Board of Health: August 11, 2020

Transcript machine-generated with Whisper speech recognition (the source video has no caption track). No speaker labels; proper names and dollar figures occasionally misheard. Click any timecode to jump to that moment in the source video.

0:01 All right, so we’ll call the meeting to order. A little quieter tonight than last week. I actually, I’m surprised I thought that without your last night’s school meeting there would be more people here tonight just wanting to know more or shout more or whatever, but um… You’re fair with our friends. Yeah. You know, I think it was very good that they were there last week because I think they have been actually using our name a lot and it and in very good way. They’ve been very happy with with the board, with the Board of Health, and I’m glad that they’re pleased with us. Me too, and we I saw many references to the MHTV link so that people could actually watch the meeting with watch it 43 minutes and see what they say there and that kind of thing. So that was it was good that John was good that you taped the meeting and posted it because it was it was a source of information. So let’s go right to Andrew’s update. All right, so we have a couple big things that came out. So the biggest thing that came out is the new Governor’s Order. So this is COVID-19 Order number 46 and I’m actually going to read all most of it because there’s so many new things that kind of tie in. So number one, entities subject to sector specific rules, a business or other organization that has been designated by executive order as a phase one, phase two, or phase three

1:36 enterprise, and that is permitted to open a brick and mortar premises to workers and the public shall not be subject to the general gathering limitation in section three of this order. If the enterprise is operating in compliance with COVID-19 safety rules and any applicable capacity limitations issued by the Department of Public Health, the Department of Labor Standards, the Massachusetts Gaming Commission, or the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, phase four enterprises remain closed consistent with the requirement of order authorizing the reopening of phase three enterprises COVID-19 order number 43. Number two, gatherings for political expression and religious activities. Outdoor gatherings for the purpose of political expression and gatherings for religious activities shall not be subject to the limitations in section three of this order, provided however that indoor gatherings for the purpose of political expression shall be governed by the indoor limitations of section three and gatherings for the purpose of religious services shall follow the COVID-19 safety rules and capacity limitations set forth in places of worship sector specific guidance. Number three, otherwise applicable indoor and outdoor gathering limits. The following limitations apply to indoor and outdoor gatherings not exempted by sections one and two.

3:07 Indoor gatherings are limited to eight persons per a thousand square feet of accessible indoor floor space and never more than 25 persons in a single enclosed indoor space. Outdoor gatherings are limited to 25 percent of the maximum permitted occupancy of the facility or space as documented in the occupancy permit on record with the municipal building department or other municipal record holder if there is a capacity to limitation on record or eight persons per a thousand square feet where no occupancy limitation is on record and never more than eight never more than 50 persons in a gathering in a single outdoor space. All participants in indoor and outdoor gatherings must maintain at least six feet of physical distance from every other participant in the gathering aside from participants or members of the same household. A gathering shall violate this provision where no matter the number of participants present conditions or activities at the gathering are such that it is not reasonable possible for all participants to maintain this degree of separation. Gatherings that are subject to the limitations of the section include without limitation, community, civic, public, leisure, sporting events, concerts, conferences, conventions, fundraisers, fairs, festivals, road races, and other similar events or activities. Except as provided in section one and two, these restrictions apply to gatherings in all public and private venues and locations in

4:42 the Commonwealth including private homes, backyards, parks, athletic fields, and parking lots. So private is a big word there right? Yeah, this order does not impose a general capacity limitation on large, unenclosed public spaces such as beaches, parks, and recreation areas. Capacity limitations for such spaces such by other rules and regulations shall continue to apply. The limitations of this order are instead specifically applicable to programs, celebrations, social outings, and similar events that draw together groups of people. Such gatherings are subject to the limitations of this order when they take place within large, unenclosed public spaces such as beaches, parks, and recreation areas or within any other indoor outdoor space, public or private that falls within the scope of this order. Number four, face coverings. For gatherings of more than 10 people, all persons over the age of two must wear a face covering when they attend indoor and outdoor gatherings where participants other than those in the same household will be in attendance unless they are prevented from wearing a face covering by a medical or disabling condition. This restriction applies to gatherings in all venues and locations including private homes, backyards, parks, athletic fields, and parking lots. Legal exceptions.

6:18 Is that you say overture or enditude? Overture. I thought okay. Number five, legal exceptions. This order shall not apply to any of the following businesses, organizations, workplaces, or facilities. A, any municipal legislature body or general court or judiciary. B, federal government entities. C, any healthcare facility or licensed healthcare provider. D, any of the following workplaces or facilities with specialized functions and populations. Polling places. Public and private elementary and secondary K through 12 schools. Residential and day schools for special needs students. License approved or exempt childcare programs and any emergency childcare centers and emergency residential programs operating under emergency authorization. Facilities operated by the Department of Correction or any sheriff. Facilities operated contractor or licensed by the Department of Youth Services, Department of Mental Health, Department of Public Health, or the Department of Developmental Services. Facilities and programs that provide safe spaces for the unstable, unstability housed such as homeless and domestic violence shelters and any other facility or workplace that the Commissioner of Public Health may in writing exempt from the terms of this order. Number six, enforcement. The Department of Public Health, local boards of health and their authorized agents pursuant to Mass General Law

7:49 111 section 30 and state and municipal police are authorized to enforce this order. Violations of the terms of this order may result in a civil fine of up to $500 per violation as provided in section 1950 C630 number eight provided that the fine shall be administered in a manner provided for the non-conformal disposition of violations of the municipal by-law ordinance rule or regulation pursuant to general law section 40 21d. This order may also be enforced by injunction. A motion for injunction to enforce this order may be filed in the district court or any other court of competent jurisdiction or the municipality in which the violation has been charged. The alcoholic beverage control commission or a local licensing authority may after notice to the license and a reasonable opportunity to be heard, suspended, revoked, or cancel a license for the sale or service of alcoholic beverages or take any other appropriate enforcement action upon satisfactory proof that the license has violated or permitted a violation of this order. If any of the provisions of this order or the application thereof to any person, entity, or circumstance is determined to be invalid by a court or competent jurisdiction, such judgment shall not affect or impair the validity of other provisions of this order or its application to

9:21 other persons, entities, and circumstances. The second revised order regulating gatherings throughout the commonwealth, COVID-19 order number 44 is hereby rescinded effectively 1201 a.m. on august 11th 2020. This order shall be effective 1201 a.m. on august 11th 2020 and shall remain in effect until the state of emergency is ended, whichever occurs first. This was signed by governor baker and yes the biggest piece to this is obviously the gathering order but the fact that this applies to private property. So that that is a big change. Everything we’ve done so far is for public property and we’ve always stayed away from private property. The reason why that we’re making this change at the state level is that we are seeing the numbers are showing that we are having transmissions occur on private property generally at a local level between family members and friends. So people need to remember that. Just because you’re with your family does not make you safe. And so if you have a gathering outside of greater than 10 people you must wear a mask. So that that’s a big change and obviously with us trying to get back to school we’re trying to decrease the number of cases and trying to

10:57 encompass more changes with the mask order. The second big piece to this that goes along with this is the alcoholic beverage control commission advisory regarding food service and gatherings for licensing selling alcohol for on-premise consumption. On august 7th 2020 governor Charlie Baker updated guidelines for phase three step one of reopening of the commonwealth in light of COVID-19. The text of the updated protocols for on-premises consumption licensee may be found at the website and the text of the order regarding gatherings may be found as I just stated. Licencies are permitted are reminded that until phase four commences all licensees licensed for the sale of alcoholic beverages for on-premise consumptions must provide seated food service with the sale of alcohol. The food must be prepared on site and under a retail food service permit issued by a local licensing authority pursuant to 105 CMR 590. Beginning today august 11 2020 for each customer an item of prepared food must be ordered at the same time as an initial alcoholic beverage or beverages ordered. One or more shareable food items may be ordered as long as it they would sufficiently serve the number of people at the table. Items such as potato chips, pretzels,

12:34 and other prepackaged or manufactured foods do not constitute food prepared on site. Also effective today any licensee holding private functions on the premises must limit attendance to 25 people for indoor events and 50 people for outdoor events. Food must also be served as described in the preceding paragraph. As always all licenses must ensure that they comply with the laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and that the sale of alcohol beverages take place only as authorized by federal, state, and local law. All questions should be directed to the ABCC executive director Ralph Scaramoni 617-727-3040 extension 731. So this is also another big step that the state has wanted to make sure if you go out to eat you can order alcohol but as soon as the kitchen closes alcohol service is over essentially. Could I ask a question on that or you want to take all questions after? No you can ask a question on that. All right the question is what is different I thought all the bars were closed you couldn’t sit at the bar and you had to sit at a table to order a drink and if you sat at a table I would assume you ordered. Excuse me? You could get just alcohol you could sit down and just get drinks and no food. You could sit at the table and take up you could take up a table that people would want to be sitting at to have a drink I can’t imagine it. Right so that was really I don’t think that was

14:07 really the intention it was really for food service you know we want people to go back to eat but so this is a clarification to say you’re not allowed to just go to the restaurant and order alcohol you have to order food. Oh well I can’t imagine anybody would do that but anyhow it was happening. I think it was happening and and I think the intent of this is to obviously discourage the behaviors that come with just consuming alcohol and not consuming food at the same time you’re drinking alcohol. I’m glad it’s helpful to the restaurant owner. Well it’s yeah and it’s not just helpful to the restaurant owners in terms of their pocketbook it’s it’s it’s going to promote public safer public health behavior which is I think the underlying intent here is to you know all of this is about promoting safer behaviors in groups and you know rampant consumption of alcohol without food is creating unsafe congregating behaviors especially like after people leave after hours etc so I think this is all ways of setting up safer safer behaviors as much as possible so I think it’s prudent. Another question the the indoor the private space piece I think is really important for us particularly in our community

15:39 to convey Andrew could you cut and paste that particular piece for me and share it so that we could share that on our I think if we share just all of this on our Facebook page is going to get lost but that piece if you guys agree I think would make sense for us to pull out and share on our Facebook page what do you think? So let me let me I also sent out a code red this evening that everybody should receive tonight at 6 30. Okay so I’ll read the code red and I can share the code red with you and you can post that. This is an important message from the town of Marblehead. Last week the governor announced changes to the COVID-19 reopening plan and a new set of initiatives aimed at stopping the spread of COVID-19. Fortunately in the town of Marblehead we are still experiencing a relatively low COVID-19 case count however statewide there are now areas that are experiencing a slight uptick in recent days. In order for the town of Marblehead to keep its case count low and stable we must remain vigilant wearing face covers and keeping social distance. The governor’s announcement included stricter rules for public and private gatherings his updated gathering orders will include reducing the limit on outdoor gatherings from 100 to 50 people. Indoor gatherings limit will remain at 25 people. Apply these limits to all types of

17:09 gatherings on both public and private property. Require face coverings where more than 10 people from different households will be mixing. Due to the recent increase in positive cases step two of phase three of the commonwealth’s reopening plan has been postponed indefinitely. In addition restaurant rules have been updated to state that alcoholic beverages may only be served for on-site consumption if accompanied by orders of for food prepared on site. Public safety officials including state and local law enforcement have the jurisdiction to enforce these orders and event hosts in violation these orders will be subject to fines or cease and desist orders. Thank you to all residents for all the work you up to this point to stop the spread of COVID-19 in Marblehead. Wear a mask or face covering maintain social distance wash and sanitize your hands and stay home if you’re sick. Don’t let up please continue to act responsibly for our neighbors our students our businesses our community we are in this together. So that was launched tonight at 6 30 um it also had an email that went out with it um so we can repost that message uh Michelle or we can cut and paste the other one. I also have a question. Go ahead and send me that I think I’ll just post that that sounds good. Okay. You did an excellent job oh you got a question I thought the first Helene and then Tom. Okay um two questions. One I I forwarded a sign that I saw in

18:48 in Salem and I think we also got one from Michelle. Do you think some of those uh lawn signs would be helpful? I mean I can send them again but I think that they’re very uh they’re very eye-catching and um I think we could get them around town. Well Jason Silva sent us all of the ones that I have sent um Andrew had circulated those to us so it sounds like the town is already circulating those ones that are being done by the flat wrap creative ones so so that’s great and I will I will post those as well those are fabulous. Well could I. Does the board want to purchase some? I would suggest that we do purchase them. Okay. Do we have the budget? We have the budget to do that. Yes we have a budget to do that so I will talk to Jason and I’ll look at I’ll get pricing for that there’ll be lawn signs um and we’ll figure that out and I’ll communicate um and try to figure out how many we can get. ASAP now you want to you want to sell them or give them away because the black lives matter you’re sold. Uh no we’ll be giving these away for public health reasons. Okay. Not that that’s not a fair statement um because it’s government money we will be giving these away. Okay. We should decide which ones because there’s a whole bunch of them and I think maybe the more like generic ones not the like oh you know Gary ones or maybe not the you know

20:21 the historic the historic ones are cute but I maybe go with the more generic. Something that is is is that I think the one that the most eye-catching uh simple is is better. It’s something like this um less is more. The mask of marble head one yeah the mask of marble head similar to the ones in Salem. Yeah yeah I like that. Um one other question um could you go over with us what step two phase three is which we are not going to? Um I I don’t have so that would probably be expansion into gyms and some of the other areas. I don’t have that those documents. Oh that was what it was that yeah the gyms and the bars and I thought the bar wasn’t going to be open until we got uh some of the bars wouldn’t be open um but it would be like increased indoor seating stuff like that would be part of fate you know. So last question yes this is a this is a particular question you were talking about outdoor occupancy and some of these public spaces add belong to another group that’s looking to do something six feet apart. Um it holds generally they say it holds 100 people but there’s not an occupancy sign. Does that mean we have to do 25% or can we have 50 people? No you’d have to the best thing for you to do is to contact the health department explain what the situation is what the group is we’ll look to see if they

21:52 have an occupancy permit we’ll see if they fall in under in any of these exemptions and we’ll tell you what you’re allowed to do. So then anybody else is in the same position as to determine whether it’s a 25% which is you know 25 people or 50 people is a big difference. Yeah so the 25% would be if you had an occupancy permit. Right is there such a thing for outdoors? So generally like you would issue an occupancy permit for outdoors if you’re like an outdoor bar or something like that I don’t believe we really have any outdoor occupancy permits in the town of Marblehead. But I didn’t you know that’s why I’m questioning. Yep. All right well sorry Tom sorry Tom. Tom did you still just a very quick question this order 46 is on the mask up site? Yes. It’s all written there. Okay thank you that was it just wanted to make sure. Andrew are you expecting you like here there’s a blocked party or neighborhood party do you expect like other people are going to call the department the department to to report it or like what do you what are you thinking for enforcement? I’m expecting them to call the police department and the police will have to respond. Okay so just you know in more lines with that we did go out last Thursday night we um so you can make a an anonymous complaint to the Attorney General’s office at this point. There’s a portal on the

23:23 mass.gov website where you can make a complaint about activity in town and an establishment in town a neighbor in town it goes to them and then they send us an email to say hey we’ve looked into this you need to follow up. So last Thursday night Bobby Cody our public health inspector and a police officer from Marblehead went out to conduct inspections at the Riptide and the Barnacle. And actually we had very good compliance. So we are pleased but yes we will be going out and conducting inspections. So you know that started last week and we will be doing that you know going forward. Was that based on a complaint? Yeah that was based on complaints from the Attorney General’s office. And do they have to go up that moment? I mean if it’s no um so we received the complaint I believe on Tuesday and we scheduled to go out you know during that time. So we went out Thursday night. And they didn’t find a problem? No we actually had very big compliance at the Riptide and some you know we had to you know had some concerns about the Barnacle with our outdoor table and just people walking up to them from the street. Well it’s good that in general compliance is good. Yeah so continue on from my report. So obviously we had the

24:55 Marblehead case reporting went out yesterday on Monday. We have a total of we’ve had a total of 255 confirmed cases in Marblehead. We are lucky that we still have less than five active cases and we still have a total of 30 confirmed deaths. We will continue to look at all this information. The one thing that I need to point out as far as our case reporting versus the state is that if you go onto the state website they release numbers on Wednesday but their numbers are based on a 14 day period. So last week their numbers were they had nine cases over a 14 day period. And so yes it does not mirror our case count. So I just want to kind of try to explain this so people can understand this. So most of the time when I when we receive a positive case through Maven the case tends to be five to seven days old. So they’ve had their incubation period. They’re showing symptoms. They finally go to get tested. By the time we get results they’ve generally gone through five to seven days of quarantine already. So people are coming off and going on at our you know at a quicker pace than you might think. So we’re able to shed cases as we’re getting cases. So that’s why we’re kind of staying at the five or less number of cases. Now obviously with these backyard activities, social gatherings and

26:32 other things like that yes we’re starting and travel. A lot of travel is occurring. It’s August. It’s one of the biggest travel months. We will start to see more cases and we will continue to update. The state has started a new portal that shows average daily case count and it’s per 100,000 people. So we’re at 20,000 population town. They’ll take our numbers and they’ll push it up to 100,000 and that will show us where we are where we stand over the last two weeks. So you just have to remember that our case count is actual what it is you know on Monday versus the state looking over a two-week period for a daily case count. So they’re using that I think to kind of guide communities about where they are. We are following in the so it’s a red, yellow, green, white category. Red you have greater than eight cases per 100,000 and that’s an average daily case count rate. You know so please remember that. Yellow four to eight cases per 100,000. Green less than four cases per 100,000 and white less than five reported cases. Can we fall in the white? No we fall in the green. Oh the green oh because that’s okay. So just for clarity when it’s 100,000 if they do you divide the cases by five to know the accurate

28:03 number? No so you’re going to multiply it by five. No no if. Oh yeah so like if you look at the state yeah you yeah okay but you’re not you know you’re not really going to be able to pull out the data that way. Right. So could I make a comment because last night someone used the number nine as the cases in Marblehead and it wasn’t appropriate for me to interrupt the person. So maybe for the record I’d like to correct that it was used by it was a speaker it was not it was not one of the members of the board of selectmen I didn’t vote at the school committee I apologize was not one of the members of the school committee but the nine cases were used and nobody disputed it. I knew what he said because I had already had the question in the morning at the reopening committee meetings because someone asked about the nine cases and I told them that was over the 14 day period and this is what we’re generally the over a longer span is the plus or minus five cases at any any given moment but so I just felt that I’d like to put that in the record.

29:22 Andrew any further? That’s all I have. Okay so Helene were there any reopening committee meetings in the last week? Yes we have them every Monday morning at nine o’clock so we met yesterday morning and the the superintendent actually unveiled his program with us and it seemed that the that the faculty the teachers were their concern was for the younger learners just like you heard last evening and I think that they’re going to work very hard to see the best way to handle that. Sorry my computer clock. Oh I thought someone was just kind of trying to sing a little bit. Anyhow it seems that the people sitting on the committee which are mostly teachers other faculty members department heads that they were concerned and parents concerned for this two parents on the committee were concerned for the younger learners and the teachers are still concerned about going back to school many of them and I think that this three-week period is making them feel a lot more comfortable and the day to go back to school on a hybrid plan is October

30:55 5th and to start the start of school was the 14th is that correct was that the date the 14th that’s the one number I don’t have on my paper September 4th yeah there it is the hybrid it’s a remote day or take the 14th yeah is the date and they will go remotely until October 5th and then they will go hybrid I think I mentioned in the past but I’ll say it again there are two cohorts an A and a B that they will A will go Monday Thursday the B will go Tuesday Friday they divide it up in alphabet and I guess they have said that if there were some special circumstances that they’re trying to keep the fibs together so especially with the last names they most likely will be together but they did say that people could make a request if there’s a problem about learning or something like that they could do that they’ve talked a lot in my in my meeting about snack time mass break and because they’re much more specific where they’re the teachers that are having to enforce all these activities that a mass break is going to take 45 minutes if they go outside for a 20 15 20 minute break by the time they go in and they go out do a little exercise

32:27 or something they they it’ll be a 45 minute block if the younger kids do it twice a day that’s half their half their days a day and the real young I guess the kindergartners will have a snack time so there’s a lot of things to consider about going back into the classroom see if I’ve covered everything they talked about getting the smile mask the clear mask especially for the especially people that had learning issues or that had any other health concerns not necessarily ones that don’t wear masks but the ones that maybe had behavioral issues or any other kind of problems that they would really like to need to be seen or have seen their teacher or their people that are with them in their in their classrooms um they also talked about the buildings try to have uh some kind of open house for parent meetings and have the kids the younger ones uh this isn’t firm it was all something that was talked about but these are their ideas and I think they would like us to you know if we had anything to weigh in on this they would certainly be they’ve been very welcoming to our thoughts but they wanted

33:58 the kids have uh that have not been to school before either kindergarten or first grade or people that had not been to that particular building they wanted to visit the building for a tour because they felt that they should see the teacher in person to see the building know where the various rooms are and the most important thing that they stressed of the whole uh meeting at the re-opening meeting was that the remote uh the remote teaching will be teachers from our system even if they’re teachers that we hired to do that um but uh there will not be any remote vendors I guess they have had um not so good luck with that and they want to have um teachers to be doing that uh talked about how they were going to do that whether they also whether they needed some more uh teachers especially um with the younger ones when um they need uh more attention um athletics and activities is going to be on a separate they’re going to do one survey this Friday which will be very um limited it was going to be simple he said and there’s going to be a separate survey uh I guess done by the um activities and athletics departments a separate survey on athletics and activities um so I think that uh I’ve covered

35:35 just about everything um some of the things that they would discuss as you can hear because a lot of you were on last evening um were more things that were more uh important to the um teachers and to the um others in the building thank you for the any questions yeah so I had one question about that so I understand how they can do the hybrid for the elementary school where you know you you have one student in the same class all day how how do they do a hybrid for junior high in high school the teachers are going to be in school so I imagine they didn’t discuss it but they all are going to get new uh computers they’ve ordered for the teachers oh that’s another thing and every student will have a computer whether they are chromebook each uh level is going to have a different kind of item one summer chromebook summer computers so but they will be able to zoom to the student from their classroom so they can change over as the as the as the subject change as it whenever they change classes but I don’t think there’s going to be that I don’t think it’s going to there’s not time for seven periods a day so however they work that out um I think I shouldn’t say I think they haven’t discussed that specifically

37:12 but I do know that the teachers are going to be teaching in the classroom and if that’s a question I will bring it up next Monday so um I will see ask them specifically how these kids are going to get the various um subject matter I obviously my concern is the Georgia scenario yeah okay overcrowded hallways transitioning between classes yeah yeah well they’re not well this is when they’re remote we’re talking oh you’re talking when they’re in the hybrid model yeah oh all right um about the changing those and our corridors at the high school are particularly narrow if you you weren’t here when we built the building but that was a very big problem um because they that’s where they cut a few corners um can I um ask a question so at the meeting last night um you know a lot of the focus was on um what metrics would be used for the return to hybrid learning like this you know the you know we know that we’re going to start with this three weeks of remote and what you know what would be the metrics used for knowing what the readiness was for the return and you know what numbers were we going to be at and where would we need to be at with you know testing whatever and you know I think

38:45 what um you know the superintendent said was you know you know I think I I like the way he presented it is that you know we know first of all that we’re not ready right now that the teachers need this time to get ready with their um becoming accustomed to the remote learning and what the classrooms are going to look like and being able to welcome the students into the classroom and focusing on the early learners etc but you know andra when you know you and I talked earlier about you know what numbers would tip this if schools had were opening hybrid and needed to close for whatever reason like is there a particular case count that would shift things to close down and you said you know it’s a fluid situation we can’t say what that number is we don’t know and you know they’re talking about well we’re going to wait to hear from desi what are the metrics that would allow things to open up and i’m wondering if you still think that it is a fluid situation and that there won’t be an exact number and are they are we expecting the schools to come back to us as the board of health and say you know what do you all think are we ready do we want to keep it focused on the early learners which you know based on the public health approach right now what’s out there you know most of the recommendations say

40:15 you know that can you guys keep it down over there most of the recommendations say we’re gonna you know early learners that k through four period is where we should be focused on now and i guess i just have a concern that we’re especially if we’re looking to desi for those metrics that there’s going to be a rush to in three weeks after the 14th get everybody back in and that what what are those metrics going to be and and will we have any leeway and will the board of health be consulted so that you know we can have our chance to say you know are we really ready are we any more prepared now or do we want to stay at remote learning or at least remote learning plus early childhood early learners and not push to bring in the the others but clearly we did hear many more voices advocating for everybody back to school many more than i expected to hear at that meeting last night so i just wanted to have a conversation amongst us about what we’re expecting to hear um and andra particularly you because um you’re you know having conversations with your colleagues about this um so i was this concern is with you know the same as you as far as like using desi as the creating the metrics i have not this question

41:48 is going to be asked to the state i have a feeling um and this is just as a feeling is that they’re going to use the average daily case case counts this new initiative that they announced today as their guideline of where they should be in school remote hybrid so right now we’re green i think you know you could say you know you know we could possibly be going back to school but at any change to that case count of the average daily case count you might have to pull back very quickly um but i think that’s still kind of undetermined michelle yeah because it’s like to me it feels like there’s other issues at play it’s not just the case count you know it’s like it’s how many kids are in the classroom it’s what our hvac system is at where you know it’s it’s you know there’s so many other issues at play with what’s testing like access to testing like in our community how ready are our teachers feeling you know um you know all of those factors that come into play and if we’re just looking at those that that case count as the metric then i don’t know as a as a board of health member i have concerns yeah and i and i understand that because you know you’d really want to be paying attention to attendance um because because of kind of the lag time with some testing and as more and more people go back and more people are potentially exposed we might see a we saw we’ve seen a lag in testing at times where we’re waiting

43:24 for results because the labs are so busy um you you’re gonna have to be paying attention to that how many kids are out of school that day um because i might not see the actual case count for a couple days like i said a lot of times i don’t see an actual case until five to seven days after you’re positive so that’s going to cause some issues where if i wait that five to seven days you might be in this very large outbreak where we’re paying attention to the actual attendance and see how many kids are out that day that may give us a better indication that we’re starting to see some issues and also you know we we don’t live in a bubble in marblehead you know we have teachers that are coming from out of town we have parents that travel in and out of areas you know we don’t just live in marblehead so we do have to kind of pay attention to our surrounding communities lynn revere some of these close by communities are seeing a draft a pretty large increase in cases we’ve had i think i believe the number is a total of 864 cases in essex counting the last week new cases yeah new cases well that’s why it’s good that they’re starting out with a remote plan so they can get a good grasp on it and perfect it as much as possible so that if it’s not possible to open to the targeted hybrid date in october then then at least they have a

44:55 fallback i i can’t i i can’t stress enough that they’re looking toward the border health direction when something like that comes up i’m wondering if we even want to set the uh a meeting at the end of september if there’s with with the superintendent invite him to come to the meeting anything that we could do to make an easy transition for that october 5th date i think you know obviously every community in the state of massachusetts is going to be looking for the same thing we will continue to push up to the department of public health that we need guidance top down that we can’t make decisions sporadically across the state that it needs to be a uniform decision on how we make these decisions to cancel school and start to go remote versus hybrid it does not make sense that each community comes up with their own metrics when every other aspect of life from restaurants to anything has been unified yeah top down yeah yeah why the school separate so i think kalyn as far as the meeting i mean we we should keep discussing with the superintendent i don’t think we should set a meeting at this moment because there’s so much left to come before before the end of september well he certainly knows that the doors are open to andrew’s office and to our committee and um he’s very easy to work with but i i agree with

46:28 you that the metrics um and all of that should be set at the state level and we should be following them but clearly the decisions are being made um community by community i mean if you all you have to do is look and see that every single school system is doing something different so um you know this will help and make sense for each community to be following different guidelines i mean to be following a set of unified metrics but um clearly every community is making their own decisions based on you know the differing needs of their population the realities of the buildings in their community etc etc so before we go i’m going to i’m sorry you first but before we go on i was just going to say i did take uh two i took some notes but two things i’d like to say here tonight about um what i heard at the school committee meeting last night they went through the dates of the three phases of um going into hybrid that on august 31st the teachers are going back to work till the to 914 they’re they’re going to be going working through all the kinks and everything that they need to do to look in the learning curve and then on september 14th is when the remote re-entry starts um and most likely the special needs and younger learners may have a different

48:06 entry level up besides other than the remote and then again on 10-5 they expect to go back in the hybrid mode so um you know everything’s a moving target after 914 i think and to answer to not answer but to add to andrew’s comment about the teachers and all 50 of the workers in the marblehead school system do not live in marblehead and work is meaning custodial staff cafeteria people which i don’t know what they’re going to well i guess they’re making lunches and dinners for the people that would like them um so that’s a thing that’s half the people have the school population are coming in every day that’s all i have to say thank you very much and i think that we we were missed not to say how many articles have come out just in the last week saying that children can get covid and their cases are rising all across the country not as much in doing that as far as i’ve seen but but children are not immune to this as people have been saying and whether or not they get it as severely as adults is i think irrelevant because they can still get it and they can still transmit it so i i would i definitely wanted to to say that out loud thank you is there anything anything further to add to that no i think we’re all going to be uh

49:43 it’s going to be a wait and see and uh i we know that every day is a different day sometimes every hour is a different hour um tom yes how much are districts in other places because obviously there are so many unknowns but you know maybe collectively you know and for example are some schools starting a little bit earlier so you can get at least an idea quickly about what sort of issues they may be going into because informally before the meeting started we we were talking and you know it would be great to be able to at least have some minor some little bit of experience before everybody’s launching in at the same time that was sort of my but my question is how much data sharing and information sharing can there be or is there oh i think there’s a lot the superintendents have been meeting uh throughout the summer and by saying that also i would like to say that to think that these uh teachers and custodial and whatever whoever else is on staff have been coming to work they’ve been working all summer so i think that people think that teaching is a nine month job it’s not anymore so you know to add to that too i mean one one of the things we are looking at it’s not a direct comparison tom is that we will

51:15 be looking at colleges so obviously colleges will be starting in earlier in early augusts so northeastern university says they’re going back full population full you know full in person so that’s going to be a great situation to take a look at a lot of colleges across the commonwealth um are doing remote and even if they’re bringing some kids back on campus to to house them or into the dormitories it’s often single occupancy in the dorms and they’re still doing remote but those are the kind of situations that we’ll be looking to to try to gather some information looking at what the spread is um it’s not to say that i compare a college kid to a kindergartner or first grader our concern with the younger kids is that potentially they could be what we call a super spreader um so that they could be pushing off more virus they might not be showing symptoms but they could be spreading more virus quickly to those teachers and to other people which would be causing additional issues and obviously like Todd said you know we are still do not have the full understanding of the long-term health effects of this virus if a college student tests positive and the the kid is in Boston but losing like president is Idaho and we’ve talked about this before does it count as a case for Idaho or a case for Massachusetts so we have pushed up to the mass department of public health that they need to make sure that

52:48 when a kid hits college at you know you mass Boston that kid is now falls under the guidance of Boston public health so he has to register as he lives you know he’s living in the dorms in Boston we want to make sure we capture that so it doesn’t get sent back to Idaho and we’re missing that Andrew Petty a freshman at UMass Boston is positive and it goes back to Idaho and gets lost Andrew uh Todd could I ask Andrew um could you uh talk about the uh anything going on a different anything new about the mental health of the community are we seeing an uptick on that or we just everybody seems to be finding a place for themselves to be treated if they need to be um so you know a couple different things so yes we are seeing an uptick in mental health issues um fortunately we we are during the summer months so people are able to be outside and get some relief you know get some good exercise as we enter into some of the darker times you know when we less daylight colder periods we believe that we’ll see an even greater uptake in mental health issues and we’re going to have to deal and try to come up with some ways to help out with that one of the concerns is that we most likely will not have a lot of false sports and other sports

54:20 where there’s a lot of great outlet for mental health you know it just boosts your great mental health um you know being able to get outside breathe fresh air run around and without some of that stuff we’re gonna have to come up with some other ideas um you know people are gonna have to get creative so walking clubs or something yes you can have walking clubs but like I said you still have to be careful these small close contact groups that are the source of spreading the virus right now so people have to remember that if you’re out with these groups you need to wear a mask and stuff like that even if you’re having friends over you need to be wearing a mask um you know we still haven’t had anybody in our house since the beginning of this um so yeah outside is great um but if you’re having a group over 10 you’re supposed to have a mask on at this point i haven’t seen any posts and they haven’t been in mine um so just a lot of things to remember um you know yeah we’re at the height of the summer we’re all having a lot of fun the weather has been great but we got to make sure that we stay on the right side of this and it’s really important to think about at the beginning of this and where we were and where we went very quickly we shut down the school system with 164 cases in the state of massachusetts do you think that we need to bring in another nurse or something that can help with some of the mental health issues um so obviously you know if we are having obviously we have a great

55:50 resource of marvel head counseling center um who handles a majority of our mental health services and then we have to rely on and pushing out messages about two-on-one other health mental health services that are available um yeah so there is another we can buy into a program where it’s a toll free call to reach a mental health counselor so we can discuss some of those things also yeah i think that we should be prepared instead of you know have a couple of real serious issues and then um yeah some of the surrounding communities are are now paying to the service so it’s something that we can explore tard could you make make sure that that’s on the agenda maybe he can bring some numbers to us all right and we’re talking about beaches i think he’s taking some notes but are the beaches any better these days as far as crowds and gatherings you know to tell you the truth you really have to be on the beach looking at the crowd to understand if it’s good or bad so doing a drive-by inspection doesn’t give you the true idea of what’s occurring on the beach yeah you might buy drive-by devro and it seems like it’s packed you need to have boots on the ground to have an understanding of our groups staying 12 feet away is there good social distancing um so far we are seeing good you know good social distancing at

57:25 the beaches and stuff like that we do have some concern as our numbers are you know across the state are creeping up about boats rafting together and large many boats rafting together well your um board of health um member michelle took a group of teenagers to task at the neckrun cafe this this weekend because there were a group of a group of teenagers not wearing masks and i i just they were all smushed together at the at the you know waiting to order so i went up and pulled some weight there um because they just you know it wasn’t like they were sitting on the beach they were they were you know standing there to order and they were standing right next to families and families with kids who were wearing masks and um anyway they they some of them pulled out their masks and listened to me and the some of them just gave me some lip but well thank you for doing that i mean sometimes i just can’t keep my mouth closed there’s been a couple of days i wanted to go to the beach because the weather’s so beautiful but i said i don’t want to go there and find myself in a position that i don’t didn’t want to be in as far as crowds so the beach itself um seemed to be okay as you know andrew said you

59:02 have to get onto the beach to see what’s going on but um but i wasn’t happy with what i saw at neckrun so do they have any signs up neck neck run no watering if you don’t have a mask or anything like that i mean that could be that would be a place who will put our first uh lawn sign i think i mean i think all the restaurants have to have i i think they all have to have signs up there um i don’t know i because i wasn’t actually ordering anything i was just kind of walking by so hilane we already have we have five five lawn signs at devro beach yeah when you leave the parking lot to remind everybody to mask up when you enter the beach you know i see the big electronic one there which yeah we also have lawn signs out there too now good while we’re on the beaches you’ve been doing the testing in the water every week yeah the water quality has been exceptional this summer um we had a little concern last week when we had a rain event on tuesday we test on wednesday um but actually everything came back perfect um temperatures were running um devro beach was running about 68 the harbor was running about 64 65 um all right sorry devro was running about 63 the harbor was running 64 65 salem harbor was running about 68 um we’ve had some kind of water change and it’s actually dropped a little bit um so i dropped a couple degrees all across the board um but it’s been a great summer for

1:00:36 um water quality at least we’ve got something going for us yeah exactly and andrew if we’re about to close would you like to ask us to we have two guests if they have anything to say um but ken is a guest too but i guess uh he’s spoken but there’s two more guests uh kevin mccoy do you have any questions or would you like to speak i think i would rather not i think okay yeah if there’s any public comment karen pierce yourself i’m fat you’re all set yeah i’ll catch you later karen all right that’s good thank you for attending though um so next next tuesday one more week we’ll join i will be on vacation next week i am taking the week off you deserve thank you obviously i won’t be going anywhere i’ll be in town but i’ll be taking the week off you don’t want to see us we will all try not to call you yeah that night might be difficult for me um is it yeah i’m just wondering since andrew’s off do we want to maybe um um what’s the way a week yeah that’s fine the 25th i’ll be at the meeting but i’m going to be um

1:02:08 out of town in massachusetts so i’m not going very far but i will call in i will call in yeah we’re always remote so it doesn’t matter it’s the same way no matter what but you don’t see you don’t see the same background you’ll know what 25th at 7 30 sounds good okay andrew take a good rest please thank you we’re going to work we’re going to work you to the bone when you come back sounds good we know where to find you in the harbor yeah exactly do we have a motion to adjourn i’ll make a motion to adjourn all right miss scott lee in favor miss hazel it in favor dr belf becker in favor all right thank you everybody stay safe everyone have a good night everybody