 So. Oh, I never heard that before. Did I continue? Okay. So it is the August 12th meeting of the Board of Health. And pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021. This meeting will be conducted via remote means. Members of the public who wish to access access access. The meeting may do so by following the instructions on the Board of Health's posted agenda via zoom online or the posted telephone number. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access proceedings in real time via technological means. In the event that we are unable to do so for reasons of economic hardship and despite best efforts, we will post on the Board of Health website and audio or video recording, transcript, or other comprehensive record of the proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting. I will now open the Board of Health meeting with a roll call. So Steve, George. Here. Maureen Malay. Here. Nancy Gilbert. Here. And our first item is to review and receive the minutes from July 8th. I did correct one spelling mistake before hopefully after sending them, but before we're proving it's the word developed on page 3, the first paragraph. It's not like envelope, it doesn't have an E at the end. I wonder if the word envelop has an E, the verb, I don't know. Develop doesn't. That being said, Maureen, I don't have any other. No, I thought it was a heroic set of minutes that was quite well documented. I didn't have any questions about it. Okay. So may I have a motion to accept the minutes? I can move to accept the minutes of the meeting of July 8th. And Steve, will you second them? Yes, I'll second it. Yeah. Okay. All in favor, Steve. Yes. I. Maureen. I. Nancy. I. Okay. Due to the immediate urgent business related to the recent surge of COVID-19 cases, especially due to the Delta variant, we'll be tabling some of our, some of our items to our September meeting and focus on the public safety, including masks, and I think we'll have to make a quick update on that. Yeah. I think that a lot of business, as, as inspector has a. Report on. Long Meadow drives. Ed. Are you tabling that or do you want me to give you a. I want you to talk about it. Oh, okay. Yeah. I'm not. Okay. I can report in brief that acting as the agent of the board. I moved last Wednesday, I believe, last Thursday to do an emergency condemnation on an address 66 Long Meadow Drive. The concern in short was that the house would not be ready for their transport that night to return to, or their transport from some time earlier. I'm trying to give you the gist of it without revealing anything, sort of privileged medical information. But there were conditions in the house such that I did condemn the house for reasons of difficulty of egress and also for sanitation. And in one week and through the assistance of a number of people, especially Mary Beth Ogulowicz from the senior center, as well as some involved seniors and friends and the hiring of a capable cleaner, especially to straighten out the house, I was able to lift the condemnation order today of the after 10 a.m. and report that to the owner occupants attorney. And so now that essentially has moved now. I made an action on your behalf and we were able to lift it before it, even you had a chance to consider it. It feels like success to me. I hope that does deal. Yeah, absolutely. It does. Thank you, Ed. Oh, you're welcome. And there's no records to document this all, but I think the gist of it is that the address 66 Long Meadow Drive is now fully habitable and returned to that status. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. It's good. Thank you. And Jen, you just want to report on the tobacco fines and how are they proceeding? Yeah, thanks so much. So following up on the tobacco fines, I believe that all the fines had been paid. I received documentation from finance. So all of those are in. So I'm happy about that. And thank you to those people that paid them so promptly. The second thing we have on the agenda is the tobacco handler quiz. Was there anything about tobacco fines or is that? No, just it was left that we didn't know what the status of them were at our last meeting. Yeah, yeah. So with the tobacco handler quiz, that was something that was brought up the last meeting. We sort of went back. I went back to sort of see what the process was and maybe it's sort of good that I knew and can sort of look at this with a different perspective. But I went and spoke to licensing and I said, you know, what is the process for people getting the license? What paperwork do they receive to fill out? And what is, if you have a tobacco list item, you know, what numbers, how many things they have to do? What's the checklist? So when the tobacco people apply for the license, they're given a checklist. It does not include the tobacco handler quiz. So there are a few things I was thinking that this is a good time just to really sort of relook how we get the information to the businesses that there is a quiz. I have the quiz up. I think we can review it. And then we are at a point where we can really talk about working with these tobacco owners, the managers, about what's the best way to educate the people that sell tobacco products. Yes, there's a quiz, but once they take a quiz, what do you do with it? So I know Nancy, you and I had spoken. So one possibility is to, from our end here in the health department, you know, put together like maybe a prototype of, you know, a policy and procedure about, this is what we expect with a tobacco quiz. You know, we want you to keep a log and have it completed by everyone that takes the quiz. Right now there's no process for us to go in and take a look at the quizzes and see if they're up to date. So I think this is something that we can continue talking about how do we help them make these right decisions and complete this information that's really valuable. You know, ultimately, right? So people don't get, we don't start new people smoking and into the hands of younger people. So I think that's where we are, is just to take a real look at it now and go forward. So I think that's what I want to say. Thank you. I was poking around on the DPH website about tobacco sales and there is also a video training about ID inspection for tobacco retailers. So there are some educated, I didn't look at it in detail, but it might be worth as we go forward looking at what other educational opportunities there are that might be available. Yeah, no, I think this is a really good idea to start really thinking about this. It's an opportunity to maybe do it with a fresh eye and something like that would be really compelling. Although it is surprising that I guess, and the other thing I think Steve brought up the last time is I think with the difficulty hiring and turnover in some of these positions, it's a challenging thing to implement too, right in this moment especially, but most of these violators were also alcohol sales institutions and so they should be quite skilled at checking IDs. That should be a high priority. Yeah, so this is a really important thing and I'd love to be able to give this some attention and draw people in on what's the best way of doing this, look into what other municipalities are doing. I like your idea, Maureen. Steve, do you have any comments? No, that sounds good. I should absolutely do, really find out what we can do. And I think a lot of it is that they forget that if they have their brother-in-law fill in for one day or something as a cashier, they have to remember that that person has to have the same training for the sales. Yeah. And that's why we need to get that across. Yeah, I think we need to get that across, right? Okay, so Jen, I know you've given us a lot of thought and I'm sure you'll come up with a good process to share with us and we can hear about it at our next meeting and we can come up with that. Yeah, I'd love to work on that with you guys. All this great work, let's have sort of the boots on the ground be able to translate that out. So great. I'm putting a little to-do box, I mean. Okay, I'm just gonna skip down to the Amherst College Institutional Biosafety Committee. We have a regulation and we got a letter from a faculty member at Amherst College and so this is something pretty easy to address. Do you mind giving us the overview, Jen? Yeah, so I spoke to, or I communicated with Dr. Alex Purdy at Amherst College. She's a chair or works with the IBC, the Institutional Biosafety Committee there at Amherst College and she had a question about recruiting members to their board. Am I getting that right? Go ahead and state. The IBC must include members who reside within the town of Amherst. So she was stating that it was difficult recruiting community members who live within the town limits and she's asking if we could, if she can bring in members from a broader number of towns. So wondering if we can make, I don't know if variance is the correct word, but something saying that she's allowed to include members who are in other towns that feed into the Amherst public schools, for example. So I'm wondering if that means that we can expand where they can get the members from. So can we give her that ability to recruit from a larger geographical area? Yeah, you know, if you limit it to the schools, that's, you know, that doesn't include, you know, Northampton, Hadley, Belcher Town, so on. So I think, you know, what a lot of them do is a certain driving distance or some reasonable way to define where they can come from. I mean, if a person lived in, you know, even, I don't know, where or something like that and they were willing to able to come here, that's okay with me. I mean, I don't see why the geographical location is that important. So I would just say, within some kind of reasonable distance or driving distance, maybe within 25 miles or something. In the text that we got, it seemed like whoever regulates this in the federal level, I guess it is, has some rules about within an hour drive or that was implied, but Amherst has separate rules in some kind of regulations that we have. I don't know them, I'm not familiar with them. That we might have to amend, is that right? Yes. So we don't know exactly what they are at the moment. I don't have my hands on them. I didn't look. I used to be the chair of that committee for a while, but it was 30 years, it was 30 years ago. People thought if you did any gene cloning, you were going to cause a worldwide pandemic of some terrible disease. So, but now it's not quite so. Most of the stuff that they do at Amherst College is very low level, but anyway, they need to follow the rules. They do. Yes, yeah, so we do have that. There's somewhere in the files deep down, there is a, there's that rule that was passed, probably around 1978, and I don't think it's been changed since then. So we might want to just look, and I gather also that it's not an urgent question because she has been able to recruit the number of people she needs right now, but was concerned about it going forward. So we have some time to find it and amend it, I would think. Yeah. So Jen, one clarification, is she able to find people who live in Amherst or do we need to put on the future agenda, reviewing and revising the regulation, but giving a, the best term would be a variance to allow her to recruit like within the county or within one hour drive so that she can set this committee up now. It sounded like from what I read that she was all set right now, but it had been difficult. So going forward, I think it was the concern. Just the second part of that, it sort of feeds in what you're saying Maury, that once the members are identified that the regulation stipulates that they need to request approval from the Board of Health for the external members. So there are, is that right? Oh, okay. So there are three members that we can, I don't know if we need to do that. I don't know if it's been done before in the past. We should do it, yeah. Oh, okay. So I'm saying that there are three members but I don't know if that completes the panel Maury. Now I don't know, do you know, Steve? I think if I remember reading it, I have it or something, but she said it's okay now, it's for the future. Oh, sorry. And I think I looked on the Amherst College website and I think it's like two community members are required or something. And one is typically a physician and one is typically maybe a science teacher or someone else who's knowledgeable. So I have the three names here and I read them out loud and we okay now? Yes. Is that correct? Okay. You can state their affiliations, Jen say their affiliations too. Okay, thanks. Yeah. Okay, so the external members would be David Birkham, MD. He's from Hampshire Gastroenterology Associates. The second one is Richard Rubin, he's an MD. He's a retired UMass staff physician and Norman Price, a science teacher at the Amherst Regional Middle School. Do we approve? So I need a motion to approve these three members of the Amherst College, IBC committee. I'll also move. I'll second. Okay. All in favor, Maureen? Aye. Steve? Aye. Nancy? Aye. Now, the big piece for today's meeting is the public safety for this new phase of COVID-19 pandemic that we're entering, especially with the Delta virus. And Jen has been doing a lot of work on this. Okay, yeah. So I just wanna start off with saying that I started August 2nd and I'm so happy to be the interim acting director again. So I did it back in August. So here I am again and I'm just so honored to be working with Nancy and the rest of the folks. And I'm saying that and sort of leading up to something that I've learned today, but the public safety, we started putting this on the agenda, I think less than two weeks ago. And at the time, we knew how urgent and important it was, but also I didn't explicitly write what was gonna be covered under the public safety for the next phase of COVID. Since then, things have really sort of gotten more urgent. But what we're gonna discuss today are masks, vaccination and testing. So I've made some notes. So these are my notes. Because of the need to reduce the transmission of the COVID virus, both the Delta and non-Delta variants, we're proposing some new mask guidance today and we'll get down into the weeds of it. This is happening now because there's some concerning developments. And I think I wanna go over what these developments are and what the areas are. Some of the things that we'll be writing in or we're considering, as we all know as the Delta variant is twice as contagious as the previous variant. The Delta variant accounts for 85% of the positive cases in Massachusetts at this time. The Delta variant has been identified in four PCR positive cases in Amherst since July 17th. And I wanna say that that's what I'm aware of. This data is from Maven, the Massachusetts Virtual Epidemiological Network. And I looked today and there's four Delta variants. They do not sequence every positive case. I just wanna say that. So we don't actually know. I cannot speak for UMass, but I believe when they start testing or they're testing will be sequenced everyone. So bravo to them if I'm relaying that accurately. Also, I want to say that we're looking at this today because of the increase in positive cases in surrounding communities. I get my notes. What I'm looking at is the CDC County Tracker. If you look at Hampshire County, we're at moderate level now. South of us, we have higher transmission to the west of us high, to the east towards Boston, it's substantial. So we're surrounded by higher risk, higher communities of transmission. And it's just a matter of time. Until Delta's root at our doorstep and it already is I think as I noted. I also wanna go over the increased number of Amherst cases that are not Delta variant. So excuse me while I get my numbers. So then total number of cases since boy, we all started this in January, February, March of 2020. We're at a total of 2,854. So I'm looking at number of new cases. Weekly, what we've seen is it coming down from March, starting May and going through June, up to the third week or so in June, we had zero cases. Maybe there was one week with four cases. Starting the last week in June, we had one case. The first week in July, so July 1st to the 7th, zero. July 8th through the 14th, three cases. 15th through the 21st, three cases. July 22nd to the 28th, three cases. July 29th through August 4th, six cases. And July August 5th through August 11th, 17 cases. So the last three weeks, we've seen three cases, 16 cases, 17 cases. So the numbers are on this trajectory of going up rapidly. So I feel this urgency with that metric. The other thing I want to say, reason that we need some guidance is because I want to continue vaccination. You know, we're not where we were a year ago. We have a vaccine. So the metrics are going to be changing. We hope the numbers don't go up, they may, but I also like to see the rate of vaccination go up. And until that, we're going to be monitoring. So the numbers I have for vaccination in Amherst, this number includes Pellum. It also may include residents that may have secondary residences. So I'm saying this number, sort of telling you that I haven't completely vetted it, but from the MassDPH we're at 40% fully vaccinated. Massachusetts is 64% fully vaccinated. I'm also looking from DPH stats. It says the number of fully vaccinated blacks per capita in Amherst is 25%. Hispanic 28, whites are 39%. So with all of these reasons, I think the next steps are to consider wearing masks. And that's where we are today. That's what's bringing us together. Do you want me to keep going? Are there any questions? Yes, Steve or Maureen, do you have any questions? The one thing Jen to be aware of is that those DPH data for Massachusetts kind of assumes that, you know, that says there's, according to the census, there's 41,000 people that live here. But as you know, many of them were not here this spring, you know, probably around, you know, it could be easily 12,000 students who were not here. And so they may well have been vaccinated somewhere else and we would not know because they're listed here. And so that number of 40% is, you know, Emma had to deal with the DPH people all the time because they were getting after. What's wrong with you guys? What's wrong with you guys? Those people were not here. So there's no way they can show up as vaccinated in our town data, even though they probably are somewhere else. Yeah, no, thank you for this clarification. You know, I understand these numbers just need a lot of back and forth. I appreciate that. You know, I do know once you're vaccinated, it gets uploaded to the Massachusetts system, the MIIS. And then it gets populated into me, even so. But I hear what you're saying. Thank you, Steve. Yeah, yeah. Would you know if there's someone on our, I don't know how this is tracked, you know, if the person goes to give their vaccine and they're staying at home in Worcester, say, but they, so they give their home address, but there's, it wouldn't pounce back with a name from a Hampshire County address. Would it, I mean, would those ever connect? I guess it doesn't seem like they do. Yeah, I don't, I'm not, I'm not going to be able to answer that right now. I know this is something that, you know, we talked about and deal with is trying to deduplicate now. Yeah. Oh, I know quite a few of these numbers are related to UMass. And I know Jen has been working and in communication with UMass. So later on, you can fill us in on what you've found out from UMass because she's developing a good partnership with them. Yeah, yeah, we definitely are. And, you know, that's the goal of ours as well. You know, we've been reporting the numbers daily and then I think for a few weeks, maybe three or four weeks, it was weekly, but we're starting back up with daily. So we'll get that going and then I'll be able to sort of brush up with UMass and get in sync. Okay, thank you for that. I appreciate that correction. So, you know, so moving on, you know, we see that the next steps wearing a mask. We know University UMass is doing this. The Amherst Regional Public Schools will be masking. Greenfield has an advisory, Northampton has instituted a mandate. So this is where I'd like to talk about our next steps and what I'd like to propose is that Amherst move into, and I'm gonna need help from the board to help me with the wording, but I'd like to move into a mandatory wearing a face mask rather than an advisory. So I'm looking at the old mask mask, mandate, and I'm using it as a template. So what I'm thinking of wording is face masks or covering must be worn indoor public spaces and indoor private spaces open to the public. Now, I know what a serious step this is and there are a few things that I really like to sort of say maybe rapid fire and we'll come back to it if that's okay. So one thing I wanna do is really make sure that we know what our metrics are and there's an end date and I think we'll go through this later. So something I wanna propose later on is can we every two weeks revisit the data? What is our metric gonna be? This is not gonna be just a blanket statement till the end of October. I'd really like to look and see that we're being data driven. So that's something I'm throwing out there right now. I'd like to also, let's see, I'm trying to think about what we need. So if we need a definition of indoor spaces, what would that be? Use the North Hampton one. I am, yeah. So restaurants, bars, indoor performance venues, hotels and motels, gyms, fitness clubs, salons and places of worship. And Steve, I just wanna, I sort of said that smiling because I have theirs in front of me. I've also looked at across the state and our neighbors what they've done. And thank you Nancy and everyone else that you've given them to me. And I can see the hard work that went into all of those. The definition of a face mask or covering, I really like to put in words similar to North Hamptons that face masks, now that we know, really need to be well-fitting. So whatever wording we have from North Hamptons that fit snuggling, the disposable surgical or procedure masks are good. They can be if their cloth clean and multi layers of fabric and that they allow for breathing. That sounds good. Okay, so I can work on that. Now here are the exceptions. So these are some good things. Thank you all our partners. So this order, exceptions, this order shall not apply. Persons seated at the restaurant table or seated at the bar if they're eating or drinking. Patrons standing at the bar or behind the bar need to be messed up. So I think that's an important distinction. You know, I want everyone to understand that. We still want you going into restaurants with your part, you know, parties and sitting and enjoying yourselves and not worry that someone's gonna think you're doing it wrong. If you're seated, then you can have your mask off while you're eating or drinking. That's my recommendation. So we can, I can hear what you have to say. Second exception, persons who mess would not be safe for. So if there's a medical diagnosis, five years or younger do not need to wear it. And performers, for example, if someone's singing or there's a woodwind or Peter, I see you have your hand up, we'll get to you. People who are playing and you can help me with the wording, a woodwind or a brass instrument should have a setback of 10 feet. So these things are gonna continue if it's agreed upon. We just need to make sure that everyone's safe and that setback is what's been used. Jen, maybe this would be a point if you, I can't see the screen if it's here, but you know, even though it may not be required to have a public comment or really full sum public comment, I hope we would do that, have a time right at this meeting for that. Yeah, I see a hand up. Is this something we do now or at the end or? I think after you present everything. Right. Because then there might be a question that you already have the answer to. Okay, thank you. So initiation and rescinding of the order. So what I'd like to do, I'd like to get this going. I think there's urgency, but I'd like to work with the bid and the businesses and make sure this works well for them. So I just wanna throw this out and then we'll talk about it. If we today, let's say we agree to a mandate, so a mandate and then we're gonna have a press release and then we'll do an email to businesses. I'd like to work with the bid and see what it's good. They have a good feeling of what would work. So for example, if we say, yes, we're gonna do this, would Monday the 16th be a good time to start that for the businesses? Now I have access to face masks. We have them in storage here. We're able to get people going for a week's worth of masks. I also, I would ask somehow to work with the bid. I don't know if we can help them financially to get those great signs that they had back up that could be modified. We did create a yellow sign sort of from the bid that we can distribute tomorrow if people want those yellow signs. So we're ready to sort of support the businesses with that. Rescending the order. So I don't know what kind of metric we want to look at, but I really like to look at this every two weeks and just make sure we're on track with this. Can we talk about when the order is rescinded? Does it mean that we have two weeks of data with only two cases? Do we need a more consistent trend to see it down? So I don't know if anyone has any thoughts about that. And then enforcement, I'm gonna have to ask the board to help me. Is this something that we would use the previous mask order enforcement and penalties for? I just need to help with expertise. I'd like to be able to sort of support the businesses that were there to help them with this if they want to enforce, I mean, when they enforce the last mandate. Again, I think the North Hampton one is very good. It says don't let people, individual citizens should not be doing it, just deal with it yourself. And the language is very good there. It doesn't involve the police in any way ever. And we're not gonna do that. And so it just says, this is what you need to do, but it really leaves it largely up to the individuals. That language in there seems very good. By the way, that language in North Hampton, I know was reviewed by their city solicitor. So that is very good thing that they have that I think the language has been vetted for the legal aspects. And an important point that Jen is making is that we don't wanna be punitive. We want people to do what's gonna promote the public safety. And if we get into a punitive thing, that doesn't help. So I think your point, Jen, about the metrics and involving the business district bid to see how we can get compliance for safety. I think some of our language in the previous order about enforcement really stressed the education and support for wearing masks as opposed to the punitive aspect. So I don't know. One thing I wanna ask and tell me if this is correct, I'd like to ask the Board of Health if it's appropriate for you to give me the authority to do this as the acting director. Is this something that you would allow and recommend? Well, Jen, I think you as an agent are very valuable. You've done a lot of research on this and that you would be up to metrics for the Board to have to meet post an open meeting law and then meet to give you more directions would be counterproductive for public safety, public health. I don't know what other people feel but we can give her as the agent the ability to do that. Thank you, that's the proper term. Yeah, maybe, Jen. Sorry, some orders that I read seemed a little bit too on and off I thought, you know, that was like, I think Provincetown was like five days of the next trip of this will would, we would decrease the make it an advisory and then it was five days that went up, you would put it back on. I feel like for businesses that would be hard and for people of complying that would be hard. So I think it has, I think metrics are important but we have to be, it can't be every other day. You know, it just has to have some consistency that that was my only comment. Yes, no, I agree with you. So that's where your data driven making the decision. Also I'm sure, and we'll open this up in a little while to the attendees, I'm sure a lot of people have a lot of concern about when the students come back. That's what was a big concern last year. The university is fully opening. That's why your partnership with them is so valuable, Jen. And as they start coming back, the safety of all of them and us. Yeah. Jen, do you have any sense whether the state of Massachusetts might re-institute their indoor mandate? I have not heard that on any DPH columns. You remember in terms of signs, you know, our previous one from the Amherst Health Department and Board of Health, that was for outdoor masking. So you want to really check those signs and make sure that there's no ambiguity there because they were not, it wasn't about indoor masking. That was about outdoor masking, which I think we're not considering. Right, this is indoor masking. This is indoor masking. I think that was layered on top of the state order for. Right. Jen texted me, she's lost power. Oh, I hear some thunder to the North. Oh no, oh no, oh this is terrible. Oh, I wonder if she could call in, I'll put, can you call in, oh dear. She won't be, she won't know about the number because she doesn't have this computer. Well, we could call it a number, it's some, yeah. Okay, let's see, the number is? 301, 715. 715. 8592. 8592. There are a whole lot of other ones, but that's the first one. Oh, let me repeat it, 301, 715, 8592. Right. Okay. Of course, if she has to let herself into the meeting, that won't work very well. Are you a co-host, Nancy? Yes, I am. Yeah, you should watch for that. I want to call some panelists. Let me hope I can do this. Yeah, yeah. Attendees. Or that shows up. One phone call listener, that's her. Oh, dear. Maybe I can just get her on my cell phone and she can talk into here. Do you think that would work? Okay. So I'm gonna tell her I can call her and let her be in on speaker phone. Okay, I'm calling her. Oh, you're back, Jen. Hi, this is Jennifer Brown. Are you... Oops, when that we can't hear you. She's muted. Let me see. Panelists. Oh, no, she's not. All right. Okay. Woo. Okay. There's like this little cell, thunder cell going over the bang center here in town. Pretty dramatic. Yeah. Okay. Do we have anything else to talk about for masks? We're not talking about vaccines or testing before I open it up to the public. Jen, would it be feasible for you to send what the actual texts that you're going to use to the board and just with, you know, 24 hours notice to just have a look at it before it goes public or I don't want to delay it. Yeah. No, that's gonna be what I do. Great, great. It would be very quick. Just, you know, 24 hours is all we would need. Yes. So thank you. I definitely would appreciate that. Okay, good. Okay. I'm gonna open it up to the public and Peter Kent. Okay, Peter. Hi, Peter. Yes, hello. Can everybody hear me? Yes, we can. Okay, fantastic. Thank you. So yeah, I'll be as brief and succinct as I can be. My name is Peter and I'm a resident of Amherst. I'm also an employee at UMass. So yeah, I'll just get straight to the point. First of all, I'm in 100% agreeance as someone, of course who lives in Amherst and who works at UMass and who's in the community. I'm in agreeance with the request for a mask mandate. I think strongly we should have this indoor mask mandate put in place for the town. I know what I'm talking about. Yep, can you hear me? Yes, I'm sorry. I'm sorry to interrupt. Nancy, I don't have permission to record. Are we recording? Oh, yes, it says recording on mine. Okay, it says recording on mine too, yes. Peter, I'm sorry, Peter. No, it's okay, no problem. Yeah, so I agree 100% that we should have a mask mandate in place also to expand testing. I know we'll get to that later. And also just as a quick note also, I think that we should have a really high standard. As someone mentioned, I don't think that would be productive to do something we're going back and forth every five days, put masks on, take them off, right? And especially considering how serious the Delta variant is, we need to have this mask mandate put in place and then have a pretty robust and ambitious standard for when it's actually time to rescind it, whether or not that's based on vaccination rates, which I understand need to be much higher, right? Even if, sorry, there's some thunder in the background, that's really loud. Yeah, but even if the vaccination rates, I understand they're probably higher than 40%, right? But even if they're at 50 or 60, we still need to get it higher than that, right? So just being really clear on what the metrics are and making them a high standard as well and also communicating that clearly to people. Simply, people won't make accusations to say that that mandate is arbitrary, but to be clear that the Delta variant is a serious threat, right? You already talked about the Northampton Board of Health, so I won't bring up that since you already drawn upon that. Yeah, and then just the other point was, especially considering that rates are increasing around the county, the state, and the nation, and then also that, of course, there's gonna be a huge increase in the population of the town with UMass students moving back in. I think we need to be as proactive as possible, right? Instead of waiting for the rates to get higher, to actually beat this, to try to beat this when we're ahead and be ambitious about it, right? And then just a quick note from the Northampton Board of Health Director, I really liked what they said at the meeting a few days ago when they were saying by putting this in place right now, we're preventing businesses or other people having to do more strict measures in the future, right? Because we're able to flatten the curve and get ahead of it now, right? And then just as a quick comment about the effectiveness of mask, I was just recently referencing a article from Nature from a biostatistician and science journalist, Lynn Peeple, where she was summarizing studies and demonstrating from different sources that there was one source, for example, where researchers estimated that this reduced the growth of COVID-19 by 2% per day. Of course, it doesn't sound like a lot, but that's per day, right? So that's a huge amount over time. And they cautiously suggested that mandates might have averted as many as 450,000 cases across the US if there was more widespread mask mandates that were put into place. So clearly they work, right? It's a tool that we have at our disposal that's cheap and easy. And I know people are probably eager to feel like things are back to normal, but we're just not there yet. We need to have more tools for protection that we need to get ahead of this and beat this, right? So, you know, let's be proactive and let's make the town and the community a model for the country, too, to say that this is how you can actually beat COVID and control it, right? And let's put the work in now to go ahead and do that. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Thanks, Peter. This made some good points. Mindy Dom has her hand raised. Okay, Mindy. Good afternoon. Can everybody hear me okay? Yes. Hi, Mindy. Hi, everybody. Hi, Jen. Welcome into this new role. I'm grateful for your accepting and I'm grateful for this Board of Health. I just want to first say to each of you, thank you so much for your thoughtful and really deliberate public service. I'm so proud to represent Amherst and I'm really proud to represent this Board of Health. I just, I wanted just to express my agreement also with the initiative to have an indoor mask mandate in Amherst right now. I think the timing is perfect. Jen, you had talked about, should it start on the 16th or when should it start? And I think in conversation with the bid and when they can roll it out, the sooner the better. I think having it in place before students arrive is critical so that that's actually what the town is presenting when folks arrive. I also wanted to make sure that you knew and I think you do, but I wanted to offer any assistance that you need from either the Department of Public Health or from the Baker administration to please feel free to reach out. I at least can amplify and advocate for what you need. The population piece is a challenging one for Amherst. Our census denominator includes a whole lot of people that are not included when we talk about who has vaccine. So we're going to have to sort of figure out a way to address that. I know that I think when Emma was here, she was looking at ways to relook at the data, but I'm not sure if that was actually an appropriate way to do it, but I'm happy to work with the state to try to figure out how we can go about getting a more accurate number in terms of what percent of our population is vaccinated, if that's something that you think would be helpful to you. Yeah, thank you. And I think the only other thing I wanted to say was, let me know of what I can do to help and what I can do to support, whether that's amplify messages, get information, get access to resources. I'm interested in hearing what's discussed in terms of vaccination and testing. And if you need more resources from the state to be able to do what you want to do in that regard, please reach out to me as a partner in this. Thank you. Thank you, Mindy. Thank you, Mindy. Some of the vaccine clinics that I've been to that you've been there, it makes a huge difference that personal interaction that human touch. So I appreciate what you've done for us. So thank you for that. Yeah. Thank you. The appreciation is definitely mutual. So thanks. All right, great. Any other hands up? A lot of the talk. So D.Cruiser, can you introduce yourself and? Hi, my name is Dakota. You're a little garbled for me. Yes, you're garbled. I'm really here. Dakota, I can't hear you, Dakota. I am a resident outside of Amherst, but I'll be in Amherst tomorrow. I just wanted to clarify, do you hear me now? Yes. A little bit. Do you hear me now? Intermittent. Yes. Speak slowly. Speak slowly. All right. Just to clarify. Just to clarify, oh, so does the mandate tentatively start tomorrow or does it start the 16th? I was just wondering, because I missed that part of the meeting. I think there's going to be a grace period. So if we're agreeing on the 16th, it wouldn't be until Monday. It wouldn't be until Monday. Thank you so much. That was all my questions. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you for calling in. Yeah. Do any other attendees want to speak? Raise your hand. Okay. So we have support for the mask mandate. Now we have to do, how do we give Jen the permission and move forward here? Our next step with this. Yeah. I think we can just make a general motion that doesn't have to refer to all the details because I went through everything that Jen said. I certainly agree with every point that was made. Can we just say that as discussed or as outlined during the meeting that she would go ahead and prepare the text of the actual order. But we also have to give her the flexibility so that she can change things. We'll have to give her permission as an agent to develop the mask regulation ordinance, whatever we're gonna call it, and then to adjust it at data-based and with her professional knowledge. So how are we gonna work that? Because we don't wanna have to be meeting every two weeks and then have to be posted. And by that time, we need to give Jen the ability to make the decisions and change them according to data. Jen, do you have any idea? How can we support you? Oh, yes. So sorry if I didn't chime in. I appreciate this. I'm not sure if I'm answering that question, but I'd love to be able to draft this. I hear what we've been talking about. I'll give it to you to, okay. And then, you know, I certainly not doing this alone. I have all these partners helping me here in the health department. So if that's how you'd like me to proceed, it'll be a check in in two weeks, and then we'll be meeting in a month. That'll be a time that we can discuss the mattress, but we'll have had it in place for a month and I don't see any change. There won't be any change in the next month. Okay. So you don't anticipate a change in the next two weeks as to remove, it doesn't make, I would doubt that, that things would get better between now and two weeks from now. Right, right. So here we're data driven, but we're expecting residents to come in and things to amplify. And that trend of the numbers, you know, is just going up. So I don't know if we're gonna see such an increase, are we gonna see a surge, but maybe sooner than later. So I don't expect a difference in a month. And I agree. I think we've been on the threshold of being considered a substantial risk of transmission for several days now and we're gonna be there. Yeah. Okay, so we don't need to deal with the metric part, right? No. No, let me just try this. Let me try this, okay. So the board of health authorizes interim health director, Jennifer Brown, to develop and issue a mask order for indoor public spaces in the town of Amherst and to modify the order as needed. And if we just add Jennifer Brown as agent of the board, okay. I don't know if you want to add also the statement that as discussed, you know, the parameters discussed in the meeting or something. I don't know if that's necessary. That's a good idea, I'll see. Yeah. Mindy, do you still have your hand up? Yep. Yep. Here she goes. I'm sorry, that's a mistake, I'll lower it. Okay. Okay. Is it down? Yes. It is down. And so Maureen, so these, we're referring sort of to the, do you want to say as discussed or as what? What do you want to say about that? Outlying to maybe? Oh, okay, okay. Okay, so the board of health authorizes the Durham health director, Jennifer Brown, acting as agent of the board to develop and issue a mask order for indoor public spaces in the town of Amherst as, what do we say? Outlined. As outlined during the August 12th board meeting and to modify the order as needed. I move to say that. So it's been seconded, any other further discussion? Ken, do you feel comfortable with that wording? Yes, I do. I think, can I clarify something or is this something you want me to, to, sorry, there's just more. More thunder. Yes. So can I say that we're given a grace period and the mandate will go into effect Monday, the 16th, have we agreed upon that? Yes. Is that, is that enough time, Jen, or do you need a few more? Another business day? Yes, like, Oh, another business. Yes, I mean, yes, it's Friday tomorrow. Do you need like next Wednesday? What timeframe do you need? Yeah, no, that's, I like to have a grace period where people understand this urgency. Thank you, Peter and Mindy for talking about that. And let's get them help, you know, we have some resources to get this up and going, but I'd like to see it before next weekend. So do you want to say Wednesday? Is that a good time period for you? It would be August 18th, or if you want August, August 18th, because then if people have questions, you're available to answer questions once it goes in. If we put it in on a Friday, there's no ability to answer questions. Okay, so does the 18th sound good for the initiation? Yeah, I like that. Thank you. Okay, so I like that. That's some clarity for me. And I have the other information you've shared with me. Okay, so it has been moved in second bit. Do we need to read it all over again, Steve? Or just vote? I can try if you want, what do you say? Just repeat it and then we'll vote. Because it's been moved in seconded. And amended a little bit. And amended a little bit. The Board of Health authorizes interim health director, Jennifer Brown as agent of the board to develop a BASC order for indoor public spaces in Amherst to go into effect August 18th, 2021, and to modify the order as needed. Develop an issue. Yeah, because you have to issue the order. You have to get it out there. I actually forgot the phrase as outlined during the August 12th board meeting. Okay, do you need that repeated at all, Jen or have it okay? Oh, thanks, yeah, I think I have it, but I look forward to Steve's notes. I'll send you the email right after the meeting. This is the wording that we got. Okay. And just a note, thank you everybody that's chimed in and helped. It's really been. Wait a minute, I see one other hand here. Should we, let's vote on it first though. Let's vote on it, okay. So all in favor? Yeah. Steve? Aye. Maureen? Aye. Nancy? Aye. Okay, so it's been moved and passed. Now we have... Peter? Let's see. I can... No, it's not Peter. It's Raseeth. Peter's hands up again. Okay, and Raseeth. Okay, Raseeth, are you there? Yes, I'm here. Okay. Can everyone hear me okay? Yes. Thank you. My name is Raseeth Rafiq. I'm a restaurant owner of Bistro 63 in downtown Amherst. I appreciate the meeting today to make sure that our town is safe. And, you know, so everything that the town has done for us, restaurants, businesses, community members. As we go into the fall of 2021, welcoming all these students into town, I think this is definitely wise to put something in effect to make sure that the community remains safe. I'm just looking for some clarification here. We usually do quite a few rounds of hiring and sort of restructuring our hours as we go into the fall to see if I can get any details of the indoor mask mandate. And I think I may have missed the earlier part of this meeting, so I apologize if it has to be repeated. But, you know, of course, we have people inside eating, drinking, you know, there's different spaces, a bar space, seating space. So have any details been discussed as far as what the exceptions are for when people are able to remove their masks to eat, drink, so on and so forth. And if there are certain spaces that they can do that in or, you know, that they cannot do that in, any occupancy limits or anything like that. Jen, do you wanna read what you have put together? Yeah, yeah, so I have started some messy notes, but thank you so much for asking and I hope I can clarify. So yeah, we really wanted to again, say that we know this is serious, but we really wanted to be thoughtful about what we're doing here. So the wording, and I kind of like this wording, and this is used in some other municipalities, persons seated at a table at a restaurant or seated at a bar eating or drinking can be unmasked. If there's a patron standing behind the bar, for example, one deep, two deep, they need to be masked up. Five years or younger do not need to be masked. I don't know if you have entertainers, but singing or woodwind or brass instruments, they can be unmasked, but there needs to be a 10 foot setback. And then the other thing we said, you may have heard at the end is that we're really, oh, there's some rumbles, excuse me. Looking at the metrics, we want it to have a thoughtful data-driven process. So every two weeks, we're gonna take a look at this and we'll decide when this order will be rescinded. So I'm not sure if I touched on everything. There was something else about the mask really being snugly fitted over your nose, of your mouth. Did that answer your question? Yes, it did answer my question. Thank you for that. And I just have two follow-up questions. Follow-up questions are, we have an event room here where we have rehearsal dinners, private events, things like that, that they have dance floors. Are dance floors allowed as long as masks are worn on dance floors? Is the first question. And the second question is, as far as following those metrics, are we looking specifically at number of cases or hospitalizations? And whatever the answer to that question is, is that a CDC guideline, a state guideline that we're following or a local one that we are taking on? Yeah, so I think I can answer some of those and some of those, like I said, I'm not sure. One thing we wanna make sure is that we're really still requiring people to be thoughtful about the six feet distance. This is nothing saying that we're gonna reduce or eliminate that. We're not looking at density. Dancing can be done. If people keeping their distance between people they're not in their parties, masks must be worn. Fitness clubs, masks are worn during all types of exercise, even if it's rigorous. And the metrics are to be decided. But I like what you said and what we're gonna include. So we're looking at case numbers, trends, bed availability. The other thing that we talked about was the number of people who are vaccinated. As that goes up, that will help some of our spread or our transmission. So to be determined the metrics. But that'll be something that I'll compile. And I forget the words that Peter used, but it's not gonna be arbitrary. We're giving this a lot of thought, but we don't wanna be bouncing back and forth, master on, master off. Make it simple and smart. Got it. So there is a six feet distance between groups that's going into effect along with this mass mandate. No, that's not a mandate. It's just these are the tools that we have. The other things we have, vaccination and testing. Then we have these other non-pharmaceutical interventions that we've all been using since then. So whatever you've been doing. Oh, you know what? Yeah, you know what? So I wanna apologize. I'm thinking from a contact tracing point of view. So whatever you've been doing will stay. The only thing that's changing is the mass mandate. So I apologize. Got it. I'm just thinking like I've been doing the contact tracing and I have six feet in my mind. So that was an error. Got it. Thank you for taking the time to explain that and taking into consideration how it'll affect businesses and the community as well. I understand it's a balancing act. So I appreciate everyone here. Thank you. Hey, can I just add that I'm working with the bid. They're wonderful to work with and they're gonna be really good partners with us. And I hope I know they're good partners with you but we have some like complimentary mass if you need them to get going and we'll help with signage. That'll be great. Thank you very much. Okay, thanks. And now Peter has his hand raised again. Okay, Peter. Yes, I'll be, can you hear me okay? Yes. Okay, I'll be really brief. This was just a really quick follow up to my first comment. This was just a recommendation and I don't even know how much authority the Board of Health or Jennifer would have over them. But it did just come to mind especially with students coming back into town and how close the town of Hadley is to Amherst. I mean, it's they feed into each other and a lot of the shopping that takes place among people in Amherst, especially college students and really Amherst residents in general is through Hadley. So this is more just sort of a recommendation or a suggestion. I don't know what type of relationship the Board of Health has or Jennifer or even representative Mindy Dom because I know they're in the meeting here with representatives at Hadley. But I would just strongly recommend to reach out to them and to implore, strongly suggest or encourage or help them develop some type of mandate because that will really, if we get this in place in Northampton and Hadley Amherst, right? Because it's all connected, right? So if we have similar guidelines it's going to help everybody out. So thank you. Just a recommendation and suggestion. Good point. Thank you. Okay. Is there any other comments on masks? Okay. Given that, we'll move over to testing. Jen, are you prepared to cover testing? I'm gonna tell you what. Or contact tracing, testing and contact tracing. Oh yeah, yeah. I should separate that. I know. So testing, I wanna just say, from a health point of view, never missing opportunity to test. Our partner UMass has the testing sites open. I believe Monday through Thursday. I don't have the times in front of me but it's very easy to Google. It's right there on the site. I'm not sure how their testing's gonna keep you but it's there. So I'm just, let's not sort of, I don't wanna say slack off on that. So that's there, the testing. Also, I just wanted to say here in the health department the Department of Public Health has offered the local boards of health, the availability of the Abbott-Binax Now, the antigen rapid tests. So we applied for it Monday. Did a Clia waiver. We have a doctor's order. Thank you very much. We're putting together a policy and procedure and standards and training. And we actually received the kits today which was pretty exciting. So we have 80 kits and I'm just thrilled. I've just loved thinking about antigen tests as a public health tool. How we use them is to be seen. We're gonna figure out what we're gonna be doing with testing. But I'd like to figure out how we can incorporate this helping the town departments, the fire department with student course perhaps. And then what kind of testing can we do in the community? So it's not gonna be symptomatic testing but it would be asymptomatic testing. So maybe if a restaurant, there was someone who was exposed and can we do testing for them? So that's something that's new to us and pretty exciting at this phase of the pandemic. So I'm very excited about that. Thank you. Yeah. So that's testing. Questions? Anybody have questions? Steve, Maureen. No, I haven't had a chance to look at the protocols that the state put out for the testing, the actual testing. And then there are some guidelines on how to use the purpose or use of antigen testing versus the PCR testing at the DPH website. And it is a work in progress to figure out what the role of this kind of test would be. But it seems like another tool to have. Yes, yeah. No, well said. And that's gonna be a big project of mine is a policy and procedure and SOF. So I'm gonna have a notebook that's gonna be on our share drive. What's the procedure? There's gonna be training. And then if someone wants it, what kind of documentation? And then I have to report the results that goes into the state. If we have a positive, what's our procedure gonna be? So that's really exciting. I'm really excited about this. So that's for testing. That's all I have. If anyone has any questions. Vaccinations. Yeah. So I can't tell you what a great job Emma Dragon did with our vaccine clinics here. We've done clinics as a health department, but boy, she came in and she got us on PrEP Mod. She got us on collar. She, we did 13,000 vaccines. So I'm just thank you to her. I just am so proud of what we did there. So where are we going with our testing here? We're sort of in this different phase. So, you know, we're here in the health department. I've been in this interim for two weeks. What are we looking like of, what are we thinking about for the fall coming up? So these are some ideas. I don't know how, what it's gonna go. But as we get Pfizer vaccine, we're gonna be able to get it in smaller quantities before we were getting 1200 doses from Northampton, our partner. Now we can directly order it from the state. So that means I can log into the Massachusetts immunization information system and order 60 doses. So that's incredible to have that. What does that mean? Maybe here in the Bang Center, this is what I'm thinking, that we'll have vaccine clinics maybe from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. every Wednesday and we'll be there. Then the other thing is that we see from our data, who are we not reaching? So what can we do? Who are our partners that we can draw in that we can really reach folks who haven't been, had access to the vaccine and access means so many things. They weren't able to understand the information. It wasn't in their language. It wasn't available geographically or the timing. What can we do? Can we go to churches? Can we go back to the survival center? You know, a great part, the Center for New Americans. Who can we bring in? Also, you know, what are they thinking for opening up the Pfizer EUA? So it's emergency authorization. The FDA is talking about making or saying that it's good to go as a regular vaccine. What does that mean? Will it be dispersed into the doctor's offices? I don't know. Will it be opened up for younger people? So can we open up vaccination for younger age groups? So we're willing to get back into the game and it's just gonna be a little bit differently configured. But I'm looking forward to keeping the program going. So that's true. Once you have the 60 doses, how quickly do you have to use them? Do you know? It's supposed to be within 30 days. Yeah, so thanks for asking. Yeah, so and the refrigerator, we can freeze it for two weeks, I think it is, and refrigerate it now for 30 days. If I'm getting that correct, I'll check. There's a window larger window than five days that they had at the very beginning. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, I wanna be thoughtful about our clinics, not just spread them out, but also that means it can be kind of peppered with folks just calling me up. We have this really nice outer room here. People can call up and say, hey listen, it's been hard for me. Can I come in right now? It's like, yeah, come in, you know, I have office time or do I need office time that people can just trickle in? So we'll figure it out, but I sort of like the idea of something here in the bangs and then really doing some outreach, bringing our partners in and figuring out how to do that. And I think, you know, if you need volunteers, I think there are a lot of people who are still willing to help you do that. Will you vaccinate Maureen? Will you come back? I would and I know a whole lot of other people. That whole crew that was showing up through the winter and through the spring, I think, you know, if it is, yeah. So if it's a little different, I know it's a little different with this, but I think there's people would be helpful. Yeah, no, and that's a good point. So we're compiling the volunteer list. We're putting that back together and taking a look at that. And we'll be emailing folks out. We used to go through the MRC. I'm not sure where we stand with that, but we'll look at our training. I think we need to revamp the training, make sure that I see people's licenses, you know, we're here. There's really good CDC training that people can do and get a certificate. Maybe we need to have a training here in-house before people actually set foot through the door so they're comfortable. Because we sort of had a joke, we have government issue supplies. So let's go through all the supplies so people can pick them up and look at them kind of thing. But that's something I understand that we can do better. Steve, do you have any questions? Sounds good. Does any of the attendees have any questions? No. Because we're on COVID, is there anything else that you have to report on COVID-19 update? Do you see Mindy? I think raised her hand just now. Sorry, Mindy. I thank you for even like calling on us and including the public conversation. I just also wanted to, and I know Jen knows this and I think she said it, but I lost a little power there myself. I'm also trying to remind people that the community testing and community vaccination, both of which are free and are right now still available on a walking basis at UMass Amherst is still available. And from what I understand, we'll continue to be available at least through September and probably beyond, but definitely through September. So that's not to take away from the town vaccinating or the town being able to provide testing, but I just like to make sure that people realize that there's also community vaccination and community testing still available at UMass Amherst. Yeah, thank you, Mindy. I appreciate that. I know we mentioned the testing, but I didn't the vaccination. They do such a great job there. Anne Becker is just leading a great team there and I really want people to understand what an important place source of vaccines and testing. And the more folks use it, not at the detriment of not using local services, but just the more people know about it and are able to use it, the more justification we legislators have to insist that it continue. Oh yeah, smart. Yes, Mindy. Do you know how they're advertising this or getting the word out to the public? I don't know if UMass is doing more. Right now I think UMass is really focusing on how they're getting the word out to the incoming population. I know I've been promoting it on my social media and in my eNews. I think there was an article in the Gazette this week about the testing sites continuing. So I think the location may change. The community part of testing, which is currently at the Mullen Center and has been there since it started, that may move to the campus center, but that hasn't happened yet. So maybe when the location changes, there'll be more press around what you can get at the campus center. Did that answer your question, Nancy? Yes, and also the vaccine clinic. I don't know how widely that information is going out. So important. I mean, a lot of people know they can still go to pharmacies and get it on a walk-in basis. But I think it's really critical that people know you can also get it for free at UMass. And when you go, since it's at the campus center, you might have to park your car in the garage. They give you a ticket so that you don't have to pay for parking. So everything about it is free. Thank you. I'd like to just say that we, here we are talking about a mass mandate for businesses. Working with the bid, we have a good partnership. We're starting back up again and looking to help anyone in businesses to be vaccinated. So either restaurant workers can, our managers or owners can contact the bid and they can contact us, but we'll figure that out. But I just wanted to say that was a really important partner that we have. Thank you. Anything else before we go back? Anything else you need to say more? Maureen, you lit up Maureen, so that's why I asked you, Jennifer. I made a little noise, I think. I've got my old papers. No, I just wanted to say thanks to everyone for all the support and the hard work and our community members really looking out for all our residents. So thank you. Okay. Let's go back to Board of Health member appointment. I know we talked about it and you initiated the movement forward on that. Jen, do you want to just report on that? You know, I just know that we touched base with the Town Hall to see Board of Health if there are applicants. And I believe there were four and I think two are maybe a bit older, but I think we're gonna be interviewing. And that's something that will be happening, I think in the next few weeks. We'd like to see that seat fill during this transition time, during this last mile of the pandemic, let's get somebody in there and we'll start the interviews. Okay, thank you. You mentioned transition. Do you want to touch on transition? Now? Yeah, I know that I'm a drag and lifter position in July and I'm the public health and the acting director. There's an internal posting and the posting for a replacement has gone out. And I don't know who's on the interview team, but that process will start. I don't know how long it takes. I guess it depends on applicants, but I can keep people updated at the next Board of Health meeting what's gone on. Okay, thank you. And we will back up to what's my agenda here, racism that's on old business. So I know G put forward a piece, the town council has a piece and I had submitted a piece on racism. We're looking at it as a public health crisis. Steve, do you want to? Well, what was the town? Oh, the town council's general statement on racism. Yeah, it wasn't really about health aspect. Yeah, right. Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't call it, if you say that's my draft or something, then I'm guilty of plagiarism because all the ideas came from what Nancy originally drafted is really just the format. And I don't know how important that is to people. I sort of feel like we use a certain format for regulations all the time. And I guess maybe even for this, I don't know how you're going to write it, Jen, but maybe you'll say, whereas there's been an increase and stuff like that, you may write it that way with whereas, whereas, whereas. It seems perfectly right to do that for a regulation, but I just thought maybe we should, if the intended readership, if we're going to really try to get people to read this thing, I just felt it would be better to put it in a direct plain language statement. That's just how I felt. And also the other thing is, I don't know, it's just a personal thing, but if I sign something with my signature and it's out there forever signed by Steve George, I really want to agree with every little bit of it as if possible. I can vote for things based on general agreement and I don't have any background in public health. So often I depend on the other members and I know you're very expert. So I sometimes as I go along with things I don't know, but when I'm signing it, I really feel I would like to stand for exactly what it says and the way it says it. And I'm more comfortable with a simple plain language statement. And also as I pointed out, if we're trying to sort of go along with what the APHA wants, the American Public Health Association, they list all the towns and cities in Massachusetts that have issued, but they call a declaration on racism. But among those are some that are very vague and just kind of vague, a simple couple of sentences they were working on this. So to have a plain language statement is not inconsistent with what the APHA wants out of us, I believe. I don't think I feel strongly one way or the other about the structure. I guess when we talked about it last, at the last meeting, my thought was we didn't think we were in the position to make the declaration, but we were going to recommend that the town council or the town make that declaration. So I don't know if that's what this, this looks more like a declaration to me than a recommendation to the town council to make the declaration. But I don't know what people, if that's still what people are thinking. I did have a conversation with one town council who was actually the liaison to our board. And I think he felt that this is something, since the town council has already issued a very specific lengthy declaration on racism, that we would try to be fine if we did one that was separate and focusing on the health aspects. And it might well be that they would specifically endorse it, that sort of thing, but we're not writing it for them. We should do this because we're the people that supposedly are involved with health. So the scope of the recommendations then should also maybe be what we can do. I don't know. Sort of shifts it slightly for me. Yeah, that's a question. Maybe Nancy, like who is this for? Is this, it's for us, telling us it's certainly not a substitute for actions, but it's sort of saying what actions we should be taking, but who else is it for? Is it for people who might disagree? Maybe some people, I'm sure there are people that say, oh yeah, racism was a terrible problem in the past, but we've passed all that now. We have laws against it. And so there is no racism now, somebody might say. And so those people, I would hope we would be addressing and saying, no, wait a second now, it's not that simple. There's issues here you have to deal with. And is that what you're thinking about? The general public, the public of Amherst, people who disagree, who is it for? Who do you want to read this then? Steve, you brought out an excellent point. And I think you clarified a lot of things. I believe that as a board of health, we have to address it as a public health crisis. And then we can give information to the town counselors for possible action, but that we make a public statement that we believe racism is a public health crisis. Does that, is that what you were trying to say in your draft? Yes, and I did have some questions about calling on a crisis just because as I said, it's been going on for 500 years in this part of the world. And it's not worse now. I don't think that it has been at other times during that five years. So the crisis usually has a certain meaning. And so I was just saying calling it a matter of concern or I forget what the other words were, but I did have a question about whether we use the word crisis in the way that the dictionary says it's to be used. If you look at the American public health, whoops, they put it as the American public health association has called it a public health crisis. Yes, but the question is what do we call it? That's what we're saying. And you know, the AMA doesn't call it a crisis in their statement. We can call it a crisis. If everybody feels it should be a crisis. Okay. So it's a 500 year old crisis. That has not improved, right? I don't want to really get hung up on this. Shall we just, what are your feelings? I think it's important that we make a statement that goes out. Yes. We should definitely, I think Timothy is gonna have to be involved in this for sure, you couldn't be here today, but yeah. The other thing, I think one in the drafts, we got a little hung up about footnotes or citations. And I have to say, when I looked at all the ones in the state, I didn't see a single one that had any like footnotes or citations. So I, you know, just FYI, I guess I don't know. Which ones, Maureen, which ones didn't have citations? I didn't see any with. Oh, the ones from the state of other. Yeah, I just looked at the statements from the different towns and cities that put out a state. Right, right, right. And, you know, I think it to have, to know that what we're saying is correct, I think is really important. And I think, you know, drawing on other sources for that information has been incredibly helpful. It's very hard to get, you wanna have data so that you can, if you're making changes, you can see that those things change and they are, you know, that your interventions are making a difference. That data is at a hyper-local level is very hard to come by. And, you know, I don't know, that's neither here nor there probably, but I don't wanna get us hung up on citations, I guess I wanna say. Yeah, maybe we know what we could do. You know, I agree that in terms of the statement itself, it is kind of off-putting to have all that. So how about, you know, just where we, if we do make a statement without citations, we can just put that list of citations. Re-sources or something. Yeah, yeah, that'd be fine. We don't have to have footnoted, everything has to be footnoted. Yeah. But I thought it is important for us to say, we're not just taking somebody's word for it, we have some pretty original sources there. I like those deeds from the registry of needs showing that the property, one of which is a butt's mind, had a requirement or a limitation that it could not be sold or rented to colored people. That's from Amherst in the mid-20th century. Yeah, yeah. No, that's really, it's home, right? Yep. Your opening sentence, Steve nicely says it, that the Board of Health recognizes that racism, including unconscious and systemic racism, is a threat to public health. One thing that I noticed, and it's hard to find, I was looking for citations for this, but that fact that racism not only worsens the conditions like the social determinants of health, but in itself has effects on health disparities by whether it raises people's cortisol, or we don't know, but even just correcting for social economic class education, there are still disparities in health outcomes just based on race. I think that shows up in maternal, perinate, like maternal mortality, like it's pretty well documented, but I could find it about education. I couldn't find this, I thought I'd read somewhere about an economic class as well, but I think that it is a cause of some of the social determinants of health in terms of employment and of poverty and education, but it in itself has an effect. So you could be a well-to-do professor, it's Amherst College and still suffer some of this effects of racism on your health. Good point. Yes, Maureen, and I think it comes out of maternal child literature. Yeah, it does. I do remember specifically where they were talking about a black lawyer who was pregnant and the low birth rate and it was the cortisol, it was all the other stress of having to succeed in school and in law school and- So navigate the world as a black person. Yes, yes, but I- So I just would add, I didn't see that explicitly and I think that is important. And it was many years ago and it was through the American Public Health Association and I went to some presentations where it was presented, but that's- I did find a reference for education levels that was, but I didn't find the socioeconomic class. I think there's more to it than that, but it was hard for me to dig it up. Yeah. I can try and look in some maternal child health literature. Yeah, but that would be an addition. I think both really covered the important areas that we wanted to bring out and the action steps. I think that's an important section of that. Yeah. I'd be interested in the action steps. Yes. And like the community health assessment, trying to staff the health department appropriately. Yeah, all those- Evaluating our policies and procedures. Yeah. The benefits, who's harmed, the influences, who decides, yeah. I thought that was very well done, Steve. Yeah. So I don't know what we wanted to do today with this. I see Anita Saro's hand is raised. Okay, Anita, can you hear us? Yes, I can. Thank you. Just a couple of thoughts. I think I spoke up at the last meeting and mentioned that I had been involved in helping to draft a part of the reparations report that was submitted to the town a little while back. And it included, the part that I worked on was on health specifically. And certainly it was specific to people of African descent, but it could certainly there's supportive data out there that expands it to other minorities as well. And to emphasize the point that was just mentioned about race alone being a determinant, there is a body of peer-reviewed data that talks in terms of cortisol levels, stressors, and that leads not just to the horrible data we have, on maternal child health, but also to contributing to chronic diseases like diabetes and heart disease and all the other things that inflict on people. So I appreciate that all of you are looking at that and I really appreciate that you're listing up racism as an issue, a public health issue. On whether we call it a crisis or a threat or a concern, what's important is that the Board of Health has this as a point of view and as a concern so that whether there are specific actions that the Board takes or whether it's just something that's always part of everyone's thinking that as you go forward and look at a program and just as Jennifer has been talking about vaccines and testing and how it affects all the different aspects of our community, just having that lens as a Board of Health, I think is so critical. And I really appreciate you're taking this up. So thank you. I see it as an extension of the work around reparations around reparative justice that is going to be to the benefit of everyone in the community. So thank you again. Thank you, Anita. By any chance, do you have those references that you could share with us? Just about all the references are in the reparations report. Okay, we'll have to get close to that. A lot of stuff wound up on the cutting room floor. So I'm happy to share some additional information but that aspect of racial disparity came out even from the Cooley Dickinson Community Health needs assessment that was done in a couple of years ago. So even then, it was apparent. Thank you. I consulted with Anita and she gave me some, pointed to some of the information that I use. So thank you very much, Anita. Sure. Any time. Any other further discussion? Let's see, any other hands raised? Where would you like to go with this Steve, Maureen? Have it for next. Yeah, I mean, I think Tim has to be here for sure when we really finally discussed this. But this point is something that we can work on. I mean, just one sentence saying that part of the social determinants of health, it's very significant, but then there's a direct effect of racism itself. And that's a point we should certainly make just in one sentence someplace. And so let's work on that for next time. And then if we're, are we okay with the idea of a statement that doesn't, isn't broken down like whereas, whereas in- Yes, very much. I agree, Steve. It's very well done. I just did that whereas 24 hours after, but I really liked how you worked on it. Yeah, well, the whereas is exactly what we should do for all regulations and stuff like that for sure. Okay, well, that's very useful. So how about, you know, if anybody comes up with a specific reference, not that we're gonna necessarily have all the footnotes, but for ourselves. Maybe you have it in every source at the back, or, you know, it's something like that. Yes, okay. So we can all look at that for next time. And then I think in that case, we're sort of ready to go. If we tell Tim that this is the general direction in terms of format that we're hoping to use and see if he would agree with the statement. And maybe if people have, you know, focus a little more on this one draft and maybe make some minor, some additions or changes or ask questions about certain words and things like that, we can share that out there. And then we'll all be able to look at it again next month. Good, okay. And should I send it out another, should I send it out again? Or does everybody have, I think there's only one version, but yeah, I'd love that version. But if, do you wanna, I have the reparations. Yeah, I have that too, yeah. Yeah, do you wanna just see if you can move anything else into that to support the direct effect of racism, a sentence? We'll check that, yeah. Yeah, we, maybe we can all try to figure that out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you, Steve, for all that work. It was very good. No problem, no problem. Okay, okay, yeah, good. I don't see. And you Nancy, you got the ball rolling on that. Yeah, absolutely. But this is entirely, that's all of it came from there from that original thing. I don't see any attendees who might wanna add anything to it with hands raised. And Lauren Mills, who was in our last meeting, who this was, who brought it up. It is not attending. Okay, so given that we are at 646, I think we'll move listening session to our September meeting. And there are no other topics anticipated by the chair. Did we cover everything you want to have coverage, Jen? I'd like to add two things, please. One is our cooling center is open here at the Banks Community Center. We opened Wednesday and it's going through Friday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. And I wanna thank the Amherst Fire Department that's their show, they're doing a great job. I think that's something that, you know, with climate change, we need to start thinking about how are we gonna be looking at dressing these kind of climate change scenarios, heat, cold, how are we gonna help vulnerable populations to a cooling center? I'm just, so it's just something on my mind. So Jen, thank you for bringing that up. I just have a question. How does the cooling session get initiated? Do you know the process? Yeah, no, I mean, that's a good question. I think we were asking that. So no, I don't think there's like a heat index for, you know, so many days anticipated. But you know what? I'm gonna say I don't know the answer to that, so. And is this initiated by the fire department? Do you have input or who initiates it? So, you know, it's collaborative, but you know, I'll confirm that and sort of figure out how it's gonna go forward. I know they're doing this job. I went down there. Oh, and it was staffed in part by the COVID ambassadors who are continuing on. I know you would ask about that. There wouldn't be a role for them in the mask business, I don't suppose, because it's all inside. You don't want them going into restaurants, obviously. I don't know the role. I know they continue on. Yeah, yeah. And then any other thing with the cooling center? No, thank you. Okay, thanks. And then the second thing is, I wanna talk about mosquitoes and the Arbivirus results summary is looking pretty good, I have to say. So what I took off DPH today, they've sampled, they're sampling mosquitoes. 38 mosquito samples have tested positive for West Nile, zero animals, zero human positive cases. No triple E has been detected in mosquitoes. That means that Amherst is in a low risk category, but low risk still means there's actions we should be taking. So just something that the health department were thinking about how to get the word out. There's some events coming up. So what kind of outreach we can do? Low risk, know your risk, repair screens, dump out water, wear repellent if you choose to. Dust to dawn is, where are you, long sleeves? So anyhow, that's what I wanted to say. We're in the cycle that this potentially could be heightened risk or heightened mosquitoes carrying triple E this year. But so far, knock on wood, we're not there yet, but we know it gets ramped up this time of year. Yeah, so you move into August and into September. Now I have a question, Jen, that you more than likely don't have the answer to. But when the high school goes back, are they gonna be having sports teams and will those teams be playing as we go into dusk and we should probably look into educating them? But I'm sure you don't have all those answers. Yeah, no, no, right. I don't have that answer, but I like your thinking. What can we do education wise? Because we wanna stay in front of this. But so far, knock on wood, it looks good. But I agree that education piece, let's include the schools, again, they're great partners. And they may not, with the Delta variant, they may not be having sports teams playing, although they did in the spring. I don't know what they're gonna do in the fall. I guess it's being willed. That was one thing that happened in the spring. Even when school wasn't in session, they had their sports teams playing. But it's outside, I mean, that's part of the outside, outdoor sports, and that's where the mosquitoes are, so. Yes, especially those fields that go towards the trees, that whole area by the high school. Okay, anything else, Jen? No, just another big thank you to everybody. Just the last APH call I was on, these leaders at the state are saying thank you to everyone. It's just been a long, tough time, and I just appreciate all the work everyone's doing together. And I wanna thank you for stepping in once again. It's a good team, yep. Okay, so thank your team. I will. That's it for me, thank you. If there's nothing else. Thursday, September 10th, second Thursday. Yes, thank you. Steve, you're always on the panel. And can I have a motion to adjourn? I'll move that, yep. Actually, is it September 9th? Yeah. Did I make the wrong one? I think it's September 9th. Okay, sorry, I might have been looking at the wrong year on my screen there. Okay. September 9th. Thanks, thanks. Just was putting it in my calendar. Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm at it. Okay. Okay. So, so September 9th is our next meeting. Steve made a motion to adjourn. May have it seconded. All in favor, morning. Aye. Steve. Aye. And myself, aye. And thank you, everybody, once again. Okay. Good night. Good night. Bye-bye, bye-bye, so long.