governor. Good afternoon Kentucky. So as the governor has reviewed, the metrics are all continuing to move in the right direction and they're moving very quickly in the right direction, which is a positive development. We're happy to see that as we look to the third year of the pandemic, we've arrived at a very different place at this point now we have effective vaccines. We have testing pretty readily available all over the state. We have treatments and we also have vaccines that can prevent most all of the serious harms of the virus at this point in time. And as a result of that, we now are transitioning further as we have all along this journey to different guidance and two different things that we're measuring that are hopefully more relevant and help to inform our decision making process going forward so I can have the first live please. So our guidance CDCs and Kentucky Department for public health can largely be boiled down to a few basic things we all need to do for the foreseeable future. So the first is please get vaccinated. The governor shared that the vaccine rates for new people getting vaccinated have fallen off and the number of people showing up to get boosted as declined. It is really really important that you get vaccinated if you have not already and that you keep up to date on your vaccine by getting boosted When boosters are recommended. So particularly for those who are vulnerable for those who are over 60 or have multiple medical problems. You definitely want to make sure you get up to date on your vaccinations if you're eligible for a booster. So please do that. The other things are all of us. And this is even pre covid. If you are sick, please stay home. If you have a fever. If you really feel crummy, don't spread any disease, not just covid. So if you're sick, please stay home until you feel better. Or if you test positive for covid, please stay home for the period of time. We recommend which is five days. And then we ask that you wear a mask for five further days in public to lower your risk of transmitting disease. And please. The governor went into this at length so I won't repeat it at length. But we have got to accept that mask uses an appropriate, reasonable and responsible thing for vulnerable persons to do and for people who are trying to protect vulnerable persons. And so you will see members of the public still wearing masks out of the stores, walking into restaurants, walking through buildings coming to work. We need to support them and be tolerant of their choice to do that because it's what they can do to help further lower their risk of a disease that could cause them serious harm. Even if it may not cause you the same magnitude of harm. And then finally, we will continue to provide guidance based on the best science and knowledge that we have available. And we ask you to please consult that and incorporate that into your personal routines as fully as you're able and willing to so that we can try to keep everybody protected. Um But at this point now that we're down to um this level of baseline guidance and we're looking at how we can live safely with covid going forward. We're going to also change the things that we measure and use to guide when we make other recommendations. And the C. D. C. As the governor said, this Released a whole lot of information last Friday the 25th and so if we could go to the next slide please, The c. d. c. in 2020 had a paradigm where it used the number of new cases in the community and the test positivity rate Is a way to estimate the disease transmission in the community. We've come a very long way in these past two years. They've been able to take the last 18 to 24 months worth of data and model that data and look at which of the metrics we can readily track across the entire nation can best predict when a society or individuals are going to be at elevated risk either to themselves or for health system collapsed as a society. And so they've come up with three different measures. Those three measures are shown on this slide and they include two measures for hospital or healthcare capacity. One is the number of um new admissions over a seven day period. The other one is the percent of patients in the hospital who are covid positive. The second measure has to do with the number of new cases in a specific county. And so they're going to use these three metrics in an algorithm like this to create a new color coding scheme which if you could show the next slide, please James they have already produced on the web page as of last friday. So the CDC now has this online and you can go there and hover over your county in Kentucky and you can see what the level of risk is per the CDC s new model, whether you're low medium or high lower down on the CDCs page. They have a series of recommendations that are tied to this. Um what we're gonna notice right now is that we are as of last week we were still in the predominantly high risk category. You're going to see that change quickly this week with the new update and then next week even further as our numbers continue to decline. We're going to take this because the only way you can see this on the federal website is to see the whole country and then zoom in on Kentucky and find your county and translate it into the next thing James. So they're going to they have the data file available to us and we're going to map it into our own map which we will post on Ky COVID-19 on the website. We'll take down the incidents right maps. So that won't be there anymore and we'll replace it with this community level Covid 19 community level map and then we will use that and tie it to James the next slide please. New guidance Which we will post up there. So you will see sometime over the next 2-3 days the new map appear and this guidance that will go with it as soon as we can get the CDCs dataset onto the website. This um guidance if you'll notice is the same basic principles that were on the top level slide I started with so we need to do things like stay current on our vaccinations. We need to use masks in a targeted fashion at all times for people who are either high risk or people who are on high risk situations or settings. It's only though when we get to the high risk category in the red where we'll recommend universal masking. Um and and that is different. That's calibrated very differently than the previous maps we showed again. We should always stay home if we're sick Or if you test positive for COVID-19 quarantine will be used in specific circumstances and settings but it's not gonna be as widespread as it was before. And and just a point on that the CDC has messaged this as of last week. The general public should not expect that a local health department will be calling to contact trace you at any point for this going forward or too busy to do disease investigation. Unless there is a specific uh, you know, public health reason to protect a uniquely vulnerable community or population and they will do those things. But in general that the typical member of the public should not expect to receive a phone call from the health department. They are there to be a resource to you. However, and should you have questions or need guidance by all means, call your local health department and they're happy to help. Um The other things down here is we do think when we get into the high risk category, physical distancing still has a role in this manner. If you're going to throw a party for a bunch of folks and have 50 or 60 people crammed into a small space and we're in the red category, you might want to rethink that and either move it outside from indoors or consider whether you postpone it until we get to a better place. And you can also make choices how you behave in public, how close you get to people and how much space you have between each other and then high risk individuals will always need at least for the rest of this year to be mindful of the current situation and what steps they might additionally take for themselves. Next slide please. Schools are a unique situation and so we've updated this level of guidance for the schools, we have many pages more of other guidance on the web page that the K through 12 community has relied upon. We are revising those these this week. It takes time to go through all of this material, but you'll notice up here that under all situations, the vaccination staying home when sick, the isolation if you're a test positive are sick and then targeted mask use if there is a certain high risk situations at the school are recommended in all three categories, but it's only when we get to the high or the red category where we strongly recommend universal masking indoors and on the busses. Um, the CDC has changed their guidance and so over this next week or two schools will be adjusting to match the bus guidance to whatever they're doing in their classrooms. And so, uh, there won't be the transportation requirement on all school busses anymore per the CDC exchanges and we urge all schools to take advantage of our test to stay program for the balance of this year. We have close to 1500 schools who will use that in 100 and 11 counties. And I think at this point we've probably provided over one million COVID-19 Tests, the state of Kentucky using federal resources across the commonwealth. So this is all, uh, this level is updated and I think shared this afternoon with some of the superintendents and more information will follow. And then the final slide James. Since we're talking about the Children in the classroom, I think it's a good time to talk about the multi inflammatory, multi system inflammatory syndrome and Children. This is, we've had about a 100 Children in Kentucky have been diagnosed with this. I think this week we will have identified our 100th and I think there's a few more soon following this condition is rare but serious. It occurs about 2-6 weeks after the COVID-19 infection itself. It can occur after mild or even asymptomatic COVID-19. It requires hospitalization can be life threatening. Um, there are nationwide nearly 7000 cases per the CDC and 59 deaths per the CDC. The reason I share this is not because it is overly common, but because there should not be any Children who die from this condition period and there should not be hardly any Children who get it because more and more evidence is showing that the vaccines uh, prevent this in in large measure. So please our vaccination rates remain lowest in the school aged Children. I would urge parents to be thoughtful about that. Talk with your pediatrician um, and get your Children vaccinated. So my final remarks, James, you can take that down. We've come a long way as we're finishing up the second year of this pandemic. COVID-19 is not going away. We're going to have to live with it and learn to live with it and coexist with it. But we can do that. We now have abundant testing. We have vaccinations and boosters that can prevent the worst harms of the disease. We have treatments for people who get sick nonetheless. And we also have access to good data and better ways. We can recommend guidance like I just shared that are less intrusive but can still help us to do what we need to do while being safe. I want to thank you for pulling together and supporting each other. It has been a long two years for everybody, but we are in a much better place and as I came over here today with the seemingly near spring like weather, uh it is another bright day and I look forward to a wonderful springtime ahead. But thank you very much for your partnership during this journey. Okay? Yeah, thank you to dr stack and thanks for sticking with us through all of it. One of the few people in his position from around the country that has stuck with us and and with the state, the entire two years that we've been dealing with it and all I'd add is that we can learn to live with Covid, but we can't choose to simply ignore it. We'll need people to make responsible decisions. We also need to understand that those who refuse to get vaccinated and who refuse to take any other mitigation steps will put themselves and others around them in danger. But that danger is entirely preventable. It's in your hands to do the smart thing, to protect yourself and your family, and we need people to do the smart thing to protect themselves and their family.