INFO-2022-2 : Order for an Update on the Status of Covid-19 in Melrose (ID # 9548)

Transcript (~12 min @ 25:16)

Speakers identified by voice; unnamed voices are numbered within this recording. Auto-caption text — verify against the video.

▶ 25:14 Christopher Cinella: on the status of covid19 um we have uh mr chewie if we uh without objection um like to suspend rule 37c so we could hear from our health director so seeing no objection our rules are

▶ 25:36 Speaker 7: under suspension hi everyone thank you for having me tonight thank you so um i wanted to start off with some good news and possibly end on kind of a mysterious note tonight we are in a kind of transition stage right now we are moving from the pandemic to the endemic stage in coven 19. i want to start off with some good news so the cdc has helped us create a tier system where we can we can look at our look at our coveted rates in our local community and really better understand which which metrics are the most important for us to gauge where we're at i think one of the important things i want to make sure everybody remembers is that covet is still around we are lucky enough right now to be seeing very low levels um but later on i'll be talking more about the kind of larger context that we're that we're operating in so the major indicators that we're looking at for cover 19 levels in the community the first the first threshold that we're looking at is the number of new cases per hundred thousand in the last seven days and so the threshold being fewer than 200 cases and greater than 200 cases currently we are at 78 cases per 100 000 and so we fall well into the fewer than 200 200 cases and so the next set of indicators that really help us gauge what the level of covet transmission is within the community it's the new it's the new admissions per hundred thousand and so we want we want to be able to make sure we can keep track of co-ed emissions of the hospital this is important for our hospital overload we want to make sure that we still have room for folks in emergencies and other conditions currently we are at 1.1 percent utilization of inpatient beds for covid and so we are below 10 which is the threshold for low and so we're also looking at the we're looking at the number of staffed inpatient beds as well as the inpatient bed utilization and so we have 3.7 hospital admissions per 100 000 right now with all that being said we fall squarely in the low transmission category according to the cdc definition and this is all based on as well middlesex county data because we do have a lot of cross travel and communication with surrounding communities melrose's positivity rate right now is 1.1 percent something we want to keep in mind is that this positivity rate and a lot of testing statistics that we're seeing at the state level is very much dependent on the number of tests and how much testing we are doing as a community recently we've seen in the last seven days a 20 percent decrease in number of case testing rate in melrose and so we want to make sure that with this low percentage of positivity we still want to make sure that we we know that there is still covet data out there that we want to take into consideration one of those factors is the vaccination rate we are we are seeing over 80 percent in individuals with two doses of the vaccine however with the cdc change in definition of fully vaccinated and up to date that does include the booster for those that are eligible so those that are five months out from their last shot currently we are seeing lagging lagging numbers in terms of boosters in Melrose, and so we're actually seeing the 75-plus group with some of the highest, with 70% of them receiving boosters. Other age groups are slower to follow, 12 to 15. Some of those age groups are starting to become eligible for boosters. We're only seeing about 36% booster rate, and 16- and 19-year-olds is 54%, and others are just over 40%. Something that I want to stress is that we're seeing Omicron develop. We have another strain that we're seeing as the BA2 variant. This variant is sweeping across overseas and we're seeing a large number of new cases. And so we do not have definitive data right now to suggest that this new variant, which is a sub-variant of the original Omicron strain, we do not have definitive data that it is any more deadly however we are seeing that it is much more infectious and so this all comes back to a number scheme so if we are seeing one in a thousand in terms of deaths if we have you know 200 000 cases because of the new infectious rate we want to be able to make sure that we're still stressing the importance that there are still lots of deaths attributed to this even if the death rate is low and so we want to make sure that we are staying vigilant one of those ways is to continue to encourage encourage vaccination recent data has shown that we are seeing waning immunity for those that are either four months out from their booster or more than five months out from their original two-dose series this waning immunity is important to understand that we have less protection against initial infection but the vaccines have still shown great efficacy in preventing hospitalizations and severe disease so we want to make sure that we We are still advocating for folks to get the booster when they are eligible, and we want to make sure we're still stressing the importance of mask wearing. I think in recent times, we've been seeing that mask wearing has become politicized. We want to make sure folks understand that this is still an effective tool. While we do not mandate masks, we still want to make sure that we can mitigate risk. So when you're in a high risk environment, when there's inadequate social distancing, and if you are at higher risk because of pre-existing conditions, we want to make sure that folks will still consider wearing a mask to protect themselves. We are seeing this BA.2 variant increase in different parts of the world. And I want to stress that as part of our surveillance, we don't know how this is going to impact us. that the delta wave when it first came there was an increase overseas and then we saw a similar increase here so we usually lag behind slightly when these new variants come out this may also be the case i'll make the example right now right now in china and hong kong we're seeing massive increases in covet cases this may not be the case here because they appr they initially approached a zero zero covet policy wherever you know all co all covet cases were considered very dangerous and they tried to limit them as much as possible here we have a larger proportion of individuals that have had covet in the past and so what's important to understand is that our situation is different we have a lower vaccination rate and we have a lower booster rate than in the uk and which is seeing that rate that wave right now so we will be keeping track of this data in terms of the vaccination rate we'll see positivity rates and we're also keeping track of wastewater surveillance which the cdc is readily providing any questions

▶ 32:57 Maya Jamaleddine: thank you thank you for being with us tonight um you know for the second time and i appreciate all the effort that you bring to help our city you know get through this pandemic as a follow-up on our question from our last meeting we've you know I asked if there is any mandate for city employees to get vaccinated I want to know if the rate has increased in terms of the vaccination for our employees and if we are mandating from what I remember it was

▶ 33:40 Speaker 7: a conversation that we're going that way yes so thank you for your question currently we do not have a vaccine mandate for employees in the city we have general data that we're trying to gather from city employees schools are a little bit different schools you know school staff there is a mandate for vaccine or test general city employees do not have that vaccine mandate though we've had a lot of high self-report percentage and so we're trying to get more of that data we're trying to make sure that we can have a better grasp of how many employees are vaccinated we know that they're you know along this last search there were also you know increased cases in city hall so at this time we don't have we don't have complete data on that

▶ 34:19 Maya Jamaleddine: and um do we know what is um being on the way of making a mandate i know that we were going that path from the way that the discussion went last time uh was um i wouldn't say promise but was

▶ 34:41 Speaker 7: kind of a plan to go that way yes and we have we have discussed a vaccine mandate for the city for city employees before one of the things we're running into is we're seeing that because the severity is not as high with this omicron variant and we haven't been seeing death rates or hospitalizations increase we haven't been able to justify putting in a vaccine mandate i think part of that is the legal challenges as well of mandating vaccines for city employees so we've

▶ 35:09 Maya Jamaleddine: run into that struggle as well so i would like to ask here we are asking our residents to get vaccinated but our employees and our body we're not doing it ourselves so it's kind of sending very conflicting message and that raised a lot of questions for me so i would encourage you to work on that it's something that really raised some concern um thank you so much thank you any other

▶ 35:42 Leila Migliorelli: counselors with questions counselor Migliorelli thank you for being here again um just a question about i know the importance of boosters is becoming obviously more evident like you talked about um how what are you doing to communicate to residents what's the health department's plan to communicate to residents about the important the importance of getting boosters and or are you doing anything doing any other clinics booster clinics and have you found those to be effective

▶ 36:03 Speaker 7: yes so i think in the past we've shown that our booster clinics have been very effective right now we are a bit understaffed and so we want to make sure that we have the resources to keep the health department open to keep other functions as well in terms of getting the news out for other booster clinics we've had success in the region so medford and malden have been providing vaccines for regional efforts as well so we've been able to send folks that way we've been making making sure that that's widely available through communications and so there is still readily available boosters out there and we're still trying to make that communication clear i can't say for sure that we're going to have any booster clinics you know in the near future we have to make sure that we have the enough staff for that but they are available and we can partner with

▶ 36:53 Leila Migliorelli: the state vax bus to bring that back as well okay great yeah if it's i mean i think i've read that obviously if you've had two shots in it's not that much that's not that much harder to convince to do a third shot versus people who haven't been vaccinated at all so it seems like a good strategy to pursue is to um increasing the number of residents who have booster to get booster shots

▶ 37:16 Speaker 6: yes thank you anybody else what is the will of the council motion to place on file second

▶ 37:23 Christopher Cinella: motion to place on file made by councillor Grigoraitis seconded by councillor Migliorelli any discussion seeing none all those in favor aye aye any opposed okay motion passes thank you