[MaryAnn O'Connor]: Thank you, everyone. Welcome to the Medford Board of Health meeting, May 17th, 2022, 1230 p.m. Dr. Platowicz, would you like to open the meeting, please?
[Adam Hurtubise]: All right, meeting officially open. A few minutes from the last meeting. to me and won't have any comment. Hearing none, motion to accept the minutes. Guadalupe says yes.
[MaryAnn O'Connor]: Shabnita says yes. Dr. Menden, do I have approval for the minutes?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, you do. Thank you.
[Adam Hurtubise]: All right. Down to the agenda. I'll hand it back over to you, Mary.
[MaryAnn O'Connor]: OK. All right. Well, we were talking briefly before the meeting about COVID. So I'll just give you an update as of MedFed's fearing. You know, obviously the numbers now are a little bit less reliable because folks are doing home testing and certainly we don't feel we're getting those tests reported. So what the numbers are with folks who are still getting the PCR tests that we have through the state Maven system reported back to us. We've been holding steady at almost 300 cases a week through May. A little higher, we were 200-ish a week in April, so a little higher. We're seeing this variant is a lot more contagious, it appears to be, but less virulent, I guess, is what you'd say. But Kathy was saying the hospital numbers look like they are at least creeping up a little bit as far as beds being full. But again, Tufts is graduating this weekend, so there will be only testing for those on campus over the summer, and it's not going to be mandatory. It's only going to be by request. So with those test numbers going down, it'll be interesting to see over the next couple of weeks what our positivity rate looks like. We were up over 5.4%. Of course, it's lower than the state, You know, it's still 5.4%. We've had a little bit in the schools. They're holding their own, though, not too bad. One minor cluster at an elementary school. But the majority of the cases that we're seeing are really that 18 to 30-year-olds groups. The 18 to 29 are 100 cases out of our out of our 293, and then 73 cases are folks in their 30s. So obviously these are the people who are out and about and going about their business, going out to eat in bars and whatever, and socializing. And again, the strain, this variant seems very, very contagious. So we are recommending masks indoors. And here in City Hall, we've had a few cases. So employees in most departments are all masking up again. But it is what it is right it's here to stay, and we're just going to have to. keep going and learning to live with it. We do have tests available here at the Board of Health for folks if they need them, at-home tests. But I guess the feds announced today that they are gonna be supplying at-home tests to anybody that wants them again. So you can do that same sign up and have tests mailed to you from the federal government if you're in need. And also the FDA today approved booster shots for the five to 11 year olds. Speaking of which, Sarah is in the waiting room. Shame on me. When she joins we can talk a little bit about the vaccines but they approved, we're just waiting on the CDC now to approve it looks like boosters will be available for those five to 11 now. We have been offering clinics since, I want to say, February, again, Sarah's connecting, and we did just stop offering the weekly clinics, vaccine, you know, last week. So we will look and see what the demand is like going forward and possibly offer additional clinics in the future. We'll talk to the school nurse administration there to see what they feel about what the 5 to 11 boost is coming on board. But Sarah, I don't know, we were just talking about the vaccination clinics we've done. When I ran the numbers last week, it looked like we have provided over 8,000 shots, 8,350 shots to folks out there, totaling up to about 5,000 folks. So we've done pretty well. We never did get a lot of uptake or interest when we did them at the schools recently. The school nurses did them themselves. So we're hoping more and more young folks will get vaccinated.
[kz27nkwTz-I_SPEAKER_12]: Yeah, and we like Marion said we ran out of vaccine which is good. So, we, I have been asking other cities and towns around you know the rest of the Mystic Valley region, just when their clinics are and what they're kind of doing. Um, because obviously you, you all know that you can go anywhere in Massachusetts but if we can at least regionally because we do have a region and people who do stuff for us. can get a list together of when people are doing it, especially because Malden was made one of the 20 equitable communities. They hold clinics almost every week and that nurse has said we, you know, residents can most certainly go there. So our hope is to figure out where and when we can do clinics to still offer them, but also advertise everyone else's so that people in Medford don't feel, you know, abandoned if we only do it, you know, once a month, that there's other opportunities outside of, you know, if they want to go to a local health department, which I do understand. But there's other opportunities and places for them to go that aren't necessarily right here in Medford. And then should that open up a Pandora's box for other concerns and questions, we'll deal with those if they come up. But that's kind of where we're at and the other nurses are on board with it. And they think it's a great idea too. So as does Marianne and I'm sure other directors. So hopefully we can get that put together soon. Any questions, thoughts? Yeah, we were just holding ours here also at City Hall, which is not the best place. Our elevator has been broken for a couple of days, so it's just fixed now. So we want to try and find places that are better, which is why we also kind of stopped them here too.
[MaryAnn O'Connor]: And we did take advantage of the Council on Aging as well as a location that seemed to work out well.
[kz27nkwTz-I_SPEAKER_12]: They're in parking's a little bit worse, but at least ground level, the West Bedford Community Center's on board to let us use like their first floor space as well. So those are our two locations we're looking at because third floor at City Hall with an elevator that doesn't work isn't ideal.
[MaryAnn O'Connor]: Okay, so that's kind of where we're at. And we have, Jackie did redesign the website a little bit so that folks can go on now and look at the monthly totals going back. They're all on a Google Doc that you can look at the tabs and look at a month-to-month base and the cumulative case counts are there as well. So if people are interested in that, it is on the website. Okay. update on the biosafety permitting and licensing requirements. So I did hand out that draft to you all last month, and it is a little bit, you know, overwhelming and none of us are real experts in biosafety. So I have reached out to Mr. Todd Dresser. He's with Shubb Global Risk Advisors. He is certainly happy and willing to provide a general review of that draft regulation. and prepare some comments and suggestions for us. Also, you know, have some consultation with us and participate in our Board of Health meeting in June. So I guess between now and June, if you have time, if you could review the regs a little bit more thorough and come up with any thoughts or questions or concerns or issues, anything, you know, anything you don't understand or you wanna learn more about or you wanna know more about. You can either email me those and I can certainly pass them along to Mr. Dressa and or, you know, we can have them ready for the Board of Health meeting in June where he can probably go over the regulations with us and answer any questions you might have. So hopefully on June 21st, I've already told him the time and date of the meeting, and it's in his calendar. And I will be meeting with him on Friday morning, just to go over some questions I have. So if you have any thoughts prior to Friday, feel free to shoot them over to me, and I can discuss with him as well. Does that sound reasonable to everybody? Sound good? And then one more thing that's not officially on the agenda, because it came in last minute, but it is kind of an emergency topic, I would say, considering the heat that we've had recently and the heat that we're going to have going into this weekend. At our last meeting, you granted the variance, a couple meetings going back, back in March, I guess, we granted the variance to 99 Riverside to switch their heat to AC earlier than the June 15th required date by the state code. We've also had now, because of the impending heat that's coming this weekend, I believe it's gonna be in the 90s, other multi-unit dwellings have reached out asking if they could start turning on the AC earlier, because some of these facilities can take three days, but however, now due to staff and supply shortages, it's taking even longer for these buildings to be able to turn over. Sometimes it's taking up to 10 days for these buildings to be able to switch from the heat to the air conditioning. Unfortunately, in a lot of the older buildings, that's what, you know, it's one or the other, can't have both on at the same time. So it does take time for them to do it. So I guess what I'm kind of asking, and it's a little bit, off the rules, but asking for kind of a carte blanche variance request right now that as these multi-unit dwellings come in, especially folks with units that have elders and disabled individuals residing in them, if it's okay, if the Board of Health would give me the approval to allow them a variance, Um, to turn the, uh, to change from heat to AC before the June 15 date. Um, does that sound reasonable?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes. Yep. There's a second heat wave, so we're good. Two and done. Climate change, right? If you asked me two weeks ago, I would have said, no, you could snow two weeks ago. Who knows, but we've got a heat wave went away and then we got, there's a second one coming, you said.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, this weekend.
[Adam Hurtubise]: The weather, we're usually out of the woods.
[MaryAnn O'Connor]: Let's hope so, because you're right, the weekend before last, we were freezing, right?
[Adam Hurtubise]: So, but yeah. So the second time around, it's usually green light for the AC.
[MaryAnn O'Connor]: Yeah. Okay, so I will, take a vote now that you are granting me authority to allow variances to the June 15th required date to change from heat to AC when multi-unit dwellings ask the Board of Health for permission. Can I get a motion to approve?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Motion to approve. All in favor say yes.
[MaryAnn O'Connor]: Yes. Yes. Okay. Thank you. In the affirmative none of the negative motion passes, appreciate that. And then lastly, I have asked Penny from the Office of Prevention and Outreach. It's been a little bit, a little while, I guess, since we've had updates. So a lot has been going on in that office, a lot of great work. Some of what we were just talking about with the behavioral health issues, but I'll let Penny kind of give us an update as to all the good stuff and stuff.
[Funaiole]: Thank you, Marianne. Hi, everyone. I'm Penny Funnelly, Prevention Outreach Manager. So we have so much going on. I don't even know where to begin. I'll start with, we have a new member of our team. His name is Jeff Gibson. He's now our part-time recovery coach. Alicia Lagandina has been moved into the community social worker role, which is being funded by ARPA, the funds that came from the federal government to the city of Medford. So with her MSW and now her license for social work, she has kind of moved up into this social work role, which, by the way, she has been performing since the start of the pandemic. She has been taking care of our community members in that role since, you know, March 2020. So it's only fitting that she's taken on that position. And as we continue to grow as an outreach team, we will you know, be refining some of our practices through that work that we're doing with them. We work with the RISE Foundation. They have given us money to do wraparound support, so help emergency transportation to go to detox or treatment Sober housing, they have funded us to be able to house individuals to sustain their sobriety through housing. We have some wraparounds like for a job, you know, a job interview, we have some money that they could get a Target gift card to get clothing for that. as well as emergency food in some cases from Target. We also have MBTA passes that we provide for regular meetings with their providers. So we have a very full program going on there. We have Narcan that we can distribute from our office, train and then distribute to families or to individuals who need it. We also run a weekly group every Wednesday for people who are working on living a healthy life and So that's our outreach work that we're doing. And we of course are tethered to and partnered with the police department who has a jail diversion clinician. The police will also be hiring to other social worker or clinical based positions, working with Elliot as a partner to employ those folks and contract with the city. So we're very excited about that. Then another grant that we have is called the Overdose to Action Grant. And that one has been a very difficult grant to do. Over the last two and a half years, we got it in January 2020. And the plan, the reason we got the grant was to put a recovery navigator in the Somerville Courthouse. To support cross departmental cross, you know, job training so that you know the people who work on the end of the criminal justice system know what they're doing on the front end of the criminal justice system and, and all those, those in between. It's been very difficult to do that work with the changes that the court has had to make and the pivoting that they've had to do with COVID. So we've been through multiple iterations, but as tomorrow, I'm sorry, on Thursday, we will have a training from the gaming center, which is from SAMHSA and it's trauma informed for court professionals. We just completed another series through that grant. with the Graykin Center through BMC, and they did understanding psychos, stimulant, de-escalation, they did addiction 101, they did medication-assisted treatment training, so they completed three one-and-a-half-hour trainings, the one on this Thursday, the trauma-informed professionals. DA Ryan is opening up the meeting, And, you know, thank you everybody for being there. So that's really cool. And then in June, we'll have a Harm Reduction 101 training, which is being facilitated from Healthy Innovations, their Healthy Streets program. Mary Wheeler will be the trainer. She's absolutely phenomenal in the field of harm reduction. So we're very excited about that. We are looking at a partnership with the trial court to work under their guidance. with how to have a recovery navigator in the court to help get people families to understand the treatment system better who might be seeking a legal substance use section or for the individual if they are denied or if they so choose to be navigated through the navigator we would like to do that connecting people into our outreach program so this is a very kind of a very like all-encompassing kind of grant. The last thing that we're doing is we're creating, we already have a resource guide. It's a telephone book effectively for how to, all the treatments you could find in the state. And so we're trying, we already have it as an but we're trying to update it and make it a little bit more efficient, a little bit more user-friendly so that it's web-based, so it doesn't have to be something that you download or have an iPhone or this version of that. So we're working on adapting that, and that should be done hopefully by August, tested and published. So I have more work that we're doing. That's all of our outreach side. Our prevention side of the work that we're doing is It's threefold. We have a grant from Melrose. Well, I don't know what their name now is. It's TOPS funded by that group. But it is, we had gotten it last year and it was to really set up some listening sessions in multiple languages to understand how accessing behavioral health What are the barriers? Are there any gaps? Do we need to improve our resources? The other thing we wanted to know was when you see health promotion campaigns for mental health and substance use, does it translate into other languages? Does it culturally translate? Does it interpret well? So we did that work. We analyzed that research, and we've come out with some findings for that, which we have available if people want to read that and see that. And the next round of funding will be to bring groups of people together from different backgrounds, culturally and linguistic backgrounds, to develop campaigns that do work, in other languages that do work with other cultural backgrounds. So we'll be working on that over the next year. The other thing that we'll be doing is kicking up information to mental health providers, substance use providers, to hospitals and healthcare of what could be improvements that would really help the health of the many individuals in our community who are you know, who are culturally, just to be culturally and linguistically responsive, we have to do a better job in this community. So that's one of the grants. The other grant that we're working on is an evaluation of all the programs, most of the programs I just spoke to you about. We're working with Tufts University on that and they're really trying to figure out what is the data that we're collecting Will we be, you know, with all the programs that we have today, do they make sense? Are they streamlined? Do people know about what the health department is doing to outreach the community and to support our community? The theory that we're working from is if we can help families reduce the stigma of seeking care, get care, that we're going to help young people see how they can exercise that behavior as they go forward throughout their life, regardless if they do or they do not use substances. The idea is that we get help when we need help. So we're looking at that. One of the big components of that grant, though, is looking at our Behavioral Health Commission. So we have the Promote, Prevent, Support Behavioral Health Commission. Mary Ann is the chair of that commission. I am assigned as the secretary of the commission, and it is a number of department heads that are forward-facing and do behavioral health work just by the way that the work comes at them, as well as appointed community members and some other folks from, you know, the hospital, from our EMS provider, Ameshire Ambulance, and Tufts University. So that's going really well. We have two subcommittees under that. One is to look at what are the current plans, programs that we're offering to our community. We're going to map that out, figure out where the gaps are, look at it from multiple angles, you know, types of service as well as age, you know, target populations and see where gaps lie in the city for that. And then coupled with that is a very intensive data team that will look at how do we collect data that we already have? What data do we need to start collecting in the city to understand the issues? And then finally, how do we create a dashboard that we can all use? when we're applying for grant funding, when we're communicating to the community so that it's not, you know, a 30-step process to see what data looks like in the City of Medford. So that's one of the biggest projects, I think, that comes from that particular grant. And then finally, we have a regional grant that we host. We have been the host of a regional grant for the Mystic Valley Public Health Coalition. You know, even before, as you all know, if you've been around a long time, the emergency preparedness work, and then we did our opioid work through this coalition, and now we are leading a primary prevention delay first use of substances grant. It's an eight-year grant. We're completing our first year. We're working on an assessment across seven communities, Medford, Malden, Melrose, Stoneham, Wakefield, Redding, Winchester. Those are our communities. And once we have gotten our data collection, we're doing interviews, focus groups, gathering quantitative data, right? Once we do that, we're going to sit down and be doing a strategic plan across the region. That strategic plan, once approved by the state, we will start implementing it and we will be doing that work. The good news is or the bad news, if you have to spend the money, is that they double funded us for the next two years, which is $250,000 per year for two years. It's phenomenal. We get it, but there's a lot of work to do. And our coordinator is actually moving on to a really incredible job at a federal position. So we're rehiring for that position. and we're hoping it's just a small blip in the road to get the job done. But that is just a few things we're working on. Just a little bit. I didn't tell you the biggest thing, I'm sorry. All right, so I have another thing. So we have a grant called the Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness Grant. We received a round of funding in January 2020. We did an assessment of, you know, if there was a climate event, What how would people seek information? How would they access information? How would they get help? Right. And so in that moment, we were in the middle of a pandemic. We got a lot of great information. And from that, we wrote a really well organized grant that looked at three different parts. One is how interdepartmentally are we communicating to support our community? Two, how are we engaging with community members who are usually marginalized, usually not involved, and usually not engaged in community processes? So we're talking our Black BIPOC community, English-speaking Black BIPOC community, our Haitian Creole-speaking community, our Spanish-speaking community, our Portuguese-Brazilian community, and our Arabic-speaking community. So with that grant, over the last year and a half, we hired five liaisons and a coordinator, and we have done a great deal of work. I'm going to talk about the task, the community liaison in just one minute. And then the final bucket really is working with our organizations and coalescing around how we need to do a better job, reaching out, communicating, and being trusted and there for our community. We have just written another round of that funding, and that round of funding would then start to build resiliency hubs and a resiliency network is what we're calling it. So a physical location like community center where people could walk to walk in. That's the goal. That's our vision. That's where we want to go is that we have multiple locations throughout the city that are trusted that people can go in and get help from and or have an enjoyable time in this community, do social activities, have a place that they can rely on that creates a sense of belonging in the community. But we're not there yet. So we're supporting multiple departments to start engaging in and agencies to start gauging into this process of actually getting to that physical location concept. And we're going to spend a lot of time if we get funded really trying to promote how to engage in health if you need it, as well as really translating and interpreting all the work that's being done in this community so that people can understand and communicate with us about what they want to see, what they need, and how to develop some leadership within their communities as well. But our five liaisons have been working really hard, and our Haitian liaison has created a task force. Our Haitian and our Arabic liaisons, they created task forces, people who are meeting regularly, once a month at least, if not twice a month. to talk about how they want to engage with the community, how they want the city to be more effective in working with the Haitian and the Arabic speaking communities. And we had on Saturday an event that was coordinated with the Medford Family Network and our Community Liaison Task Force for the Haitian Task Force. We had 75 adults come and 40 children. It was one of the best events I've ever been to in the city of Medford. It was exciting. It was fun. It was communal. It was, it was as though we were all just there to be together. You know, it wasn't so formal that we couldn't be human, but it wasn't so informal that it didn't feel like it had a purpose. And one of the big purpose was that they had a great speaker, Henry Malorin, who is a active member of the Medford community. And he really spoke to the Haitian community saying, you need to get involved. Let's start some leadership and let's get more involved in seeing how we want to see the city. be, we want to be a part of the leadership. So it was exactly what we were hoping for when we wrote this on a piece of paper a year and a half ago. And I just really hope that we can keep moving this along and continue to do this work because this is, this is the kind of stuff that will make a difference. And especially, you know, we're talking, you just talked about climate change, right? You have two heat waves in May. This is exactly what we're talking about. This is the future of our area, is unpredictable weather conditions, possible floods, possible need for heating or cooling centers, warming centers. So we need people in our community to know where to go so that they aren't suffering in their spaces without support. So that is all that we're doing. I forgot about that big, big project for a second. Hopefully we get funded, and we hope that we'll have more support through ARPA funding to keep doing this work.
[MaryAnn O'Connor]: Thank you, Penny. Yeah, and the MVP grant has been really, really amazing, really helpful and beneficial. And one of the things that we did also as part of that grant, Penny, was we did an after-action review of COVID-19. And our internal communications and programming that we as a city did we held a couple of workshops with first with the health department, which was really. really helpful, kind of brought it all back and it was kind of cathartic. And then we did it with the department heads throughout the city as well, and other employees had a workshop with the mayor involved and really talked through, you know, it was really focused on those first three months of the pandemic and how we responded and how we communicated and, you know, what we did well, but certainly what we could have done better. I think that was really helpful and that's gonna help us moving forward again with planning for emergencies and preparedness for other climate emergencies or other things that come up. So we'll be focusing a lot on the findings of that after action review. And again, I think it was part of this MVP grant and without that, we wouldn't have been able to do it. And I think it was great, really helpful. So yeah, lots going on. So next month we'll have, Mr. Dresser, we will give some good time to the biosafety regulations and see what else comes up between now and then. There are new regulations that we can go over that are coming down from the DEP around notifications for combined SOAR overflows. And the Board of Health has a big role now in getting notifications out, particularly like at boat ramps and public access locations on the river that we will now be having to post. So we can get more into that. That is actually, as of July, we need to start complying with that new regulation. So, and it's- basically that they have been a sewage overflow, a combined sewage overflow. It's what during the heavy rainfalls, you know, like we got last July, during those heavy rainfalls, the sewer system can and does overflow. And there are outlets from the MWRA along the river. And there are particular ones that, you know, if there's public access, whether it be the boat ramp or the, newing or a couple of other access points along the river that within the first 24 hours we need to post that there are, you know, bacterial levels in there that could be dangerous to your health. So we can review that in the June meeting.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Now that overflows coming from what's on the street or from houses?
[MaryAnn O'Connor]: the street basically, not both. So there's a combined sewer overflow and then there's the regular sewer overflows. So it's both. And the way they're designed is so that when there's such a large amount of rain so quickly that they kind of bypass and overflow out into the river in certain locations. So this is a new state reg that any city town that has these outlets has to comply with any water system. So the NWRA is ours.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Any chance to get a diagram afterwards to show us where those are? Absolutely.
[MaryAnn O'Connor]: Absolutely, yes. I think there are four or five locations that we're looking at. So. Lots to do. Okay. Any other thoughts, questions? You want a motion to close the meeting or anything before we do?
[SPEAKER_03]: Marianne, any comments about the second booster? Some people say they get the second booster. Some people are not getting a second booster. Is there some criteria that Medford is putting into place where people are told, come and get your second booster?
[MaryAnn O'Connor]: It's 50 plus, basically, is what we're telling people. Anyone, certainly if you have, if you're immunocompromised or you have other, you know, other situations going on health-wise, certainly, you know, ask your doctor. But if you're immunocompromised and or just anyone 50 years old are allowed a second boost is at this time. And that's really what we've been doing when we were starting these weekly clinics at the hall in February, the hall didn't seem like such a bad place to be because we weren't getting as many people. Once they opened up that second booster to 50 plus, our clinics started getting really large and up to a hundred people. So that's when we said the third floor of City Hall is not really working out for a hundred people. So more to come on that, but yeah, it's 50 plus.
[SPEAKER_03]: Are the boosters still through the Medford City Hall or do they go to the different CVS, Walgreens?
[MaryAnn O'Connor]: They can go to CVS, Walgreens. They certainly can make appointments. If people are having a hard time trying to access that or make appointments, we do, you know, assist folks with the online registration because that can be difficult. But as of right now, we're not doing them at City Hall. We stopped that last Wednesday, Sarah, I think it was last Wednesday. For now, until we get either additional vaccine or we see that there's a real need, if we're getting a lot of response that people are looking for, then we will reconsider. But at this point, like Sarah said, we're gonna be doing it as a regional effort with the Mystic Valley Public Health Coalition members. So Malden will be holding weekly clinics. I believe Winchester's having a clinic at the end of the month. which is pretty much close to the end of the month. So we're going to be promoting those clinics as well for people to attend.
[kz27nkwTz-I_SPEAKER_12]: And then in VaxFinder, like the Massachusetts VaxFinder website is still up and working. So any local clinic that's doing it, whether it's a health department, doctor's office, pharmacy, whatever, that website is still 100% up and running. So there's a link to it on our website. I believe there's a link to it in my signature, my email, but anybody can also go there and find a place to get a vaccine as well.
[SPEAKER_03]: And the testing kits can easily be obtained at any pharmacy?
[MaryAnn O'Connor]: Right now, that's my understanding. And again, the feds just announced that they're gonna be doing that program where you can sign up and you'll have the mail to you from the federal government to kits. And we do have a supply here. If anybody is having a hard time finding testing kits, we do have a supply here at city hall that we're able to assist.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you.
[MaryAnn O'Connor]: Anything else? Do we have a motion to adjourn?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Motion to adjourn.
[MaryAnn O'Connor]: Second. Kathy Schabanea? Second. And Dr. Kladowicz? Yes.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah. Sounds good. Yeah.
[MaryAnn O'Connor]: Kathy Schabanea? Yes. Dr. Mennon?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, I agree. Thank you.
[MaryAnn O'Connor]: Thank you all. We'll see you next month. In the meantime, please forward any questions you might have.
[kz27nkwTz-I_SPEAKER_12]: Thank you, Penelope, for your presentation. Thank you.