HomeMy WebLinkAbout2020-03-23 Board of Health Minutes RF�
Town of Reading
Meeting Minutes
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Board - Committee - Commission - Council:
Board of Health
Date: 2020-03-23 Time: 10:05 AM
Building: Location:
Address: Session: Open Session
Purpose: CoronaVirus/Covid-19 Version: Final
Attendees: Members - Present:
Kevin Sexton, Emmy Dove, Eleanor Shonkoff
Members - Not Present:
Ann Maine Messina, Lara Romonowski
Others Present:
Jean Delios, Laura Vlasuk
Minutes Respectfully Submitted By: Kevin Sexton
Topics of Discussion:
Agenda
Call to order at 10:05am
- Dove- Update on emails received
o Incident Command meeting took place today. Topics of discussion where:
human resources plan and plans of those who have offered to volunteer to
help. They discussed operations and the best use of gift cards the Town has
received, who they should go to. Lap tops where given out to all departments
for at home use. She received an email from Select Board member and BoH
liaison Anne Landry, who asked if we can use reverse 911 to inform the
public as to updates.
- Dove-Was also asked by an entity in town, if the local medical community could
help?
o Delios- Said that HR won't allowed un-paid volunteers to work in town.
- Dove- Buff should switch gears towards education at some point.
o Shonkoff-Asked how that would look?
o Dove- Described that we could make information more easily digestible to
the public.
o Shonkoff- Suggested we keep education specific to Reading and to put it out
in a way that doesn't alarm the residents.
Dove-Asked if we can set up a Google Drive account to make it easier for the board
to keep relevant links in one place, like a data base.
o Delius- Past requests about Google Drive came back as not a good idea from
I.T., because it's not supported by the Town's systems. She will look into it
with I.T. to see if and how we could set something up.
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Delios- Economic Development Director has been keeping up with which businesses
are open/closed and what they're doing if they are remaining open.
- Vlasuk-A funeral parlor reached out to her about if a state-wide shut down happens,
could they get a special permit to continue part of their operations?They told her,
that they need to know how they would be able to store bodies?
o Dove- Said, in the Tri-state area, funeral parlors were considered essential
businesses during a shut down and would think the same here.
o Vlasuk- Asked if we should draft a letter to all funeral parlors in town asking
them to remain open,but with no services?
o Sexton- Asked if we are drafting a letter pre-shut down or for if/when it gets
shut down?
o Delios- Suggested Command should determine any message to them and
Sexton agreed with that.
o Delios- said the CDC has guidance on the subject, but not a whole lot.
o Shonkoff- Suggested we respond to them and tell them we will have an
answer for them in 24hrs. Said to get Command the info/request to review
and get answers for the funeral parlors from them,then said that to all the
funeral parlors in town.
- Sexton-Asked about plastic bags for grocery stores vs. paper or personal bags? Do
we want to take any action on preventing personal bags and temporarily lift the
plastic bag ban?
o Dove- offered, as a mode of transmission, it's a low risk.
o Sexton- has read the same thing about touching infected surfaces.
o Vlasuk- described a way that personal bags have the potential to bring
contamination from homes into the stores.
o Sexton, Dove and Shonkoff agreed to research it more and bring the topic
back the following time they meet.
o Delios- Said the plastic bag ban that is in place is enforced by the DPW
Director and the BoH may be able to put an order in place to not enforce the
ban temporarily.
- Delios- received an email during the meeting from the Governor's office ordering all
non-essential businesses to close for two weeks. And that they are limiting the
number of people at gatherings to no more than 10 and they used funeral homes
specifically.
o Vlasuk- Plans to send the link for the Governor's new post to Command to get
on our web page.
- Delios- Updated the board that our new health nurse was starting tomorrow.
- Dove- motion to adjourn.
o Shonkoff- 2^d.
o Role call vote: Sexton-yes, Shonkoff-yes, Dove-yes
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