The Fall River Board of Health convened a virtual meeting on Thursday, February 17th, 2022, with Thomas Corey and Michael Coughlin present, and Tess Curran serving as Agent of the Board. The board unanimously approved the minutes from the January 17th meeting with a 2-0 vote. Additionally, an Open Meeting Law complaint filed by Patrick Higgins, alleging a violation on January 17, 2022, was unanimously referred to corporation council with a 2-0 vote.
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good afternoon to everyone in the land of zoom and welcome to the board of health virtual meeting on thursday february 17th scheduled for 4 p.m my name is thomas corey present with me via zoom is michael coughlin and tess curran our agent of the board we are not in the city council hearing chambers all are participating remotely from locations in the known universe pursuant to the open meeting or any
0:28person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medium attendees are therefore advised that such recordings or transmissions are being made whether perceived or unperceived by those present and are deemed acknowledged and permissible tess can we have a roll call thomas corey president michael kaufman president okay the next item of business we have
0:58the approval of the minutes of the meeting from thursday january 17th are there any additions deletions or corrections to be made to the minutes of the meeting as printed to approve the minutes okay i'll second all in favor say can we have a roll call thomas corey yes michael kaufman yes okay the next meeting the next item is an open meeting law complaint from patrick higgins an alleged violation by
1:28the board of health meeting on january 17 2022 we need a motion to refer to corporation council so move our second do we have a roll call thomas corey yes michael coughlin yes tess can we have the director's report sure so i just another update on um kovid so our numbers are um going down which you know we're happy to see um you know we're still seeing about 20 to 30 cases on average um
2:02a day give or take um and so so we are you know again happy that our our rates are going down still really focusing on the vaccinations so um 63.9 percent of the community um is fully vaccinated um and 72.4 have received at least the first dose um so the rates continue to fall below the state average um particularly among children um specifically like the 5 to 12 year olds again like i've been saying
2:37um so we have a lot of clinics uh next week during school vacation week so we're going to be at the library at recreation um and some of the housing authority properties and we've been pushing that out through the community based organizations and have requested that the schools um you know really promote those clinics there will be gift cards at the clinics for folks who receive any dose so
3:03regardless of first second or booster um folks will be able to get a gift card 25 gift card um we do have low low rates amongst the vaccinated for the booster dose so we are trying to again push that and incentivize people to get that booster um booster shot um and then you know we had been really hopeful that the little ones were gonna come on the line um you
3:30know in the coming weeks um and have tried to start just to do some planning for that but we'll put that on the back burner for now uh unfortunately um but you know with the masks coming off in the schools either the week after uh vacation in terms of the catholic schools um and some of the other schools in the community may be delaying until um the 14th are looking to delay until
3:57the far 14th uh you know we want to try and boost up those vaccinations amongst the kids um so that there's a layer of protection once the masks do in fact uh come off so ah that's still you know the primary focus and we just we do have some new team members in the health department um through some of the grants that um i received so the contact tracing grant we have a
4:26team members focusing on connecting individuals to resources um primarily folks in isolation or quarantine but that work will expand um beyond that um as as you know time allows um and we have a contact tracer and then a coordinator for that position um so we're hoping to be able to kind of expand some of the um the scope that we have in the department and then with the other contact the other shared services grant
4:55that we received with c-conk and swansea um were just posted the epi position on the city's website for that um for that position so we are looking for an epidemiologist um for that shared services grant so that would cover work here in paul river as well as in c-conk and swansea so um we're hoping that we'll find a candidate um you know the other other folks who have these grants are
5:28indicating that they're having a hard time finding the work and i know that the state is also scooping up a lot of a lot of the epi so they are certainly in high demand but we're hoping that we'll we'll find somebody and i think that would bring a lot of value to the department we'd be able to really hone in on um local data and then be able to you know put any projects or um
5:54work really following that local data that we haven't had before so i'm excited about it once we can get it off the ground okay very good you know no i mean it'll be a tremendous resource but i i i'm concerned about whether we'll be able to find a qualified person yeah i agree um and and you know we might have to get creative um in terms of where we promote it um
6:27i was on a on a call with other you know people who have the grant from the state yesterday and they had some recommendations in terms of of different avenues that you know kind of like these pipelines to colleges and um with grad students who may be coming out or whatever it may be something right right right um and and certainly rhode island would be a target area too yeah school's there
7:01we'll keep keep our fingers crossed okay is there any new business of such a nature that it couldn't make the agenda nope no new business no chickens this month or anything no no no no nothing from inspectional services we had a quick turnaround time this month it was three weeks versus you know our four usual so so they don't have anything on the docket this month did we receive anything for citizens input
7:31no no citizens input um following our regular schedule the next meeting would be thursday march 24th how does that work for everyone that's fine that'll be unless things change that'll be the last time we can do this on zoom
7:55we'll have to go back to the city council chamber it has been a nice nice uh yes you think it's convenient it's very convenient okay do we have a motion to adjourn so moved i'll second can we have a roll call thomas corey yes michael coughlin yes okay thank you all for your time this afternoon have a lovely weekend thank you happy presidency