bye.


Welcome to Living Mosaic. My name is Martha Holden. I'm a member of the Spark of Humanity Network. Living Mosaic is intended, hope intended, to be a conversation around and into the concept that there is a solution. There's so much pain. There's so much distress. There's so much unimaginable fear and terror and horror in this beloved sweet planet of ours. And we're discussing the idea that there is a solution and that we are each uniquely a part of the solution. We're each uniquely and essentially a part of the solution. So what we're talking about is the idea of each one of us, ourselves, and supporting each other in becoming who we uniquely are needed to be as part of the solution. I don't know what you need to be as part of the solution. I hardly know what I need to be as part of the solution, but to support each other and to give each other hope. When we engage in the solution, when we stop looking at quantifying, analyzing, describing, getting hysterical over denying the problem, and we're willing to become part of the solution, and we engage in that process, what we've found is that we experience hope and the hope feeds our journey towards our niche in the living, living mosaic so that when we find our niche or are approaching our niche, we don't get to say, here I am, I'm set for the rest of all time. No, because we have to be alive and responsive and paying attention because the mosaic itself is alive. I would say in some context that the mosaic is an aspect of the ever-evolving multidimensional dance of which we are each creatures, we're each unique energy events within this dance, and the mosaic is part of this dance, and so we find our place within the mosaic. We ask to be drawn into the mosaic to where we belong so that we may become part of the solution. I bumped into something yesterday that I thought I'd read that might be helpful, and I may be a little awkward in the reading because I had to change some of the language, of course. One of the expressions the writer writes about, Siki first the kingdom, which is a biblical quote. What I think they're talking about is look for that place within yourself that draws, will draw you into the mosaic and help you be part of the life of the mosaic. Let's give this a try, and then when I finish doing this, I want to talk a little bit about healing, well actually no, then we'll let the Zoomers in in case there's a comments on the reading, and then we'll, then I'd like to talk a little bit about healing if there's time. This is a time for rededication. It is a time to live into your spiritual depth. Do all we can to keep free from distracting excitements. Rather be open to quiet, powerful faith. Indeed it is through our silences that the flaming powers press. It is difficult with our limitations and the human scale to comprehend the majesty of the spiritual powers within which we exist. It is a faculty to make the instant flaming and these holy immeasurable powers are only trusted to us when we are universal, selfless. Lay down anxiety, lay down impatience, lay down frustration. Clear the heart and seek ye first the kingdom. No one can tell us how to take ourselves in hand. For that mental and spiritual discipline is a part we must play ourselves in seeking our place within the mosaic. But we can keep a retreat like a pool in the rapids or to make a better image be like the iceberg, which is seven tenths underwater. You may email us at living mosaic2024 at gmail.com if you want to know the name of the book and the editor. So thank you. If there are zoomers who want to comment on that or telephoners, fine. Otherwise I'll talk a little bit about healing. Okay, I guess I'll talk a little bit about healing since I have no signals. Healing came to me after the session two weeks ago as something that would be a good topic. For us to talk about, me to talk about. Healing, well let me a little bit about my journey part of it and that I was told by someone, a spiritual iridologist, that I had a the gift of healing and I thought that meant I was supposed to go out and heal people. And I was completely unaware of my own need for healing, which was I think what the iridologist was talking about, that I had a powerful need for healing. And to become to become aware that we need healing may be part of maybe a first step towards being drawn being available to be drawn into our niche within the mosaic. I think of the mosaic at times it's sort of because it's alive it may inhale and we may be inhaled into our niche in the mosaic if that doesn't sound too scary or anthropocentric, almost worse. So to be available to healing to be willing to be healed and to recognize that all those around us who might be irritating us or terrifying us may also be in need of healing may be a place to a place that we can stand on as we move into this process. And I think just to consider that the first essential towards healing is one becoming aware of our need for it and two become willing. I don't know how you feel about this but I suspect my sense of the way reality is created the way that being dances is that the movement is towards healing. This dance of which we are unique energy events is moving towards wholeness, is moving towards its own fulfillment. And as it moves towards wholeness it is moving us towards wholeness which may not always be comfortable for us. I'm now many times I've been very attached to my limitations. I've been extremely attached to my victimhood, my fragility, lots of self judgments, presumptions. And so to recognize that to become willing to be healed allows us to surrender some part of ourselves maybe probably not all of ourselves but some part of ourselves to the process of being healed which is a process which gently and inexorably transforms us and brings us closer to our niche within this mosaic which is the solution. And meanwhile that's part of the solution our willingness, our expressing our willingness to be healed. Even our awareness of our need to be healed has a certain degree of contagion in the society around us and our friends and relations and the people we hang out with. And so just by being willing to be aware that we need healing sends ripples to those around us who have any contact with us and then to be willing to be healed on a subtle level supports others who are here of it or around us are affected by us whether they know us visually or vocally or physically or at all it affects willing to be healed themselves and because we cannot force our way into our niche in the mosaic because it's unique I know I don't know mine I just know that I'm hopefully through talking doing this inviting you into the conversation that I'm letting go of everything that gets in the way of my being drawn into my niche so it's not something we can analyze our way into and it's not something we can force our way into we can't determine our way into we can within ourselves become aware of our need for healing and maybe perhaps if we get deep enough within ourselves become aware of our hunger for healing that we really want to be healed in all the subtle ways for which you may have words but I generally don't have words for all the ways in which I need healing they're just it's a geological thing it's like layer upon layer upon layer of healing that's needed and becoming aware of that and becoming willing to be healed moves me into the process or perhaps deeper into the process because we may all be in the process already but deeper into the process of being healed so that we're being we're being allowed we're being we're sloughing off all those parts of us it's debriefing like if we have a burn wound it's letting go of all those parts of us that get in the way of our being brought down into our essential self our true self who we really are essentially as essential and unique parts of the solution so that's all i have to say at this point so i'll if zoomers want to check in no okay the zoomers are watching they aren't they're they're zooming quietly okay which means that i'm going to be silent for a couple of minutes or a couple seconds at least and see what comes up is what needs to be said next and if you don't want to speak as a zoomer you can sort of telepath me if you have any ideas it's i don't know whether prejudice is the right word it's a theory i guess i like the theory that the solution is a living can be seen as the living mosaic it's a theory that the dance moves towards wholeness and that in the sense that it is volitional what it wants is it's it desires its wholeness i think i believe that or i go forward with that hypothesis because that way i can identify with it if it's as self-centered as i am i can identify with it so if the if the power that the source of all being if the power that creates and sustains and heals the cosmos the universe this galaxy is moving towards wholeness wants in the sense that it can want although that again may be too anthrop formizing making like a human being it moves and dies its instinct its tropism is towards its own wholeness because we are aspects of that we are parts of it we're creations of it we're like cells within it we're we're not never ever separate from it we are little particles of it we're that for it to experience to get to its own wholeness it needs us to be whole which means it's moving for our healing as i said a few minutes ago and it is as many of us know there are painful distressing disrupting times in our individual lives that we do not perceive as ah i am being drawn toward greater wholeness this is for my healing that's not where we go often usually often it's why is this happening to me or poor me or you know i'm being picked on um to shift our focus towards appreciating the creative force the creative power of which we are aspects and understanding that the pain that we're experiencing is part of our growing part of our it's an opportunity if we choose we can of course go into self pity and denial um covering up we can choose to go in there or we can say i think let's let me see maybe this is for my healing maybe this is for my growing maybe this is a stimulation for me to become more truly who i am and who i am needed to be within the mosaic so that shift of consciousness is very powerful of course because then rather than defending against these forces of the dance that seem to be buffeting us and picking on us we can open up and become available to participate in it and we begin to move towards our own wholeness now i'm a firm believer in symmetry across scale what's true for the microbe is true for the squirrel is true for me is true for the galaxy is true for the planet and so i'm thinking about looking for the healing of humanity the healing of let's we could either go talk about healing of humanity or the healing of the biosphere the whole thing and i think what i'm going to be saying probably applies to either one so feel free to apply it or swish back and forth between the two as you're inclined so from what i've been saying as the true for the individual which in my experience is true for the individual may also be true for the larger system for this sweet precious fragile planet our island home as some people call it for humanity as a whole or for the biosphere whatever so starting with recognizing a need for healing and i suspect that humanity as a whole is becoming with the incredible distress and the horrors that we hear about and that some of us are subject to becoming aware of our need for healing for the whole enterprise and so then acknowledging that admitting that and then moving toward willingness to be healed and what does that entail i suspect because i can't heal no matter how often i come here and talk i can't heal all of humanity i can't heal the biosphere all any of us can do is offer ourselves up for the healing process for ourselves for our own healing process our own personal unique individual healing process offer ourselves up to that as best we can and that is probably and you know to the extent available encourage other people in opening to their own healing process because that's that's how we're going to find our place within the mosaic that's what the mosaic is needing from us is our willingness to let go of all those attitudes all those presumptions all those habits all those prejudices all those judgments did i say judgments comparisons all that stuff that we have here and to some extent here be willing to let go of all that so that we may be drawn into our essential cells be drawn into our unique place within the mosaic and that's that as far as i know is the only way we can participate in healing the larger system and for me that's that word participate is extremely important because it it includes me and i'm part of i'm part of something that's moving in a direction i'm not fighting against it i am moving with it in a desire for its own wholeness and because i look out at the you know at the blue sky and because where i am today there's blue sky mountains the beauty the and the way i see things i see that this i trust this whatever you know the dance it's painful at times yes but it's glorious and magnificent and and i've tried bucking against it i've tried doing things my own way because i have a real good idea about how things should be done i've tried doing that and it hasn't been successful and it's occasionally been very painful and excruciatingly humiliating so how about i be willing to let go of and participate in that and trust that it's moving towards the wholeness which is for itself but it's for me and it's for all humanity and all the creation and i'm and i'm going to participate in that i'm not in charge of it i can't control it i can't cure it where i think it's off track but i can participate in it because i trust it because i've seen my life i've seen the lives of others i've seen the natural world around me and i trust it so therefore i'm going to be willing to be healed willing to let go of everything that gets in the way so that i may participate more deeply in its life because it's it's alive it's alive it's ever-evolving it's calling me to be alive which is terrifying and calling me to be available to be ever-evolving so that's where we are thank you for joining me there's no if a zoomer wants to say anything i encourage you to note on youtube any comments or email them i think our email address is at the end screen at the end of this but thank you very much for joining us and we always welcome emails and participation thank you and have a good fortnight see you in a couple weeks take care


Good morning everyone. Last week I issued a stay home, stay safe order directing Vermonters to stay home as much as possible and businesses to operate remotely or to close with some exceptions. In order to provide for basic needs, we know there are some things many things that need to be done away from home and we're working to provide the clearest guidance we can to help people understand what this order means to them or their businesses. So here's the bottom line. We've got to slow the spread of this virus by staying home and away from others as much as possible. This will help protect those at risk of serious illness and in too many cases even death. It's also important to prevent our healthcare system from being overwhelmed which keeps all Vermonters safe. Yesterday the Center for Disease Control issued new guidance asking those in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut to refrain from non-essential travel for the next 14 days. In light of this, in my continued concern for the public health and safety of all those in Vermont, I've signed a new order today directing anyone who enters Vermont to self-quarantine for 14 days once they're here. And that means heading directly to where you're going with no stops in between. Well, it would be best for our friends and family from other states to follow the CDC guidance and stay where they are. I also understand some who have a home or family in Vermont may need to return. And it's not just our border states. This means those who have wintered across the country. We need everyone entering Vermont to be a good neighbor and abide by the self-isolation directive. And then to follow afterwards, my stay home, stay safe order. To be clear, this 14 day quarantine does not apply for those just going to the grocery store or an essential job across the border. To further support my stay home order and this travel guidance, we've also included clarifying language for the lodging industry. My order last week suspended lodging operations, except for specific needs to support our COVID-19 response. To provide more certainty on what this means, today's order makes clear it applies to hotels, motels, bed and breakfast, short-term rentals, meaning those booked through Airbnb and others, and all campgrounds in RV parks. We're seeing some online booking and advertising that's still occurring. This is a violation of the stay home order. And to make that crystal clear, today's new restrictions suspend online reservations. I've also asked law enforcement and the Attorney General to help with these measures with a goal of full compliance through monitoring and education, but with the possibility of additional steps if necessary. Mr. Shirling and Attorney General Donovan will provide more details shortly, and I want to thank them for their partnership. Here's what I want everyone to understand. If you don't need to come to Vermont, please don't. This is about public health and safety, which is our top priority. But having said that, we can't let this become an us versus them view of the world. That's not who we are as Americans, and certainly not as Vermonters, and we shouldn't let anything change that. Our message is this. If you're entering the state, you're directed to isolate in order to protect those already here, as well as the capacity of our healthcare system. This will help protect those currently in the state while allowing people who own a home or have a family to be here as well. We've got to remember, as Americans, we're all in this together, and we all have a role to play in keeping each other safe. So I'm asking everyone to join us in this effort to be united and to stay Vermont strong. I'll now turn it over to Mr. Shirling for a brief update on the work of the Vermont State Police to assess lodging compliance over the weekend, as you're showing. Good morning. Over the weekend, we directed law enforcement in Vermont to monitor compliance, in particular with lodging properties here in Vermont. 318 properties are known to exist in Vermont, exclusive of the Airbnb type properties. Of that, this is a running spreadsheet of those checks. The Vermont State Police and local law enforcement were able to successfully check on all of those properties. Of them, 88 were open. Half of those 88 were in compliance. In other words, they were housing folks that were involved in the response, visiting nurses, healthcare professionals, military folks, flight crews that are flying in and out of Burlington International Airport, and the like. 44 appear to be non-compliant. For those non-compliant properties, yesterday they received a letter from the Department of Health and the Department of Public Safety indicating that they need to bring their operations into compliance, and the Attorney General's office will be following up with that cross-section of apparent non-compliant properties today. After that, there will be regular monitoring by law enforcement. Folks can expect to see troopers in law enforcement in the parking lots, checking in with staff there to ensure compliance. Again, this relates exclusively to the health of Vermonters and the capacity of our healthcare system. To emphasize, we really expect voluntary compliance with this stepped-up effort to do these cross-checks, the letter, and subsequent phone calls by the Attorney General's office. We have every belief that these properties will become compliant and that we'll be able to maintain health and safety as a result. Thank you. Good morning. I've always believed that the best way to enforce the law is to give people the opportunity to comply with it, and I want to thank the Governor for his leadership during this crisis and his philosophy of that enforcement principle, that we work with Vermonters who need our help and we ask Vermonters to comply with the Governor's executive order because we all have a role to play in this crisis. As Commissioner Shirling said, the Attorney General's office is reaching out to those 40 or so hotels and lodging establishments this morning. We're asking them to comply with the Governor's order. We will work with you if you have questions. I do want to say that the Governor's executive order does carry penalties. There are civil penalties that range from $1,000 to up to $10,000 per violation. There is also a criminal penalty that carries a $500 fine and a maximum penalty of six months imprisonment. I want to be very clear. The last thing any of us want to do is enforce these orders and seek those penalties. We're asking for your compliance. We're asking for your cooperation. That being said, we also know that we all have a role to play during this crisis. We're prepared to do our job. The Attorney General's office is prepared to do its job. We'll be reaching out to you today if you have questions. Talk with us. We will work with you and we are prepared to partner with the Vermont State Police, the Department of Public Safety, and Governor Scott to do its best for our state of Vermont. Thank you. Would that turn it over to Commissioner Levine? Thank you. This morning I'd like to briefly put the executive orders in a public health context, repeat some of what I've said previously about testing, provide a bit of a situational report, and wrap up with the website. If we're to succeed in flattening the curve and preserving the capacity of our healthcare system, it is essential for the health and safety of all Vermonters that everyone strictly comply with Governor Scott's executive orders. We can do it if everyone pulls together in the same direction. Social distancing, as I've said before, is not our natural state and it's difficult and challenging for everyone. I've done a lot of observation over the past weekend and was overall pretty pleased with what I saw, with some conscious distancing for people that I encountered. I've also been getting lots of emails and cards and letters though about Vermonters who are concerned about a hopefully minority of the state that doesn't take this as seriously and doesn't understand the importance of this as a true intervention strategy to really improve our performance against this virus. I just want you to listen to the comments I make later on regarding what's going on in Vermont now to put my concern into context and to really have everyone take this as seriously as possible. Now regarding the most recent executive order, because there are now so many hotspots around the country asking Vermonters who are returning from other states to self-isolate upon their return home and preventing travelers from other states from residing in lodging sites for prolonged periods is no different than policies that you may recall are just a few weeks old around the country that did the same for travelers coming back from China and Italy and other such places. This is just plain sound public health practice and it will protect us all. Regarding testing, this weekend in collaboration with the National Guard Civil Support Team, an additional COVID-19 patient test site at Landmark College in Putney was successfully stood up. This site will provide additional capacity for testing for people who have a referral from their health care provider. As I've said before, early and broad testing is a proven strategy to limit the spread of this virus. Vermont is still early enough on the curve of positive cases that we hope that increased testing can have a large impact on our ability to flatten the curve. I want to stress again though that you can't just show up and be tested. Mainly because if you do not have symptoms, the virus might not be detected and you might actually be falsely reassured that you don't harbor the virus. And secondly, because we continue to rely on your own physician's judgment about your illness and then we try to identify, counsel, and isolate those who test positive, conduct contact tracing, and quarantine as clinically appropriate. We're all counting on each other to do everything we can to meet this public health crisis head on. Now as our testing capacity increases, you can expect to see an increase in the number of positive tests. This will reflect more tests and not necessarily more transmission of disease. We'll need to look closely at the proportion of tests that are positive and trends in our data, not just the absolute number of tests. In terms of what our status was as of last night with COVID-19 in the state, there were 21 new cases yesterday, 256 total cases at this point in time, still 12 deaths, seven of them from the outbreak at Burlington Health and Rehab, five from patients that were hospitalized at various locations in the state. We continue to follow the outbreak at Burlington Health and Rehab quite closely. We are now also following another outbreak that you may have seen on the news just today at a facility in Essex Junction. This is a senior living facility. This facility is not a long-term care facility, not a nursing home. It is not a healthcare facility. It is essentially a building with over 50 apartments in it where people are independently living with the only criteria for being housed there is your age is 55 or greater. So needless to say, there are some people that are in the greater category and some are more frail and may have chronic illnesses as you would expect. There are now two deaths associated with that facility. One, not a person that was living there, but that was a significant other of an employee there and the second occurring over the weekend, someone who was actually living there. The health department has been very involved over the last five to six days with its basic work that it does in all of these outbreak situations which is making sure they're aware of all people who are in contact with that initial case that brought the disease in and making sure that we've done all the appropriate follow-up on them make sure that they all are connected with their healthcare providers if they become symptomatic and make sure they are all isolating as is appropriate. This is ongoing and obviously it's more breaking news so I won't have a lot more details to provide you with there but we've been in constant contact and help the facility with its own communications to the residents there. In closing, I want everyone to please stay safe, stay home, and keep informed based on the number of hits, I guess is the word, to the healthcare website. Many of you are using that for information, healthformat.gov. It continues to have the latest information and answers to your questions. Last week we added an automated web bot to the page. With this tool you can type in a question and the bot will search a knowledge base that is updated daily from our extensive FAQs, frequently asked questions. We can use the questions people input to keep expanding our FAQs in a collapsible section called ask a question about COVID-19. Thank you. Well, thank you very much. I just want to remind everyone we have Secretary Smith, Agency of Human Services on the phone who will be answering questions, any questions that might arise in his area of expertise and we have a lot of questions, a lot of reporters, media on the phone as well so we're going to do our best to get through those questions and if you can be prepared with a star six unmute yourself that would be very helpful. To Joe Gresser at the Barton Chronicle. Hi, Joe. How much additional testing would be necessary to get a very clear sense of what the progress reflecting from staying in place might be? I mean, how long can we, will we have to wait to see a change in the curve? I'll let Dr. Levine answer that. If we use Wuhan China as our guide and that was the most rigid of social distancing and mitigation strategies as you know, there was about a 14 day period that elapsed for that. So most people think it's in the several week range. I might add though that as we, so and it's not really in the testing itself, the testing helps provide greater precision to all of our modeling and our projections. The fact that we are now in the 200s range of cases is helping refine that modeling significantly but obviously we'll be watching very, very closely over time and testing isn't the only outcome obviously to see if we've reached a plateau and cases will obviously be looking at other medical factors in the population in terms of, you know, illness and hospitalizations and things of that sort. There's a difference in the graph and I wondered if those totals represent the number of residents of other states who have the positive. Dr. Levine. I'm going to have to check that out because they don't have it in front of me but it is true that we've had a number of positive tests of people who live in other states, predominantly New Hampshire but other states as well that might explain that and we've had some Vermonters whose positive test occurred in another state. So I'll get back with a more precise answer but I suspect it's one of those two. Thank you. You may need to unmute your phone or we're going to move to the next call. Moving to Andrew at the Caledonia. Can you hear me? It's my understanding that the state is acquiring refrigerated trucks. Other states have done this for bodies related to the COVID-19 virus. Is that what this is for and where would those trucks be located? Yeah, thank you Greg. We are currently searching for trucks to just be prepared. We hope it doesn't come to that but considering the number of people who are the morticians in the in the Vermont, we have to be prepared for most anything and we'll be strategically placing those around the state if it becomes necessary but we want to make sure again that we're prepared for the worst. The press conference last week talked about more precise modeling as the numbers increased. How has the modeling changed over the last several days and how has the state's efforts to increase possible capacity, PPE, ventilators, things like that matching up with these new models? Yeah, we're refining our modeling as we speak. We're hoping to make it more public as the week progresses because I think it it does highlight some of the challenges we face and why we're doing taking some of the steps that we're taking today. So at this point in time, I might ask Mr. Shirling to talk a little bit about our preparedness in terms of PPE and ventilators and so forth but we're trying to stay on top of that but we're watching the modeling as well and that's why again if we take the steps we're advocating for today and last week we hope to stay underneath the line of the capacity of the health care system and that's our goal. Mr. Shirling. Thank you Governor. I think the governor covered the modeling component relative to PPE and ventilator and surge capacity. There are teams continuing to work on those things. We have literally millions of items on order in the PPE supply chains. We're working closely with the hospitals and the federal government to try to ensure that we get as many of those units as possible. The update on ventilators is we have over 400 that have been ordered and we're working daily to get delivery dates for those. There are parallel efforts also including efforts to explore whether Vermont manufacturers can produce certain types of PPE and there's a parallel effort actually to develop a ventilator that could be constructed here as quickly as possible and additional efforts to ensure that if possible we can use a ventilator for more than one patient and important to note that we're working in support of the health care professionals the Department of Health and the hospitals on those efforts in particular. I might add and Commissioner Shirling unless I mistake this we did we did receive some support from the federal government over the last couple of days. A number of trucks have been brought in with some of the PPE equipment that we need so that's good news but it doesn't mean that we relax in some respects. We're pulling every lever we can using some of in-house and searching throughout the country to be sure that we have all the available equipment that we need to fight this. It's a great point Governor. Six trucks arrived to the state's warehouse over the weekend. We anticipate additional trucks will be inbound. The state's storage warehouse for PPE actually can't handle the amount that it's storing at the moment which is partially a good sign so there's an additional warehouse space that the Guard is assisting to set up and Guard teams are now taking over some of the logistics and support of the Department of Health and the Department of Public Safety because of the volume that we anticipate needing to move. Chris Roy at the Newport Daily Express to unmute. Can you hear me? Yes. Yeah how well of isolation for the folks who are returning to Vermont maybe from their winter homes or traveling how are you going to ensure that those folks that those folks all might be late? Yeah admittedly Chris that's very difficult as you can well imagine someone coming in driving back home after wintering in let's say Florida coming back home and then we can only educate and advocate for them to do the right thing to protect their neighbors to protect their friends to protect their family members this is the right thing to do it's literally in your hands to do your part and we're asking that's why we're we're having all the message boards along the the interstates in the in the airports and so forth to to make sure the message gets across if you're coming into the state make sure you you self isolate for 14 days and again we we're not going to be able to enforce our way through this but we can ask for monitors to do the right thing. Anything else Chris? B.T. Digger, star six to unmute. Yes. Thank you very much. Governor, when will hospitalization rate per day be released? The number of people in the hospitals at this point in time with the with the COVID-19? Yeah. It's a good question. I did I did talk about that over the over the weekend. I'm going to turn this over to Secretary Smith who probably has the answer for you as I said over the weekend right now in all our hospitals we have 19 COVID-19 in patients that's 19 there's one in central Vermont there's one in Mountain County there is two in northwestern there is zero in on regional right now there's southwestern Vermont regional is to UBM at 13 and quarter medical at zero and here's how we're going to start doing this each night at eight o'clock the hospital will report the COVID-19 inpatient numbers I will have those numbers each day for us to report going forward here so we'll have those numbers each day now anything else and no thank you all right Tim McQuiston Vermont business magazine morning governor the state of Vermont is the largest employer in the state and of course the budget is getting hit pretty hard here have uh we've done the employees you know the DMV workers on the front end is there any bit layoffs or furloughs or what do you plan maybe they've been redeployed in some way what is what is your plan for around the state workforce yeah we're redeploying as many as we can for instance using some of the DMV employees to help with the the Labor Department surge that we've seen in other areas of government as well obviously this is going to we're trying to focus on the crisis itself today but our budget is going to be problematic obviously so we are going to work alongside the the legislature alongside our congressional delegation to provide for whatever relief we can knowing we have to provide essential services to Vermont but but we have to be realistic as well so we'll we'll work through again get through the next three to four weeks but ongoing we're we're trying to dissect the the federal bill to see what this means to Vermont and Vermonters and as well as our state budget and then and monitor what else is needed the congressional delegation has been been ongoing having ongoing support for us I speak to congressman Welch and probably Senator Leahy almost daily and they are they want to be a willing partner so as we move forward again we'll see where the challenges are and see what we can do to to mitigate that one i'm aware of one that is tested positive we're currently aware of and have been in communication with 10 who we believe had the intense exposure and we're going to continue to abide by what i mentioned in my opening comments that testing is not treatment and testing will occur for those who become symptomatic in consultation with their health care providers everyone who has been identified as a significant contact is by definition doing what they would do if they were a positive test which is self isolating assuming they were not so ill they had to be in a hospital and that is the basic rule of how public health works in this kind of situation so testing you know in a broader sense is really not indicated other places where you have health care workers in contact with people not just an independent living situation that becomes a bit of a different equation but in this situation that's really what's happened so there's no plan for wide scale testing of every individual living in the building and then i guess just to follow up so because it's an independent living as opposed to like an assisted living so i guess is there any different guidance or support that's being offered to the residents there or probably it's the same guidance no matter which setting to be honest because even if you're not a close contact you live in another apartment you're supposed to be abiding by all of the rules that came down in the executive order in terms of social distancing in terms of staying at home staying safe so that would be the advice that everyone would have anyways the major issue in buildings like this as opposed to living in your own home are that there are now congregate settings in those buildings so there's a room where everybody goes for laundry there's a room where everybody goes to get their mail there are card playing rooms and things of that sort for social activities so we have to be very direct about advising people to not be congregating in those particular parts of the building does that answer your question i think what was also interesting in terms of what dr. Levine had described to me earlier was that if you're not symptomatic and you're asymptomatic the tests aren't as accurate and so you might get a false sense of security if you have the test early and think you don't have it when you might so you have to just assume that you may have it to self isolate and monitor your own symptoms take your temperature make sure you're taking care of yourself by staying away from others i mean it's very clear it's not any different than it's just a home and so so stay away from others and make sure that you're taking care of yourself just like if you're traveling from a hot spot i mean it's the same principle as if you're traveling from a hot spot outside the borders of remand into remand again we want you to make the assumption you may be harboring the virus and not symptomatic yet you've got you like in dealing with uh access to COVID-19 cases and full transparency as we've seen uh in grandisle and epic county so they continue to have no reported cases of course they have no hospitals either what i'm wondering grandisle county we continue to hear reports of a few individuals with positive cases including at least one whose name was out on social media being going to take all this possible so is it that the trend of cases if there are any are actually being counted in other counties like fitna and franklin county and presumably the same in Essex county that they're going to hospitals either in st johnsbury or lansher the second part about access information is i've been told by employees at two different hospitals that they are not told where the COVID-19 patients are on certain floors and this causes concerns by employees not to ask for disclosure that they're working on floors is there anything the state for the health department to do to infer full transparency to the staff that are working at these hospitals i'm going to ask secretary smith if he has the answers to either one of those questions or both and then uh dr levine to follow up i don't like but let me mic donnie you this is mic smith i don't but let me uh check on those to get see if i can get some answers for you on the first part of your question the second part of your question the medical question and i'll lead it to dr levine thank you on the first question i would definitely hope that if there was a case in grand aisle it would be listed as grand aisle county because it would have to do with the place of residence not the place where the test was done um because we definitely want that data as as everyone else so i would hope that is not the case with regard to the second um you're actually speaking to basic infection control practices at various hospitals and i'm quite comfortable that our hospitals understand infection control practices have specific personnel in place that are that have expertise in that area and that they would be abiding by that um so i would hate to think that there would be an employee that feels they're at risk because that fact that knowledge is not known um if you could provide us uh yeah so i you know i i guess i'd need to hear more specific cases because clearly anybody who is either known covet 19 or a person under investigation awaiting a test result is under a very strict isolation procedure so that those going in and out of the room specifically would be aware of what they need to be donning in terms of the appropriate protective equipment every time that happened and they wouldn't just casually be going in the room to say clean the floor or get a a tray off the patient's tray table uh there would be knowledge of that so again i would need specifics but i i i can't believe that the basic infection control practices and practices that are frankly protective for the employees uh wouldn't be uh happening there okay thank you and might that yield or the commissioner will check on the i think there's 126 cases presumably between like frank and then jim to see if any of those yeah my one of us will will check but the doctor levin is right what we see every day is the county of residence for those people but let us check to make sure why thank you governor um your state of state order expires in two weeks uh do you know last night uh the president extended the national directive to all of april is there any doubt in your mind that you will have to extend the state-safe order through at least april uh and secondly what is your projection when you might peak yeah um two parts to that question but first of all i think everyone should expect that this will be extended uh april 15th and beyond just trying to determine how long that's going to be and what provisions will be in place as we do that and as we amend as we move forward um in terms of how long um that's a good question um and i think it's up to all of us to make sure that we implement all the measures that we put into place in the executive order and all the amendments since uh the sooner we do that uh the sooner we'll get through this and we'll uh we'll continue to monitor and we'll again be sharing uh some of the modeling with you with uh with with vermonas uh over the next uh over the next few days because i think it really is important uh for you to understand the magnitude if we don't get this right what it could mean and how quickly it could overwhelm our healthcare system and that's what we want to prevent you know we uh we need to make sure that we're increasing the capacity lift that line of the capacity of our healthcare system making sure that we have a surge capacity there making sure we have all the equipment we need to to fight this but at the same time it's literally in our hands if we we take this seriously we stay away from each other we self isolate and and this will go a lot better than the alternative so it's really important that you pay attention hi how are you um governor good uh good morning um you had mentioned earlier that um the mandate that your order requires residents and non-residents coming from outside the state to self quarantine for 14 days is targeted for people coming in from hot spots um and that it doesn't necessarily impact people who are coming over who are working between northern new york and northern vermont can you clarify the types of businesses that that impact and secondarily have you consulted with the neighboring governors like governor slo-mo about this addendum and its potential uh impact two two things i can give an example let's say someone who's living over in in platzberg is working at uvm medical center uh they're part of the covet 19 response so we understand they'll be going back and forth uh so that would be allowed if for instance someone is in the dealing with national security uh working for border patrol or something of that nature that would be exempted as well um i have spoken to a number of governors have not spoken to governor qomo but our other neighbors um governor sununu governor baker in particular i speak to on a regular basis um so we're all trying to deal with this uh understanding that we're we're individual states and have individual needs um but uh but there clearly should be some more coordination throughout the nation in some respects because we do this patchwork and and and i believe in states rights and i believe that we should be doing everything we can again individually to protect our our citizens protect our our vermonters in this case but uh but when we have a difference in what we're we're implementing it does have an effect on other states for instance if someone was in vermont a company in vermont that was closed down we closed them down to uh to prevent the spread here in vermont but they can work over in new york uh and then they start commuting back and forth uh that's problematic uh and so my uh my guidance is for any one or any company uh going to another state to work for something that's non-essential uh that they stay there and uh if they're going to work there stay there and uh and if you come back uh isolate for 14 days once you return and is this order going to pretty much mirror your stay at home order the length of time if you you know extend the stay at home order this will also be extended along with it it's tough to say at this point pat uh you know we're some of the considerations that's why I haven't extended it at this point although you can expect that the order will be extended but we'll determine at that point uh what what we need to include what we don't um if there's any you know we can only hope that we we peak before then but our modeling doesn't show that to be honest and um so I expect it'll be extended but for how long I'm not sure at this point thank you sir from the start I have a newspaper I've just got a question about the u.s. mail and um the carriers don't have gloves masks need to do the tellers um what what I can you know I'm going to let Dr. Levine answer part of this but I see a number of people uh wearing uh gloves for instance um that doesn't necessarily provide relief and and uh it doesn't insulate you from either transmitting this to others or transmitting it to yourself uh because the glove itself could be contaminated with the virus and then you could touch your face with the glove so that's the point is not to touch your face uh to remind or remain uh at a safe distance from others um you know masks and shields I've seen where convenience stores and other entities in Vermont that remain open have put shields in themselves make shift shift lexan type shields that will do the job and I think that that's what they should do and I believe the post offices should do that as well and for those who are delivering mail um they should uh they should take that precaution on their uh to make sure they're protecting uh themselves and others uh during this crisis okay oh wait somebody's on there now is that you wilson yes it is sorry I had two questions here one about the hotels that you found and other lodging facilities that were not in compliance with 40 something how responsive were they presumably you pointed out that they were not in compliance and how responsive were they to that and just to to that being pointed out to them and then secondly um is there any estimate yet on when Vermont expects to see a fee uh I'll let uh commissure shirling answer the first part in terms of responsivity the initial contact on saturday was just reconnaissance to see what levels of compliance yesterday they were delivered letters as I indicated and then there'll be follow-up calls uh that begin today so I don't think we have a full gauge of of the responsibility at this point but we expect that folks will largely be compliant with the 44 properties that again to be clear appeared to be out of compliance this was not an in-depth uh detailed investigation thank you um in terms of the second part of your question wilson um I don't want to get ahead of the what we're doing with the modeling trying to refine that but um but suffice it to say it's sometime we feel sometime in april but we'll be sharing that as the the days go on here this week thank you reminder for everybody for for clarity we will be having a separate briefing on the modeling uh and projections this week so there will be more uh details and a briefing scheduled specifically for that later this week we're going to go in the room to thoughts 44 um question for Dr. Levine um just wondering if you have any information or know anything about a staff member at pine press senior living in essay instruction who passed COVID-19 and went to work still you're making it sound like currently as opposed to so we believe previously there was a staff member who was unaware of their status who may have been infectious for a couple of days uh we're not aware of anyone currently but you might probably but uh I received several calls over the weekend uh from people in the valley in that uh danger zone as far as uh medical and they were concerned about the b and b still operating and they've seen them constantly running back and forth and they they were worried that they either a were part of it and governor you uh already gave us the answer to that but but is there any anything in the works to hit the air b and bs yeah again uh we're doing the same thing uh this approach uh pertains to them we saw the same thing we heard from the same people and we're trying to make sure that they comply uh mr. shirling anything to add on that sure uh with the additional clarity that was issued uh today we fully expect air b and b uh operators if you know them if you're listening you need to shut down your operations we will begin monitoring for online postings uh this week and we'll be making referrals for contact to the attorney general's office thereafter and just to add to that uh we we are part of the order is to to close the online reservation portion so I know that I think uh commissioner shirling you told me earlier that on the on the page the air b and b page that there is a already a notice that's going up at this point in time there is we expect that there'll be additional clarity after today some you know you know let's let's be honest some didn't know or didn't know that they it pertain to them that's why part of the education a part of what we did to try and get the word out and that's why it's important that we do and we hope all of you will carry that as well governor um this actually this question might actually be for commission commissioner shirling I'm wondering if someone could detail what kind of supplies Vermont has requested from the federal government and how much of that uh equipment we have received versus how much we're still waiting on thank you um just to be clear we're not waiting on anything from the federal government in some respects we're going and we're pulling every lever we possibly can and finding a lot on our own we should be able to share some of that information with you again this week we we hope but I like commissioner shirling answer the rest of that we have standing requests for millions of personal protective items from the federal government over I think our request is for 600 ventilators um and we've received a cross-section of n95 mass surgical mass gowns and face shields hundreds of thousands of those items have come into the warehouse I don't have the exact counts in front of me uh the again as the governor indicated that is one avenue of exploration to bolster these supplies it is not by any means the exclusive avenue thank you very much Ethan Burlington free press star sticks um so I was just wondering uh is there any indication so far at least that the new expanded testing policy is working and uh in addition is our congressional delegation helping Vermont secure more test kits um I'm going to let commissioner Levine answer the the testing portion but I just would add uh that it's not instantaneous it takes a bit of time in terms of extraction then turning it over to the lab and depending on whether it's done in in-house in the state lab versus us sending it to an outside lab let's say mail clinic it takes a little bit more time for us to get it to them and to return but but I would also add in the terms of in terms of mail we are not waiting we're not shipping it by by UPS or FedEx or US mail we're flying it there and we're doing this twice a day starting today I believe tomorrow morning so we're we're being aggressive with this we want to get the results back just as quick as we possibly can and our testing in-house we can we can have results within 24 hours but again we're not going to see this for a day or two but the Putney testing I've I've heard back that it was a successful start yesterday and continues to be today Dr Levine not a lot to add to that but any strategy that you begin in terms of combating COVID-19 you have to maintain at least 10, 14 or longer day period of time to see the impact so certainly would not be instantaneous especially if you understand that the incubation period of the virus can be as few as two days or as long as 14 days hello can you hear me now great I was just wondering what steps are being taken to protect the prison population and the staff who work in the prison I'm going to refer to Secretary Smith on that if you're still on the line I sure am governor Michelle like I said the other day there's been extensive sort of precautions that I've never seen before in the prison population in terms of what we're doing first of all we have suspended all in-person visitation rights for the prison population we have done that now and substituted video conferencing for the inmate for for visitation rights secondly we have we have established sort of spacing and as you know right now our prison population and that's some of the lowest that has been in quite a while we're just under 1500 I think a year ago we were at 1600 so that allows us to get some spacing we are monitoring employees coming in in terms of temperature checks as we move forward and we have on-site supplies for testing for inmates and right now we have no positive tests that have occurred in the inmate population we've also ranked up our supplies to make sure that we don't run out of supplies in the in the prison population so we've we've been very very aggressive in the in our correction facilities and we'll continue to be aggressive as we move forward okay thank you don Dylan bpr keep your on John I had a question that you can hear me we can okay great this is about infrastructure after Irene I'm sure you'll call it we rebuilt culverts and bridges and everything to withstand the future event um right now our infrastructure for the internet is is inadequately for many people working at home or trying to learn at home I wonder if there's any effort underway to maybe use the holy pulpit to talk to consolidated and other internet providers to be absurd in some cases I understand is just a matter of installing a new switch in neighborhoods so this is a need I've heard from people pretty much all over the state and I'm wondering if there's any effort in that regard thank you John as you can as you may recall after Irene there were less a lot of lessons learned and we and we did things better after that we built bridges differently we we dealt with obstructions differently we did we did many things in a different manner we'll do the same thing in the aftermath of of this crisis as well and I think the the accessibility to broadband is one area that is certainly something we knew about before but it's going to take resources in order to do that but if there's anything we can do easily obviously we'll do them but this is another area I've talked with the congressional delegation already about you know in the recovery we're still dealing with a crisis today but in the recovery this might be an area that we could all use some help across the United States in terms of making sure that we have accessible broadband so that when we go to online learning and in other areas where we're isolating ourselves that we have the capacity to do this but I will say I mean we're we're learning as we go and and I I take my hat off to all Vermonters for finding their way through this I mean I mean even in our own office even myself where we're doing a lot of video conferencing a lot of calls like we're doing today I think the silver lining again I was remarking after a press conference on Friday the silver lining to this is so many people are calling in and we're hearing from all parts of the state where typically in a press conference we have at the state house there's just a handful of local reporters there but now we're getting from all different regions and their ability to ask questions and and be able to communicate is something that I think is really important so in the aftermath of this we'll learn from best practices and be able to do better any immediate efforts to talk to you the providers I think I would say our public service department commissioner tyranny is is constantly asking them to expand over and we're providing whatever help we can guidance to do so so yes I would say it's an ongoing effort to make sure that we're we're dealing with a crisis at hand right now and part of that is making sure that there's capacity so anything we can do we're doing if you if there's anything that you think we should be doing please offer that up and let us know so that we can we can make sure that we go to them if we haven't seen it our highlighted already sorry star six was giving me some trouble I just noticed actually just earlier today testing seems to be a large part of mitigating the spread of the virus and preventing deaths I know they mentioned specifically Germany and I believe South Korea having studied since the testing and it has been reported the U.S. lies behind other countries at testing I thought a new test was just granted emergency use authorization by the FDA and is expected to roll out this week it provides results in approximately 15 minutes and it said that that particular test can the company that makes that particular test can do about 50,000 per day and I'm wondering if Ramon is aware of this possible new test and if some of you guys are seeking to use it in any capacity yeah I've seen that on the national news as well and suffice it to say if it's available to us and we would we'd be utilizing it but at this point in time I don't believe that we have seen that and the availability is not has not been known to me um wish you're leaving and it all depends on which kind of test you're talking about there's the test that's actually looking for the active virus in a secretion and then there's the test that's looking at your blood to see if you have an antibody response to the virus so I'm not sure if you're aware of which one you're you're talking about but I know the maker is um the maker is called Abbott the maker of the test and sure it would be results in 15 minutes so it's a very very very rapid test and I believe that says all that I but it's like a it's like a swap test my understanding is the patients potentially swap themselves right so you know things are happening on a very rapid timeline with emergency use authorizations and the FDA so obviously if this becomes a prime time thing that's accessible to us and can help in our efforts we'll certainly pursue that avenue right now we literally have a bunch of irons in the fire for a variety of test regimens some of which will give us even greater improved over the 24-hour turnaround even if it's not in 15 minutes and those are going to be standing up in the very near future so we're using everything that we know that's existing and what you're describing is evolving and emerging and so we'll have to evaluate it and see if it's accessible and it's worth pursuing thanks I think he's a digger go ahead can you hear me weekend okay yes hi this is Nora um so yes I was wondering um is there a statewide effort I guess to to provide housing or temporary housing for healthcare workers who may you know want to live separately from their families during this time I believe there are accommodations uh being uh contemplating at this very moment but I don't have the specifics on that uh secretary Smith governor thank you very much and as we talk about sort of how we will handle a surge capacity within the state of Vermont there we're looking at hospitals for them to determine the maximum capacity for things such things as back beds ICU vent PPE uh within sort of their hospital uh health service area and this might include that they have to do additional beds within the hospital facility as well to establish a local service at the same time the state is looking at um using their modeling that we've been talking about uh that's the maximum medical surge for beds ICU's and vents and that surge will be if if if the response goes above the hospital sort of maximum capacity and we you know things we'll be working with our hospital state establishes you know uh targeted alternative care sites uh you see some of those for example and then you're talking about this special population surge such things as um well there's there's this category the special population surge and those are areas a wide array of areas like mental health and social service and long-term care homeless and uh prisoner population that may need special needs consideration for COVID-19 and then there's isolation sites for people like um those recovering from COVID-19 plus um COVID-19 exposed healthcare workers who do not want to return home as well as the spread there is these various that are ongoing right now in order to address any potential increase or surge that may happen as the governor said in the month of April uh with this particular fire all right oh okay yes go ahead just a quick follow up yes sorry um and so how does that work is that led by the hospitals or by the state you know is it a local sort of depression or is it uh statewide in terms of special population surge we're doing that right now at the state level in terms of finding maximum levels over the hospital the hospitals are responsible for the initial surge and and their hospital service area if it goes beyond that hospital surge area then the state would would um bring its resources in what i would call a state medical maximum helping the surge there with the special population where i'm talking mental health social services the state is handling that right now looking at various sites i think i saw a news story on that this weekend and then the isolation site would be a partnership with the state and the municipalities and community partners that are out there thank you all right allen keys bt digger and star six last question oh allen go ahead allen hello go ahead you're breaking up allen yeah didn't get all that can you try it again allen yes i have no knowledge of that at this point in time allen uh we'll we'll look into that but i i'm not aware yeah yeah we'll we'll look into it and get back to you again i want to go ahead i'm curious if there's been any change in your assessment that 80 percent of the cases that are diagnosed would not become hugely serious could be handled by state home isolation any any adjustment in those percentages based on the experience not to this time well again i want to thank everyone for tuning in this is extremely important and if we can just self isolate follow this some of the procedures and some of the order that we put have put into place but we'll get through this quicker and i want to thank the attorney general for participating today in his partnership in this effort as well thank you