Board of Health: November 24, 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 So it’s 7.30. We’ll call the meeting to order. And I first ask that everybody put yourselves on mute, who’s in attendance please. And we will get to public participation later in the meeting. I just want to start with minutes of previous meetings. November 2nd, Helena Michelle, do you have anything to add or subtract from those? I’m fine. Michelle? You’re muted. You can’t hear you. Sorry, are you ready for a motion to approve? Yes. I’ll make a motion to approve, starting with the minutes from 11-2. Okay, is there a second? Second, yep, second. All right, all in favor, Andrew? Ms. Aisling? Yes. Ms. Gottlieb? Yes. Dr. Belf-Stecker? Dr. Belf-Stecker, thank you. Yes. Dr. Belf. And then the meeting of November 10th, those minutes as well, we have to approve. I’ll make a motion to approve the meeting of the minutes from November 10th. Is there a second? I think you have to do that. Oh, yes, I’ll second. Ms. Gottlieb? In favor. Dr. Belf-Becker? Ms. Aisling? I would say present.

1:33 Okay, if you can put yourselves on mute, please, we can hear a lot of background noise. Thank you. Andrew, let’s go right to our COVID update. All right, so on Wednesday, the Baker administration released a lot of information on travel guidance for college students. So students who leave campuses for holidays should first receive a negative COVID-19 test administered by the college within 72 hours of their planned departure. Residential colleges should also offer a COVID-19 test to students living off campus that plan to return home for the holidays. Prior to sending students home for Thanksgiving in the upcoming holiday season, colleges and universities are in urge to inform all students of the serious risk associated with going home before first receiving a negative COVID-19 test result. If you test positive, so students that test positive, students who receive a positive test result before they are scheduled to leave campus should instead immediately isolate in-campus housing designated for COVID-positive students. Students in isolation, students who have previously tested positive for COVID-19 and are already isolated in-campus housing should remain in place until they have completed the 10-day isolation period. Students in quarantine, students who are in quarantine on-campus housing due to close contacts with someone who tested positive should remain in place until they complete the 14-day quarantine period, as prescribed by the Department of Public Health.

3:06 Quarantine students may leave campus housing after 10 days if they do not have any symptoms and they receive a negative test result from a molecular diagnostic test administered at least 8 days after exposure to someone diagnosed with COVID-19. When you return to campus, students returning to campus from either within Massachusetts or from other states must produce a negative COVID-19 test result administered within 72 hours of the return to campus. Colleges should administer tests immediately to any students who return to campus that have not been tested within 72 hours. Testing should apply to all students living both on and off campus. As far as some of the testing initiatives in the state of Massachusetts, the state of Massachusetts have been testing using the Abbott test, which is an antigen test. So they went through a test study. The Abbott test initiative is provided by the federal government and is a no-cost volunteer program that will allow schools to test symptomatic students and receive test results within 15 minutes. These tests allow schools to identify infected individuals and their close contacts more quickly to help stop the spread. So Phase 1 is intended for districts and schools providing any type of in-person instruction, including full-in-person hybrid instructional models or in-person services for high-need students.

4:40 Districts and schools participating in Phase 1 have already been selected, and those chosen will have to meet six criteria, including the ability to complete DPH reporting requirements, ensure staff who administer the tests are trained. Schools must also obtain parent guardian consent prior to administering tests to students. So this is like new information that’s coming out. We heard about some of this today on our biweekly conference call with the state. So the Abbott test did a very, you know, tested well through their pilot program and now will be rolled out to students through this phase process. There was also updates to quarantine guidelines. So on Wednesday, the Department of Public Health updated its guidance for information for individuals quarantined due to COVID-19. The guidance provides new information on 14-day quarantine requirements. So with the new requirements, you are allowed to, if you are under quarantine, so if you’re under quarantine, you have had contact with a positive COVID person. On your eighth day, you can take a PCR test. If that PCR test comes back negative and you show no symptoms, you’re allowed to come out of quarantine on day 10 rather than on day 14. So these are now in place. We have the actual document from the state. So people can now test out of quarantine if they wish using a PCR test.

6:16 Some other important updates. A message from the DPH Commissioner, Burrell, was sent out to 4.5 million phone lines across the state of Massachusetts the other day in both English and Spanish via Ever Bridge Resident Connection Alert System. So I don’t know how many of you have actually received this alert. You need to go onto the state website and sign up for this alert. They’ve only used this system several times. This is like the second time they actually sent out such a large message. But you need to sign up for that. So go to mass.gov and you can sign up for this and you can receive messages from the state of Massachusetts. DPH has also revised its daily dashboard to focus on current and cumulative metrics. Most important to track the pandemic. The weekly report comes out on Thursdays. But you should also look at the daily report and then also the weekly report. There’s also updates on the COVID-19 vaccination. So obviously we have two companies that are working and are very close to having a completed vaccination. It’s very possible that we can actually start to see the vaccination in the state of Massachusetts somewhere in December or early January. There will also be a phased approach to administering the vaccination.

7:46 First, the state of Massachusetts has actually had to decide who’s going to get it first. Usually it’s going to go to emergency personnel, hospital care. But they’re deciding that now they have a committee that’s formed that will be looking at all that stuff.

8:12 Resources. Please remember Mass 211. There’s also contact 800 number. So 888-215-4920 or masssupport at riversidecc.org. So this is crisis counseling program funded by Federal Emergency Management. Obviously, as we head into the holidays, there’s an increase for mental health issues. And we want to make sure that people are aware that these resources are available to them. So there’s 211 and these 800 numbers that you can reach out to. You can also reach out to Red Cross. So Red Cross Virtual Family Assistance Center. So they’re connecting with families over the phone to offer condolences, emotional and spiritual support and access to available resources. Providing support for virtual memorial services for families, hosting online classes to foster resilience, and facilitating coping skills, assisting families with access to national, state or local resources such as grief counseling, legal resources, funeral information, financial information services or veterans assistance. So this is really important during this time of year. There’s always a concern about mental health. And please remember that these services are available. It’s always good to go onto mass.gov and there’s a lot of information now. We also want to remind everybody about the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

9:46 They have a lot of information on their website. They also have all the COVID cases across the state at each school. So please visit this site also to get a lot of information. As far as getting a COVID test, obviously we’ve seen an increase in cases around the state and in our community. And we’re receiving a lot of phone calls of where can I get a test? So the best thing for you to do is to go online, to mass.gov and under COVID-19 test site locator. There’s actually an interactive map that you can click on depending on where you are. And you can click on the actual location and it will give you all the updated information. Do you need an appointment? Is it a drive-thru? What are the hours? All that stuff is there. Michelle, did you have a question about that? Yeah, I just got a message that there are people in the waiting room that want to come in. We don’t have a chat function, so people can’t let you know. Okay, we’re going to open it up to public discussion later on. No, no, not the question. People are going to receive it and want to get into the meeting. And then also the Massachusetts COVID Response Dashboard. So every day there’s a daily dashboard and it gives you quite a bit of information. Daily cases, deaths, percentage, the number of tests that have been given over the last couple of days. So there’s a lot of information there. So please, you know, make sure you stay informed. You know, town of Marblehead websites, mass.gov websites, a lot of really useful information.

11:22 Colleen? No, wait till he finishes. I’m going to go on for a while. So obviously there’s a lot of… Maybe while we’re talking about Just This, could I just ask you then? Yeah. Why do you want me to wait? She’ll do it. Now, I just wanted to know, like you said about the test sites and the mental health. Could you just maybe go over where people can go if they’re local? I don’t have a full list in front of me. It’s quite a large list. Oh, really? Yeah. So there’s many different locations, many different times. So we recommend that you go to this website. We’ll give you the most up-to-date information on all these testing sites. And is our counseling center seeing Marblehead people? Are they overloaded? So as far as like counseling goes, you have to call the counseling center to see what their availability is. Because you’re sending us to the 800 number of the 211. I just didn’t know whether… The 211 and the 800 number are available 24 hours a day. That’s the difference. And what about the people needing food insecurity or the food… So food insecurity. So obviously the food pantries are open. And there’s also resources on the 211 and the 800 number about food insecurities also. Locally, we have a food pantry that’s open and taking donations and people can get food from them also.

12:57 And through the school system, the school is providing meals that you can take home with you. And it’s open to everybody. Anyone can go there. Anybody can go there. There’s some new things you need to use. Thank you. So Thanksgiving during COVID-19. Obviously, as Massachusetts residents plan for Thanksgiving holiday, we offer the following considerations to help keep our friends, family and community safe during COVID-19. If you host a holiday celebration, keep it small. If you’re considering travel, be aware of Massachusetts travel orders. So same thing if you go onto the mass.gov under COVID, you can go to the travel orders. So essentially, there’s only two clear states at this point, Vermont and Hawaii. So if you travel to these two states, you don’t need to come back and do testing. But everywhere else in the U.S., you need to get testing before you come back or you have to quarantine yourself and produce a negative test before you can come out of quarantine. Anytime you’re near people, as far as the holidays go, that you anytime you’re near people that you don’t live with, you should wear a mask when you’re not eating or drinking. Wash your hands often with soap and water. Stay at least six feet apart from others. Consider if those around you may be at higher risk for severe illness from COVID-19, such as older adults or those with certain medical conditions and take extra precautions.

14:29 Lower risk celebrations, limit in-person holiday gatherings to only people you live with, or limit to a small group of individuals with whom you are regularly in contact. Gatherings with more people poses more risks. As a reminder, gatherings in Massachusetts are subject to gathering size limits. So obviously, for residential properties, the gathering limit indoors is 10. On your property, the exterior gathering limit is 25. You’re not allowed to mix, so you can’t have 10 people inside and 25 outside. Keep visits short. Gatherings that last longer pose more risk than short gatherings. Hosts a virtual holiday dinner with extended family or friends, especially if they are at higher risk for illness from COVID-19. Prepare traditional family recipes for family and neighbors, especially those at higher risk for severe illness from COVID-19, and deliver them in a way that doesn’t involve contact with others. There’s a lot of information on the holidays, and you can go to mass.gov to get this information. Any questions regarding all that stuff before I go on to the case report? Well, your last thing was all about Thanksgiving was just in a Code Red that went out earlier, and so hopefully a lot of people picked it up and listened to that. Yeah, so just to remind people about Code Red, this is a service that you have to sign up for. You don’t automatically get these messages, so you need to go to the Town of Marblehead website. Sign up for Code Red at the very bottom of the website, and please choose your home phone, your cell phone, and an email.

16:07 And we’ll send out messages to all those that either general information or during emergencies. Michelle? Yeah, I just wanted to go back to the Abbott testing for college students. So the Abbott testing is not for college students or for elementary schools or high schools? Okay, all right, sorry, I was a little bit confused about what that, okay. If you don’t know with him, he’ll run around you. Okay, so Andrew, I’m sorry, when would that start? So the state has just announced the Abbott testing today. They will be working with different school districts that have signed up for the Abbott testing, and that will be rolling out shortly. Okay, so I just have another question. We have a couple of questions later on, so we’re going to keep you going. Okay, sorry. Andrew, excuse me for the minute. I listened to the governor the other day, and I think they’re doing it through school districts at different times. I think they’re starting with a few of them that they mentioned. Is that correct? Yeah, that’s correct. So there have been some schools that have signed up for the pilot programs, and they will be earlier on. And they’re also looking at schools of higher risk, so communities that have been in the red or for longer periods of time. So that won’t just think, is Tyra Commonwell thought at once? No, they’re not just going to start testing the Tyra Commonwell thought at once.

17:38 Okay, good, thank you. My other question had to do with reporting of cases regarding college students. Do you want to wait to have that discussion after you talk about the case report? No, you can ask those questions now. Yeah, so I know we had some discussions on our last meeting, and we’ve been talking about, you know, if students test positive while they’re still at school, that they’ll be generally will be reported as active cases in the location where they originally tested. But there was some confusion as students transitioned back into the community and are quarantining as active cases and are now living in Marblehead and might be here for a few months. And you were going to be talking to the Department of Public Health about that. And I just wanted a little more clarification. I know you alluded to it. But if we could just talk a little bit more about that, because I know that there’s going to be some confusion about that. Yeah, so currently when kids were in school for college kids in the fall, we would receive their test results because we have their home, you know, we are listed as their home address. But we would kick it to the college because that’s where the student is living during that time and isolating in quarantine. So we wanted to make sure that there was a community, you know, a college even that was overseeing them. As college students are returning home for Thanksgiving, if they if a positive test comes up, we will interview them and figure out if they’re going to be here for a longer period of time or if they’re going to be returning to college.

19:13 And we will decide if we need to push it back to the college or if there will be isolating and quarantining and staying here for longer periods of time, we will be dealing with them here. We haven’t really received much guidelines from the state regarding this. We just have to kind of figure this out ourselves. But it just, you know, obviously we always do the initial interview for this person and we kind of decide where it needs to be pushed. But if this person will be staying in Marblehead for a long extended period of time, we will make sure that we will oversee them. But you expected that individual when they take their test, if they get we anticipate that they’ll be listing Marblehead as their primary residence and that it will be reported. And will it show up in the Marblehead case report, I guess is the question as well. So if the person is going to be isolating here, I think we will be considering them as part of our case count. But we will like to seek, you know, see further guidance from the state about, you know, if the individual actually contracted COVID at school, you know, do we need to kind of push that number and push it out of our town? Or will it really be part of our numbers at that point? Yeah. And obviously, you know, we want to make sure that we are tracking them for both, you know, disease surveillance, you know, making sure that they’re doing well because there’s, you know, generally daily call ins and then for any kind of emergency response. So if we have to respond to the house for an emergency, our first responders need to know that there’s a COVID patient in the home.

20:46 So usually if you have a COVID patient in the home, there is notification that goes out with that. I need some clarification on that. Oh, I’m sorry, what? I’m just saying that’s changed from say a month ago or two months ago. It’s a little bit more accurate now. Yeah, we’re trying to keep it as accurate as possible. But yeah, it’s going to be very difficult. We did not receive exact guidance from the state about if the student, you know, became positive at school and they’re coming home, you know, where is that case going to be reported? Is it going to be at school or is it going to be in Marblehead? But we do want to make sure that that student is, you know, receiving daily phone calls from us to make check ins to see how they’re doing and that they don’t need any assistance. Could I ask a clarification on that? Because I know if some students who are in college and they’re not being released if they’ve come down, if they have been in quarantine, if somebody in their bubble has got COVID, you’re saying that people are coming home from school while they’re being in quarantine? No, so if yet, so we have had students that have come home during quarantine, yes. And that’s allowed? We do not. So the state has reached out to all the colleges to ask them not to move along, to move around. But it does happen occasionally, yes. But that it shouldn’t be happening. You’re really supposed to be staying where you are, but it does happen. So why are we condoning that and even offering that as an option?

22:19 We have to make sure that the person is being cared for. And, you know, but that’s why the state of Massachusetts has asked colleges not to allow students to leave college if they’re positive or under quarantine. So they’re doing something that they’re being asked not to do, some people. But it’s not, yes, it is. If it happens, then we have to deal with it. But I think people that are listening and that we could put this out that people should stay in place. But that’s the same as the like the travel order. So we have a travel order that you’re supposed to be testing yourself before you leave. But that doesn’t always happen. So we have people that are moving around. And if we find out that when they got back, they actually are positive, we have to deal with that. So if they flew, we have to contact the airlines and notify the airlines that they traveled when they’re a positive case. But the Board of Health is not condoning any of those activities. We are not condoning those activities. We just have to deal with it. Thank you. Can you ready for sure. So case reporting. So this past week we had a new additional information on case reporting. So along with the case count, the active cases and the confirmed deaths, we included the ages.

23:49 And this is the same information that the state of Massachusetts shows. So zero to 19 years old, 20 to 29 years old, 30 to 39 years old, 40 to 49, 50 to 59, 60 to 69, 70 to 79 and 80 plus. We show the total cases by age group from it’s a 14 day period. We also show the number of tests taken by Marblehead residents in the last 14 days with the positive rate. And we also list on there the current travel order and then additional information that you can find. The daily dashboard for mass.gov, the weekly health report for mass.gov, and the COVID cases in schools. So there’s a lot of new information that’s on this report that comes out on a weekly basis. The last thing is that we have gotten some requests for having testing in town. We have contacted Cataldo Ambulance Company and we are looking into potentially providing testing to Marblehead residents for who are symptomatic or potential contacts. We’re trying to bring this in as soon as possible, but we still have to work out the details with Cataldo and see if they’re even available. Obviously, you know, there’s a lot of testing going on in the state of Massachusetts and a lot of these companies are working in many different locations. But we believe that we can work something out with them and we’re trying to bring that here as soon as possible.

25:19 What would fund that? That would be funded through the CARES Act. And one thing for everybody to remember about the CARES Act is, unfortunately, at this point, the CARES Act is set to expire on December 30th. And at that point, we’re not so sure what the funding is going to be like for 2021. So to clarify, if somebody, I know people who routinely get a test every week or twice a week just because they want to, for their peace of mind, those people would not be able to get tested in Marblehead with this. Obviously, that’s a little bit more. We’re asking for people that are symptomatic. We will set up guidelines behind it. We’re only going to be willing to put so much money towards it. It’s not an indefinite amount of money that we could be spending toward it. Obviously, we’re trying to conduct surveillance. And, yeah, some of that daily testing is surveillance, but we’ll have to set up some guidelines for it. Let’s hope it works. Andrew, for the public, can you clarify, just so people know that through our CARES Act funding, we have prioritized a lot of other important activities. Do you want to just mention that so that people know? So the CARES Act, obviously, we got a large sum of money from the federal government to cover overtime, additional nurse, you know. So it covers, you know, currently for the health department, it allows my public health nurse to be full-time and overtime, and it allows my public health inspector to be full-time.

26:50 And then, you know, so it’s provided for technology so we can work at home, which we’re working seven days a week, and it’s allowed for a lot of other benefits through the town. So, you know, it’s allowed for additional custodial staff to help with cleaning the schools. So this is spent all across the community, but it has to be COVID-related. Thank you. Thanks, Andrew. Helene, what, you had a meeting this week of the reopening committee? We had two meetings, one on November 9th, which was prior to the last meeting, which I was not in attendance. And I would just give you a brief two-sentence summary, and it really isn’t old news. I mean, it still is relevant. So just prior to that, Dr. Bucky had a meeting with the Commission of Education, and he, I think we all have heard that he’s encouraging school districts to return to full in-person learning at that time. I don’t know what’s going to happen now if we have an uptick, but he commented that our community is going to stay as is. The teachers aren’t ready yet, and our cohort A and B is working. The teachers are happy, and everything is going along smoothly right now for the hybrid learning. And we are not going into full in-person at this time.

28:25 And they still were talking about live streaming, and we do not have the technology in place for that. And they now are talking about the Commissioner also determined the cleaning and disinfecting surfaces is not as critical as the air quality. And in that regard, the school department is reassessing and considering cutting back on the costly outside custodial services. They may need less than the extra 30 individuals. Tom, you’d like to hear that, right? So I guess we had some questions about the number of people that we brought on staff to do that. I think still people are not on mute, but I have a little competition. This past week, all people in school got a community notice. Parents who have children in school got a community notice about the activities for Thanksgiving, which basically are what the governor has put out. And we met for over an hour discussing this. It was a very serious meeting because some communities actually, as it turned out, and I sent the board some of the communities that are staying with hybrid,

29:56 a lot of people, not a lot, several communities are not returning to school after Thanksgiving because of what is going on. But we have decided as a community that they will go back to school. The notice says that people should follow all the Mass DPH orders. Again, avoid travel, encourage out of status to abstain from visiting. That includes college students, avoid gathering of people outside of your household, and continue to follow all the protocols that the school has sent out. And I just can’t be more serious about this. When I tell you that we spent an hour discussing which way we were going, it was a very difficult decision for the school community. But I think that the leadership came up with a good decision. I just hope that the community, the school community and the community at large will heed. It’s in our hands, and if we don’t, then you’ll, if a few don’t listen to what’s going on as far as behavior, the entire community will suffer, and it’ll just end up going on longer. So thank you for allowing me to go to the meetings and for allowing me to report. Thanks for the report, for the time you’re putting into it.

31:29 So now I’d like to, if there’s anything more from the board, let me know now. Otherwise, I’ll open it up to public discussion. You can put your hand up. There’s a button, I believe, that you can raise your hand, and I will see who wants to talk and recognize you, and we’ll go from there. So I’ll recognize one person at a time. Todd, I have one, two final things. Sure. So we did receive, we have ordered some signs to remind people about the mask requirement. We have received some of those signs today. So the mask up, Marvel head signs will begin to be put out across town, and as more signs come in, those will also be put out. So mask up, wear a mask or face covering at all times, and you’ll see these at all locations across Marvel head. The other thing to remember as far as like businesses or different industries, the guidelines for COVID are changing rapidly. So as we always say, this is a rapidly evolving situation. You need to be paying attention to the guidelines almost on a weekly basis as they’re changing all the time. We can barely keep up with everything. There’s so many sector-specific guidelines that we have to take a look at. And at this point, for holiday events and gatherings, we have the ability to now push it to the Division of Labor Standards for them to approval, but we also have the ability to approve it in town locally. So depending on how busy we are or what kind of some of the requests are, we do have the ability to push it to them for some guidance also.

33:02 But please remember that all this stuff is available on the mask.gov, mask Division of Labor Standards, and mask EEA. That’s where all the guidance are for the sector-specific guidelines. One question. Can you get any of those signs out into some specific areas before the end of the day tomorrow? We will try. It’s a short day tomorrow, and I know there’s paving going on, but we will try to get some signs out. Maybe to the trails or the parks or… We can see what I can do, but it’s a very short day, and we just got the signs in this afternoon. Thank you. All we can ask is you to try. Michelle, one more thing. Yeah, I was also going to mention about the signs because I knew that was the mask situation is something that we’ve been concerned about and wanted to see if we can do more to get more people wearing masks, particularly outside. The other… The only other question I wanted to ask, Andrew, is that I appreciated the effort to get more better breakdown of the case reports in our weekly report. And I know one thing that there’s been a request for it and that we don’t have internal capacity in the health department to do kind of the graphs and the long-term analysis in the graphical form. And I was just wondering, I know students, nursing, public health, students come to you all the time asking for opportunities,

34:33 and that was one area. I was wondering if anybody… They’re probably maxed out right now, but I was wondering if any public health students come to you looking for opportunities where we might have somebody who wanted to do some data crunching or whatever on a regular basis, because that, to me, felt like something I knew we didn’t have internal capacity for, but would be of a service to our community to have some graphical Excel data just to graphically display things. So that’s just one question I had. Yeah, so the employee pool is very limited at this point, and we can barely even find public health nurses across the state to fill all the positions. To get to the data, you have to have high-level clearance to get into the system. So it becomes very problematic to produce a lot of this information. Interesting. Okay. Okay, just thought I’d throw that out there. Thanks. Thanks. All right, so I saw Jodi Smith put her hand up first, but before I call on you, I just want to say that I’m going to call on people one at a time, and please only unmute when I call your name. Thank you. And we’ll just have some public discussion. Jodi? First, I want to thank the Board of Health for everything that you’re doing, because I know that there’s a lot more that goes on behind the scenes that we don’t even see. So thank you to each and every one of you. I had five questions written down, and you’ve already answered three.

36:05 The only two questions I have left is, who’s in charge of mask compliance, and what are the ramifications? Like in the city of Cambridge, if you’re not wearing a mask, it’s a $300 ticket. So who’s in charge of Marblehead of making sure people are wearing masks, and if somebody’s not wearing a mask, I don’t necessarily need people to have a $300 ticket, but there should be some sort of ramifications. So under the Governor’s order, the Health Department and the Police Department are charged with actually making sure that the order is enforced. And yes, just the same as Cambridge, there is a fine associated with it if you choose to go in that route. Now, obviously, at this point, we’re more doing education and making sure that the officers, if they do approach people, have masks available to hand out to people for the educational side. Obviously, if somebody’s blatantly and disregarding some of this, they will start to find people. And do we have any surveillance on the rail trails? Can we get a bike patrol? Not 24-7, but on the high access times, because as you know from the pictures I’ve been sending in, there’s lots of non-compliance on the trails. Now, you’d really have to speak with the Police Department on that. We do not have the capacity. We only have 2.5 full-time equivalent employees for the Health Department. So we do not have the capacity to do all the enforcement around town

37:37 and do all the other work that we’re in charge to do. I wouldn’t expect it to come from you. I would expect it to come from the Police. Do you think it’s better coming from the Board of Health asking the Police or just some random citizen, I guess is my question? You know, we’ve definitely, you know, we both are, the Governor has made us both aware that this order that he has put out has us as the ones that are supposed to enforce it. I would spot on that, Todd. You know, listen, I, we know that we are not going to have, you know, police out there, you know, stopping, ticketing individuals, you know, one by one on this. But my thought is, what if we did have, you know, as a signal to the community around this, if at a couple of moments in time, and maybe we even announced that we’re doing this, if it were something that the Police were able to do, that like maybe in concert with putting up the new signs, if we had the new signs go up and a police officer’s station there with the masks and, you know, like, hey folks, like a reminder, this is, this is the new mask order, new-ish mask order from the, you know, from the, from coming down from the Commonwealth, from the Governor. This is a reminder. We are taking this seriously.

39:08 They’re positioned at the post office at the, you know, here’s a mask. Here’s a mask. Here’s a mask. And just standing there with a presence to remind folks that this is being taken seriously and, you know, reminding people, there will be fines, like not there all the time, but if we do this like maybe twice to put a presence there and remind people that we’re taking this seriously. Not that they’d be policing all the time, but like sending a signal to the community that the police have jurisdiction over this and that we’re taking it seriously. So that was just my thought that, and that we as the Board of Health communicate this to the police department. So it’s coming from us and that we’re taking it seriously. I have another suggestion. I don’t know. I mean, I’m not familiar with what all the police are doing, but I know that there’s been a, some type of, I don’t know, it’s an adjustment counselor or someone at the police department assigned to the schools. I don’t know exactly what the term is, but I don’t think that they’re at the schools every day now. I wonder if that person could spend some time doing some surveillance with this. I’m just making a suggestion. I don’t have any reason to make that suggestion to the school, to the police, but part of the schools that I could talk to the schools about at our next meeting. But Andrew, do you think that’s something that you could share, that this is going on at our meeting?

40:40 We can definitely share it with them, but, you know, I’m not in charge of them. You know, I don’t, they have the same order as we do. The school should be reminding their students. I mean, obviously, most people know that this order is in place. You know, there’s a sign around town, as you drive into town, that says, mask up. But yes, we can try to remind people that, you know, this is serious, but, you know, people really should know about this at this point. Well, they do know, but they’re not willing to listen. We’re never going to get everybody to listen, but I think that since the order came out, I personally noticed a lot more people just walking their dogs, wearing masks. I think that we’ll never be able to convince everybody, but I do see a difference for the better at this point. All right, let’s move on. So next person on the list is Zazie Kindle. Hi, this is Zazie Kindle, 163 Jersey Street. So my question circles back to the schools. For some time, Dr. Bucky has been saying that it’s the Board of Health’s insistence on a six-foot distance that was the driving factor in remaining in the hybrid mode. I understood the reason for that initially, but now even our Board of Health is saying that schools do not seem to be spreaders.

42:10 In fact, in the time that the schools have been open, we have had remarkably few cases, and all of those initiated outside of the schools. So with that in mind, I’m wondering about the easement, not the disbanding, but the easement of distancing to go to perhaps five feet or four and a half feet, or allowing kids to go back for a full day, maybe a day on or a day off. But it seems to me that the school is unwilling to take those steps unless our Board of Health agrees to them. So I’m a little bit worried about the chicken and the egg. So he says we can’t go back at less than six feet. Our Board of Health isn’t ready to save out, although they are saying that schools are not the spreaders that we thought they would be. So my concern is that when the time comes that we can go back for more hours, more in-person hours, how can we make sure that there’s no delay and that we’re not waiting, well, for one department to say, well, we can’t do this until you do it, well, we can’t do that until you say we can. So that’s my question. I think I can help with that. The superintendent met, as I said, with the commissioner of women. It was the commissioner of education, yes. And every school that met at the meeting said that they were interested

43:45 in keeping it at six feet. So it’s from the commissioner on down that the superintendent also has a health and safety committee, which Andrew sits on, and he can address that because they also have decided that they wish to keep it at six feet. And maybe that’s just why we are so healthy. So I think that why would we take a chance if it ain’t broke? And also to clarify, we have recommended our opinions to the schools. We don’t dictate what the schools do. They choose or choose not to listen to what our advice is. So we don’t actually have any say over what they end up doing. Yes, but clearly they do listen and they do respect you because of how often we’ve heard that it is the board of health insisting on six feet that our schools can’t go back for more hours. So really, there is some influence there. And I think maybe, as I say, going to four and a half feet or something like that would encourage, because basically at some point we have to get these kids back in school, despite what people are saying that the hybrid is working, it’s not working for many, many people. And even our commissioner of education is saying, let’s get these kids back in front of teachers more often. At six feet. So you have to remember the constant message from public health is social

45:16 distancing, which is six feet, wear a mask, wash your hands, and make sure you take yourself out if you’re showing symptoms. If you’re six feet in your home and six feet any place else, why wouldn’t you be six feet in school? Because it’s not necessary. That’s a very personal question. That’s so important. Okay. And just in terms of… I think you’ve made your points and we hear you. And I think this is… It’s time to move on to another point. Yeah, let me just say… Can I tally on that? Actually, sorry, but you know, it’s so terrible. Yeah, sorry. I’m sorry, I’m getting an echo. One more thing is that, you know, just in terms of, you know, evidence that, you know, schools and kids are not spreading. I mean, the jury is still out on… We know that the schools are doing well right now, but it’s… You know, there’s still lack of clarity on how much… On exactly what is going on with younger populations around the country. And as our rates are increasing in town, you know, this is not a time that we want to be changing up our six foot rule right now. And as we’re at a point where we are in, you know, on the verge of some promising, both vaccines and medical treatments, you know,

46:51 our interest is in protecting the public health of our community. And… But as Todd said, and Helene, we are… We give our opinions and our thoughts, and the school will make their decision. And obviously, we’re influencing them, but they are still free to make all of their own decisions. And that is all I will say right now. Okay. Can I respond, Ben? Hold on one moment, please. I just… I see some people raising hands. I would prefer if you… I’m raising hands. … Can you explain where to find that? I just can’t find that. On the bottom, it says participants, and you click on it, and then you just have a little… Todd, if you’re working off an IP… I’m at the top of the list. Yes. I’m sorry, Sarah. Don, we just been waiting with her hand up. So go ahead, Don. She’s muted. You’re muted. Don, unmute yourself. Yeah, I did. I work in a special needs classroom, and we do not have space. So how are we supposed to know… Where do we get the contact information?

48:23 What are the parameters around children that we can’t distance from? No one ever takes us into consideration. Why do we… There’s future positives. We… Oh, someone’s been out for a week and a half. Yeah. We don’t get information. It’s very upsetting. At least eight days after exposures. It’s really hard. Why can’t we get tested? Why can’t we have people in our classrooms? Like, I keep him not social distance from my kids. I think that’s a question for the group. That’s a question for the family. I just want to interrupt one second, Helene, just with points of order for the functionality of our Zoom. First of all, we have people in the waiting room, Andrew, that we have to let in. So we’re cutting you off? No, I’m not cutting you off. I just want to make sure that folks can get into the room and also that we fit some functionality with our Zoom. I’m going to let you continue. I actually said all I had to say. Okay. Okay. And also, Sarah raised up a little piece of paper saying something wasn’t working. Sarah, can you tell us what’s not working? I just want to answer our time to know,

49:54 depending on what platform you use, you can’t do a raise hand function. Like, on an iPad, you can’t. Can we? I don’t know. So we, I don’t know if we need to activate the chat function or something so that people can participate. I’m sorry. Could I? John, you were responding to Dawn? Yes, Dawn. Hi, Dawn. I failed for you. You were doing a wonderful service for our students. Okay. I don’t really want you to, I just want you to hear me. I hear you. But what I am saying is that your question and your concern belongs straight with the superintendent and the school committee. We have no jurisdiction over what you’re saying. We can’t make it to you. Excuse me. We have questions. Excuse me. We’re related to what, how often do we eat? A ton of people ask questions. We’re guarding schools. And I’m telling you, I’m directing people to go. Like, we directed people to go to the police. We’re directing people to go to the schools. But we do care about that, and we do feel that six feet is the right amount of distance. If you don’t have six feet, you have a legitimate concern. And I think it belongs at the school department. You have a school committee person on this meeting. At least one, I can see. I don’t mean. Yes, Sarah, go ahead. Sarah.

51:25 No, I was just identifying myself. They’re all right. You all, all your questions are valid, but they’re right. They’re not, they’re valid for the school committee. And this is not my meeting. It’s not my time to answer this, but they can’t answer for us. They can’t. Yeah, it’s fine. I know. I understand. The one thing that we can do is, Andrew sits on health and safety and I sit on the, on the reopening committee and we can bring that concern to the table. And Sarah can bring it to her table. So you’ve got, you have all your bases covered. I can do all those things. It’ll be amazing. All right. Bye guys. Thanks. Erin. No, no. Hi. Thanks so much. Andrew, I think I noticed that you had broken down and provided more information around the data for the positive cases based on age. Is that, that was, I think maybe knew that last week. That’s correct. Okay. So I was just wondering if you’ve considered or are considering also adding to that, you know, how many like households are represented. I think that would be really helpful in terms of, you know, when we get these big numbers, it’s, you know, just, is, is this really like contained to a family of four or these four separate households? So I just was wondering if you were considering adding that in terms

52:57 of data reporting. We are not. So you’ll see in the report. So we are contributing to social gatherings was the largest contributor. But please remember what a social gathering is. It’s not just a party. It’s, you know, it can be two people talking on the street. So the highest other rates or our transmission in the homes and then transmission at the workplace. But we’re not going to identify how many different families have infections and stuff like that or how many places of employment. It’s just not possible at this time. So you just think it’s, it’s too burden. It’s like it’d be too burdensome to report numbers of households. We don’t, they don’t do that at a state level. The state’s recommending that we don’t get that granular with it. Okay. All right. Thanks. Thanks. Next person on this is Jay Z. And if you don’t mind telling your name when you start speaking, if you’re not there anymore, I’ll move on. Susie, your turn. Hi, thank you. Thank you everyone for everything you’re doing and for opening this meeting up to all of us tonight. I’m in high school and so my questions are kind of revolved around that. One of the things that concerns me is what Michelle Gottlieb was sort

54:30 of referring to is that since this is all still relatively new and we don’t know a lot about spacing and spread in school, it concerns me that because of our definition of what a contact is being less than six feet apart for 15 minutes, that if my student is in a class with somebody who gets COVID, I’m not going to know with the way that the reporting is right now. And I think that that’s information that everyone who was in that class should be able to know. I don’t know if that’s a school committee issue or if it’s a board of health issue, it’s something tells me it’s a combination. And I don’t see how that would hurt any or put any HIPAA issues at risk. It seems like information we should all have so that individuals will have decisions about what they’re comfortable with and it also might give us a better sense of exactly what’s going on. I also am really concerned that still at the high school level, there is no plan in place for how to support kids who need to stay home and do the right thing and follow the health and safety checklist. We’ve been asking for that since day one and unfortunately it’s not there. So it’s not about people worrying about their absence record. It was so funny. I don’t know exactly what happened. I put you, Kathy, I put a million. The kids feeling pressure to go into school so that they don’t fall behind,

56:01 especially at the high school level. Andrew, can you unmute everyone? Oh, sorry. Are you able to unmute? Yes. Okay. So there’s a concern there, right? And this was actually, I was on the health and safety committee over the summer. This was brought up by a public health person who was on that committee and said, well, if we don’t have a plan in place like that, then people are going to go in anyway. Similarly, we need a plan for parents who are too stressed about their finances and sends their kids into school sick. You know, who, I know that there’s a lot of talk about chatter about that on Facebook. That’s concerning to me. I think that the schools have services in place that maybe need to be a little bit more specific and people need to be made aware of that so that they know who to access if they’re in that situation so they’re not sending their kids to school. And so I think that that’s the bulk of it for me. I’m wondering what we can do about kind of just loosening some of that contact tracing a bit so that if you are in class with somebody who is in quarantine or is sick and isolation, that you’re notified, a teacher and student alike. Thank you. Thank you. Some of your points, like some previous speakers, I think are best addressed to the school committee and our superintendent. As far as contact tracing goes, that is our department. Andrew, do you have any comments about that?

57:32 So obviously we follow the CDC guidelines for contact tracing. If you are identified as a contact of a positive person, you will get a phone call because you have to be under quarantine. So you will receive notification. But there are strict table laws about identifying people. So that’s what we run up against. I can’t just notify everybody in the classroom about somebody’s disease. Well, but can’t the classroom be notified that there’s a case that is in the class? We don’t even need to know which class, just that your child was in a class with somebody who’s tested positive. I mean, to me, 50 minutes in a class indoors with masks on, we don’t know much about spreadability, right? And some schools are shutting down an entire cohort if there’s one case for two weeks. I’m not making that suggestion. It’s just that I don’t understand why that information isn’t available if it’s a case that would not identify anybody. So obviously we’re following the guidelines from the state of Massachusetts. During the summer, yes, the classroom, if there was a positive case, everybody in that classroom was considered a contact. When we went to the exact six-foot separations, we went back to the exact definition of a contact. You have to be 15 minutes or greater, less than six feet, and you’re

59:04 considered a contact. So we’re doing that in the schools also, like we’re doing outside the schools. So based on what you’re saying, we shouldn’t be concerned about the crowded hallways or a teacher helping a student at their desk, things like that. We’re going by what contacts are. We’re not seeing, you know, yes, we’re seeing additional cases in the younger children. We’re not seeing transmission in the schools at this time. Obviously we’re paying attention to positive rates, and we’ll make sure that, you know, if there’s a concern, then we’ll have to make some adjustments. But we’re working with the state of Massachusetts and following their guidelines. Thank you. Thank you. Sarah, did you have anything more to say? Yes. Sorry, I had a child crisis. So I stepped away for a second. I did have a question, but I don’t know if people are in front of me. You’re it. Okay. For the 15-minute piece, is that 15? I thought it meant 15 cumulative minutes in a 24-hour period, not 15 consecutive minutes. That’s correct. So 15 cumulative minutes. So it could be three, five-minute sessions. So, yes, over a 24-hour period. It could be five, three-minute sessions. Okay. So, all right, that was my question, because that’s harder to

1:00:35 quantitate when it’s cumulative. I think you really know if you’ve been talking to somebody for 15 minutes over 24 hours, when you’re talking, when you’re doing the investigation of a positive person, you’re asking a lot of different questions, you know. You’re walking through their day of when they’re, you know, of the time when they’re positive and saying, you know, asking leading questions about, all right, who did you speak to the day and getting them to try to retract and retrace their steps. And so generally, when I can think about my day, I can think of who I was with, who I was talking to, and be like, yeah, I think I talked to this person for 15 minutes. I’m going to identify them as a contact. Now, the concern that has been coming up is that because of social media and people are being ousted as a contact or a spreader, we’re getting less people sharing information, which we don’t want people to go down that road. We want you to be comfortable sharing your information. We want you to be open and honest. Obviously, we’re having this trouble with younger people. They don’t want to, you know, rat out their friends or say, yeah, I was with this person, I was with that person. It’s really important that you share all the information with us. And this may have come up, I apologize. Is there a trigger point for having a testing station in Marblehead or would it be only if the state kind of facilitated that?

1:02:05 No, so the trigger points as far as like, you know, in the schools, yeah, if we start to see a cluster in the school, the state will come down and begin to do testing. But as far as like outside of schools, no, there’s no trigger. Well, besides clusters. Yeah, so if we have another cluster at an establishment, the state can also come in to give us guidance through their mobile testing unit for clusters. So we’re looking at clusters. Thanks. So it looks like everybody who is wanting to participate has done so. I think we need to, oh, there’s one more person, Sandra. And then I think we’ll cut it off after Sandra. Hey, guys, just a quick question. And Andrew, you touched base on this a little bit, but I was having some connection issues. You know, I hear some of the concerns from the teachers that are on the line about, you know, parents questioning whether or not they need to send kids, you know, my outlook’s a little bit different because I’m a provider and, you know, one of the issues that we’re having is turnaround time for testing. And I know that you had talked about potentially doing some testing sites in Marblehead. And I know that there’s this pilot program that maybe that we might see in the schools. I guess my question to you is, what are we looking at if you do try to get, I think it was Cataldo that you said possibly to do the testing. What’s the outlook for when that might occur? Is that something like a month down the line? I’m just wondering, you know, from at least from a parent and

1:03:38 a provider standpoint, I worry about one of the things that the kid has a runny nose and the parent thinks it’s allergies that they may be more likely to send their kid to school, especially if they know if they go to their provider. And right now, Quest, we’re running like, you know, our turnaround time is five to 10 days for test results when possibly they know that they have better access to getting a PCR test in Marblehead, maybe waiting, you know, 30 minutes as opposed to four hours that stop the spread in Salem. So I was just curious to look at timeline and, you know, is it going to be, you know, you’re looking at maybe just a once a month thing, once a Saturday, what that possibly might look like for Marblehead. Okay, two different pieces, Sandra. So the Cataldo ambulance would be brought into town potentially for surveillance testing for residents. That would only be between through the month of December essentially because CARES Act will stop. Now, the other piece is the Abbott test. So the Abbott test has gone through the trials and the state will start and the Abbott test will be provided by the federal government and provided to schools so they can do quick surveillance. The Abbott test you get results in 15 minutes. So this will kind of cover once this is rolled out and this is distributed to all the schools in the Commonwealth, if you have a concern about a student that’s showing symptoms with the consent of a parent, you can give them

1:05:10 the Abbott test and in 15 minutes you will have the results. So I’m aware of that. I was on a meeting for that, but I know that you’re on the health and safety committee. I’m not sure if Marblehead applied for that Abbott test or not. No, so that the original was a pilot study. Yeah, that was a pilot study. We were not part of the pilot, but the pilot study went really well and they will be rolling that out to other towns and cities across the state of Massachusetts. I knew from people in the waiting room, somebody got kicked out somehow. I’m not sure if you know details of this, but you know Marblehead being a small community, I know that the issue is obviously one of our hot spot communities. Do you know when they do roll this out, obviously, I think in some of these other districts later on that weren’t the initial 134 in the schools, is that looking at that getting rolled out like February or so, or it is Marblehead. I’m not sure if you know what the ideal is for what they’re looking at. I mean, do we because we’re a small community, do we not look like an ideal place to start it or once the 134, once they decide that this is going to get rolled out for the rest of the districts that were in the pilot, it’s going to be available to all the schools if you’re able to meet the requirements that they put in place. So they didn’t talk about rollout time today.

1:06:42 They just said that the ABA test did well during the pilot and will become available, but they didn’t give a timeline for it during our conversation with the state today. Okay, thanks. I was just curious. Like I said, I think that might be something that might help us kind of, you know, the concerns that this high school teacher had about kids going to school or parents not maybe wanting to keep their kids home because of loss of work or childcare. It’s a great tool. Very effective. You know, in 15 minutes, you’ll have results. You can do better contact tracing and therefore you will technically have less contacts. So this will be a great tool in the toolbox as soon as we can get our hands on it. Oh, I totally agree. How accurate is that test, Andrew? The accuracy was very high, especially when people were in the contagion period. So less accurate as you move further out, but more accurate when you’re kind of in the middle of it. How is it administered? Do you know that? I’m not sure how it’s administered. I assume it’s a nasal swab like most of them. Okay. I believe it is. I see a couple more people have raised your hands. And I’ll recognize you. But then I think we will cut it off after these next two people. So Jean Lamkin. Thank you, Jean Lamkin. I’m 19 Devereux Street. I wanted to comment maybe a couple of different things that were shared. And under the spirit of trying to think through

1:08:14 as a community how we rise to this challenge and maybe get past a lot of the stress by doing things that maybe are a little bit more community focused. But one came up around the conversations of the HIPAA rules, which I don’t have the professional background to talk about, but what popped into my head as a parent was there were always very clever and important ways where we would be notified that there were lice in the school without ever saying who had lice. And I wonder if there isn’t a simple way to get a lice tomorrow from that approach to let people know that there were COVID cases with the same generality that people could take precautions. The second thing that I wanted to talk about a little bit was the notion that the contact tracing will reveal the things and people will know the 15 minutes. And it occurred to me just even in the course of this Zoom, I think if people tried to reflect in the course of this hour who spoke, none of us would be able to remember who spoke. And I think when you try to do that in a 24-hour period and think about who you talked to and did you talk to them for 15 minutes, I think it sort of proves that it’s quite actually challenging and it has nothing to do with people’s good intentions or bad intentions, but just our faulty memories, especially in stressful times. So I think that the more that we can find ways to broadly alert people rather than pinpoint to the facts, we may put a bigger net and more layers of Swiss cheese as that

1:09:47 model suggests that we do. And then the other piece that I wanted to offer to if there is some way to engage the community, and I count myself as one who would be happy to volunteer, whether it’s to help put up the signs where there may be a shortage of hours in the day before the holiday. And also, I know we had this in March, community networks to help to quarantine drop-offs or people who are just food insecure and unafraid to go out. If there were things that we could do that made people realize that support is available versus shame and that anything positive to tamp down the sort of trigger to anger over the stress that we all feel. So to the degree that the Board of Health has remit to either initiate or be a convener of that, I would be delighted to volunteer and to connect with my network, some of whom I can see on this Zoom, and I know they would be right behind doing that. So I thank you all for all the work that you’ve done and just would love to find ways for us to lean in in a really community-spirited way to make it feel less frightening if you have this, and that may in fact contribute to people being less afraid to say what’s going on. So thank you for listening to me. Thank you. Andrew, does that sound feasible to have volunteers come tomorrow and pick up signs outside the building?

1:11:18 No. This needs to be well orchestrated. It needs to be organized. I can’t just say, I only have 50 signs. They need to be placed appropriately. They need to be hung up appropriately. So I don’t think that would work. Some of the signs now, this time, are going to be on streetlights and things like that. They have to be affixed. It’s not just putting them in the ground like they were before. Because I did put about a dozen of them up before, but I gave Andrew a list and we talked about it where we were going. So that’s what we did. But I think those streetlight ones are going to be a little bit tricky. But we do appreciate the sentiment, and we can find ways for more community involvement. That would be terrific. And Jean, you can contact Lisa, who’s the head of the COA. And she has a team of volunteers that reach out to seniors or people in need that have food insecurities, deliver goods, do shopping. SPUR has done a lot of work involving that also. So there are several different organizations that kind of spearhead that, and you can reach out to them, and they’re the ones that kind of organize a lot of that stuff for us. Thanks. And it looks like the last person who wanted to speak has lowered her hand. So I’m going to close the public comment section of the meeting.

1:12:50 And what we need to do now is just choose our next meeting dates, unless there’s any further business, Andrew, non-COVID related. No, not at this time. OK. Are you looking two weeks from today on the 8th? Yeah, does that work for everybody? I’m wondering if that’s enough time to see if there’s an uptick or not that I’m hoping there isn’t, or that there isn’t an uptick. But I think we should meet that day. Yeah, I think the first is too soon, and the 15th is too long. I think two weeks is perfect. Yes, and we might have to meet the 15th. I think that we should maybe make both dates. There may be some activity going on. I’m not going to schedule both, but if we feel like… The 15th, the 8th works for me. I happen to have a conflict with another virtual meeting on the 15th, and I’m just wondering if we might tweak the time a little bit on the 15th. Is that possible? Yeah, and if we find on the 8th that there’s no need, we can also cancel the meeting. But yeah, we can be flexible. I have another meeting that starts at 8 p.m. on the 15th. Do you want to make it for 7 or 6.30? 6.30 or 7 would be great. Even 6.30 would be ideal if it’s possible to do that.

1:14:20 I’m glad we’re speaking this among us. That’s fine. 6.30 is fine. Does it work for everybody else? Andrew? I’ll be on vacation. Well, don’t you bring your computer with you? I just get that. I haven’t had vacation a long time. Oh yeah, that’s totally fine. Okay. You will be on vacation? Yeah, right now. I don’t go on vacation at this point. The virus has to rest. So we’ll do the 8th and the 15th, and with the caveat that we might cancel the 15th if we find that it’s not necessary to meet two weeks in a row. Yeah, so the December 8th will be approximately seven days after Thanksgiving, and yes, that’s when we’re anticipating to start to see some signs of increase. Okay. And then the 15th will be the 14th. The 15th will be the 14th day, so 15th or 16th day. So that’ll be great. All right, so we’ve got those two set, and there’s no motion. And then, Andrew, you’ve got that 6.30 for the 15th. Yep. You want to just go right ahead and do a 29th and put it on the calendar since it’s such a busy time or do you want to hold off? Hold off, please. Hold off for the moment, yeah. Okay. You want a motion to adjourn? Yes, please. Motion to adjourn. I’ll second. Okay, and… Miss Scott-Leib? In favor. Miss Hazlet? In favor.

1:15:51 Dr. Belf-Becker? In favor. And I hope everybody has a safe Thanksgiving and is responsible and maybe has a lousy time because it’s not like a normal year and we have to accept that. Have fun on Zoom.