last several weeks for 
tailgating.  
Not to have a parallel set of 
expectations in town or vice 
versa, so I think that's a great
example.  Difficult decision.  
Fall football tailgating is part
of what it means to be
at a college campus, especially 
one that has a big football 
program.
The town depends on football to 
a large extent but the 
tailgating was just a step too 
far 
and, again, difficult decision,
and I appreciate what the 
community has, and the bigger 
nation that's
spread all over this region when
I say community.
It's just not the year that 
gathering in tailgates makes any
sense.
We will get back to it
some day soon. 
≫ That's right.
I'm mindful of something I've 
heard Noelle said.
We've had adult outbreaks.
The adults need to do as well as
the students are doing. 
≫ Dawn: Go ahead.  
≫ Dr.
Bissell: Again, it's the 
epidemiology of the pandemic,
and our goal from the beginning 
was to protect our communities, 
and the students are a big part 
of our community.
I will say that the university 
has a very comprehensive
safety plan in place as far as 
the 
distancing, as far as the 
hygiene, as far as the masking
when they are on campus, in the 
classrooms, and are partaking
in that experiential learning 
which is so important
in their college experience, so 
what we are seeing just across
the nation with schools both in 
institutes of
higher education in the k-12 
schools is you aren't seeing 
that transmission in that 
setting.
You may find someone who is 
positive who then shows up
in school but it's not that the 
transmission was there, and I 
think
that's very important to note 
because, again, we know how this
is
transmitted, and it's in the 
social 
settings, so the classroom, the 
learning sessions, the
labs and the discussion groups, 
they're all practicing very
safe precautions, and those 
basic
public health infection 
prevention precautions can go a 
long way
to stopping the spread.
≫ Dawn: Thank you.
I wanted to go back to 
tailgating a little bit because 
that's something 
that really gets to the heart of
a lot of the questions asked.  
President Sands, as you 
mentioned, it is a beloved 
tradition here.
Mayor Hager-Smith and President 
Sands, can you talk about 
tailgating a little bit more.
I know you talked about why that
decision was 
made, but some of the 
requirements and enforcement, 
actually,
and how the town and Virginia 
Tech community are
going to ensure that folks
don't continue to tailgate as 
opposed to
home gating.
Whatever the phrase is now. 
≫ Mayor Hager-Smith: Do you want
to go first. 
≫ President Sands: I'll let you 
go first. 
≫ Mayor Hager-Smith: Okay.
We are fully prepared to enforce
the laws that are, in fact, in 
place ordinarily.
There are ABC laws that govern 
the idea that people shouldn't 
be drinking in public.
We all know that during football
weekends we sort
of turn a blind eye to some of 
that because we do
volume the tradition and 
football and the university
just as all community members 
do.
But this is a situation where we
need to enforce the laws that
were put there to keep
us all safe and to keep 
stability, and so we will be 
enforcing ABC laws, and,
in addition, the town council 
has 
invoked
its emergency powers we passed
something called ordinary 1492 a
while ago.
That requires face masks and 
social distancing, and it limits
the size of gatherings.
The university has recently 
limited a desirable size of
gathering to 15, and we're happy
to stay in accord with them, and
that
has been one of the strengths of
our response so 
far, is that we are sharing the 
same
messaging and the same 
mentality, and the same wish
for success.  
≫ President Sands: Can I just 
add that the Virginia Tech 
police will be monitoring the
parking lots and letting people 
know we're not 
tailgating, if they didn't get a
message, in parallel with what 
you see in Blacksburg.
Again, this is all a hard thing 
to do because we really
enjoy that, getting together and
celebrating a
great Saturday afternoon and 
going to the
game but it just is going to be 
different this year.
I think if we're really careful 
and diligent, we'll
get through this in a few weeks 
in
terms of the peak, and in a few 
months, we
should be able to put this 
behind us.
Hopefully by the next fall this 
will be an issue.
I think the tailgating is 
something we can forego for a 
year.
I would like to say I know a lot
of people will move inside,
and that's fine, but stay with 
your pods.  Stay with your 
family group.
Don't broaden it and, again, 
it's a short term.  It's just 
one season.
But it's really important that 
we stick
to this to avoid the spread of 
the disease further
as a result of indoor 
gatherings, especially without
masks, and that's where we see 
the biggest challenges.  
I would add to that, if you 
think back to what we knew about
the virus and the disease
back in the March time frame, we
know so much more now about how 
it's
transmitted, who's vulnerable.  
We don't have all the answers, 
and Dr.
Bissell knows more than I do 
about this, but I
really feel like we know too 
much now
to be irresponsible and to 
ignore what is
just obvious from the science 
and from
the epidemiology of
COVID-19 and the SARS virus. 
≫ Dawn: President Sands, I 
wanted to go back to something 
we talked a little bit about 
earlier.
We talked about this not being 
about the numbers but I do want 
to ask you
to talk about the numbers a 
little bit in terms of the 
dashboard because a lot of 
people look
at that and you guys have given 
us great context around
those numbers and what the 
expectations are and how
epidemiology basically works but
I wanted to ask you specifically
about the dashboard.  We know 
moving forward it will be 
updated more frequently.
Can you explain what that 
actually means in terms
of frequency and also, how that 
information is collected and how
we should look at that.  
≫ President Sands: Yeah, I think
it's probably -- and Dr. 
Bissell could maybe elaborate on
this but there's probably a 
little bit
too much attention to numbers of
cases.
That's something that is 
important but
it's not the main metric that we
use to judge how we're handling 
the pandemic.
It has more to do with, as she 
was saying, is the disease 
moving from one segment
of our population to another, 
and are we protecting the most 
vulnerable.
That's not to diminish the 
seriousness
of the disease for even the 18 
to 25-year-old but it is from a
practical standpoint probably 
not the best number but it is
where the focus 
is, and what we are doing with 
the dashboard is working
through the data integrity and 
data definition issues so we can
go
to a once-a-day update and use a
seven-day moving average so that
people can track
where the positivity rate is and
where the number of cases, the
new cases per day
or per week 
settles, and I think you'll see 
there's plenty of information on
there. 
It's certainly beyond the level 
of actionable information, I 
believe,
but it's important to be 
transparent, and what you'll see
-- this past week, we had 157 
new cases.
This week -- the week is not 
over, but I suspect it
will be at least that, probably 
on the order of a few hundred 
new cases.  We're still in the 
range where we thought we would 
be.
The key is, will we see that 
plateauing over
the next couple of weeks 
trending down,
and that's where I think we get 
some hope
from what we're seeing, the 
confidence in our plan
at radford being about a week 
ahead and
starting to plateau and dropping
in the total number of new
cases but we'll also have the 
number
of students on campus isolation
and quarantine space which is 
something that we track 
carefully.
We'll have -- you'll see the 
testing -- the pretesting broken
out, and I just remind everyone 
that we tested
everyone who is going to be 
living on campus and
the positivity rate was on the 
order of a
quarter of a percent.
And that gave us confidence that
the
students moving onto campus 
started with a new slate.  
Noelle will tell you,
a one-day test doesn't have a 
lasting meaning.  It's just a 
snapshot. 
It shows us that our incoming 
students were listening to the 
messages about
quarantining before they came, 
about watching for
symptoms and being careful, and 
that makes us feel quite good.
But you're to see a transition 
towards different kinds of 
testing and much of our testing
that we do at the 
Roanoke site and molecular 
testings
lab deal with outbreaks and the 
expanded communities in the 
western half of Virginia.
A portion of that, roughly half 
or so is dedicated to Virginia 
Tech students and employees.  
You'll see that broken out.
You'll see changes from 
week-to-week as we
change our testing profile from 
surveillance of
the incoming students to 
monitoring of
symptomatic students and 
staff, looking for, essentially,
high-risk
situations where contact tracing
reveals a significant contact 
where a student or faculty 
member is in a high-contact 
role.
They'll be prioritized for 
testing, so you'll
see some gradual evolution in 
those numbers in terms
of the numbers of cases and the 
positivity but I
hope that it's helpful
to the community, but I do ask 
that everybody -- 
if you're going to use those 
numbers, become a student of 
them.
Learn a little bit about what 
they actually mean, and with the
help of our New River Health 
District and Dr.
Noelle Bissell's staff,
we'll make sure that we keep 
pushing out the
information, the context of what
you're seeing there, but you'll 
definitely
see an uptick, and I suspect 
that will continue for a 
while, and then we'll be
watching carefully for that 
plateau that will reflect what 
we believe
is the case on the ground, which
are our 
faculty, staff, community 
members are
heeding the advice and are going
to be able to turn this around 
rather quickly. 
≫ Dawn: Dr.
Bissell, would you like to add 
anything. 
≫ Dr. Bissell: Talking about
a couple of things, testing in 
general.
Certainly the ideal would be 
unlimited testing frequently.  
That is evolving.  
Testing has changed from the 
beginning of this pandemic.
The test we talk about right now
is the molecular 
test, which is very sensitive 
meaning you have a low risk of 
getting a false negative.
That picks up actually the virus
itself.  
There's the antigen test which 
looks for active infection 
that's a little bit less 
sensitive but doing very well.  
We use that at the health 
district and it's a
more rapid test that picks up 
the Patriots on the 
surface, and we're looking at 
ways that we can do
even perhaps less sensitive 
testing but more
frequently, and that, quite 
frankly, is really more
important during the pandemic,
to pick up -- to more broadly 
screen.
However, right now, we have to 
look at our resources and make 
sure we
prioritize those resources so 
that we're doing the best
that we can do and right now, 
the key is to be able
to get the folks positive into 
isolation and
their contacts into quarantine 
so getting those positives
on those high-risk individuals 
is really important.  As Dr.
Sands said, there's high-risk 
contact individuals, and
there's symptomatic individuals.
It's very important.
Not everything that is a cold or
flu-type thing
or headache or stomach bug is 
COVID so
we're trying to track that in 
real time and make those 
decisions about containment
and mitigation based on that 
testing.
But hopefully, this fall, there 
will be some
at-home testing that's
rolling out or shore, which is 
at home that does
the HIV testing, and they'll be 
applying for authorization very
soon, and people can do this at 
home.  If it's positive, they 
can stay home.
If it's negative, they can 
continue to go to school or work
or whatever so you will see a 
lot of things involved in 
testing over the coming months 
and, you know, this is not 
unusual.  We're learning as we 
go.
We're developing new technology 
as we go, and people have to
understand that things changing 
is actually a good thing because
we're learning
more, and we're able to apply 
the
mitigation and containment 
strategies better as they do 
change.  I'll also talk about 
the positivity rate.  People use
that a lot, like Dr.
Sands said, we have to look at 
the numbers and keep them in 
perspective.
Freylin has been integral to our
response here.
Over the entire summer, as we 
were participating in beefing
up their capacity knowing that 
they were really going to be 
tested
as the students came back with 
their capacity, we did very 
broad community testing.
Anyone who wanted a 
test,asymptomatic or not, 
high-risk or not, got
a test, and the results from 
that testing 
overwhelmingly showed that 
people with very low-risk 
behaviors
and very low risk of exposure, 
symptomatic or not, were 
negative.
People talk a lot
about asymptomatic carriage and 
there is
definitely asymptomatic carriage
especially in our younger 
populations
but, again, the asymptomatic 
positives that we see
are the individuals who have 
high-risk contacts and 
exposures, so as you focus more 
on
those people, your percent 
positivity will go up by nature 
that you're
testing a higher risk population
so it's not 
unexpected that that number will
go up, and we have to
keep that in mind as we navigate
this.
As far as the numbers on the 
dashboard, the biggest 
numbers, the most important 
numbers are your on-campus 
numbers for reasons that Dr. 
Sands already discussed, you 
know, the isolation and 
quarantine space.
They are congregate
settings, so they are very, very
important, so
we focus a lot of times on those
investigations because we have 
to contain and mitigate those 
numbers.
Our off-campus students, they're
adults, they
live out in the community, and 
they have rights to privacy as 
well so
we're much more reserved about 
disclosing those numbers. 
As the Mayor said, everybody's
behaviors matter, and they're 
part of our community
and we're holding all of our 
community accountable for their 
behaviors, individually.
We don't separate Blacksburg and
Christiansburg.  
We don't separate one 
neighborhood from another one so
we have to be very careful about
that as we report those numbers.
We have to respect privacy even 
in a pandemic,
and I think people tend to want 
to know more information than 
they really need.
People will say I need to know 
if it's students because I want 
to avoid those
stores where they shop and, 
quite frankly, if we all
practice those same behaviors, 
we're going to protect ourselves
and our community.
In disclosing who or where our 
positive
cases are does nothing to give 
them a message that we're not 
already
giving them, so if it is not
going to impact public health, 
we lean to not disclosing. 
≫ President Sands: If I could 
add a little update on
the molecular
diagnostics lab at Fraylin under
the leadership of 
Karla and Mike and their teams. 
Their capacity is about 1,000 
tests per day.
They recently got emergency use 
authorization for midnasal.
They just got it for pool 
testing, and
they're applying for 
saliva-based testing and
Noelle and her team have helped 
with that in terms of
collecting those samples 
necessary to validate those 
tests.
They're also working on other 
tests that are
faster and, of course, the 
commercial market is doing the 
same, and so I'm confident that 
our testing capability will get 
better and better.  It's not 
going to go down.  It's going to
get better every week.
The other point I'd like
to make -- or I should also 
mention we're moving toward 
waste water sentinel testing.  
It's working around the country 
and more of an experiment at 
this stage.
But it's interesting and we're 
looking into to seeing how that 
work.  
The moderate team that reports 
to the provost, they're doing 
wonderful work
in terms of epidemiological 
modelling, giving us insight 
into if we change 
this, will we get more 
information, will this be 
valuable or actionable.
So that group has proven to be 
exceptional and really great
talent from around the 
university helping on that.
But one point I would like to 
make is are respect
to testing and symptoms, it 
would be
really helpful, it's really 
essential
that our students who have 
symptoms contact
Shifford Health Center.
I think there's some sense out 
there that there may be 
repercussions associated with 
student conduct.  In fact, we do
not do that.
There's contact tracing, but if 
you test positive,
you're not going to be 
investigated for how you 
acquired that
disease, other than what is 
necessary from the public health
perspective.  
Student conduct does not go back
and look and then
hold people accountable for past
behaviors. 
We are very strict on what is 
happening at the moment.
So if we see a party
where distancing isn't being 
followed, people aren't wearing
masks, we're going to break it 
up, there's no questions about 
that.
There could be conduct questions
for those people who were 
involved in that.  The direct 
work, we do not spend time on 
that.
It's all focused on public 
health so if you do have 
symptoms
or you are concerned or think 
you've been in 
contact with someone positive, 
call the Shifford Health Center.
If you can't get through
to Shifford, call the COVID 
health line
that we advertised yesterday.  
Do let us know if you have 
symptoms.  
Don't ignore it.
It's important that we 
understand and also be able to
support you.  
≫ Dawn: I just want to ask if 
you can share
information about how positive 
cases are being managed.
There are different layers to 
that quarantining and residence 
halls
and availability on campus, off 
campus.
As well as our healthcare 
providers.  
Can we focus a little bit more 
on that?  
≫ President Sands: Dr.
Bissell, do you want to start 
with that, and
then I'll talk a little bit 
about what we do
on campus?  
≫ Dr.
Bissell: Yes, every case, as I 
said, we do an investigation and
part of
that investigation is as we put 
them into isolation because that
would be
10 days from the onset of 
symptoms or 10
days from the time of the 
positive test.
We make sure we have the 
resources, that they get the 
needs.
That someone can bring them food
or they can order food.
We cooperate with isolation.
We work with the dean of the 
student's
office to help coordinate 
anything they might need while 
on isolation,
and close contacts, such as 
roommates, close
social friends,
house mates, would be 
quarantined 14 days, and the 
same thing applies.
One of the first questions is do
you have what you need to get
your food or this or that, if 
not, do you
need resources, and we'll 
connect them with the 
appropriate resources.
They're technologically savvy 
and
do the online ordering, and for 
the most part, they tend to be
in really good shape, and we 
want to make sure they have the
emotional support and 
resources, and we very much try 
to 
destigmatize because we don't 
want someone to feel guilty 
about it, and we need to keep 
that public health trust.
We need them to be honest with 
us as we're doing the contact 
tracing.  As Dr.
Sands said, we don't want them 
punished because they got COVID.
We want to make sure they're 
taken care of and we want to 
make sure they're
doing the appropriate 
investigation around each of 
those cases,
so that's really important.
As far as healthcare, they have 
the health center, and
other options as well.
Most of them are not very 
symptomatic
so very min male symptomatic.
As we saw in Radford, we're 
seeing in Blacksburg,
the ER visits have ticked up
a little bit with some 
symptomatic students but not the
hospitalizations.  That's 
definitely something that we 
keep our pulse on pretty 
regularly.
One of the messages we get out 
to students
when they're
feeling sick is
feeling sick.
If they start to question it, my
buddy barely had any
symptoms, and now I'm really 
feeling short of breath or 
really sick, that's when you 
need to seek medical care.
We don't want them to not seek 
medical care with the assumption
that I'm young and healthy, I 
should be able to plow through 
this.
Certainly, there are no 
absolutely
in medicine, and somebody who is
young could have
a more severe course that 
requires hospitalization
or treatment but we want to make
sure that, yes, if things
are different and you are just 
not feeling well, you need to 
seek that
medical care.  
≫ President Sands: I think you 
covered it pretty well.
Our dean of
students office and our case 
management team are
there to support as well, so
we try to let
everyone know
everyone we have in quarantine 
on campus, making sure they have
access
to food and whatever supplies 
they need is a priority, so 
we'll continue to do that. 
≫ Dawn: I know Dr.
Bissell you mentioned what 
you've seen at other 
universities in the area, but
I'm just wondering, and
Mayor Hager-Smith, there may be 
things from other communities
as well, but I want to ask if
there are lessons learned from 
other communities and areas
that you've seen and helping 
guide
decisions for the New River 
Valley and in
what way.  Noelle, do you want 
to take that?  
≫ Dr.
Bissell: It's really important 
to understand that what we're 
seeing right now is not 
happening right now.
The numbers now reflect what 
happened days to weeks
ago, and so we have to
be prepared that if we see an 
increase, that reflects what 
happened before and not 
necessarily panic and 
overreact thinking, oh, my gosh,
this is happening right now.
I like to tell people that the 
numbers
on the dashboard, again, on the 
VDH
dashboard and VDH numbers, by 
the time they hit
that dashboard, my team has 
already started the 
investigation, and
in most cases, completed that 
investigation, so if there is a
public health concern, you're 
going to hear about it before 
those numbers actually go
up on that dashboard.  So there 
is that time difference there.
The other thing to remember on 
the VDH dashboard
is the numbers are cumulative.
It's not that that's the number 
of cases per day and a jump
in one day is definitely not the
number of cases new per that 
day.  There are a lot of things 
that go into data reporting.
We get lab reporting from 
Fraylin, Preston Lab Corp and 
others.  We don't get them at 
the same time.
As those cases come in, and
we do our investigation.
We do mitigation efforts and 
investigation before the
data entry so sometimes there's 
a little bit of lag in the
data entry too so I think the 
biggest thing to learn.
Again, it goes back to the 
epidemiology of the pandemic and
the 
expectations and, you know, we 
don't want to overreact and 
panic, and we don't want to 
underreact.
So we are very attentive to that
risk assessment and
where that is, and we are ahead 
of what the posting of the 
numbers
is in that regard, and if we see
a red flag, we're going to be
on it.
≫ Mayor Hager-Smith: Dawn, you 
asked if we learned lessons from
other communities, and I tell 
you, I take my wisdom from 
Wakanda.
We are in this tender moment 
where we have been protected and
taking care of
ourselves, and we are entering 
that moment where we will
start interacting with the 
populations in the New River 
Valley, and I think
we can go forward with 
confidence but it has many of us
feeling anxious.  I just have to
acknowledge that. 
≫ President Sands: Yes, I think 
that's
exactly right, and we do stay in
close contact with peer 
institutions around the country.
I'm in daily contact with my 
peers around
the ACC, and we look at land 
grants, and we're in
contact with them because they 
have similar
demographics often, and their 
towns are often similar, so we 
are
studying and learning from those
institutions.  Some really 
interesting things that we've 
learned.  You have to be careful
when you send students home.  
That doesn't always make sense. 
You've got to be careful with 
that.  Sometimes it does but 
sometimes it doesn't.  You have 
to look at it holistically.  
Going online is helpful in some 
respects, but
it isn't the solution because 
you're
in a situation where most of the
students are still in town, 
still around the community.
It may be a good decision in 
some cases.
In other cases, it may not have 
much affect on the course of the
pandemic.
We're also learning from some 
institutions
that testing isn't the panacea. 
Dr.
Bissell will tell you, she 
pushed back on
some of our plans, and we did 
compromise
and tried to look holistically, 
and that's why we try
to serve the regional health 
districts as well as
Virginia Tech and Blacksburg, 
but I'm looking across, and 
we're
seeing data coming in from other
institutions around the country 
that are
really altering our thinking and
having us double check, are
we going the right direction 
here, and if we are not, we
will make
an adjustment.
≫ Mayor Hager-Smith: I feel 
mindful we are a community of
scientists, engineers, and 
physicians, and we are well 
suited to
get through this with the 
science that Noelle is
custodian of and shares with us.
≫ Dr.
Bissell: There's a thing called 
heterogeneous
of the susceptibility, which 
means not everyone is equally 
susceptible to this infection.
There's genetic components to it
but also behavioral components 
to it.
One of the things that tends to 
lead
or contribute to the fear is the
uncertainty and the feeling of a
lack of control.
We actually do have a good 
amount of control of
our risk and our susceptibility 
with our
behaviors and our practices and,
again, all of those public 
health measures are very, very 
protective.
For instance, when we have
COVID-positive individuals, but 
they have been masked and the
people they have been around 
have been masked, we are not
seeing that secondary 
transmission so that's very 
reassuring.
When people are practicing in 
the distancing, and people are
outside, we see the result of 
that, that
there is not that exponential 
transmission that
concerns people, so people do 
have some control there, and I 
think
in general in the community as 
well, there's a little bit of a 
natural separation.
Our students' schedules tend to 
be different than our community 
schedules, so our community 
tends to be out and about doing
things during the day, and our 
students tend to be doing
things later, so there's a 
little bit of natural separation
there,
and people definitely can have
that choice.  The other thing is
the choice to be able to go 
online. 
The students have that 
flexibility, and the university 
has done a great
job with the staff as well 
giving them that flexibility, so
I think that's a big thing.
Just with today's technology, if
you don't want to go in a store,
you can shop online and have 
home delivery or have curb-side 
pickup with restaurants and 
stores.
So we can do more than we
think to control that risk 
susceptibility, and we all have
to assess what our level of 
risk-taking
is, but we do that every day, 
and we don't
think about it, but we do every 
time we get in a car.
Every time we do things, we make
an assessment
of what the risk benefit is, and
it's no different here, and
people can take some control, 
and I think
that can help ease that 
uneasiness and anxiety over
things too.  
≫ President Sands: I think the 
point about personal choice is
really important, and not just 
the degree to which
you feel like you
are willing to be exposed or 
not, but in terms of the way
that we develop policies and 
respond to the pandemic
at the university, as Noelle
mentioned, the faculty and 
instructors had the option this 
summer to decide
what mode they wanted to teach 
in, and it was interesting to 
see, about 7% of our courses are
in person.  
About 30%, give or take, are 
hybrid.
So partially in person, 
partially online, and the
remainder of the vast majority 
are 
online, and that was based on 
choices
that instructors
made respecting the -- 
especially the kinds of 
instruction that
can't be done easily online, so 
there are compromises, but there
are also choices.
I think it really does come down
to that, that we all have our 
responsibility to make the right
choices.
We should make them for 
ourselves but we should also 
have the greater community in 
mind when we do make those 
choices.
One thing that I think is 
fascinating
is that of our 37,000 students 
this fall -- and
that's including graduate 
students and all
of our sites across the 
Commonwealth, most of
those, of course, are in 
Blacksburg.
11,000 are virtual this year, 
all virtual.
And a typical number might be 
more like 1,000.
So 11,000 students have decided 
that online is the way to go.
Some of them have difficult 
decisions to make because
they may have an
experiencial type class 
requiring to be in class.
But most of them are virtual and
have that 
choice, and we're seeing that 
play out into numbers. 
≫ Dawn: Mayor Hager-Smith, you 
were talking about the task 
force and how early on,
the town and Virginia Tech and 
the health department and a
number of other partners are all
working together to get through 
this pandemic together.  Can you
talk about that work?
I know the be committed, be well
campaign.  We each had our masks
for this.
We see the busses going across 
town in the videos.
Can you talk about that ongoing 
work and the efforts and how 
that will continue?  
≫ Mayor Hager-Smith: Yeah, the 
"be committed" campaign
is the most visible example of 
our success 
together, I think, in 
communicating, so with
Virginia Tech's help and 
resources, we have
pushed out tools for social 
media and
posters and masks, almost 
200,000, and we're sharing them 
with people throughout the New 
River Valley.
That's four counties and a city.
We are putting that in the hands
of people who might otherwise be
scrambling to
come up with their own materials
but I'm hoping that you'll
see those things widely, and 
that's just one example of how 
we work together.
There are two or three other 
things that I think are notable
at this moment because we are
starting to transition into what
can we do next?  We've done all 
that we can.
People need to keep themselves 
safe with common sense 
practices.
What else can we do?
So we have created a student 
ambassador 
program, and it's being staffed 
by Masters public
health students from Virginia 
Tech, and they are going to be 
out in the community
sharing advice, sharing
masks, and just helping to be 
advocates for the students and 
for good practices.
We also have a program called 
Blacksburg
delivers, and the soft opening 
for that is going to be Monday. 
No, that's wrong.
Tuesday after Labor Day, this 
coming Tuesday,
and the next week will be a fun 
and high
visibility roll-out, and 
Blacksburg delivers us
a
program where 14 restaurants 
from Blacksburg will be
providing food twice a day in a 
couple of locations.
Let me think here.
At daring hall and Litton
Reeves Hall at 11:00 and 2:00.
That's in addition to dining 
services and in addition to food
trucks on campus.
We want to make sure the student
population gets fed and they're 
happy with their food.
We also have a business
continuity team that's formed 
being administered through our 
regional planning
commission, and that's
for the unfortunate business 
that is hit by a positive COVID 
case.
What kind of funding can we 
direct your way to help you get
the place sanitized, to help you
restaff your
printing business or whatever it
is.
So we're willing at the student 
population, the business 
population.  Everyone.
What their needs are, and how we
can continue forward
in the direction we're going, DH
we have confidence is the right 
direction to go.  
≫ Dawn: I just wanted to ask 
you, and I'll ask everyone this 
as well, Mayor Hager-Smith.
As we head into a holiday 
weekend, can you give
us your final thoughts on the 
work that's being done in
our community but particularly 
as we head into holiday weekend,
your best advice for people in 
our community?  
≫ Mayor Hager-Smith: Yeah, thank
you.
This is a weekend when we would 
ordinarily -- we would
frequently have a football game.
We might be seeing sort of 
over-the-top behaviors.
I hope that won't happen.  We 
all know that's dangerous to us.
To students, I would like to 
invite you to think of
me as the face of Blacksburg, 
and not because I'm the Mayor.
I'm the person
you look through when you're in 
the aisle of Kroger's.
I'm the person you push past on 
the sidewalk.
I am medium build, I am medium 
height, silvering hair.  I'm a 
middle-aged woman. 
This community is full of people
like me, and I want to live to 
see my kids prosper and my grand
children grow.
The town is full of people with
connections that matter, with 
rich lives and imaginations.
People of divorce 
accomplishments and 
resources, and we're united in 
our wish to see you succeed.  We
stand ready to help.
That really, I hope, is the 
message going into this weekend 
and beyond.
To members of the whole 
community, we've worked for six 
months to get to this place.
Our numbers have been quite low.
Our practices have been 
exemplary.  Outbreaks have been 
contained.  The regionalism and 
cooperation is unprecedented.
The next two to
three weeks and especially this 
weekend,
they're crucial.
Hold you accountable.
Those people are your community,
and a healthy community holds
its members accountable while 
also providing the tools for 
success.
So we have that here in 
Blacksburg, all the conditions 
for success.
The results that other colleges 
and universities are getting are
not what we expect for 
ourselves.  
Blacksburg is not every town, 
and Virginia Tech
is not every university, and you
are the students that we love.
We are coming into this stretch 
with real 
strength, and if we don't 
succeed at this point, it's 
because we threw it away.  We 
threw away the opportunity.  
Let's show the world what we're 
made of.  Let's show them that 
this can be a success.
Let's get this right, and let's 
be a model for how to do it 
right.  
Go hokies.  
≫ Dawn: Thank you, Mayor 
Hager-Smith.  Dr. Bissell. 
≫ Dr.
Bissell: Yeah, I want to echo 
that this is
about individual responsibility 
to take care of our community, 
and it's everybody in our 
community.
It's those who live here 12 
months, the students who
come, and the students who are 
here even through the summer.  
Collectively, our individual 
actions are going to direct the 
trajectory of
disease in this
community, and we can affect the
transition and keep it changed. 
Mayor Hager-Smith said all the 
things about the task force and 
I need to echo that the
task force is every locality, 
the
law enforcement, first 
responders, mental health, it's
both universities, and they have
all given tremendous support to 
the
health department and the public
response have come up with 
unique programs and outreach.  
My focus has been the high-risk 
populations.
So we've reached out to those 
folks, our
nursing homes, our jails, 
universities, and
our congregate avenue.  We can't
let our guide down.
When we call someone with a 
negative test, they say yippee, 
I'm in the clear.  No one is 
ever in the clear.
We have to be diligent and 
responsible, whether it's at 
work, whether it's
at home and whether it's at 
play, and
we'll get through that if we do 
it altogether and take care of 
each other.  
≫ Dawn: Thank you, Dr. Bissell.
President Sands. 
≫ President Sands: Thank you for
those messages, Mayor 
Hager-Smith and Dr.
Bissell I would like to just
comment that I think that this 
is
a generational challenge that 
we're facing, and maybe
you could say the biggest 
challenge we've had in a couple 
of generations.
And to our students, especially,
this is not the way that we are 
used to living.
This is not the way it will be 
in the future.
But I really respect our 
students and our
faculty and our staff and our 
community members for the way 
that they've taken this 
challenge on.  I think it's 
incredible.
It makes me really proud to be
a resident of Blacksburg and a 
member of the Virginia Tech 
community as well.
My wife and I have been here 
over six years, and we love this
community.
I wouldn't want to be anywhere 
else.
The students, their commitment 
to
service, to being in community, 
which is extraordinary at 
Virginia Tech. 
It stands out as one of our 
features.  We do support each 
other.
We want to be around each other,
and yet we're in the situation 
where we can't
be around each other the way 
that we're used to.
Thank you for all the work you 
have been doing, for everybody 
listening. 
We've got much more to do.  This
weekend is going to be a 
challenge.  Ideally, no one 
would travel.
Ideally, everyone would stay in 
their pods.
Have fun, but keep it to your 
pod.  
Keep it to your family group.  
Enjoy the outdoors.  Have a 
relaxing weekend.
If you are in a position where 
you must 
travel, and I'm certain that's 
the case
for some, please come back with 
the idea that you
may have been exposed.
Be careful for a couple of 
weeks.  
Quarantine if you think you have
been possibly exposed.
STOUCH with your symptoms, and I
think then we'll have a 
successful fall semester.
But mainly, my closing words are
just, thank you.
I think an extraordinary 
community to belong to and 
really appreciate the 
partnerships
that I think are exemplified by 
this panel that
I think are unique in the 
country, to be honest.  
≫ Dawn: Thank you, President 
Sands.
As well, thank you, Mayor 
Hager-Smith and Dr. 
Bissell.
I appreciate all of you speaking
with us today and thank you to 
everyone watching. 
Don't forget you can find the 
latest information on the ready 
web site
which you can get to from the 
university home page which of 
course is vt.edu.  
We'll keep that posted as well 
for any upcoming webinars, so 
thank you all. 
