Board of Health: January 5, 2021

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 November 24th. We have a motion to approve those. I’ll second. Wait, wait, wait. There’s one that I had, excuse me, for one moment because they were corrected and then I, when I was reading this now, excuse me for one moment. Andrea sent a message. Then I read, naturally I saw something. I want to make sure that it was, it was a very simple thing too, but I apologize because I didn’t mark it. I was reading it after the sheet. There was a small word missing in the 24th. Can we make it as amended? There was a small, it was just a word. Sure. Could we make it as amended? It was nothing, it changed it, but I’m trying to find it while we’re here and it’s not coming up. Okay. You can make that motion. All right. Are you making that motion, Holly? Yeah, I’ll make the motion as amended. Yes, please. Okay. I’ll second. Miss Hazlet? Yes. Miss Gottlieb? In favor. Sorry, I just lost my charger. Dr. Belfbeger? In favor. And then we have the minutes of December 8th.

1:37 Yes, I make a motion to accept the minutes of December 8th. Okay. There were a few changes in that, but we had the changes in that. We have separate executive session minutes from that meeting that we’ll have to approve it at a different time. Is there a second, Michelle? Yes, I second that. Miss Hazlet? In favor. Miss Gottlieb? In favor. Dr. Belfbeger? In favor. All right. Andrew, ready for the COVID report? Yes, do you want to start with the meeting that we had with the regional mayors and town administrators and? Sure. Do you want me to talk about it or do you want to? Go right ahead. Okay, so we had last Wednesday, the 30th, and also on Monday yesterday, there were two meetings that Mayor Kim just told Salem put together for the region. I believe the towns she invited were Gloucester, Beverly, Peabody, Danvers, Marblehead, Swamps, got Salem, Lynn, and Nihant. Is that? Yeah, that is correct. Some mayors, town administrators, health directors, board health chairs, and some select men attended these meetings where the mayor of Salem wanted to discuss if there was an interest to regionalize an approach to rolling back to more restrictions and more closures to try to stem COVID.

3:09 One of the big takeaways was the first meeting, the presidents of Salem Hospital and Beverly Hospital both spoke and were talking about where the hospitals are standing right now, which these towns in the region all do use. The basic consensus, and I have, you know, my notes, both hospitals are pretty much near the meeting place. Sandra, thank you. So both hospitals are pretty much at capacity. As of last Wednesday, Beverly Hospital is at 95% capacity Salem Hospital is at 93% capacity. Beverly Hospital is, as of last Wednesday, had 62 active patients, which was the highest that they’d had since this frame. And Salem Hospital had 60 active patients as of last Wednesday. Back in March, they had about 120 patients at their peak. But they have been able to transfer some patients to Boston, which has been helping stem the overflow, but that they believe is going to stop pretty soon because Boston will become capacity as well. So one of the big takeaways from these meetings was that the hospitals are just about at the breaking point. And not only will they not be able to treat new COVID cases, but it will affect everything else, heart attacks, emergencies, anything. So what the towns need to do is kind of unified to get people to change their behavior so that COVID will hopefully not keep spiraling out of control.

4:46 And if that is done, then hospitals can start running a little more smoothly because they won’t be overflowed. So the first meeting was basically getting a sense of where everything stood. The second meeting, there wasn’t major consensus. Some towns wanted to roll back. And Andrew, if I say anything or miss anything, please cut me off. Sometimes we’re in favor of rollbacks to do things such as clothing in person, dining in all restaurants in the entire region. Other towns were not prepared to do that at this point. Sometimes thought it needed to go even more strictly because we didn’t really want to make a change. Everything has to stop, everything from schools to everything. So the basic takeaway from these meetings was that the mayor of Salem drafted a letter, a joint statement, which hopefully every town will sign. Just kind of, I’ll read it. And then what I would like to do, Elaine and Michelle, is they want people from every one of these towns to sign this letter. And I would like to read it to you and then we can vote to authorize me to approve it, or I’m sorry, to sign it as chair on our behalf. So let me just read the letter. It’s a couple paragraphs, but it shouldn’t take that long. So the joint statement from North Shore municipal leaders and public health officials. And again, that’s from the towns that I named before. Over the last two weeks, municipal leaders, public health directors, and members of boards of health from nine communities in the North Shore have met with hospital presidents from North Shore Medical Center, Salem Hospital, and Beverly Hospital.

6:28 And consulted with a leading epidemiologist in order to review current COVID-19 case data and hospital capacity and discuss whether communities should consider further rollbacks to help reduce the post-holiday spread of the virus. Essex County has some of the highest case counts in the Commonwealth, and with increasing COVID-19 case counts happening throughout the North Shore, municipal officials are collectively concerned about overwhelming our local hospitals capacity. We are particularly troubled about impacts to our hardworking residents in the healthcare workforce. With almost no additional space at our region’s hospitals, everyone is negatively affected, even if the reason for your hospital visit is not COVID-19 related. At the current time, the North Shore local leaders are deferring taking additional actions on rollbacks, but remain committed to supporting our healthcare institutions and will continue to monitor case counts and hospital capacity on a daily basis. If case counts continue to increase, hospital admissions, whether for COVID or any healthcare need, will be compromised and further action by local officials may be necessary. Should case numbers rise, several communities in the region have committed to restricting unnecessary indoor activities that directly contribute to the spread of the virus. North Shore municipal leaders, public health directors, and members of boards of health, along with healthcare leaders from North Shore Medical Center and Beverly Hospital, strongly encourage all residents of the region to avoid non-essential in-person activities with people not part of your household for the next several weeks. Even with reduced capacities, these non-essential activities during a time of period of rapidly rising community transmission should be avoided if at all possible.

8:04 The next several weeks are crucial to our collective health as a region. Everyone has worked so hard the last 10 months and with vaccine distributions underway, we are hopeful that brighter days are ahead in 2021. So that’s the letter that was drafted by either Mayor Dusco or her office. And I think that we should sign that. I would need a vote, as I said, from the three of us to allow me to sign on our behalf. It’s not one that we can edit because we didn’t write it, but we can join on. And I think it would be important for us to do so. Any discussion? I think it’s very important. And I think the decision that was made was appropriate. And I will authorize you to sign it. We need a motion, please. Yeah, I agree. I also agree that we should sign on. You know, I do feel like, you know, I feel for these hospitals that, you know, I’m just kind of curious before we go there to I just kind of want to hear what their reaction was, the hospital directors, what their reaction was when there was no consensus to do any kind of joint rollbacks or whatever. I’m just kind of curious to hear what their reaction was because, well, I believe that this is, you know, I know that the communities are all in different places and that a joint decision to roll back might have not made sense.

9:47 You know, this is a, this statement only goes so far and doesn’t have that, you know, we’re basically saying what we’ve what we’ve been saying all along with like maybe just a little more heft in saying, you know, okay, the hospitals are at capacity. And we’re coming together as a community to make this statement and I’m glad we’re doing that. But, you know, it, there’s, there’s, that’s about all it is, you know, so I’m just kind of curious what the, what the hospital director, you know, how they felt about it because clearly they were looking for a little bit more. The hospital directors presidents were not at the meeting. The hospital directors were not established. So we don’t know what they think about that. Yeah. Yeah, I just, I hope that this, the weight of all of these communities coming together and sharing how dire it is at these hospitals will will carry some weight and we’re and what’s the kind of distribution of this letter what’s the plan for that. There was not essentially establish a plan for distribution but obviously we’d try to hit all the major news organizations all our, you know, outlets for news, all our websites and and Facebook postings and stuff like that. So, you know, we didn’t really talk about a plan for master distribution but we wanted to get it out to as many people as possible.

11:22 Obviously there was a lot of discussion about economics and, you know, the rollback would be to phase two step two. And would that really be enough to curb what the hospitals were looking for. I’m not so sure it really would have been. And that was a big part of the discussion. Lynn is already at phase two step two and they’re still dealing with heavy heavy COVID cases. So, you know, where they’re already there it’s not really making a difference. But obviously this this conversation will continue. You know, we were hoping that this conversation might spur that that the governor might do something a little bit more to, and obviously the hospitals all have regional meetings where the governor is involved or at least here’s what is going on with the hospitals. Obviously the mass.gov has the daily case report and in that is the hospital capacity on day to day basis. So you can go there today and see what the capacity is. And as Todd said, they’re right at the breaking point on the northeast. And so there some other regions are right there too, but not all regions are. But obviously the big concern is that with the holidays, you know, our case count continues to go up and what kind of spike are we going to see in the next week, two weeks. And is that going to be the tipping point? So, did I have a question? Were you going to say something Todd? Yeah, I was just going to add that there was, you know, everybody was aware of the fact that the grand majority of COVID spread is household cases.

12:56 It’s not in restaurants or businesses. And so one question was if there was a rollback, it’s not going to really change the main driving force of where people are catching this virus because it’s inside houses. Is there a plan if this goes up that very tiny bit, you’re saying 93% and what was the other one, 97%? I mean overnight, is there a plan if you’re at full capacity? And are they sending people out right now? Are they sending people to Boston or elsewhere? As of last Wednesday, Salem was able to still send people to Boston. But they were sending people out of the district, out of the area. Yes, that was six days ago and he did not know how long that would really last, like how long they’d be able to do that before Boston. If Lynn is so high, they don’t have a hospital anymore. So they’re probably part of the overload, obviously, because Lynn is being serviced by Salem and Beverly or wherever else people from Lynn go, they go to Maldonar. But they are sending their people, you know, out of their town, out of their city. Mayor McGhee said, I think, we had the beginning of Monday, I think he said two or three days previous to that, there were 145 new cases in one day.

14:31 In one day. In one day. So they are filling the hospitals. So I just thought that maybe there needs to be a plan of something if there’s a big surge. I mean, obviously the hospitals are working together all the time and they have to have a plan. And that’s, you know, obviously we’re concerned as a region to see where we are and where our case count is going. And people really need to look recognize that our hospitals are reaching their capacity and need to remember, if you’re not just going there for COVID, you might not receive the treatment that you’re expecting. And people really need to start to think about that and curb their behavior. You know, yes, we’ve been saying this all along, but obviously people aren’t listening the way we would like them to. And it’s not, I mean, as being a dead horse, but people in Marblehead use still in Beverly hospitals because we don’t have our own. So it’s not just Salem’s problem. It’s our problem to leave our cases to work. Well, I’m glad they got the communities together and hopefully they’re ahead of the game. That’s the only thing that I was asking that, you know, if we’re so close to capacity, I mean, what’s the difference between 97% and 100% two beds? You know, it seems that they, I hope that they do have a plan. And whether it’s, and if it’s not just for hospitalization, it seems that they were looking toward, you know, closures of some facilities, restaurants, et cetera.

16:05 So hopefully they will keep abreast and not wait, you know, a week to call a meeting if it’s necessary. That’s what I’m concerned about. So with that, could I make a motion to accept, to authorize Todd to sign the document? I’ll second. Ms. Hayslet? In favor. Ms. Gottlieb? In favor. Dr. Belfbecker? In favor. And I point of order, are you going to be signing as well, Andrew? Yes, I will be signing as well. You don’t need our vote for that. Could I add that to the motion? You do not need to add that to the motion. Okay. So going forward with that, you know, the case count, we had released the case count on Monday. Again, you know, we see a pretty large increase of cases, a little bit over 80 cases in the last week. We have 121 active cases. You know, we need to review the death certificates that are coming in for this month. We could see some additional deaths. We’re currently at 31 deaths. So we will be doing that shortly. It’s very important that we take a look at the age groups. So we had 177 cases over the last 14 days. However, the largest group, the largest number on those age groups was the zero to 19. So as we talk about, it’s not necessarily affecting the younger people. It really is starting to affect the younger people.

17:37 We’re seeing a high number of quarantines, and we are seeing a high number of positive cases. So that is very important to remember. Another important piece is that we are doing quite a bit of testing for Marblehead residents, meaning that, you know, Marblehead residents are getting tested. So we had 4,047 COVID tests taken by Marblehead residents in the last 14 days. It was only a 3.98% positive rate, but that’s still a pretty large. So that’s 20% of the population were tested in the last 14 days. Now, our concern is why were they tested? Were they tested because they had symptoms, or were they tested because they wanted to have holidays with loved ones, or were they traveling? It’s really important at this point where our hospitals are at capacity that people really stop and think that they need to do the right thing. They need to think about where they’re going to go and how that could affect themselves or the community. The average daily incident rate per 100,000 in the last 14 days is 51.8. That’s approximately a little over 10 cases a day. So that’s also a pretty high number. However, that still keeps us a yellow community per the state matrix. Yes, most of the communities around us are red, but we still maintain that lower percent positive rate keeping us a yellow community.

19:11 Obviously, you know, stay-at-home advisory is still in place. The other big piece that you’ll hear a lot of discussion from us and through the state and around the country is vaccinations. We will begin, they have begun vaccinations in the state of Massachusetts. We will begin to vaccinate our first responders, our police fire EMS. We will begin to do that next week in the region. But there is, I did put on the case count the phased approach to vaccinations. We have received quite a few phone calls of when will I be vaccinated and how I will be vaccinated. We wanted to make sure that information was available to everybody. So that kind of grouping the phase one, phase two and phase three, I put that on the case count so people can understand that. You can also go to mass.gov and get a lot of information on when we think that people would be vaccinated. If you believe that you’re not in the great right advisory or in the right phase, there is an advisory group that you can reach out to and potentially move yourself around depending on where you fall in the class and stuff like that. But again, just because the vaccine is being administered doesn’t mean it’s time for us to let up. It’s really time for us to dig deep right now and do the right thing. Maintain social distancing, wear a mask, wash your hands, try to maintain just staying with your home members.

20:42 So we just really need to remember that. The other big piece that has gotten a lot of discussion is the talking points of this new variant that came out of the UK. So the new variant first identified in the UK is a rapid spread of this new variant was recognized in the UK in the mid-December of 2020. At that time, public health experts cautioned that the virus was likely already in the United States. This likelihood was due to the high prevalence of the variant in London and southeast England and the frequency of travel between the two countries and the fact that the variant was already known to have been detected in other countries. In addition to report a case in Colorado, it is likely that we will find additional cases in the United States in the coming days. Public health experts are working to better understand the potential impact of this variant, including how the variant spreads, epidemiological impact, and how it affects people who are infected with it at the clinical impact. We are early in our efforts to understand this new variant, but here is what we know at this time. What we know is based on evidence, we have now and may change as we learn more and new data emerges. Based on analysts from the variant genome, the tracking of cases associated with it, the variant may spread more easily and quickly than previous strains. This could increase the overall spread of the COVID virus.

22:14 We are taking public health measures to prevent the spread of this new variant. We continue to emphasize the importance of wearing a mask, staying at least six feet apart from others, avoiding crowds, ventilating indoor spaces, and washing hands frequently. These are our best tools for preventing the spread of this virus, no matter the strain. If this variant is more easily spread, vigilance in following these preventative steps will be critical to slow its spread. We also may need to achieve higher vaccination coverage when the vaccine is widely available. There is also another, there is also another discovery of another variant that first emerged in South Africa. We are still learning a lot about this and I don’t have a lot of information, but as new information comes available, we will share that information. So it is very critical to remember these very important things and they’re pretty basic at this point and we know we’ve tried to drill this into everybody. Social distancing, wearing a mask, washing your hands. If you have other questions, Mass.gov has a ton of information. Like I said before, they actually have a new daily dashboard that’s very interactive. There’s a lot of graphs on there that you can play with. You can change the timeline. You can go into the hospitalizations. You can go into the hospitalization details.

23:49 It has a number of beds for Boston, Central, Metro West, Northeast, Southeast, Western. And it also has the ICU beds for the region. So a lot of important information can be found at Mass.gov. We get a lot of questions about guidance for returning to work. I’ve had positive employees. I have employees that are in quarantine. A lot of that information about returning can work and also be found on Mass.gov. Return to work guidance. Mass.gov lists office COVID-19. Employee return to work guidance. Also, if you want to start to screen your employees when they come to work. There’s information on how to do that. Employee screening questionnaire is available on Mass.gov. They also have business guidance, new temporary capacity limits. Please remember that the Governor has new orders in place regarding capacity. That’s really about it right now. Yes, we’re doing a lot of work on the vaccine. We’re doing a lot of case work and contact tracing for all the new cases that we’ve gotten over the holidays. And as they come out on a daily basis, we’re trying to work on both sides. Working on making sure that we can try to vaccinate as many people as possible. We have teamed up with Swam Scott, Salem, Danvers, and Beverly. And we will be holding clinics for first responders and Marblehead and Beverly in the coming future.

25:20 And as more information comes out about other clinics, we will obviously be advising the public. But the clinics that are coming out next week are just for first responders. And you have to be on the first responder list for that. The only other big information that came out over the holidays is that the CARES Act has been extended. The CARES Act has been extended to December 31st of 2021. So that does give us a little bit of leeway for certain things. Unfortunately, we have spent the majority of our funding in the town of Marblehead. We do have some additional funding for the health department that we can use for overtime and things like that. So that’s really it as far as the update goes. But I’m sure people have questions or… I have a couple of questions. You were talking about, again, back to the capacity of hospitals. Would you please tell everyone that if they are ill with other ailments, whether they have heart attack or any other kinds of falls or emergencies, that they must go to the hospital and not feel that they should stay away? Because they need attention as much as anyone else. And I think that it’s important that people know that they don’t stay away. And I know that many… We have heard that that’s occurred, that people have not gone to the hospital when they needed attention.

26:53 It is really important that if you need medical attention to call 911, especially if you need severe medical attention, heart attacks, slip and falls for elderly and stuff like that, just because we’re dealing with COVID doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t get the attention that you need or desire. However, with the capacity at the hospitals, you might not get the treatment that you think you should get. But please call 911 if you have an injury or heart attack, any of those major illnesses, please reach out and we will try to deal with everybody as best we can. Well, if they do call 911, they’ll get better attention, even if it’s not as good as they expect, if they walk in. So I think the 911 is important to utilize at that time. One other question. You were talking about the different phases of that vaccine. People with comorbidity, do they need to have a doctor’s note? Are they taking people’s word when you get into phase? No, you’re going to need a doctor’s note. And we haven’t even gotten to that section yet and how it’s going to roll out. So currently we’re taking our direction directly from Department of Public Health, and they are giving us the guidelines. So today we had a phone call or conversation with the state about hospital employees, physicians. Department of Public Health has told local boards of health that we will not be responsible for physicians

28:25 and physicians’ offices for vaccinations, that they will have to reach out to their hospital associates to get vaccinated. Now, that’s just the information that we received today. This stuff changes. This is a rapidly evolving situation. So that might change. But at this point, you should be reaching out to your hospital affiliate or having a conversation with the Mass Department of Public Health about where you should receive the vaccination. Now, if you are a physician and you vaccinate for the flu, that means you already have access to the system, the MIIS system. So you should be able to request vaccine yourself and go through the process of beginning to vaccinate people that fall under the phases. Thank you. I apologize, Todd. I’m sorry. Is our nurse, Tracy, getting any assistance? If she’s supposed to be now doing the vaccines and then she’s fielding the calls and doing the tracing, how is that happening? I mean, she’s just one person. Right. So obviously we use CTC from a state has developed a contact tracing collaborative at the state level. So for us to shift over and start to work on vaccines, we unfortunately need to shift a lot of people in Marvel Head residents. You won’t necessarily be speaking with the local public health. You most likely will be speaking with CTC.

29:58 I mean, obviously we want to try to help people as best as possible. But at this point, we have no choice but to start to. We’re being inundated with cases at this point. We’ve had to use them also. But they have to understand that they might not be speaking with the public health nurse. They might be speaking with somebody at the CTC. I mean, I know the answer to these questions, but I just think the public needs to hear this. Would you say, Andrew, like that, you know, I know I’ve heard that in Swam Scott, they’ve said that, you know, sometimes they feel like there’s been so many cases that sometimes with contact tracing, some of them, they feel like are falling through the cracks. Do you feel like that’s happening with us or do you think we’re able to catch all of them? So we had a conversation with the CTC today. They gave us a little bit of a presentation. So, yes, they had a period of time towards, you know, middle of November, towards the end of November, where they were not able to capture everybody as it went through. They did go through a ramping up period where they’re hiring people. They do feel that it is about, you know, an 85 to 93 percent that they’re capturing everybody at this point. And please remember that if you are a positive person or you believe that you’ve been in contact, you know, or contact of a positive person, that you need to answer your phone. It’s not going to come across as a Department of Public Health phone number. It’s probably going to come across as some random number.

31:29 And we really need you to answer that phone, to answer the questions. One other question with regard to the report around stimulus funds. So you don’t anticipate that we will use any stimulus funds for further testing like we did at the end of the year? We don’t have any additional money to support testing. Looks like Jodi’s raise. Jodi, do you have a question about following up on this? Yes, so that actually I think it sort of answered it. So the two testing clinics that we had, the two phases, we’re not, Marblehead’s not doing any more testing. If people need to get tested, we need to go out of town, correct? That is correct. We did four different days of testing, and that’s all we were able to do. Okay, and then you might not be able to answer it yet because it’s looking into the future. But for those of us who are not medical personnel and first responders who live in Marblehead, will we be getting vaccines through our doctor’s offices or through the town of Marblehead? And will we be signing up? I guess what I’m seeing is you see the pictures from the people down in Florida that are lined up overnight, outside in lawn chairs waiting for the vaccine. I presume that we’re not going to be doing that here. Do we know what it’s going to look like for the lower level people getting the vaccine? Yeah, it really should be a controlled vaccination plan. So we had guidelines from the CDC that we are following.

33:00 Florida is choosing not to follow those CDC recommendations and guidelines of who should get vaccinated first. As it rolls out, we believe that you will receive vaccination from both your doctor’s office and large clinics. Just to be clear, we’ll be able to sign up or we’ll get like a couple hour window that we show up kind of thing? Most likely because we need to be very careful with the vaccine. We don’t want to waste any of it. Most likely we’ll do a sign up genie. The state is developing. We want to start to use what’s called PrepMod, which is an online sign up genie that allows us to bill for the vaccination through insurance, but allows us to kind of track the number of people that we’ll be doing in a period of time. Like I said, when we open up a vial of vaccine, we want to make sure that we use the whole thing. So we need to know exactly how many people are coming through. Okay, good. Thank you. In August, September, when do you think that’ll be hitting? No, so the state’s phases. So phase one is December through February. Phase two is February through April. Phase three is April through June. So phase three is general public, April through June. Obviously, you know, our current vaccination rate in the state is very low. We need to increase that and that we need to kind of shift over to the vaccination and try to increase that, you know, quite a bit. At our current vaccination rate, it’s going to take us years to vaccinate everybody.

34:35 Which is not a good option. Thank you very much. Thank you. Dr. Thovec, are you okay? I just choked on some tea, so I had to quickly mute myself as I coughed them. I just was wondering if there was anybody in the house to say, are you okay? Oh, yeah, no. Just teed down the wrong pipe. So before we do your report, Helene, I’m going to change the format a little bit. If there’s anybody else who has a question directly about COVID, you can raise your hand and I will recognize you for the question. Yes, Sandra. You’re on mute. You’re muted still. Oh, sorry. Just a quick question. And Andrew, you might be able to answer this. Is there a protocol that the Board of Health is using as well as CTC tracing in regards to what questions they’re asking when there’s a positive contact? Yeah, is there a positive? I was a little disappointed of what was asked of someone that was a positive from CTC. And I’m concerned that there is some, you know, exposures that are not being identified because of some of the lack of it. So I wasn’t sure if there’s a standard protocol that there are certain questions they need to ask. Yeah, there definitely is a standard protocol of what questions they should be asking. So please feel free to email me and ask any of these questions. And I’ll make sure that the state hears the same question because if it’s coming from a doctor’s office, obviously we have concern about this.

36:08 And we want to make sure that investigation is done thorough to capture as many people as possible. Now, one of the issues that we are running into is that people don’t necessarily want to be forthcoming with information. But we want to make sure that you’re asking the questions and try to lead people into the answers. But yeah, you need to ask a series of questions to get the correct answers. Yeah, this wasn’t a provider-related question. It’s actually a personal question that there was, you know, I put my son in quarantine, obviously knowing what the protocol was. And thankfully, he heard from a friend of a friend and, you know, did all the right due diligence. And when I finally got in touch with this mother’s, you know, I mean, person’s mom, and I asked her what they asked, their only concern was if they had been in school or if they had been in work within 48 hours. Right. That was it, which was a little bit alarming. So there’s clearly other people that he could have exposed himself to, but that question was never asked. So, you know, for people that maybe aren’t educated, maybe they don’t know enough to reach out to those people. So I just wasn’t sure what the protocol is, if it’s standard questions that they have to go through. Yeah, they’re really supposed to go through a direct list of questions that they’re supposed to be asking. And it definitely wasn’t the Board of Health. It was definitely CTC. And I was just discouraged to hear how little information they requested from the parents. Thanks. Okay, Helene, let’s, your last meeting was yesterday, the reopening committee?

37:41 The reopening committee was yesterday, but before I start, I’d like to tell you that I did find my location of the November 24th minutes. And when I read what the change was, you’ll know why I was wanting to make the change. It was in the last paragraph, and it says that the reopening committee discussed how hybrid classes are going smoothly and that the teachers are not ready to return. And I put full time, the word full time wasn’t in there, to return full time to the classroom. It stated before not ready to return to the classroom, which is not correct. So if, Andrea, could you write in that, or I could send it to you, that they were not ready to return full time because that is an important aspect of what the reopening committee has been working on. So we did meet yesterday, and the principal said that all went well with students coming back. There were almost no glitches. We heard from them that everything seemed to be running smoothly. But there was some concern about winter sports. There had been an outbreak in the girls’ hockey. They’re now deciding whether they can start their season on Friday. And it seems that they were going to meet with the health and safety, or with Andrew.

39:12 Did you get a call from Greg? Yes, so I did talk to Greg. We met today. Are they going to? So we were talking about who was allowed to attend basketball games and indoor sports at this time. And so yet, Greg will be putting that forward. John was part of the meeting. Dan Bauer is part of that meeting. Essentially, it’s going to be, you’re allowed two household members. That was how it was originally, but we were even talking, they were talking about whether the season would even begin on Friday. So that has been, oh, we see the superintendent shaking his head. So let’s all get involved. I don’t care if somebody joins me. Would you like to speak, Dr. Bucky? There won’t be any games this weekend, is what Mr. Siglarski told us today. Okay, so they’re going to wait. Once they do start, they did determine early on that there could be two members of each family that could attend. So whether that changes or not. Is that all sports? All sports, right, Dr. Bucky? It’s indoor sports. All indoor sports. Basketball and girls ice hockey. Well, I guess it’s diving and gymnastics. Swimming and diving and hockey are contingent on where it’s being played. Some places will not allow spectators, which take it out of our decision making.

40:47 Okay, I like it to be more specific. Thank you very much. So I guess it’s a moving target and there will be no sports this weekend. And that’s up to the minute. The rest of the discussion was mainly on a document that Dr. Bucky sent out, that he was trying to now just sort of sit our feet in the water. Cambridge is discussing reducing social distancing. They actually voted on it to look toward this for February. And he put this document out for us to discuss. So we discussed it. And I don’t think that people need to get alarmed. I think that it was a very healthy discussion. And they have not talked to the teachers union. Just the reopening committee was sort of responding to something that Dr. Bucky put out. It was more of a very good, healthy discussion. Cambridge is talking about three-foot distancing K through six for the elementary students. And Dr. Bucky wanted to get the feeling of the committee. If this occurs, it’s down the road. It would happen very slowly. And we wouldn’t even look toward it before February vacation.

42:18 So in that document, they were also talking about the various quarantine rules that we also have seen. And I talked to Andrew about that. There’s the 14 days. There’s the 10 days. There’s 14 days without a test, 10 days with a test. So there’s a lot of, again, a moving target. And they also were talking about the changing of the metrics. This was a very healthy discussion. And I don’t want anybody to get alarmed. I hope the superintendent doesn’t object to me talking about that. But that was what the bulk of the meeting was about. And we also, along with that, the nurse, Deanna, suggested that we wait and see what other towns are doing. We are naturally, not naturally, but we know that we are the only yellow town at this minute. And everyone around us on the North Shore is red. And we were also told there will be a lot of, if we do go back full-time, even with the K-6, there’s going to be a problem with busing. We now only allow 20 students on a bus. The smaller buses only allow four. So there’s an awful lot that has to happen before this occurs. But I feel it was a good discussion to start the thought process.

43:52 And that was the meeting. Thank you. Thanks for continuing to- Was that the meeting, Dr. Bucky? I think I did okay. All right, good. I got the thumbs up. Okay. So, Andrea, your hand is raised again. Andrew, can you just clarify what’s Marbell? I’m only asking you this because I know that you’re on the committee. Has Marbell had gone with, if there’s an exposure, getting out of quarantine, if you have a PCR test at- PCR or antigen test at day five, asymptomatic at day seven, or is Marbell head on board with that? So Marbell head health department is on board with that. So we follow this- Okay. So we follow state guidelines and CDC guidelines. So I’m assuming since you guys are on board with that, then the school is on board with that as well, since you guys have to release the clearance letter? Yes, that’s correct. Yep. Thank you. Michelle? Can we talk a little bit more? And I know you all have the discussions at the reopening committee and in other- Thank you so much for regarding the winter sports, but I just, you know, as a, as a board member, have a particular concern right now. And especially in light of the letter that we heard previously from the hospitals and what we heard-

45:24 No, it’s either. There’s a topic. Really? Oh, could you go on, Eric please. I’m just going to start from Andrew in terms of where we’re seeing the cases in the lower age groups. Just feeling concerned about the winter sports. Happy to hear that, you know, there aren’t going to be games this particular weekend, but what, you know, just feeling a particular concern about, you know, the moving forward with indoor winter sports and kind of hear what you’re thinking is about that moving forward. And, you know, any thoughts about, you know, maybe some further delays beyond this weekend or regarding practices? Not, you know, I just, I’m just, I’m concerned. And, you know, I do understand that there’s the mental health benefits, obviously, that is a concern we all have. But we also know that there’s mental health benefits from the folks in the, the kids that participate in theater, the kids that participate in orchestra and all the other things that, you know, might not be happening at their full capacity right now. And with the contact that you have in some of these sports, I just wonder, as our cases are at such a high point right now,

46:59 I just want to, I would just want to vocalize that. Well, could I, could I add to that as a question, Todd? And I’m looking to maybe Andrew to answer it. I think initially we said if there was a, it might have changed, but I don’t remember hearing it at the board level, that if a person comes down with the virus on a team, that the whole team is quarantined. Now that’s changed. So I don’t know when that changed. So it is sports specific. So hockey, if you have a case in hockey, you have the whole team is quarantined. If the coach is on the ice, that includes the coach. And they’re really using science with that. With hockey, because of the temperatures of the ice, the virus has tend to stay down across the ice a little bit more. So it’s more sports specific about is it the whole team or are you doing contact tracing? And the other sports? So like swimming is contact tracing. Basketball? Basketball is contact tracing at this point, but it’s being reviewed by the state. And gymnastics is more individual. So that. That’s correct. It’s contact tracing at this time also. Thank you. Because it just seemed that it was a little bit of a change that really wasn’t clear.

48:33 So basketball is contact tracing, which that. Correct. Yep. And that’s why it should be really reviewed by the state at this time also. And they’re doing that or you think it should be done? They are doing that. You know, where they are with it is up to them. But obviously it is concerned. Thank you. We you’re all set. Andrew, is there anything further? No, that’s it. I think I think Eric has his hand up or. I didn’t see. Eric, did you did you have a question? I don’t see everybody’s 10. Since we are the health and waste department, I just wanted to bring a waste for a second. I was at the transportation the other day and I thought it was very, very smooth and safe to get a new a new sticker for the year. It was well done. The window opens. You don’t have to go into the trailer. But in the paper recycling, there was more wrapping paper than anything that I noticed. And I think maybe for next season, next year, we should have some signage saying that wrapping paper is not recyclable. I know it’s a year away, but just wanted to put that out there. Yeah, we can definitely do that. I actually did a special just before the holidays with the Sustainable Marblehead talking about recycling for the holidays,

50:04 talking about how wrapping paper unfortunately cannot be recycled due to the makeup and trying to convince people to use a more sustainable recyclable material like, you know, brown grocery bags, construction paper and stuff like that. That is recyclable. It’s really unfortunate that wrapping paper cannot be recycled, but that’s an industry standard. And we want to remind people that the best thing is the recyclopedia. So if you go online, if you recycle smart, you can type in your item that you’re trying to recycle and it’ll tell you if it belongs in the trash or if it belongs in the recycling bin. So it’s always important to make sure you follow that guidelines. We actually did include the recycling smart flyer this year in the handout that comes out from the town clerk. So when you get your envelope or their letter from the town clerk, please open it up. There is a recycling smart flyer in there about proper recycling. Great. Michelle? As long as we’re on the waste topic front, Andrew, you want to just talk about Christmas trees and what the options are now that we’re not having the epiphany. Yeah, so Christmas trees would be picked up curbside up until I believe it’s January 15th. So that’s next week. And they need to be curbside Monday through Friday. It’s not a set date.

51:37 Usually people put them out on their trash date, but the highway department and the parks department is bringing them around. They are being brought up to the transfer station where they’ll be all ground towards the end of the month. Seems like there’s nothing further to be a motion. Let’s make our next meeting before we go. We’re going to have a meeting date. I think with what’s going on, we really need to meet weekly until we get a little quieter. Yeah, that’s fine. Next Tuesday at 730. Fine for me. Yeah. I guess I’ll have to cancel my Theta ticket, so. There was something I wanted to, there is one, are we doing anything beyond that? Are we going to the… We’ll just do a week at a time right now. Okay, that’s fine. And would you stay in touch as far as if anything changes with the North Shore King School group? Yes, we both will. Because that seems to be something that’s going to explode. Okay, so motion to adjourn? I’ll make a motion to adjourn. Second. Second. Ms. Gottlieb? Favor. Ms. Heasley? Favor. Dr. Belkbecker? Favor. Stay safe everyone.