COVID-19

Sen. Brownsberger: After Re-opening, Efforts Must Continue to Stop the Spread of COVID-19

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State Sen. Will Brownsberger

The following piece was written by State Sen. Will Brownsberger, who represents Watertown, Belmont and parts of Boston. When we begin to reopen, whenever that occurs, we will all need to accept continued personal responsibility for controlling the spread of COVID-19. 

Governor Baker faces difficult judgment calls about the pacing of reopening.  Without expressing an opinion on the particulars of his judgment calls, he is taking fundamentally the right approach – namely, an incremental and data-driven approach.  

For all the reasons that we had to shut down, the potential consequences of re-opening too fast are unacceptable.  Given the risk of a catastrophic second surge, the only safe way to proceed is incrementally.  We will want to open in phases and evaluate the disease statistics daily for any early indication of an upswing. 

As we slowly reopen while the virus is still at large in the community, it will be more important than ever to do the basic things that all the public health professionals tell us will reduce the rate of transmission:  Wear masks, don’t touch our faces, wash our hands frequently and especially after making contact with high touch surfaces, stay home when we feel sick, work from home whenever we can, maintain physical distance from each other. 

Some businesses and employers will need to change their operations to support more distancing.  If the conclusion is that people have to come in, can they come in on some kind of shift system?  Does everyone need to come together at the same time? 

The Governor  bears primary responsibility for pacing the reopening, but it will be on all of us to take the personal precautions that will make the reopening work.  People managing the work of others will bear special responsibility for protecting their employees.  Customer-facing business managers will bear special responsibility for protecting their customers.

Around Town

An Open Letter to WHS Seniors from Wayside & the Watertown Youth Coalition

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One of the signs that went up around town to celebrate Watertown High School’s graduating seniors. This letter was written by Lisa Gibalerio, Prevention Specialist, for Wayside Youth & Family Support Network and the Watertown Youth Coalition. Dear Seniors:

When the news came down last month that schools across Massachusetts would not reopen for the rest of the school year, a collective thud of disappointment resounded across town from you and your parents. The news confirmed what had been feared since schools closed back in March: there will be no spring athletic season, no awards ceremony honoring four grueling years, no prom, no Senior Week activities, and, perhaps most crushing of all, no graduation ceremony and no All Night Party. All time-honored events.

Around Town

LETTER: Local Authors, Photographers Seek Help with Children’s Picture Book About Watertown

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Dear Watertown residents past and present,

I am asking for your help with a picture book which will be titled “W is for Watertown: A Watertown, Massachusetts ABC Book.” This book will be modeled in the style of regional ABC books where each letter of the alphabet goes along with a local landmark(s). For example, in the Boston ABC books “F is for Fenway Park.” These types of books are intended for young children (infants/toddlers through first grade) to learn more about their community; the goal with this book is to create a fun educational book for the youngest Watertown residents. Usually, these books are illustrated, but for “W is for Watertown: A Watertown, Massachusetts ABC Book” my colleagues and I will be taking photographs of Watertown’s landmarks and locations. In this project, I will be working with photographer Eleni Demos and Vice President of Ideas and Innovations In Early Childhood Education Raseel Alahmed. Some Watertown landmarks are obvious inclusions in a book like this such as “P is for Perkins School for the Blind” or “B is for Brigham House, Browne House, and Bemis Park.” However, even with research, there is a possibility we might miss some important locations and landmarks in Watertown.

Around Town

OP-ED: Sen. Brownsberger’s Survey Finds Most Agree with Mass. Social Distancing Measures

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State Sen. Will Brownsberger

State Sen. Will Brownsberger surveyed people about the social distancing steps that Massachusetts officials have taken, and found that the vast majority agree with them and expect it to be “a long time” before the situation returns to normal. Brownsberger — who represents Watertown, Belmont and parts of Boston — sent out the following write up about the survey, which was the second he has conducted about the state’s response to COVID-19 (see the first here). COVID-19 Check-in Survey II

Key Takeaways

95% support Massachusetts’ social distancing policies or feel we should go further.96% expect we will take a long time to get back to normal or will have to adapt to a permanent new normal. Summary of Survey

A total of 2,662 of people responded to an email and Facebook survey initiated on Saturday, April 25, 2020, with 85% responding on that day.As to Massachusetts’ COVID-19 response, only 5% of respondents stated “We have gone too far — the economic impact is not worth it.”Public support for social distancing remains strong: 65% felt “The balance is right at this time” and 30% felt “We have not gone far enough — people are still doing unnecessary and unsafe things.”As compared to the March survey which was completed mostly before the Governor’s non-essential business closures of March 23, the group feeling “We have not gone far enough” has declined from 54% to 30%, while the group feeling “We have gone too far” has increased slightly from 3% to 5%.9% reported that they were unemployed as a result of the epidemic while 3% reported they were previously unemployed. The newly unemployed were somewhat more likely to feel our response has gone too far (12%) than the respondents as a whole (5%), but 88% of them felt we have the balance right or have not gone far enough.The share of respondents currently behind on bills dropped slightly from 3% to 2%.

Coronavirus

OP-ED: Mass. Legislature Passes Bill for Moratorium on Evictions, Foreclosures

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State Sen. Will Brownsberger

The following piece was provided by State Sen. Will Brownsberger, who represents Watertown, Belmont and parts of Boston:

The legislature enacted (Friday) a moratorium on evictions and foreclosures. We should not put tenants or homeowners out on the street while we are trying to enforce social distancing. The bill is not a rent or mortgage holiday. It does not extinguish the obligations of renters or borrowers. Those lucky enough to avoid job loss during the COVID-19 recession should continue to make their regular payments.

Letters

LETTER: Full Time Forestry Supervisor Key to Protecting Watertown’s Tree Canopy

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On behalf of Trees for Watertown, I want to publicly thank our DPW, and in particular Bob DiRico — who is Acting Forestry Supervisor on top of his already-full-time job as Supervisor of Parks and Cemeteries — for the care they’re taking of our town trees during this extended period both without a full-time Forestry Supervisor/Tree Warden and now with reduced DPW staffing because of the pandemic. As we all know we had a very severe windstorm yesterday. Watertown’s tree canopy took a real beating. Our DPW did a tremendous job responding to this. Bob DiRico and his support team were up until 11:30 last night working on clearing the worst of the damage and already were at it again early this morning.

Around Town

LETTER: U.S. Post Office Using Social Distancing to Protect Mail Carriers During COVID-19 Outbreak

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Dear Editor:

During these challenging times, postal employees are working hard to ensure residents stay connected with their world through the mail. Whether it’s medications, a package, a paycheck, benefits or pension check, a bill or letter from a family member, postal workers understand that every piece of mail is important. While service like this is nothing new to us, we need our communities’ help with social distancing. For everyone’s safety, our employees are following the social distancing precautions recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and local health officials. We are asking people to not approach our carriers to accept delivery.

Around Town

OP-ED: What Do We Know and What Don’t We Know About COVID-19?

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State Sen. Will Brownsberger

The following piece was provided by State Sen. Will Brownsberger, who represents Watertown, Belmont and parts of Boston:

We all now know that the coronavirus is loose in the community and anyone could be unknowingly spreading it. We’ve all seen the terrifying exponential growth curves that project need for hospital beds peaking well above available supply. And we understand that by social distancing, we can bend the disease curve down, lower the peak hospital demand and gain time so that the hospital system has more time to prepare. What we don’t know is whether we have done as much as we should to check the spread of the virus and what the benefits of additional measures would be. Tomas Pueyo has written one of the more widely read analyses of our current uncertainties: The Hammer and the Dance. His basic argument is that we should be coming down as hard as we can on social distancing initially to buy time (the “hammer”), and that after a few weeks of maximal social distancing, we can let up some while doing widespread testing, contact tracing, and isolation to make sure we don’t reignite community spread (the “dance”).