Board of Health: August 25, 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.

0:00 All right, so we’ll call the meeting to order. And I just request if you are in our audience, welcome, but please put yourself on mute until you are called on. And I do want to start the meeting tonight approving a handful of minutes just to get that out of the way. Elaine and Michelle, have you both had a chance to look them over? I didn’t see one of them, but I’ll just be your vote present on that. But let me see. I probably can get it while you’re reading. Yeah, I sent my comments to Andrea, so she already incorporated mine, I think. Okay, so since we have a polled vote, instead of having 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9 polled votes, Andrew, can we just say yes, yes, yes? And then at the end, you pause? Is that okay? You probably should do a polled vote for each one. Okay. All right, so let’s start with May 28th. Ms. Haysland? Yes. Ms. Gottlieb? Yes, as amended. Dr. Belfbecker? Yes. June 4th. Ms. Haysland? Yes. We have a motion to approve. Ms. Halle? We need a motion to approve. Okay, go ahead. Michelle, you need to, my motion to approve, you’ll second it as amended, or did you amend those or no? I don’t, let’s just say that for all of them, because I don’t remember which ones I meant.

1:35 You made the motion to approve all, did you make the motion? Yes, I did. I’ll second. Ms. Haysland? Yes, approve. Ms. Gottlieb? Yes. Dr. Belfbecker? Yes. June 9th. We have a motion to approve. I’ll make a motion to approve as amended. And second? You seconded it? No. Oh, I’m seconded. Yeah, I’ll second it. Ms. Gottlieb? Yes. Ms. Haysland? In favor? Dr. Belfbecker? In favor. June 23rd. We have a motion to approve. I’ll make a motion to approve as amended. And a second? Second. Ms. Gottlieb? Yeah. Ms. Haysland? Approved. Dr. Belfbecker? Yes. July 9th. We have a motion to approve. A motion to approve. Second. I’ll second it. Okay. Ms. Haysland? In favor? Ms. Gottlieb? Yes. Dr. Belfbecker? Yes. Just a couple more. July 21st? I’ll make a motion to approve as amended. Haysland? Second. Andrew? Ms. Gottlieb? Yes. Ms. Haysland? Approved. Dr. Belfbecker? Yes. August 4th. Do we have a motion to approve? I’ll make a motion to approve. Go ahead.

3:06 Make a motion to approve as amended. Second. Ms. Gottlieb? Yes. Ms. Haysland? Approved. Dr. Belfbecker? Approved. And I was… I was ready to read. So I’ll make a motion to approve. Okay. Second. Andrew? Ms. Haysland? Yes. I’ll make a motion to approve. Okay. I’ll second it. I’ll make a motion to approve. Okay. Second. Andrew? Ms. Haysland? In favor? Ms. Gottlieb? Yes. Dr. Belfbecker? Yes. And finally, Andrew, have you had a chance to write the minutes for tonight’s meeting yet? Okay. We’ll do that next time. It’s not able to do it. Yeah. Okay. All right. So we’ll move on. Andrew, you have COVID? I’m sorry? Andrew, let’s begin our COVID-19 update for the night. All right. So I’m going to begin with the case count. So we have at this point, we’ve had 262 confirmed cases. We have less than five active cases currently. And we have a total of 30 confirmed deaths. Now I want to talk about the confirmed deaths a little bit. And I also want to talk about how the state reports compare to us. So the state has been going through a lot of the death records. We need to speak with the state to understand how they’re reporting the death records. Are they looking at primary cause, secondary cause? You know, does it just have to have a person who has been infected by COVID and then passes

4:41 away later on and that’s attributed to it? So that’s something that we are in the process of speaking with the state. And then because the state has their own set of records online, and we need to do a comparison of that and make sure it lines up with ours. But when we do our confirmed deaths, that is a primary and a secondary cause of death. It’s COVID. We don’t get third or anything past that. So it’s a primary and a secondary cause. So we are in the process of that. And then we always get the question when the state comes out with their case count on Wednesday, it is not apples to apples with our case counts. The state looks at confirmed and probable cases. Ours are only confirmed cases. So again, it’s not a comparison. They’re also looking at a two week period. Ours were looking at active cases. And then some of the other issues is that they also are bringing it up to be able to compare with other communities around the state. It’s based on a population of 100,000 people. So people really need to remember that. The other point that came up the other night is that just because we had a case at the hardware store in town or at a camp in town does not mean that those cases are Marblehead residents and they have, only Marblehead residents are part of our case reporting.

6:14 So I just want to make some of that very clear and the differences between the state and ours. It’s very frustrating for health departments to actually have the state doing their reporting themselves. When the state puts out their report, they do not have time to remove duplication of cases. They do not have time to remove suspect cases that may not end up confirmed. And they do not have time to get redirected. So we could call somebody and they might state that, well, they actually live in North Carolina. They’re not actually living in Marblehead even though we have a local Marblehead address for them. Their main residents might be in North Carolina. That case gets moved out of Massachusetts. So it’s not part of our case count. So that’s something that the state also does not look at. So it can be very, you know, again, it’s just not apples to apples. So does anybody have any questions on the case count? I’ll continue to go on. So at this point, we are still seeing community transmission is occurring and there remains a potential for rapid case increase at any time. So yes, there are cases in town. People need to remember to be vigilant, wear your mask if you’re unable to socially distance yourself. If you’re inside, you need to wear a mask. If you’re in a public building, obviously your home, you don’t have to wear one unless

7:49 you have members in your family that have symptoms of COVID. So those are all very important things to remember. You need to go back to kind of the time when we’re in the thick of this. I still wear my mask all the time. I get back in my car. I wash my hands with my sanitation wipes and then I take my mask off. I’m always very protective of my mask and I want to protect that. And obviously if you’re wearing a surgical mask, you need to change that often. We need to do the same thing. So when I go home, the first thing I do, take off my shoes, wash my hands before I do anything else. So the community needs to remember to do these things. And we have passed these things on obviously to other departments in town just to remind everybody that the cases are still occurring in this area. And we are seeing high rates of cases in surrounding communities. So Lynn is now the major hotspot of Massachusetts. And obviously we don’t live in a bubble. So we do have potentially workers coming from other towns into our community. And we also have residents that are traveling outside of our community into other communities and can be bringing this back. Obviously there’s always the issue of asymptomatic carriers. So people need to be vigilant about all their COVID practices that they have done before. At this point, we have received some complaints. So you can either, if you have a complaint regarding COVID issues, you can either

9:21 email my office or you can email the attorney general’s office regarding a concern. The attorney general’s office will quickly look at it and then pass it on to us. We are now doing, we go out with an inspector goes out with a police officer one night a week to do compliance checks at restaurants or other establishments. They’ve also gone to the beach to check out the establishment down there, but also big beach activity and kind of hanging out at the beach. We have seen some good compliance. We’ve also seen some issues. So it’s always a good thing to remind people of what the responsibilities are, making sure that all employees are wearing masks properly. They’re washing their hands and everybody’s doing, are socially distanced properly and seating in other areas like that. As we always say, this is a rapidly evolving situation. And so, you know, we just always need to remind everybody of those, those thoughts. So one of the things that has come up recently is the discussion around masks. And there has been a couple of articles talking about which masks are better than others. So we do want to make a couple of comments regarding that. So a mask that contains a valve. So a mask that contains a valve. So you might see what looks like to be an N95 mask and it has a valve on the outside of it, we do not recommend that you use these masks as they can push out, you know, respiratory droplets and truly they might be protecting you, but they’re not

10:54 protecting others. The idea with the mask is that it’s capturing as much of your droplets as possible. So we want to remind people about that. There also has been a lot of discussion about gators and there are several articles that have been written. There was a Duke University study that called into the question about gators and there was a new article that came out in the Washington Post actually today about talking about masks and how gators are actually effective. So sometimes people might wear a single ply gator. This mask is not as effective as a two ply gator, but it’s still better than nothing. But if you have the potential to double up your gator, that’s better than wearing a single layer of gator. And obviously not all gators are created equally. So just be mindful of this. And some of the gators who are actually tested, the two ply gators could actually be better than some of the cotton masks that are out there. But so one of our main points is here is that we really discourage the use of a mask that has a valve on it that is pushing out, that can potentially be pushing out respiratory droplets. Well, it’s basically like you’re not even wearing a mask if you’re wearing a valve. That’s correct. So Andrew, at this point, do we want to talk about the recommendation specifically on that or? Not yet, Michelle.

12:25 We’ll get to that. That’s what I thought. Yep. So some of the other things. And so I’m going to start to go into all the school stuff at this point. So on Monday, I was invited to do a walkthrough. Do you want to do the reopening and chime in on my reopening? Or do you want to do the school separately? How do you… No, no, it’s part of the reopening. So why don’t you start with the reopening and then I can chime in. Yeah, because I think that as I’ve been to the meetings and you’ve been to some inspections and then I’d be repeating some of the things you’ve said. So go right ahead. Am I doing that? No, not at all. Go ahead. Could I, I just have to briefly tell you that in some of this news is old, but I went to the August 17th meeting. We didn’t have a meeting last week and what was discussed, which has publicized, but I’ll quickly go down that and then we’ll go on to yesterday’s meeting. The reopening pre-K is September 14th. And I will do this quickly unless people have questions. And K through two is, is a pre-K, it’s September 14th is in person. And K through two is September 21st in person. And then September, when it’s September 21st is K through one. I apologize. K through one. The second grade goes September 28th in person. Then three to 12 will be remote until October 5th.

13:57 And then October 5th, they will go hybrid with their two days a week. It’ll be a Monday, Thursday, Tuesday, Friday, with Wednesday for teachers meetings, other app activities that they will have assignments and they will be all the assignments when they will be done with their teachers, with teachers, not with people that have been hired from the outside, which they had earlier last year. There’ve been very few concerns from teachers. If Joan wants to chime in after I finish this, she’s certainly welcome because she’s the chairman of the MEA. And they just want to make sure that they have the appropriate PPE and they’ve been mask ordered. SPUR has asked for money and they did get it and they put their, they’ve had a backpack drive and they’ve gotten that. There are a hundred students in Marblehead that have asked for backpack assistance. So we live in this wonderful little enclave, but there are people that have needs as people have in other parts of our Commonwealth. The custodial is working on air quality and PPEs and the tech department is working on distributing devices. And last week we heard that it’s been very difficult to get Chromebooks. They’ve been going to distributors and the distributors are telling

15:28 them to go to staples. The staples, I think, are short on them also. It seems like that’s going to be right down to the last minute. And teaching and learning is, their social and emotional subcommittee and teaching and learning is very active. Their social and emotional subcommittee, which we’ve been interested in, the social and emotional events of all our citizens, but this is especially important in the school community. So that brings us to yesterday’s meeting, which was the reopening meeting of 824, which is taught whenever I seem to be at this point where you are. Read this a little more slowly. The first item that was discussed was the survey. 2650 had responded as of 824. And there are just under 10% of the families are interested in totally remote. There are, however, some children who are on ed plans, its parents want them to be remote. And that was interesting also. The superintendent has had listening sessions, which have been very successful. And then we got some updates on the masks, which may be that’s

16:58 maybe where you should chime in. Andrew, would you like to do that? On the walkthroughs and stuff like that? In the masks here. Yeah. So I joined the committee the other day for a walkthrough. So we talked a lot of different issues. One of the major issues that we talked about over and over in every school was increasing air exchange. And it’s very important to know to understand that we want to increase air exchange, but it’s not a good idea to use a table or a pedestal fan in a classroom. Because this could potentially push the virus further than six feet or the three feet. So we do not recommend that you use a table or pedestal fan. But yes, you need to increase the air exchange. And they will be doing this by opening windows in the classroom, both, you know, lower and upper. They do have some filtration in the classrooms. And there is a filter on these systems. A lot of them are heaters or air exchange systems. And it is recommended in the school is following the recommendation of the certain micron filters. So all of those have been ordered. They have not been installed, but as soon as they are here, they will be installed. My understanding is that they will be here before school is opened. So all those will be installed. We also talked about, you know, how are the kids?

18:30 So a lot, some of the classrooms have sinks. And obviously it’s a great idea that you encourage students to come into the classroom and wash their hands. That are for creating a sterile environment as much as possible. One of the concerns is that some of the classrooms actually have like a water fountain attached to the sink. These will be disconnected. So because obviously the concern is that students tend not to use the water fountain properly and contaminate it. So those will be discouraged. But the school will be providing a water supply to students. It’s really important to remember though, that when you are in the classroom or when you’re in the school, that you have to leave your mask on at all times. So they’ll have to, when they’re outside taking mask breaks, that’s really when you’ll be encouraging water breaks also. So yes, they are working on potentially giving students a liter of water or using a, a, a auto fill water bottle dispenser. Because obviously like a pole in Springs or something like that is hard to use because you’ll have to clean it after every use. Some of the other issues that we talked about, there’s some new updated guidelines from DESI and DESI went through and tried to match a lot of public health and CDC guidelines. One of the changes that we are continuing to talk about with other towns around our area is the fact that a definition of a close contact.

20:05 So if a student or staff member tests positive for COVID-19, their close contacts will be defined as only those who have been within six feet of distance of the individual for at least 15 minutes while the person was infectious. The infectious period begins two days prior to symptom onset. If someone is asymptomatic, the infection period is considered to begin two days prior to the collection of a positive test. While previous guidance stated all students in an elementary classroom would be defined as close contacts, this new guidance provides a narrow definition for close contact, which mirrors Mass Department of Public Health guidance. So this is something that we’ll continue to look at during the summer, summer school, if we had a positive case in the classroom, the whole classroom was removed from the school and put on quarantine or isolation. One of the other things that we need to discuss a little bit about this is that they’re using 15 minutes. I believe the CDC guidelines is actually 10 to 15 minutes. I would recommend more on the 10 minute side. I’d rather err on caution than be very strict to that 15 minutes. And this isn’t a 15, 10 or 15 minute conversation at one time. This can be accumulation of conversations so I could have five, two minute conversations that could add up to that 10 minutes. So you need to remember that. Obviously, when we did the walkthrough of the schools, one of the questions that

21:36 I asked is how are kids going to line up at the beginning of the day? Students won’t be allowed into the school early. So at like village school, often kids would go early. They would go into the cafeteria to get breakfast or they’d go into the library and hang out. That’s not going to be allowed. They’ll have to wait outside. The school is going to have to make an organized line system. So they’re going to have to have markers that show six feet apart. But the concern I have obviously is that kids congregating together with each other on their way to school and therefore creating a contact that way. Also, one of my concerns is that my son who’s going into fifth grade, and he walks by himself, if he became a positive person, would I be able to get his close contacts? Would he be able to tell me all the people that he potentially talked to in that time period? So that’s one of the concerns that I have, especially gathering in from the school before they start a school. So that’s something that the school is going to have to have, got to monitor outside it and work on that. They also have a change to the policy of when a close contact may return to school. So this is all off the new Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. This came out August 18th. Policy when a close contact may return to school. All close contacts should be tested, but must self quarantine for 14 days

23:07 after the last exposure to the person who tested positive, regardless of test results. After further consultation with the medical community, we are updating this guidance as the virus can cause illness from two to 14 days after exposure and even asymptomatic individuals can transmit the virus going forward. Even an individual identified as a close contact receives a negative test result. They must continue to self quarantine for the full 14 days as a virus may take up 14 days to cause illness. Now, Desi had did not have this in align with math department, public health, CDC. So now this is coming together. The next one that we’ve had some changes policy on when a student staff person may return to school after COVID-19 symptoms. If a student or staff member has COVID-19 like symptoms, they may return to school after they have tested negative for COVID-19, have improved in symptoms and have been without fever for at least 24 hours without the use of fever reducing medication. That’s really important that you cannot use fever reducing medication and say you no longer have a fever. If a provider makes an alternative diagnosis for the COVID like symptoms, the individual may return to school based on the recommendation for that alternative diagnosis, e.g. influenza, strep, stuff like that. If a student or staff member presents COVID like symptoms and chooses not

24:39 to be tested, they may return to school 10 days from the start of symptoms as long as their symptoms have improved and they have been without fever for at least 24 hours prior to their return to school without the use of fever reducing medication. All right. Second, or next actually, because that’s not second, definition of COVID-19 related fever. Over the summer, the threshold for COVID-19 related fever by a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC, has been updated from greater than 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit to greater than 100.0 degrees Fahrenheit. As a result, going forward, a fever of a COVID-19 symptom will be defined as 100.0 degrees Fahrenheit or higher. This is another thing that people need to really be reminded of. Everybody’s body temperature is slightly different. We’ve had a long practice in my office of taking our temperatures daily. And I know my body temperature is 96.9 or 96.6 to 97.6. 97.9. If I start to see my body temperature 99, I know I have a problem. I’m not even going to hit that 100. I know I have a problem and I need to start to isolate myself from others. So we always recommend if you’re going back into these settings that you really should be checking your body temperature twice daily if possible, so you understand

26:09 what your body temperature regularly is. So yeah, we understand that the CDC is using that 100. But like I said, we really recommend that people start to understand what their true body temperature is now. Students wearing masks. Masks or face coverings are among the most critical components to reduce the transmission of COVID-19. Students in grade two and above are required to wear a face mask covering that covers their nose and mouth at all times with the exception of meals and mass breaks whenever possible. Students in pre-k, pre-kindergarten through grade one who can safely and appropriately wear, remove and handle masks to do so. Even if students are spaced six feet apart in classrooms, the use of masks is still required unless students are eating lunch or taking a mask break. Obviously, we’ve had discussions about this in the past and the CDC recommendation is anybody over the age of two. And we recommended that to the school. Physical distancing guidelines. So is it age two or grade two? No, so the CDC guidelines are over the age two. And did you read grade two or did I hear you? So, Dessie guidelines now are students in grade two and above are required and they recommend that pre-kindergarten through grade one who can safely and appropriately wear, remove and handle masks to do so. So slightly different, but we’ve made the recommendation that anybody over the age of two should do so.

27:40 And we’ve talked about this physical distancing in the past. We’re recommending the six foot separation and not the three foot. Immunization is required for all modeling of learning. So we have a new state policy that all students from pre-k through high school must be vaccinated for influenza. This is the very first time we’re ever dealing with this. And this means that so if you’re regardless, if you’re remote, you’re hybrid or you’re in person, you must follow the vaccination requirements for the school. There’s some other things about the medical waiting room that we’ve discussed in the past. If we have a student in a medical waiting room, the student must be provided with an N95 mask. So our school will be going forward with this. We don’t have a problem with that. And obviously safe application of hand sanitizer. We always recommend the best thing to do is hand washing. The second best thing to do is hand sanitizer. Obviously, it should at least contain 60 percent alcohol. The school has purchased many hand sanitizer units and they’ll be placed around the school appropriately. The next thing I wanted to cover is that we did get notification from the state that they have put together a rapid response testing team. So in the event that we have multiple cases, we can and there’s also

29:14 criteria so that we can request from the state that they bring in this rapid response testing team. The state did this for our long term care facilities. Obviously, long term care facilities are under the guidance of the state. In this case, you know, they were responsible for it, but they brought in these quick response teams to do the testing there. They would test everybody in the facility. That would give us a better understanding who is positive, who is not. And they would do this multiple days in a row to try to have a better understanding. But for this rapid response testing, if you have staff, if two or more students, staff within the classroom group, develop COVID-19 within 14 days and transmission exposure occurred in the classroom, you could potentially have this response team come in. If more than three percent of the cohort grade, at least three individuals develop COVID-19 within 14 days and transmission exposure occurred in the school, you could request this rapid response team. If more than three percent of the school develops COVID-19 within 14 days and there’s evidence of transmission within the school, you could request this in. If three or more staff within the same school develop COVID-19 within 14 days and there’s evidence of transmission among staff. And if two or more students on the bus develop COVID-19 within 14 days, you can bring this in. So that’s another resource that we have available to us.

30:46 And if we need that, we can take a look at that. The last thing or not the last thing I wanted to talk about is some of the we did talk about the masks and the valves. But also the school department is asking us that we support currently mask wearing is a state law. And the decision to dismiss a student for not wearing a mask has been cleared with the local Board of Health. So my recommendation on this is that if a student is not wearing a mask, the school must offer them a mask. And if the student refuses to put the mask on, then the child should be dismissed for not wearing a mask. So with that, I think I would need a vote actually from the board to recommend that to the school department. I’ll make a motion. I have a question first. Yeah. Are there any exemptions for that for special needs students? I’m not aware of any exemptions for special needs students.

31:54 And obviously there’s going to be. We have a comment from Patrick Noonan that says that’s not right. Can you clarify Patrick? That’s not right. You say that there are exemptions. Do you want to can we ask our audience member to clarify? Yeah, no, I’ve become a new expert on the Destiny guidelines. And my understanding is for special needs students where you have a some sort of a document for medical provider that this is a relates to a bona fide medical condition that there is an exemption. Yeah, I just and I this is something where I feel comfortable making this motion. And but I would say that the school this is where the schools I think need to have their own piece of language in there around what the exemptions are. That would be their piece. We can put our advisory in and then they can have their own piece. That wouldn’t be up to us to do. And obviously with the the mask law across the state, there’s always been this medical exemption. And obviously it seems like the Desi one is a little bit more stringent than the Desi one. And obviously it seems like the Desi one is a little bit more stringent where you actually have to have a written medical exemption from a doctor where currently across the state if I’m walking around and I could say that I have a medical exemption and I’m not allowed to ask that person for their medical card. Okay, so you could include that into the recommendation if you wanted to.

33:31 Yeah, I’m comfortable doing it without as long as you know, we know the schools will take care of that part. I’m fine with that. Our piece is, you know, from our, it’s our recommendation and the schools will handle the exemption piece on their own, I’m assuming. I think the main part of our recommendation is that if a student doesn’t have a mask, the school has to offer the mask. And then like, I don’t think that they can just say you have to go home. In our, in our recommendation, they have to, they have to offer masks first, give them the choice or the chance to put a mask on. Right. That to me is. Can we put in, unless they have a medical, I think we should stay at that and let the school handle the exemption piece because they’re the ones that will be handling who, what, where. They know which students are, they have their lists of people who for whatever reason. The schools can come back to us before their Thursday meeting if they have an issue with that. Did Tom have, I think, sorry, go ahead. Tom? You’re muted, Tom. I’m wondering about, you know, the possibility of some student playing around. So I’ll put it on and then an hour later it takes it off. And you know, the thing is, is, you know, kind of taunting in a way, type of attitude, you know, yeah, I’ll put it on. And then, and then a little while later it’s off. Do you have to keep offering one or are you, it’s sort of, you’ve been offered,

35:01 you’re taking it off again, you’re out. That kind of thing. I think the idea of the offer, Tom, is that if you show up to school without a mask, and obviously we want to encourage, you know, the proper use of masks. So anytime we’ve gone out and do enforcement and stuff like that, it’s, you know, when we do large scale enforcement, we generally bring with us a box of masks so we can make sure that it’s not, hasn’t been, you know, an equity issue that they don’t have a mask or anything like that.

35:39 Elaine, you’re muted. Elaine? Elaine, unmute yourself. I would like to make the motion as Andrew read it. As long as we feel that the schools will take care of the special needs. Can you read it again, Andrew? Yeah. So currently mask grant in the state is the law and the decision to dismiss the student for not wearing a mask has been cleared with the local board of health. All right. Make that motion. I’ll second that. And for discussion that as stated in the state law is about offering a mask first? Uh, no, so that’s not in the state law. So you want to, you want to say, so my recommendation is that, um, if a child shows up to school without a mask, the school must first offer the mask. And then they, if the child decides to not wear the mask, they can dismiss that soon for not wearing a mask at that time. Um, and obviously the medical exemption would still apply. Yes. So you made a motion on those terms. Lane. Yes. Okay. And Michelle, you seconded it. So we’ll vote, please. Um, Miss Godley approved. Miss easily favor. Dr. Belf Becker. Yes. I think that’s very, very important because the school committee has asked us for the approval, um, and so that they can say that the local, their, our local board of health has approved that.

37:09 And I think it gives support. Yeah. And they are, um, you know, voting on their mask policy on Thursday. And we also, we discussed earlier the vents, but we didn’t specifically talk about vents on masks for schools. So can we do another recommendation that they don’t allow students wear those masks? Can I speak on that a little more broadly on the whole, on the larger piece as well? Go for it. Yeah. So, um, I don’t know. Um, I don’t think the teacher who had, um, approached me is, is at the meeting tonight. Um, and, and we had had some exchanges before, um, because originally, um, we had some back and forth and discussed actually making a recommendation, not just on the valves, but also on the gators. And as Andrew pointed out earlier, um, at least at this stage, um, I’ve discussed with Andrew and don’t feel comfortable, um, adding any recommendations from the board of health to restrict, um, you know, making any recommendations, advising the schools to restrict gators as one of the mask options. Um, I just think that, you know, yes, there was that Duke study, but the, um, the, you know, one of the researchers even in the Duke study said that, you know, the findings were misconstrued from that and, um, at this point, you

38:40 know, two ply gators have been shown to be better than some cloth masks. And I think just the jury is out on that. So I think, um, given that, you know, many kids do wear the gators and, um, we want people to be wearing face coverings. And in many cases, those gators can be effective. Um, it seems like it’s not kind of an evidence science based recommendation for us as the board, um, to be recommending the schools to say no gators. That doesn’t seem to be based on any real sound science at this point. It would be kind of grasping at straws. So, um, so just to put it out there on the record that that recommendation, um, you know, I don’t think we should be putting that recommendation out there right now, the valve. Um, one, as Andrew pointed out in his kind of recommendations to the public, I think is something that we should issue a specific statement that the school should include in their mask policy on Thursday. Um, we know that that is, um, absolutely not, um, sound mask policy. And we don’t want kids to be coming to school with masks that have valves. So I think we should issue an official statement on, um, of that sort. Any thoughts, Elaine? Um, I agree, but I also think it should include the single plug gators. Because a lot of kids that ski and all have gators and they’re wearing them.

40:12 And, um, if they’re not, if they’re not safe, then I think that we need to occlude that. But I think the problem is, is if, you know, unless you’re going to do a full-time study about every piece of equipment that people are wearing, um, and what’s going to be allowed and what’s not going to be allowed, I think you’re going to kind of go down this road. If you start to exclude gators, are you now going to be allowed to exclude handkerchiefs and other things or potentially a cotton mask that might only be one ply? I think you have to be very careful with that. Um, so my recommendation is to stay away from the gators at this time. Um, as the scientific study says, obviously a gator is better than nothing. Um, but obviously a mask that contains a valve is not doing the job that we want it to do. Um, so my recommendation is to stay away from the gators, but definitely do the valves. Patrick’s interested to comment again. I got it. So Patrick? Hi. So I guess I’m just trying to understand like what’s sort of the, you know, we’ve got whole teams of people at mass DPH looking into these issues and they’re promulgating new guidance literally every day. I mean, the, the, and we’ve got dozens, hundreds of scientists looking at this. And I’m just trying to figure out like why we are trying to deviate from what they’re recommending. I don’t believe that we are trying to deviate from that. We’re just trying to put out specific statements that can help guide the

41:42 school committee to make their decisions. But as far as They’ve not said no one from no one from Dessie or DPH just said, don’t wear gators. That’s why we’re saying that’s why we’ve moved on from gators. But we’re, we’re, we’re talking about the valves now, which, which every study has shown. Okay. No, I’m sorry. I thought I misunderstood what Andrew was saying, where he was saying that he wanted to actually put something on. No, we’re, we’re, I was the one. Or it was a way, I’m sorry. Yeah. But he’s, I’m going with my director. I was, yeah, I think that’s what we were saying, Patrick, is that despite a lot of what we’ve, these studies that are out there, we’re not comfortable actually saying, because it’s not based on science yet. No one’s saying that on the gators. Thank you. Sorry. I’m sorry. I’m misunderstanding. That’s fine. So, and I, and I agree with, with both of you that we should make a statement about valves, but I don’t think we have to, I don’t think we should include gators. But Blair, do you have a question? I’m here, but it’s unrelated to the point that you’re making here. So can I? Sure. Okay. So let’s, let’s finish this piece because I think we want to make it. So could we make the, the, the valves as a recommendation to the school committee, please, or do you want to make it a vote? Yeah, you can make it a recommendation, you know, but it can be a voted recommendation. Yeah. I think we should vote to recommend. Okay. When I moved to recommend to the school committee that, that mass with valves are not safe.

43:18 Um, let’s amend that, like to say, um, that tonight, can I amend that? Yes. I mean, you know, that we, the board of health recommends that the, um, school, that the school committee exclude, you know, that their mask policy officially, um, exclude, um, masks with valves as, uh, from there, from the, you know, recommended masks that kids are allowed to wear to school. I don’t know. I’m not good at saying it until the month I write it, but we want to make sure that they specifically do not allow masks with valves in the recommendation. But I said, and I think that’s simple enough. The board of health does not recommend a mask with valves. Okay. That’s exactly why I thought it should be a recommendation without a vote. Well, I just, I think that we have to be more clear that, that we want them to include it in their mask policy. I think that has to be more specific. We already voted on that though. What do you mean? It’s a different point though. I think different point. So the wording then would be that, um, the board of health recommends the school committee specifically exclude masks with events from, from the masks, the mask policy at the schools. Is that

44:49 I’ll make a motion to that effect. I second that. Uh, miss easily in favor. Miss Scott Lane in favor. Dr. Bill Becker in favor. Okay. Todd, do you want to answer Patrick’s question? Oh, you mean Blair? I know Patrick Newton had another question. I didn’t see that. Um, so Pat, we don’t have any control over the private schools. Um, they are private and they can do whatever they want. Um, and same thing with the YMCA. So I guess, I guess I’m having a hard time understanding that given the, you know, border health shut down indoor dining, um, and requires, you know, all sorts of measures from stores in town. When you say that they can do whatever they want. I just, I feel like that’s, that’s not, that’s not right. So those are governor’s orders. They’re not our orders actually. So, so yes, we can make a local regulation that states that, um, masks with valves are not allowed in Marblehead. And then we would have to enforce that. Yes. And so I guess, I guess if you think that this is right and the science drives you there, and I’m not a scientist, I’m deferring to you all. I’m deferring to mass department of public health and CDC. But if you, if you feel strongly about this, if you think that that’s right,

46:22 I fail to see why it’s particularly applicable to the schools. And I guess I got a question about this later on. It’s going to further elucidate on this point, which I’m, I’m trying to understand the jurisdictional issues here where there there’s, there’s ongoing coordination between board of health and, and marble had public schools, which is great, definitely want to understand your, the insights that you guys can provide and everyone wants safety myself included, but candidly, I feel like there’s a little bit of kind of talking past each other where you guys recommend things and they turn around and say, or to health is requiring that we do this. So this is a very interesting piece and this is where it does get a little confusing. So when the governor makes these orders, they, he is telling board of health not to supersede his orders. And so rather than creating a patchwork of orders across the commonwealth, we have followed his line. When it comes with school guidelines, the school and Jesse have come out and said, it’s up to you, you guys decide what you guys want to do. We’ve always tried to have it push it back up to the top to say, this really should be top down. We’re all the same people. We’re Massachusetts. We shouldn’t have this patchwork of regulations. It should be top down. We shouldn’t even be talking about the, you know, these different rules and regulations for the schools recommendations. This should all be coming from DPH and you know, the governor’s office,

47:54 but they don’t want to do that. Unfortunately. I guess, you know, all due respect, I just disagree with that. I’ve read what they’ve said. I agree with you that in June and in July, it was, it was a mess, but I think they’ve actually been quite clear since around August 1st around this in terms of putting out guidance for public schools jointly between Desi and Mass DPH. And so they always say at the end, the schools have the right to do whatever they want. Public schools have the right work, you know. I don’t want to over lawyer it, but like, like they, they, I guess my point here and I don’t want to hijack the committee’s time. I genuinely appreciate the service you guys brought into town. I know you’re, you’re doing your best with, with frankly, limited guidance, at least at the outset from the state on this. I guess I’m just, I’m confused about why there seems to be a different standard between different types of institutions, particularly around the public school district. And I guess I’ve read the Desi guidance enough lately to, to disagree that they’re just throwing their hands up and saying, you guys figure it out. I think they’re actually being quite, quite clear about it at this point. And it’s only because it’s a bit, a lot of pushback from us to say, hey, you can’t be doing this. But now they’re clear. Now they’re being clear.

49:26 There’s still some differences that do not still line up with CDC guidelines. Like I said, the 15 minutes, we use 10 minutes. You know, so there’s still, there’s still, as we call it, cherry picking what they want. Fair. But I guess my point is I, I, I see the board of health as being a public health body in town that’s, whose recommendations and, and prescriptions should be equally applicable to all institutions in town. And I, I, I candidly fail to see why the virus doesn’t care if you paid tuition to be there or not. So if you’re in, if you’re in a private school setting and you guys are promulgating guidance, what’s required for math, for marble and public schools, it should be from your wearing your hat equally required for power and devro and JCC and YMCA. Yeah. So it’s called enforcement, Patrick. How can we go into those schools and enforce it? But so, so Patrick, we, we could, we could definitely do that. So there’s a different process for that. So I, the board of health can make a recommendation to the school department and they can adopt that for the public schools. If we wanted to do that for all the schools, we would have to make an order and I have to advertise an order and that’s going to take two weeks for us to do that process. I’m not saying you don’t, we can’t do that. There’s just a slightly different process for that. I hear you. And candidly, the math point is actually like it’s ultimately,

51:00 it’s not the, the, the, the hill. I want to fight on about this because I actually agree with what you’re saying at some level, but like, let me, let me make this a little bit more concrete and to for where I’m coming from, Dr. Bucky put out a great video about what’s considered safe in, for marble, high public schools as being the nexus between policies and practice and public health metrics. And I guess my comment is going to be specific on the public health metrics side of that coin because Desi and Masty PH have been crystal clear as far as I’m concerned about what about their guidance on this point. They’ve got the color coded map. It’s based on town specific data. But, but I’ve read the, I’ve read the guidance as Andrew would say, it’s like there are caveats in it. There’s a role for ongoing consultation with local boards of health. And frankly, I’ve emailed with Dr. Bucky and he says, you know, he intends to continue to, to have that consultation with you all about what public health metrics are appropriate. And I guess what I’m asking here, sitting here today is, will the board follow mass DPH is recommendation about what the appropriate public health metrics are, or do you plan to encourage other additional metrics that would be required for the public schools to open? And candidly, if it’s the latter, you should really be thinking about applying that equally to private schools and daycares, because this is not about specific policies and procedures at the school level. Things like mass. This is about, do we exist in an environment that is safe to send children to

52:33 school from like, from an epidemiological perspective? And to me that this public versus private, it just has no role. I think if, if we’re going to set something that’s different from what mass DPH and DESI have set forth in that color coded map, where we are green, by the way, at the very least, at the very absolute least, it needs to be predetermined and transparent weeks ahead of October 5th, when we’re talking about making a switch from remote to hybrid. And I think people are, and again, I’m trying to like, someone needs to own this decision and it can’t be two people kind of pointing past each other and saying, well, they say this and we say that. I guess someone would confuse because that metrics that the state has established does not apply to private schools.

53:29 Private schools have their, I don’t want to argue on that point, but they’ve said, they’ve said that it is safe to be in an in-person situation in the town of Marblehead right now. But they’ve also said that school departments can consult with local boards of health around additional metrics that they think are appropriate. And I guess I’m asking, do you all think that this is something that’s required in the town of Marblehead to have additional metrics be put upon MPS in order to reintroduce in-person learning? And if so, at the very least, can we preset those now so that they’re transparent, so that everyone can debate the issue and agree on it ahead of time. And we’re not making that call a week before schools are supposed to reopen.

54:17 I guess this consultation point, again, it’s like, what are you recommending? And what are you requiring? Or two, as you say, two very different things. And if you’re recommending it, candidly, I think you should be recommending it across the board. It’s a good point, Pat, and it’s a very complex issue, as you know. We have been following the guidelines as stated, but as Andrew just mentioned, the private schools have not been included in this metric. And so we have been going by what the governor says for public schools. And that’s been our focus. And again, we’re the health department, school department is a separate department in town and we have a good back and forth and that’s important. But we can’t tell the schools how to open. That’s their purview. We can recommend, and they’ve been listening to us, which is great because it is a good back and forth. But we don’t have the power to control the schools. We have the power to recommend based on public health what the school should be doing. And Pat, would you like the board to just recommend that they discourage the use of valves across all the schools in Marblehead? No, I must set the balancing aside. What I’d like to recommend is that they follow the mass DPH guidelines from the color coded now and no other metrics. I don’t think the board has discussed that in depth. I’m not even sure that the board is aware of the total metrics for the

55:47 color coding and obviously we don’t live in a bubble. So we have Lynn that is exploding with cases. And obviously we have those people potentially working in Marblehead. So yes, those are the metrics. But you don’t think that you don’t think that the mass DPH considers people moving across town borders? I assume they do, but we’re not sure why they’re into a county metrics versus a town metrics. So you think so you recommend a county metric? I’m not recommending anything. I’m just asking the question of you, too. I guess I’m saying again, dozens of PhD scientists, people much smarter than me, thought that a town based metric is more appropriate. And I guess why we would want to contradict that recommendation, I think should be something that we publicly discuss and is very transparent and is subject to public debate before it’s done. And can’t I lay my cards on the table? I’ve seen other school districts trying. And I don’t think we’re debating that. I think we’re debating the valve and not the metrics right now. And I think you’re actually you’re debating the metrics, but I’m trying to understand roles and responsibilities. Okay. Could I just clarify something? We’re even talking about this because the school department asked the Board of Health for opinion. We wouldn’t necessarily even give it, but they are looking toward us. So I think that answering their questions. And I think that it’s a very nice relationship and we appreciate that.

57:22 No, but I think these are, you know, I think these are big picture, you know, valid points around, you know, kind of jurisdiction and decision making that that are right, because I think it is we are suddenly in a position where we’ve never been in recent years around this pandemic where we are suddenly, you know, forced to make decisions and look to how we interact with departments and state and county and school departments and private public in ways that we’ve never had to make these decisions before. So I think it’s I think it’s, you know, I appreciate these comments and I think it’s important that we not just look at them with regard to this one particular issue and be thoughtful about it. So, you know, if you have additional thoughts, I know it’s hard to do it in the constraints of this meeting, but if you have additional thoughts and want to share them by email or whatever so that we can kind of digest it in addition to what you’re sharing here, sometimes it’s hard when we’re just making a decision about one particular thing. But if you have other thoughts, you know, it’s I do agree with you that, you know, Dessie and the Department of Public Health have come closer together. And Andrew stated that as well. I think we’re more comfortable with things in recent weeks than we were before.

58:54 But, you know, and like I said in the past, this is always a rapidly evolving situation and what we did, what guidelines we have today might change next week. So that’s been, you know, the pattern through this whole thing. Yeah, no, I totally appreciate that. And I’ve been reading them long enough to know where you’re coming from at that point, I guess at this point, though, I do feel like if we’re going to deviate from what the state’s recommending, it should be a really considered decision that needs to be really well justified. Andrew, could we ask you to reach out to any colleagues that you might have at Tower of the JCC? I certainly could look into it. How about the recommendation of the valves? No, about what they’re doing. Maybe we’d like to just have a conversation offline. Sure. And you could bring it back to the next meeting. Sure. Thank you. I guess just for clarity, though, before we move on, and I think it’s time to move on, how do you see us deviating from the DPH? Because I don’t think that we really, I don’t think that we are. I think that we are, what have you seen specifically? You’re talking to Pat? Yeah, I’m talking to Pat. So, I mean, again, this maybe might be one where like email is a little bit better to, we haven’t set a public health metric.

1:00:31 And candidly, I’ve asked Dr. Bucky to do it and he’s declined. And clearly, Desi and DPH have said, this is the public health metric you should be following for school. It’s basically, it’s cases per 100,000. And again, Marblehead at this point is, you know, I don’t have a science background, but Marblehead is in the green on this map. But I know others, apparently even Andrew thinks that maybe an Essex County level map is, or an Essex County level metric is more appropriate. It’s just a question, not, you know, it wasn’t my feeling toward it. Let me put a real sharp point on this. Like there are people who have advocated, maybe not in Marblehead, but in other school districts. That type of regional, much more stringent level of COVID pervasiveness in order to reopen public schools. I guess I’m thinking in particular, I mean, it’s Amherst Pelham, if you want to look it up. Yeah, there’s a huge fight about that. And what I’m saying is, if we are going to deviate from what Desi and Math DPH are recommending, I think that should be really grounded in a serious scientific process. And candidly, I just, I don’t see why we as a town board of health would be deviating from what their recommendations are, given their expertise on these questions.

1:02:03 Okay. I mean, when we had the meeting with, when Dr. Bocky and others came to our meeting, I mean, it was the Harvard School of Public Health study that, you know, I was advocating that they looked at that, you know, phased reopening and really looked at that color coded and based the reopening on those metrics and, you know, really looked at the special needs and early childhood, I guess it was the, they did those metrics based on the, you know, phased opening of K through four and really, you know, there wasn’t any reopening in the metrics where Massachusetts fell until you moved into, it was really only for the early childhood, you know, education and so based on those metrics, the older grades would not be opening in October, you know, so based on those Harvard, based on the Harvard School of Public Health, Oh, not based on what Dessie came out with. Right. So, you know, there’s, there’s, and those were, you know, very well established, you know, smartest PhD, you know, so

1:03:35 we, that’s not our, that’s not the guidance that obviously we are, that we’re advocating, but you know, there’s a lot of different, different public health metrics that folks are using, you know. No, and I totally, I don’t pretend to be the foremost expert on this. In fact, I fully admit I’m not, I’m totally, at this point now, looking to my mind, I’m now looking to mass DPH for what they’re saying, and I’m sure that they could be wrong. I’m sure that there could be people from other places, but I guess I’m saying, if you all as the Board of Health recommend a more stringent or standard or additional metrics than what Dessie and DPH have put out there, that’s a pretty high burden in my view. And if it’s a burden that, can’t you have that much confidence in, as a community-based level of disease prevalence, you should be applying that to the private institutions as well. We hear you. Thank you. I think it’s time to move on though, and if you want to email us, I’m not sure if you have the announcement. I really do appreciate you guys taking the time to talk about this. I mean, this is, you know, a level of discussion and discourse that, you know, we don’t usually get it from town government, so I do appreciate your listening to me on these points. Well, we appreciate you. And thank you for taking the time to come and discuss it with us. Absolutely. It’s well appreciated to, you know, have thoughtful discussion on this, so I do appreciate it.

1:05:07 I guess the final question is, to the extent that you guys are consulting with the school department on these points, is that done in sort of a public meeting setting, or is there an opportunity for members of the public to be part of that discussion? Well, we just made our recommendations, which the school will now see, and then they have their meeting on Thursday. And they will, I’m sure, discuss what we discussed tonight. The other public, the other place where these discussions happen are in the reopening committee meetings, which are generally not public meetings, but the notes are all made public on the reopen Marblehead portal. So any of those meetings are made public. Those minutes are made public. I’m aware of those. And I guess if that’s, if on the agenda is sort of public health, I guess I would hope that it’s not just done in the reopening committee meeting, or the public health metrics, because I do think that’s a broader conversation that should be at least sort of put out to the community for evaluation, and not just something that’s decided on, you know, as a recommendation that’s made at that reopen. I think we as the board would absolutely agree with that. Thank you so much. Blair, did you want to come in now and ask your question? Sure. Thanks for that. Long time ago, I can first uncall us. Thank you. Guys, you don’t see a lot of this kind of debate in these things. I just want to come with me on these kind of issues. I think it’s really awesome.

1:06:42 I was just listening to Andrew read out the DESI guidelines for what to do in different situations in terms of symptomatic, unsympathetic, close contact, etc., etc. And I managed to find the document and pull it up. What’s surprising, and I know you guys have no control over this, and it’s the DESI guidelines, what’s surprising to me is that the worst outcome is when you’re close contact and you test negative and you still have to go into quarantine for 14 weeks. Right. Blair, you’re cutting out. Is it just me or can anybody hear Blair? What surprises me in these guidelines is that let’s say you go to a close contact, you have to go into quarantine for 14 weeks. You can have… 14 days. Yes, spend less time on quarantine. You can test positive and spend less time on quarantine. And I’m worried about the incentives that this is going to set up in our community in terms of people reacting honestly and in a trustworthy basis in these situations. If the least innocuous situation, I’m in a close contact, and I test negative, results in the worst outcome. Does that make sense? Yeah, so the one piece that you’re missing though is that if you test negative, you still have to quarantine for 14 days. If you’re positive, it’s only a 10-day isolation.

1:08:16 So you get that. You are correct. So if you have symptoms, the symptoms of symptoms go away, you can go back in 24 hours. But if you’re sitting there and nothing… With the doctor’s note, with the doctor’s recommendation. Yeah. So yeah, I mean, the hardest thing with COVID is that the symptoms are, I’m going to say everything, everything from a fever to a runny nose to a headache. Obviously, there’s the general loss of smell, loss of taste. But it runs, upset stomach, like I said, symptoms of allergies. So this is where it’s very hard in a school setting. So parents are going to have to be, yeah, very diligent about keeping their kids home when they’re sick. I know that’s not what people want to hear. And obviously, the idea is to try to get people tested so we know that they’re negative and then we’re looking for a fever and then they can come back to school. But yeah, these are tough metrics to have to follow for potentially positive cases. I get that. And I’m not trying to belate the point here. What I’m trying to sort of highlight is that if I’ve got two children, me and the house next door,

1:09:51 and they’re both exposed to a close contact, and one kid has a symptom and the other doesn’t have symptoms. The kid that doesn’t have symptoms has to stay out of school the longest. And that’s going to be really hard things for parents to swallow. And I’m just sort of highlighting that there’s an adverse reaction thing going on that can potentially go on here. I see Andrew and Ollie, which I think you kind of get it. But that’s just the point that I wanted to make. Tom, you want to add to that? I think the point is that they could still develop the symptoms. You see, they may be, and that’s, you’re waiting for, the one has already developed, so you know that they’re further along. The other one can still develop the symptoms. That’s the difference. But what I want to say is the developing of the symptoms. I understand that, Tom. But in that scenario, somebody could have a cold or a headache from an unrelated thing that could be dehydrated, and they get to go back to school early. That’s kind of the point that I’m trying to make. Not if they’re close contact. If you’re close contact, you have to have that 14 days, unless it’s been diagnosed as, you know, your 14 days of your close contact. Yes, yes, you’re correct. Correct. We’re not trying to punish people. We’re trying to eliminate the disease.

1:11:25 And I think that we just have to be able to do it in the best of our ability. We’re pleased that we can go back to school. We can go back to work. If we don’t do these things, we’ll be back to where we were in March. I think that we all have to realize that. And if people are going to cut corners and not report themselves and such, it’s only going to cause a problem for all of us.

1:11:57 Excuse me? Absolutely. I agree with you. So I can, because we’re making all these comments, but we know where we’ve been, and we don’t want to go back there.

1:12:17 Is there any, we have a couple other people in the audience. Is there anybody else who wants to ask a question, chime in anything? Yes, Patricia Adams.

1:12:34 Yes, I sent in the chat. It’s unrelated to the school situation, and I didn’t want to interrupt any of that. I think unless Andrew has a more. If this is an appropriate time. If you say that’s fine. But may I just step in for one moment? I know that Joan, who was chairman of the ME, is here. Maybe, could we finish with the schools if Patricia has asked that? Yeah, I don’t want to interrupt. John, do you have any comments? No, I’m just listening. Thanks. All right. I just wanted to give you the criticism since you’ve been sitting here for an hour and a half. Thank you. It’s fascinating. All right. I’m sorry to. Very interesting. So go ahead. I apologize if you had an agenda and I didn’t see it because I just realized the meeting was taking place, you know, late today. And I was part of your meeting back in June, being that I had concerns on the last election about signholders in front of my residents and the disposal of cigarette butts. I’m just wondering if there are any different plans in place for the two upcoming elections. Just I understand via the ECN community bulletin that I received yesterday that the polling place is still at the village school and the process appears to be the same

1:14:06 that it was prior. You enter through the front of the building and exit through the rear of the building. And so I have the concern again. And when I spoke to the board then back in June and also my comments to the board of selectmen and the police chief or that I hope that in the future elections that there would be some different arrangements made for the people who hold signs so they wouldn’t be directly in front of my home again. And I don’t know whether anything has been done or if you could shed any insight to that at all. Andrew, do you have anything? No. You know, my understanding is that the sidewalk is public property and they are allowed to hold the signs there. That’s what the police told me. But you know, I wasn’t like I said to you, there was cigarette butts all over the place the next day. I just think it’s a very healthy thing to have, you know, 15 people in front of your home when you’re trying to, you know, come and go and maybe visitors or the mailman or anyone who’s trying to get into your residence, you know, there are obviously other options and they just decided not to change the pattern of the school entrance. You know, my suggestion was they could have entered from the rear of the school and exited at the front. But you know, the maybe sign holders could be on the school property. I haven’t talked with the town clerk’s office at all because it just came up, you know, I just

1:15:39 got the message on the machine yesterday about the voting and the sites and all. So it’s not like nobody has considered anything different. So the sign holders are not allowed to be on the polling place property. So I wondered, you know, I didn’t know the answer to that question and I just getting it now. Basically, do we refer you to I’m sorry, I live across in the village school, right? I’m directly across in the village. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. The police chief and the town to Robin. Well, I never actually spoke to Robin. I spoke to an employee of staff in the office. Okay. I think it’s not about him. So well, that one, you know, you’re part of the board of health and like the cigarette but disposal was the part that really, I thought was very unsanitary and, you know, didn’t like the fact that that occurred. So yeah, I will I will further this up with the town clerk’s office tomorrow. And but it doesn’t sound to me like there’s any any change ahead by the directions that I received from the town regarding the polling site. So but there’s other property, there’s property on the side, on the sidewalk on the side of the school in front of their

1:17:11 playground area, there are other places where they can stand. And as I said to the various people, no place else in the town was a residence affected, except my residence and my neighbor’s residences on either side of me, because the school is a big, huge open area. And when people are standing holding their signs down at the community center, you know, the senior center, they’re on the sidewalk, and it’s an entrance to the school and they’re not in front of anybody’s home. And I just really, I really find it, you know, disrespectful and I’m sanitary and unhealthy and, and I don’t know why someone couldn’t make a change. And they led me to believe that there would be some type of consideration or change for the future elections. I have made a complaint formally to the election to Bill Galvin’s office. And I will be on the phone soon if I don’t get some kind of clarification. And I’ll make another complaint, you know, I just don’t think it’s the right thing to be doing myself. I don’t know, maybe it’s not going to occur, but it doesn’t sound like there’s been any kind of change. So I think unfortunately, that’s the right of, you know, you’re allowed to hold a sign to support a candidate. And we can’t stop that. Nobody, nobody is saying that I’ve held many, many signs over the years. I don’t dispute that

1:18:42 at all. You know, I’m not at all. It’s just, I mean, I don’t think you’d like it if you came home and there were 15 people standing up and down the sidewalk in front of your house. And maybe you have company coming or maybe whatever, or maybe your grandkids are out there playing on the sidewalk and they’re not six feet away from my property line. You know, they’re just not. And then you’re telling us the health department, you’re saying we need to distance ourselves and we need to wear masks. I have photographs of some children that were all playing on the lawn that didn’t have masks on. I witnessed people, you know, pull their masks down and they’re standing two feet apart, talking to each other, socializing. That’s not healthy. And you’re worried about people coming from Lynn to, you know, to our community and maybe spreading the germ. They’re going to be spreading it in front of my house. And I think it’s terrible. I really do. I’m really appalled, you know, that this could occur in such a horrific circumstance that we’re in today. I have health concerns, you know, so does my husband have health concerns. You’re putting us in jeopardy by allowing people to stand in front of our residents. Again, you know, we’re sorry you feel this way, but it isn’t, we don’t have the power to tell people not to stand on a public land. And it has to be, we can’t tell them to stand on the school property. And unfortunately, we really are, this is not our, this is not our domain.

1:20:13 So I’ll check with the town clerk and see if there’s been any talk with anyone regarding standing in a different location. You know, I mean, there are other sidewalks, like I said, in front of the playground area at the school site where the children go out and play at recess. That’s an empty sidewalk. I mean, there’s no house there. There’s no home there. Why can’t they be on that side of the street? You know what I’m saying? I know you can’t tell people where to say, stay or stand, but they told me someone that was holding a sign told me they were told to stand there. They were told to stand there because it’s 150 feet away from the entrance to the school. So maybe all of the voting should have been done at the high school, or maybe it could have been done somewhere else. Maybe it didn’t have to be at this location. I know that’s not your domain. I took 10 minutes to go to you, Patricia, and I know you very well. I’m sorry, but it’s out of our hands. I think you can talk with Robin. I will. And I will. I will. I will. I think we need to go on. I’ve got a couple of things I’d like to talk to the committee vote. That’s fine. I wanted to know if you had any because you’re part of the planning process of the elections, too, is what I was told last time. So I wanted to ask you. That’s all. I’m aware of the meeting tonight. And I just wanted to see if there was anything because it did have a health consequence as far as I was concerned. Thank you.

1:21:44 Thanks. Could I ask a question or is anybody else in the audience want to speak? But because I had a family commitment a half an hour ago, and our meetings have been fairly short. And I had an appointment at 815. But I’d like to tell you that next week is election day, so we cannot meet. And I’d like to just settle some business with us before I go to my appointment. Could we do that? So we cannot meet next Tuesday. And it seems like that would be fine because the reopening committee is not meeting next Monday because it’s the first day of school. And also, they are going to be meeting another time of day on Mondays from here on in because they will be people that have been on the reopening committee. The majority of them are working in the school department. So we’ll find out when that is, but that won’t affect you. The following week, I cannot meet on Tuesday. So I would like to know when we could set a meeting. If we don’t set it now, we can do it offline. But I’d just like to tell you before I leave that I cannot meet the next two Tuesdays. But I really have found that I can see that we can miss next week because the reopening committee isn’t meeting. But I would like to encourage us

1:23:15 to meet the following week. And if you could look at the Wednesday, September, what is that? 9th. Yeah. September 9th. If people are available. Can you Michelle? You’re muted. I can’t read your lips.

1:23:43 That was a thumbs up. You can do the 9th. Yes, you can do the 9th. Okay. And Andrew, I apologize, but I’m going to sign off in five minutes, wherever we are. Okay. Thank you for that. But I know we’ve gone a long time with this meeting. Yes. All right. So we’ll do 730 on the 9th. Thank you very much. Okay. Is there any other business? I just want to remind people of Household Hazardous Waste Day. It’s actually not a day. So please log on to our website and look at the flyer and sign up. And ACB will come right to your house and pick up your Household Hazardous Waste for a fee. Great. Who people do that? The last piece of business is that we are in the process of scheduling flu clinics for the fall. The first one will be a senior clinic. And then we’ll have an employee clinic and then we’ll have some other clinics that we’re working on the dates and stuff like that. Maybe I’d like to tell you that there was a, that I got a question from a member of the community about tracing and testing of the school children. I don’t want to bring up, have a discussion over it, but Andrew just reiterated that it was very costly. And I got back to that individual that I want you to know that I did get a call and that I got an email, but I think that it’s important that the

1:25:18 rest of the board know about that. So do we have a motion to adjourn? I’ll make a motion to adjourn. Second. Ms. Gottlieb? In favor. Ms. Heasley? In favor. Dr. Belfbecker? In favor. Thanks everybody. Thank you.