Board of Health: September 14, 2021

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0:00 All right, we’ll call the meeting of September 14th to order. It’s being recorded by MHTV. And welcome everyone. Let’s go to Andrew’s COVID update, please. Sounds good. As of September 10th, we’ve had a total of 1,462 cases. That was up by 13 cases from the week before of September 3rd. Our count was 1,442. Last week, we had 15 cases active. We had four cases from zero to 19. We had six cases from 20 to 29. We had six cases from 30 to 39. We had three cases from 40 to 49, three cases from 50 to 59, two cases from 60 to 69, and one case from 70 to 79. So those, all those cases added together, that’s a total of 25 cases. So those are the total cases for the last two weeks. So when we do the ages, we break it up by a two-week period, so everybody understands. Our average daily incident rate went down last week to 8.3 people. We had a total test at this point. So this is the total number of tests that Marblehead residents have taken so far, 68,921. The total test for the last 14 days, this has gone up significantly, is 2,441, with the percent positive of those cases for the last 14 days of 0.98%. So that’s a very low number. So, you know, we’re doing great on surveillance.

1:39 Surveillance is definitely a key to COVID-19. We want to do vaccination, surveillance, and contact tracing. That’s the key to continue on with this and trying to keep rates low and reduce the numbers of COVID. Obviously, the change of percent positive was also down from last week. As far as, you know, individuals vaccinated, from the 12 to 15 age group, we have 86% fully vaccinated. For 16 to 19 year olds, we have 90, greater than 95% fully vaccinated. For 20 to 29 years old, we have 86% vaccinated. For 30 to 49 years old, we have 91% fully vaccinated. For 50 to 64, we have 90% fully vaccinated. 65 to 74 is 89% fully vaccinated. And 95 plus, we are greater than 95% fully vaccinated. So those are really good numbers. Obviously, we’d love to see, you know, those 12 to 15 numbers up a little bit, the 20 to 29 numbers up a little bit. And even, you know, that 65 to 74. But those are all really good numbers. Do you think that 16 to 19, is that what it is? Yeah, 16 to 19 years old is greater than 95% fully vaccinated. Thank you. Yep. So we had a state conference call today and talked about multiple

3:15 different things. But the big takeaway from that is that we have no update from the state from DESI regarding the mask mandate that’s, you know, technically going to end on October 1st.

3:34 So we are definitely seeing clusters in town. We will continue to see clusters in town. Regardless of vaccination status, we are seeing once it really gets into a household, it is spreading through the household pretty quickly. Unfortunately, you know, some people it’s taken a while to get through the whole household, depending on the vaccination status. So we are seeing clusters around town with that. We do remind want to remind everybody that even if you’re fully vaccinated, and if you’re not fully vaccinated, that you should be, you know, monitoring yourself for symptoms on a daily basis. So we wanted to make sure that we told all the employees in town that before you come to work, you know, you want to take a look at just make sure that you don’t have anything like a runny nose, a cough, or the biggest one, the loss of sense and smell or taste. So a lot of people are talking about it started, you know, even if you’re vaccinated, if you had a contact with another person that’s positive, it kind of starts out with a headache, moves into a runny nose. And then if you are, you know, once you become fully positive, again, considering a breakthrough case, a very kind of severe head cold, or a minor head cold. But like I said, we are seeing breakthrough cases, as much as 50% of our cases currently are breakthrough cases. So just because you’re vaccinated, you still need to take precautions. And like I said, the biggest thing you should be doing is checking yourself for symptoms every day.

5:06 Any questions about that? No, I think it’s very clear. So obviously, you know, obviously, you know, this is going to continue on for a long time. There’s no need for a mass mandate in town at this time. We had a recent meeting with the hospitals. So I have HMCC meeting with Salem Hospital, Beverly Hospital, and another kind of not local hospital, but some of the other hospitals in the region. And we asked them that if they are beginning to see a lot of issues in the hospitals due to COVID, that please reach out to public health in the area. And then at that point, we would be looking to try to make some changes. So but we really want to see, you know, some reason why to apply a mass mandate this time to be looking at any of those implementations. Any questions that’s really about it for COVID at this time. Obviously, kids are back in school. You know, it’s a slow roll into school. We really encourage people to sign up for the pool testing in school. That will give us some great surveillance that we’re talking about. So again, surveillance, vaccination, surveillance, and contact tracing. So as many kids in the school system that could sign up for the pool testing, that would be great. So we want to promote that at this time as well. I have a couple of questions. You said there’s no need for a mass mandate at this time. But I think that we at last meeting, when Ms. Miller

6:42 brought up about mass and public buildings, they’re going to speak with Jason. What came out of that, please? So, you know, obviously, the board made the recommendation to the select one and the select one did not feel that it’s needed at this time. Good. That was on their agenda or just. So, you know, obviously got to the chair, you know, all I can do is pass on the recommendation from the board of health. And they wrote back to us or? I have not received any official correspondence. But if unofficially you heard that they don’t feel it’s necessary at this time. We have not been notified that there is a mass mandate in public buildings at this time. Okay. So we don’t know whether they discussed it or didn’t discuss it. Just there’s no. I have not seated on their agenda or anything like that. Okay. Does anybody else have any information about that on our board?

7:43 When will we be offering the third dose to individuals that are qualifying as of September 20th? So are you talking about third dose for immunocompromised? Are you referring to the booster? I’m talking about the third dose, which I guess is the immunocompromised is first, isn’t it? Yeah. So that’s the third dose. So we don’t have. So really the third dose is going to be offered by your primary care physician who will be checking your health records to see if you qualify. It’s a conversation between a patient and a doctor. So we’re not doing it as a community right now. We are not doing it as a community because it really is that relationship between the patient and the doctor. And they’ll discuss if it’s needed or not. And is that the same thing that’s going to happen with the booster? No, that’s a very different situation. So the booster would be the third shot for everybody that would essentially qualify. So everybody that’s qualified before. So at this point, it would be the ages of 12 and up. So at this time, there’s still a lot of debate about when the booster would be implemented. We have agreed that we would be holding clinics for boosters. So the state is aware of that. And we have a program that we use called Colors to do these vaccination clinics. And so when everything’s set up by the state,

9:15 we will announce clinics and start to administer booster shots. But we don’t have any information of when that would begin. Well, those are our answers to my questions. Thank you. And the last thing, I’m sure there’s a lot of discussion about when will vaccinations be available for the ages 5 to 11. Dr. Gottlieb the other day was discussing this. He’s the former FDA commissioner. And so that could be relatively soon, potentially at the end of October. Maybe some authorization will come for that. But again, we haven’t heard anything from the state. And we haven’t heard anything from the federal government of one that authorization is actually going to come. And when we would begin to vaccinate the age group from 5 to 11. Thanks. No, I just appreciated that update. John, could I just say a couple sentences about the superintendent’s meeting of September 3rd. We did not have one last week because there was hardly any school that week. So we skipped last week. But just to let you know that openings in all levels, all schools went very well. The masks, they said, and I underlined this, do not seem to be an issue. And they’re looking toward the October 1st date at this point. Nothing has changed. So I just would like to tell you that they’re still having the buses.

10:53 The kids cannot sit with another person on the bus. They have to sit separate. The windows are open and they’re doing the best they can on the buses. So lunches are going fine. They’ve been several days that they’ve had to be inside because at that time there was a lot of rain. Many of the schools have the tents and they are trying to do activities and recess, mass breaks, and lunch outside when they can. So I think everything’s going well. So I think that’s good news. Oh, just one last thing. I just want to say what Andrew said about hopefully the parents will be accepting the testing and that way they will maintain a better sense of what’s going on with the students. And the last thing about the pool testing. So if you agreed to do the pool testing, you’re allowed to continue to do that, which they’re going to call the test and stay method. So if you’re a contact in the school or during a school-sanctioned activity, which could be school sports, if you do become a close contact to a positive case, if you’re part of the pool testing program, you’re allowed to what’s called test and stay. So that’s able to keep all these kids in

12:24 school. This is another big piece of this pool testing. So we want to make sure that everybody understands how the pool testing is going to work in the school system. And that’s why we’re really encouraging everybody to be part of that. And one last thing. The Brown schools is supposed to be opening in four weeks. So I don’t know the exact date. I don’t have the exact date, but last week they said it was five weeks. So it’s a week later. So I am obviously. My understanding is that the Tuesday after Indigenous People’s Day. Okay. Great. That will be a wonderful day. Yeah, it’s a really nice school. Everyone’s really looking forward to that. And we’re just really lucky to have that in town. Are they going to give the town a tour? I’m not really sure how that’s going to go. Obviously, the priority right now is to get the kids into school. And therefore, the contractors have to finish the work to get everybody there. You know, if the contractors finish early, it’s hard to say. But I will try to share that with everybody that it would be great to have an open house for all the citizens are Marvel led. And if they’re in school, they have to mask on. Yeah. Oh, it’s going to be October 1st, so we don’t know what’s happening then. Okay, thank you. That’s TBD, right? Thanks, Elaine, for attending those meetings and telling us the report. And then if that’s it for the COVID update, let’s go on to

13:57 Joanne’s Mental Health Task Force updates. Another update, please. Yes, my pleasure. The update is that we are working with Peter Schalk, who is with Flat Rock Creative. And he has very generously put his team to work on behalf of our website. And they’re doing a great job. They’ve been given all the resources that were collected and they’re building the website, including, you know, going after the framework, which we are emulating the Lexington Mental Health Task Force website, and just using that as a framework and then plugging in the resources that are available to our community and Marvel head. So it’s pretty exciting and very impressive to have professionals that know how to take those and implement them into the site. And Moses Grader and Melissa Kalpowicz are spearheading lots of the communications back and forth with Peter’s team. And we are going under the, we’re deciding right now about the domain, which is the next step. And there’s a couple of suggestions, looking at Marvel Head Mental Health Task Force and marbleheadcares.org or .com to be the link that people will click on to access these resources. So that’s, we’re going to have a meeting on Monday evening at seven o’clock.

15:29 And this is one of the top points of our agenda is to determine, you know, which name is the most welcoming and hopefully will be the most, you know, availed something, the name that people will be connecting to access the site. We’re also continuing to find speakers that can have conversations with our community members and help members of our community understand what mental health symptoms look like and how to then connect with the resources that are available. So that’s our second initiative. And once this website gets up and running, I think we’ll be able to spend some more time working with the lecture series that we’re putting together. And I did meet with Jason Silva, who has expressed strong support for these two initiatives and has been a tremendous, you know, conduit with our efforts and the town’s resources. So I think this is something we’re going to be able to pull together and celebrate coming to fruition soon. Could I ask about the finances? Is the website, are you paying any cash for it? Actually, the domain, I believe, was $300 and that’s being covered by the town. And then our website, the the marbleheadcares.org.com will be linked on the town website. So hopefully,

17:08 and our goal is to really communicate out to the community that this is there because it’s not going to do much good if it’s just sitting there and not being accessed and utilized. So we’re hoping to market this through the town, through our faith community, all the leaders of our faith community, and you know, the YMCA, the JCC, and just make sure that we send out a big splash to the members of our community so they know it’s there and can click on it. And hopefully, we’re going to have some data collected to see what’s really of value here, because that maybe if we can find out what people are clicking on, just to understand, you know, maybe the connecting people to counselors and connecting them with the, you know, the catalog of counselors that we collect. If we find out that that really is where people are going, that would be a great bit of information for us to take forward and continue to build it out and put more energy into making sure it’s as comprehensive as possible. Joanne, do you have an estimated date of when the site would go live? I think it’s pretty soon. I’m going to, I just got an email from Peter today, so that he was away last week, but I think I’ll know more definitely by Monday. And I think we’re getting close. That’s great. It’s really impressive in just a couple months how much that group has gotten

18:39 accomplished and is continuing to accomplish. Really, like you guys have done a lot and that’s great. Good job. Just jumping in. You were jumping like this and get this much accomplished. Congratulations. Thank you. I have a lot of help. I think that every member of the committee is very passionate and devoted and holds excellent expertise in so many different areas. So, and I, of course, am learning as chairing. Todd, I, and thank you to Andrew who forwarded some of those Roberts rules because it’s all new to me. So, I’m learning as I go with some of those things. So, this way. Very true. Okay. Thank you. I enter the director’s report, please. All right. So, tomorrow, September 15th, we have a household hazardous waste day. This is a residential collection day. Again, we’re using the company ACV environmental. We are picking up from approximately 100 homes in Marblehead and Swampskott tomorrow. My understanding and my belief is that this program is doing very well. Before, when we were using clean harbors and everybody came to the transfer station, we were able to serve about 260 people a year, 260 households a year. And with our new model, we’re able to do this quarterly. So, we’re doing about 400 homes or households a year.

20:15 So, a very large, you know, uptick, but it works great. People love the program. You don’t even have to be home if you’re, you know, you can leave material in a safe location and you can go into work. So, we’re able to serve a lot of people that were unable to go to these events in the past. So, that’s again, unfortunately, if you have not signed up for this event tomorrow, the event is closed out this time and we should be having another event in December. So, we’ll set up another event in the coming weeks, but these are going very well and we will continue with this model this time. Tomorrow is also the last day for beach samples. As everybody knows, we sample all the public bathing beaches once a week during the bathing beach season and last week is the last sample for that. So, it’s been a decent year. Obviously, we had some rain in July that gave us some issues at several or a couple of our beaches, Grace Oliver’s, Gass House a little bit, but for the most part, it was a very good beach season. But as always, you know, we’ll take a look at all the data and start to analyze some of that with the state over the winter time and works with some of our other departments to take a look at some of the data and some of the concerns that we might have. About a week ago, we had a West Nile virus detection in a mosquito. We worked with Massachusetts Northeast Mosquito Control. We installed an additional trap in town and have collected twice as many mosquitoes in a regular basis as we usually do and we have not

21:51 detected any additional West Nile virus mosquitoes at this time. We will continue on with this program until really the first hard frost or a little bit after that, which is the height of the mosquito season. This time of the year tends to be our worst time of the year for mosquitoes and virus-borne vectors for mosquitoes and stuff like that. So, we will continue on looking for West Nile virus. Obviously, we look for Tripoli and a couple other things. We have never had a detection of Tripoli and Marblehead at this time. Leaf Collection. We are working on putting a schedule for leaf collection for the fall and the spring months. We hope to be finished with that in the next week or two and as soon as we have that done, we’ll post that on our website and we’ll make flyers that people can pick up and have and put up on their calendars and stuff like that. And that’s really it at this time. I liked that postcard for the leaf collection before. Can you have that size again? I like the fact that it works. That is the plan to do another postcard for the leaf collection. As you set a flyer and I just didn’t… Nope, that postcard works out really well. People can put it up next to their calendar and it works out very well. Thank you. It’s time for a question. Sure. Is there any plan for doing a flu clinic for employees, town employees? Yes, we will have a flu clinic for town employees and we’ll also

23:26 be holding a clinic for seniors. As soon as Tracy’s back, we have 10 intended dates and we will be posting those dates shortly on our websites. We have just received all our flu vaccine or most of it at this time. I have a question back to the West Nile. If there was just one mosquito found and all these others were negative, could it have been a false deposit or was it just an outlier? What’s used for the case with something like that? Nope, that is a positive, is a positive. So typically in Marblehead, we do not see a lot of the very specific mosquito that carries West Nile virus. It tends to be a marsh mosquito. We do not have a lot of marshes. Obviously, we have Gulf weight, but we don’t have too many marshes in this area. Obviously, just across the border in Salem, they do have some of those marsh areas and most likely the mosquito traveled a little bit further and came into Marblehead. But this is not the first time we have had a positive West Nile virus mosquito. And like I said, we will continue to do surveillance for it. Who does the collecting from the traps? So Northeast Mosquito Control. We pay into the system and work with them. I’m glad it’s not a job that you have to handle. It’s pretty labor intensive, to tell you the truth. Obviously, there’s the technicians that

24:58 go out and collect all the mosquitoes and then there’s the lab technicians that have to test all of them. Joanne, did you have any questions? All right. Well, that’s it for your report? Yeah, that’s it for my report. Okay. Do you have public comment? When do you want new business before or after the public comment? I guess we can do it right now. Because I have a question that I asked Andrew when I happened to speak with him. And I was wondering how often, and he was going to try and see if he could get it done this week. He may have to do it after I asked at a public meeting, but how often other boards of health in our area meet, because we’re now discussing going back to once a month. And two weeks ago, it seemed like activity, COVID activity in town was much different than it is right now. And I think that that’s what prompted my question, thinking that possibly we needed to meet more than months, once a month, that we might have to look and see what others are doing. Were you able to find that out, Andrew? Or could you, will you want to do that after I mentioned to the board and maybe come back with that answer? Or if you just happen to know how often other boards in our in your consortium meet.

26:35 I did ask the other directors in this area. Most boards are meeting monthly at this time, obviously with the idea that if you did need to have an additional meeting, they could easily slide a second meeting in two weeks from the state. But most boards are meeting monthly at this time. And the other second piece to that is that many of the boards are still meeting remotely. And they are allowed, we are allowed to do that through the end of the year. Is that correct? We are allowed to do that through the end. Yeah. Is that right, Todd? I think past the end of the year. Yeah. Beyond the end of the year. Okay. So you said most of them either there are some that are meeting more regularly or. I think there’s a, you know, one board that’s still meeting, you know, every two weeks. But it’s none of the big cities. It’s none of the big towns. It’s one of the smaller communities. And there was an uptick when the, when the COVID was, was, was greater, was a greater problem. Like we have. Okay. Well, I mean, that satisfies me as long as we have the ability to call a meeting within 48 hours. We always have the ability to call a meeting within 48 hours. If we need to meet for any, you know, issue that we want to discuss. And in case of an emergency, we can, we can do less than 48 hours. That is correct. Yep. So I would, I would at this point want to go back to every month and then we can always,

28:05 like, like just said, we can always meet more frequently. But I think having the first Tuesday, sorry, the second, second Tuesday of every month, like we used to do, I would, I would be in favor of that. Well, I must say that we have done a tremendous job and tremendous service to the community by meeting every week. And it really fell upon Andrew because not only did he have to inform us, he had to inform all the boards in town and all in the entire community. So I have to thank the entire office, all his staff and Andrew, and I’m sure there was an uptick in the, at the transfer station because people had a lot more trash. They were home a lot, whether they were cooking or going through things. I think we were extremely, extremely active. And I just want to thank everyone for doing that. We met more than the board of selectmen in the last 18 months. We met more than this. I don’t know if we met more than the school committee because I don’t have their numbers, but I think we, I mentioned to say we, we were, had more meetings than any, any other committee in town. And I think it was important. It was the right thing to do. Yes. Okay. So if, if everybody’s comfortable with that, we’ll go back to the second Tuesday of the month. And that would be the 12th of October. That’s the 12th of October. Yep.

29:39 Is there, is that a holiday weekend? The day before is a holiday? That is the day before is indigenous people’s day. Okay. So we all have to remember to put it on our calendars to be available. The Boston Marathon, I think is that Monday? Oh, good. Finally. Are you running? No, no, no, no, no, hopefully someday. All right. So let’s go to the public comment period. If you have a comment, just raise your hand. I’ll recognize you in order. I see you and we’re not going to have a back and forth. We’re just going to hear your comment and then move on. So Jimmy, this is just a little info for Alina to ask about the Brown school. So the opening day is actually the 13th because on the 11th is indigenous people’s day. And the 12th is actually a teacher’s workshop day. So the school will open on the 13th. And then you would ask about the open house. A lot of people have asked about it. I think those the following week, they’re having an open house for parents. And I suspect there will be one, you know, sometime after that for the public, a lot of people are interested. Obviously, they want to get this thing up and running. And of course, if COVID ever had a comeback, they delay it. But there’s a lot of demand. So that will happen.

31:13 And everyone’s really excited about it. I just want to let you know. Thanks for the information. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. No other hands raised. So do we have a motion to adjourn? So moved. Seconded. Okay. Miss Hazlet. In favor. Miss Miller. In favor. Dr. Belf Becker. In favor. Good meeting everyone. Thank you.