The Fall River Board of Health held a virtual meeting on Thursday, July 14, 2022. The meeting began with the approval of minutes from the June 16, 2022, meeting, which passed unanimously. A hearing request from the City Treasurer to revoke a food establishment license was tabled until the September meeting, also by a unanimous vote. The primary discussion involved a detailed presentation by Paul Ferwin of the Sewer Commission regarding the new preliminary public notification plan for Combined Sewer Overflows (CSOs) and Sanitary Sewer Overflows (SSOs), mandated by MassDEP regulations (314 CMR 16) effective July 6, 2022. Mr. Ferwin explained Fall River's combined sewer system, the operation of its 17 active CSOs, the CSO tunnel, and the notification requirements, including email/text alerts within two hours of discovery, an interactive website, and public signage. He noted that preliminary plans have been approved by MassDEP and that the city averages 250-300 CSO events annually. Following this, Dr. Stephen Gagliardi inquired about the status of fluoridation in the city's water, to which Mr. Ferwin responded that it has not been restored due to a statewide shortage of fluoride products. Tess Curran, the Agent of the Board, provided a Director's Report, updating on the approval and slow uptake of COVID-19 vaccines for children under five, available at clinics and Health First. She also addressed concerns about the efficacy of at-home COVID tests for new Omicron variants and provided a brief update on monkeypox preparedness. The board decided to tentatively schedule their next meeting for August 11, with a September meeting planned for the 22nd, and then adjourned unanimously.
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good afternoon to everyone in the land of zoom and welcome to the board of health ritual meeting on thursday july 14th scheduled for 4 p.m my name is thomas corey present with me via zoom is michael coughlin dr stephen gagliardi is going to be tardy today and tess curran our agent of the board we are obviously not in the city council hearing chamber all are participating remotely from locations in the known universe
0:29pursuant to the open meeting or any person 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 i think you're on mute sorry about that
0:56thomas cory president michael coughlin president okay the next item is the approval of the minutes from the meeting of thursday june 16 2022 are there any additions deletions or corrections to be made to the minutes of the meeting is printed move to accept the minutes i'll second can we have a roll call thomas corey yes michael coughlin yes okay the next item is a hearing request of the city of flow of a treasurer to
1:30revoke a food establishment license at the request of the city earlier today we received communication asking us to table that to the september meeting is there any objection no can we make a motion on that to make it legal so move okay i'll second tess thomas corey yes michael coughlin yes oh sorry hello tommy okay next item on the agenda is the preliminary public notification plan
2:06presentation by the sewer commission paul ferwin is our guest in presenting today paul if you would welcome welcome thank you very much board uh you know today i want to talk to you a little bit about uh a requirement for dep uh in the uh regulations um cms 360 316 that uh that we follow 314 section 16. i do have a powerpoint presentation that i'm going to put up on the screen uh this um
2:42requirement uh that was put into effect back in the beginning of 21 requires that we do uh public notification uh whenever one of our csos uh or is activated or we have an sso uh it's uh 314 cmr16 is the massachusetts uh regulatory code uh and it has to do with csos which combine sewer overflows uh ssos which are sanitary sewer overflows um so just a little bit on the regulation the regulation was originally signed
3:22into law back in january of 2021 um and it takes effect it took effect on july 6 uh 2022 uh so by july 6 2022 there was a number of steps that we need to to uh take and put in place we needed to have preliminary plans submitted to massdep both for cso notifications and sso notifications those plans were submitted to uh dep they were reviewed by dep and i have received approval notification from dep
3:58for our current preliminary plans uh now the preliminary plans is uh we there's a number of steps that we took uh and implemented we'll be moving forward with and then uh within the next year we're gonna have to uh essentially come up with a finalized plan uh so we're going to be able to tweak the preliminary plan see what works for our community um and surrounding neighbors uh and then be able to uh to move forward
4:27um so massdep these regulations came down from mass dep um so in regards to uh wastewater um the epa has primacy uh over in massachusetts over uh wastewater standards dp can also set their own regulations uh in regards to wastewater standards so certain things that we have to do that's a little bit different on the drinking water side on the drinking water side uh mass dep has privacy uh and they can
5:02so they have regulations they follow all of epa's regulations plus then also their own uh but on the wastewater side it's epa that has privacy dep can make their own regulations and stipulations which this is underneath the massachusetts dep regulations what it's going to be requiring is event notifications uh whatever there's a cso that's activate activated so combined sewer overflow
5:30whatever there is a sanitary sewer overflow or whenever there's a discharge of harshly treated wastewater and in a minute i'll go through what those different things are because most people know the term cso uh but nobody you know they've heard cso but they don't know what an actual cso is so on the next slide here it talks a little bit about a cso and what a cso is um so csos are pretty much
6:02only activated typically in wet weather the city of fall river for years we've been working to minimize the csos that we have the actual definition any discharge of untreated or partially treated wastewater to a surface water that is connected uh to a combined sewer so there's two different pipes that go out uh when it rains you have what's called a separated sanitary sewer stormwater
6:33system or a storm water system um those those two words are synonymous and that means that if it rains the rain falls onto the ground or goes into somebody's house into their downspout and it's connected to a drain system that water is all contained uh just storm water so rain water and it go can be discharged to a water body there are regulations those fall underneath the ms4 permit uh another
7:05permit that we have to deal with uh but that's essentially rain water that falls on the ground and then just is conveyed out to a water body a cso is what's combined sewer overflow so in fall river since we have such an old sewer system um a lot of the storm drains that you see on the side of the road or the downspouts from houses or buildings don't go into that separated isolated system
7:32they go into a system that is combined with the wastewater so the house you you take your shower in your house it goes down into a sanitary sewer wastewater system in fall river about 85 percent of our city all the rain also goes into that system um so the problem was back when our system was revealed in the early 1800s wastewater system all the pipes went right down they went right out to the
8:05bay so whether it was a toilet flushing or storm water coming down all the pipes went right down out to the bay in 1948 with the uh with the development of the clean water act uh you ended up having to build treatment plants uh so that was in the uh late 40s or early 50s fall river built its first wastewater treatment plant uh down on the edge of uh
8:30you know mount hope bay and we built the large interceptor drain that conveys flow uh follows the river essentially conveys flow from the whole entire city all the way down to our wastewater pool that interceptor drain that was built in our wastewater plant couldn't handle the wet weather capacity so when it rained uh it couldn't handle all of that storm so what happens the pipes that went down
8:53out to the bay they would put a dam on them and under dry weather conditions so when it's not raining out just regular household storage and that's the picture here on the left or in dry weather the water just comes out of the building out of the toilets out of the showers everywhere else comes down uh and doesn't go over the dam and then goes down to our wastewater treatment plant
9:16gets treated goes out to the bay during wet weather so during rain events uh or other uh issues that we have it overcomes the amount that can be taken by the treatment plants so the storm water and the regular sanitary sewer go into one pipe a certain amount of it goes down to our wastewater treatment plant is treated a certain amount of it goes out and is discharged into uh water bodies
9:48so again this is just another uh picture kind of showing what happens uh you have the house with a regular sanitary sewer uh you know service from the house goes into the pipe goes into the lower interceptor drain is conveyed down to the wastewater treatment plant the right hand side during wet weather you have the uh sump pump from the house you have the downspouts from the roof you have the
10:16uh you have the grates from the stormwater system in the street that all go into that same pipe a certain portion of it portion of it is able to be conveyed to our wastewater plant and a certain portion portion of it goes over that dam and out into the water body so fall river as most people you know some people know we've been uh working to reduce the csos within the city but
10:46again that's a extremely large extremely costly project that we've been working on for the past 30 years and we still have a long way to go um so but we have continued to work on it just a little bit about fall river's system i was developed over 150 years ago we have over 300 miles of pipe in the city about 240 of uh sanitary combined sewer and about 60 miles of just storm water pipes
11:20um conveys dry weather and wet weather flows uh prior to 48 went straight down right out to the bay or into the quickest shan river uh from 48 to 52 was the construction of the plant um so currently we still have 17 active csos uh within the city originally we've had we had 19 uh two of them have been blocked off uh we have 17 active ones a number of those have been reduced uh or um
11:51or treated prior to being discharged uh from all the work on the cso project that we've already done so that's kind of the cso's combined sewer overflows and that's one of the things so there's two separate things that we're going to have to put notification out whenever a cso combined sewer overflow is activated or whenever we have what's called an sso a sanitary sewer overflow so that would
12:19be uh when you have actually a sewer pipe in the ground uh that comes up to the surface uh so comes up to the street or something like that and then can make its way over land uh down and into some type of water body or puddled on the land this typically happens whenever there's a break in a sewer main uh a pump station failure a blockage and a sewer main these are uh
12:48these are pretty rare uh knock on wood you know uh we maintain our system uh we keep up with uh with cleaning of our mains inspection of our maids uh maintaining upgrading our pump stations uh so knock on wood uh these uh these don't happen as often but there is always still the potential uh for it to occur and then the other thing that we talked about uh is partially treated or blended
13:16wastewater um you know that's that's really the other thing that we have so and this this picture is sometimes a little bit tough to follow but you have all of our wastewater goes down to our intercepted rain is then conveyed down to our wastewater treatment plant at our wastewater treatment plant we're able to handle up to 50 million gallons a day primary and secondary flow we can take up to 106 million gallons
13:47under wet weather conditions that goes through primary treatment and it's disinf and then discharged so it bypasses the what's called secondary treatment biological treatment it bypasses that step and it's just uh primary settling screening primary settling disinfection and then discharged out into the bay that again typically only occurs under wet weather conditions but that is another uh type of partially
14:20treated wastewater that could send contaminants out again that only happens during wet weather conditions the other two areas where we do have it which could be considered partially treated uh would be our president have pump station uh so in bicentennial park uh the building is that's there we have an underground facility that's four times the size of that building uh where waste water for
14:48that cso the wastewater goes in is screened disinfected and then discharged uh and then on cove street at that pump station we also have another wet weather cso facility uh that again screens disinfects and then discharges out into the bay so the wastewater treatment facility uh again right right on the screen in front of you uh takes up to 106 million gallons a day uh coming through it there's two
15:20ways for uh for wastewater to get into our facility uh from the intercept drain which comes from the right hand side of the stream comes kind of in where it says odor control facility uh right underneath that label there's a pipe that comes in and then the red line that goes through the center of the facility uh comes from our uh cso tunnel uh that we have uh in the city uh within our wastewater
15:45treatment plan our average flows are uh 26 to 29 million gallons a day uh in dry weather conditions uh again we're able to take up to 50 million gallons a day on uh primary and secondary uh and our full flow is 106 million gallons a day which that would uh be primary uh and disinfection for the additional 56 million gallon uh a day uh our plant's not a very tight footprint uh you know for a wastewater
16:17treatment facility of our size um it's a tight footprint with neighbors all around uh we do do uh uh staff does an excellent job with uh with order controls and mitigating uh other issues within the community uh but it is a tight site uh it is an old plant uh some of the original buildings are from 1948 upgrades in the 70s uh 80s and uh we're currently undergoing uh contract two of a large uh phased
16:48upgrade plan right now a little bit about the cso tunnels and this is one of the things that really helped mitigate a lot of the cso discharges out in the bay uh anywhere in the city south of 195. uh this is a 20-foot diameter tunnel that runs under the city uh it was bought through the granite roughly about a hundred feet below grade in most areas uh down by our wastewater treatment
17:17plant right across the street is actually where the terminus of the tunnel is uh just just below grade uh three miles long uh runs pretty much up to uh lowell street so almost where the dpw is the street just before that that's where the terminus of our tunnel is without fad involved we have nine drop shafts that are strategically placed around the city and able to take flow intercept flow uh in
17:44the sewer system so during a dirt and dry weather condition all the waste water goes through flows down to the edge of the bay is put into the interceptor drain and conveyed down to our wastewater treatment plant uh during dry during wet weather when it starts to rain at each one of those drop shafts we have gates that we can open and close so we close the gate to the interceptor
18:10tunnel and we open up the gate that conveys to the drop shaft and then down into the uh into the cso tunnel this takes all the storm water and waste water flow that's above those drop shaft areas and takes doesn't put it down into the interceptor puts it into the tunnel uh the surge capacity of 38 million gallons um so it's used to store the storm water and also convey it down to our
18:39wastewater treatment plant so it kind of has a double purpose um you know so during the wet weather we're able to get that storage capacity of the tunnel and then as the wet weather resides it's able to convey itself down to the wastewater treatment plant be treated fully treated down at the plant so this is one of the things that has greatly minimized uh the cso activity in the south end of the city into mount
19:05hope bay but again we still have cso uh we still have cso activity uh throughout the city uh the court the federal court order that we've been under uh since the mid 90s requires that our cso activity uh csos be active less than four times per year uh this tunnel did a lot of work in working on many of those southern csos uh we president ab screening and disinfection facility took care of president half
19:37cove street and cove street uh we still have more that we have to do um alton street is uh one that's still active above the uh above the three-month storm the uh city pier is still active uh birch street so there are still uh some other ones whether it be in the south or the north area that still need additional work so each one of these csos uh and this is
20:08a picture of what the actual cso looks like in the dam looks like inside the pipe each one of these csos we have a sensor in we have a sensor that turns on a flow meter whenever it's activated so there's 16 regulators 16 manholes with regulators uh they're all communicate back through cell services and it goes back to a cloud-based site uh that that we that we use ayaka is the manufacturer and the provider of the
20:40cloud-based site that we're able to use so in each one of these chambers again you have one uh sensor that trips it and says okay there's flow going over the where in the cso and then there's another sensor an ultrasonic sensor that measures the level that's able so that way we're able to measure how much volume is being discharged from the cso so this was one crucial part getting all
21:08of these sensors in one of the crucial parts in being able to do uh the notification that's required by by the regulation so this talks a little bit just about one of the alerts that we get um from the ayaka uh platform whenever cso is activated uh so this would be a birch street status over the where the level uh and the date and time this is one of
21:36the key things that allows us to be able to uh be able to do this notification procedure because the notification uh that we're going to have to send out has a uh has a very specific list of of requirements that need to be sent out uh and then we monitor these uh all the time so into the public notification requirements uh we need to send it out either by email or by text
22:04it needs to be within two hours of the discovery of an event uh so we have four hours to discover an event and then we need to send out the notification within two hours uh this is saturdays sundays two o'clock in the morning it doesn't make a difference our regulations say that it needs to be sent out uh within two hours each cso that's activated needs to have its own independent uh notification sent out
22:34so again we have 17 active csos that's 17 notifications um if all of them are activated uh that would need to be during a storm uh then we would need to send out 16 notifications uh one of the other requirements that we needed to do was set up a full interactive website uh for our csos which includes a map which includes cso histories current notifications past notifications on the screen bottom right you can see
23:06uh you can see that uh a link to to this not a link but the actual or what the screenshot of the website looks like so if you go on that website you hover over one of those green dots uh it'll tell you what cso it is whether it's active or whether the last time it was active uh the public advisory area you can scroll through uh we have uh past history three years
23:33of cso reports activation reports on the website uh as well as recent uh past uh past notifications that have happened so the website was another part of it and then the warning signs so the warning signs is small one up in the right hand corner uh which we'll talk about uh uh in a minute uh a little bit more so one of the big things about the notification that was in the regulation
24:05too was to be able to reach out to our environmental justice uh community uh we had to we have to make sure that uh all everybody involved uh whether they're uh bilingual or whether their single single non-english language uh is able to understand it so our notifications go out uh in english but then we also have available information on our website uh in different languages to be able to uh to be able to
24:34uh address the environmental justice communities uh areas within our community that's all set by a map by dep what uh what could what environmental justice um dialects we need to use uh within our notifications so the public notice the public notification requirement again within the discovery it's a two-hour requirement uh it needs to be sent to uh state agencies so we send it to the state board of health uh dep
25:10epa so federal law is organizations um local agencies so the local board of health uh we'll be we'll be getting these notifications um news organizations we're requiring the preliminary plan to put in a local news organization so it'll be going to uh wsar uh the herald news as well as the portuguese uh station in paper as well so the any other board of health that are affected by uh discharge which we've
25:45designated those to be pivoted as well as uh somerset uh so we already have that all set up uh within our notification protocol um and those have been uh we had one uh that was just prior to the fourth of july sent out uh a little prematurely as a test when we were setting up the uh the system uh but moving forward uh there'll be uh notifications sent out um so it'll be two hours within activation
26:18and then every eight hours we need to do an update uh so eight hours from the initial notification we need to send out another notification either saying the cso is still active or the cso is terminated on this date and time um and then again within 18 hours of that we there's also a dep website that we need to provide all the information about the discharge 2 dp uh and that's
26:43within 18 hours of the close of the uh of the discharge um so it's kind of it's kind of tough because i know i think tess got the emails uh the first run i know wsar and uh the herald news received them as well uh from the storm that was just before uh the fourth of july i think it might have been on the first or the 30th of june uh
27:07it was uh you know a storm that activated our uh cso's notification was sent out and it's a slew of 16 notifications i think it might have been 14 that went out for that storm though uh notifications so 14 emails sent to them uh and you know we've sent out a uh press release from our office kind of explaining that this is the notifications um that are required by dep
27:34and then there will be a number of them being sent out you know the idea is to get this out to the public because essentially when we have a cso activation uh it is uh it could be untreated or partially treated wastewater that's going into our uh into our bays or into our water bodies um so one of the things that dep wanted to do with this regulation is be
27:57able to get that information out to the public when it's actually happening so for these notifications the other thing anybody from the public can sign up for these notifications as well so on the sewer webpage uh there's a tab to be able to subscribe uh anybody can go in subscribe they send us their email we're able to add them to the distribution list and they'll get the notification whatever uh whatever it's done
28:29so some of the website requirements was a map of the outfalls uh public the public advisory that that's put out for all the csos uh three years of the cso reports which which is on there uh summary of the discharge the past three years are discharged our cso control plan which we have in place uh and uh notify notification subscription button uh so if you go to the city a form of
28:56his website you go to the sewer divisions page on there there's a cso uh link you can click on that and then within that page there's a cso notification uh you can go to that spot which will give you a link to this uh arcgis web page which is the uh platform that we're using uh or there's also the subscribe button there and some of our other information about csos
29:25so the other thing that i mentioned was it was the signage requirement uh and dep's regulations said that we needed to post signage at all the public points of access um which in fall river we don't have a lot of public points of access to our waterfront um at all of our cso locations we currently have what you see that green sign there city of pearl river uh wet weather sewage discharge outfall and they're
29:54so we currently have those signs uh and that meets the requirements of our empty nipty's permit and that's what's in place the other side is to sign off to the right there that we're going to be posting sorry and that's for public points of access so the public points of access that we've come up with for the city would be the sandy beach uh far south down the mount hope uh atlantic
30:19boulevard at the bottom of mon hope ave uh and then also we'll be posting one at the bicentennial boat ramp uh that's the other known public point of access uh we'll probably be posting all these signs at each of our cso discharges as well uh so that way if people do uh find themselves in that area the warning is there next to the uh next to the discharge point and next to our other uh cso outfall
30:47signs um so that's but that's something that we're still working with the ep uh to make sure that they're comfortable with the areas that we're gonna be putting these in uh see whether there's any other recommendations um so we laid that we laid out our plan within our preliminary uh plan and we're gonna uh i believe we put in there that we'd have these up by uh the end of september i believe it was um
31:11so on this side it pretty much says you know after rainstorm really you want to stay clear of this area uh it has the sewer commission's uh community utilities school commission's contact information as well as our website it also has the board of health information on there uh as lo as well as the website on the right hand side it's just a a warning department of health uh and saying that uh after wet weather
31:37events uh there there could be uh there could be uh bacteria or other things within the water uh here so just a little summary about the notifications so uh on average we have roughly about 250 to 300 cso events annually that's kind of what we run again all depending on wet weather how much wet weather we have it really determines that notification again if anybody wants to subscribe for our notification uh it's a
32:14cso notification account uh at fallriver.org uh that's the email address uh that's almost also the email address that we'll be sending out uh the distribution uh of the emails um currently we have a manual process set up uh so one of our wastewater supervisors uh gets a notification from the ayaka platform which is the sensitive platform that we use uh then that supervisor uh is responsible for uh taking those
32:49notifications and forwarding them out per this uh email we're working right now with with the company to get uh to get it a bit more automated uh so there's two companies that we need to use to uh take the ayaka platform data uh be able to put it into uh the proper public notification format and then there'll be another software that we're using to be able to automatically distribute that so we're
33:16working to automate this process a bit um but uh just working the bugs now on that autumn auto automation process but uh as of right now we're prepared to uh to meet the requirements within the uh within the regulations uh and move forward that kind of runs through the current cso notification plan again i wanted to get to the board of health because you guys are partners uh with us uh in in pretty much
33:48everything that we do uh specifically in the regulations that the board of health uh be involved within this uh within this process that's why i wanted to be able to get this information to you guys where we are uh what we're doing moving forward uh and where where we plan to uh to be in the end okay very good i didn't realize how complicated it was yeah yeah you know that's a tough thing
34:19everybody uh likes to turn the faucet on and flush their toilet and that's that's where it ends the thought process ends for them that's where it begins for us so if anybody has any questions feel free uh if there's any more information that you would like let me know i i i expect that uh as we get this process a little bit more automated uh we work through some of the bugs and
34:46the growing pains uh that we'll be back to uh to talk to this board if stuff changes you know um you know things are always changing you know dep even dp uh has been working with uh communities uh to uh make the rule you know make the requirements with where they work some things in their initial thought process and how things would roll out just wasn't going to work for any of the cso
35:13communities uh so dep has been a good partner to be able to work through this as well i have a question for paul in a different manner not this um where are we with fluoridation paul have you been able to restore that yet no we have not been able to restore that so there's actually uh it's it's pretty rough time right now to try to get uh fluoride or any fluoride products
35:40um i'm a member of a couple of different uh you know water you know groups um and we're not the only community having this issue around the state there's multiple communities having issues getting from getting product um yeah our uh distributor uh we contacted i just had staff contact them i believe it was uh uh probably about two weeks ago um because tess does ask me as well all the time she's she's staying on top
36:15of it as well um and they're still unable to get product and they have no determination uh actually just recently i know the uh dp and also the uh the state board of health uh sent out email emails to most uh water uh departments um asking about their status because there are so many right now that are having troubles with acquiring the product that they need yeah the the director of oral
36:43health did a presentation for all all of the boys around the state and and mentioned all of this i just wanted to know where you were does the public know is the public know there's no floor right right now so i've i've talked about it uh you know i've talked about it with with you guys uh i know last time i think i'm talking about a different subject you also asked um you
37:09know we've test i know has reached out to um to all of her uh you know healthcare people in the in the community to make them aware um so you know i think that's kind of where where it is right now um i've mentioned it at waterboard meetings there's been discussion at city council as well um so uh it is out there in the in the public you know again it's not uh anything that uh
37:41we want to hide we want to make sure that people get uh the supplemental uh the supplements that they need uh there are other ways as as you do well though to uh be able to get it you know um for children they can be prescribed drops or or something or a supplement of that source uh there are toothpastes that are higher in fluoride or other products that could be yeah i know i know yeah i
38:08i know you know i'm just putting it out there for the public as well to to let them know that all right thank you paul thank you paul just quickly on that note i do know you know again to the point um that the providers that we have notified that we've notified dental providers and pediatricians offices and those have those offices have indicated that they are supplementing and we have received calls from area
38:47providers as well um not only you know we sent notification to the fall river providers but they have seemed to share that information with providers in other communities so um hopefully uh you know any individual who's seeking dental care in no somerset or another community has also heard kind of through the grapevine um about that but we haven't done any public facing notification
39:13certainly the board is interested we can you know we can put something out um if it goes on much longer i think we should consider that okay i'm happy to draft something and and we can we can um make that notification and i can also send a reminder notification to um the providers in the meantime to to let them know that we still haven't received the product unfortunately yeah let me know i think we could work
39:47together test to do some type of trade questions okay thank you paul thank you thanks paul okay next test we hope dr gabriel has joined us welcome hi uh we have the director's report door so again um i just wanted to kind of give some more um covet updates um fortunately since we last met the under five um vaccines have been approved and are available in the community as it stands right now we have a
40:27recurring clinic on wednesday evenings at the library from 3 p.m to 7 p.m that has under five vaccines available both the moderna and the pfizer vaccine are available at that clinic and we'll also be adding additional opportunities throughout the summer health first there's going to be a mobile provider at health first on saturdays that will also offer the under five vaccines so right now
41:02um the state hasn't updated our dashboard to reflect the uh percentage of under five that have been vaccinated but that should be i'm told um updated tomorrow mike you can feel free to chime into if you have any additional information but my understanding is we'll have more of an insight on into who has been vaccinated in fall river um under five tomorrow so the uh uptick does seem to be quite slow
41:34across the commonwealth um and so i think we're going to have a lot of um education to do i'll be doing some some media interviews tomorrow about the under five vaccines and then we're going to be working on some kind of additional promotion with community members um and you know answering parent and guardian questions about the vaccine to try and again provide people with the correct information um and they
42:08make it easy for them to to make the decision for their family so um so that's been online for about three weeks now um and you know we're hopeful to have an increase um because we really have seen very low numbers at the clinics that we've been having um but as it stands 67 of the again this is over five because this is the state data as it stands right now um
42:36so the population over five sixty-seven percent uh fully backs 75 percent um have received a first dose um and we're also going to be really putting messaging out about the importance of of people uh continuing to maintain um their vaccine you know being up to date with their vaccines especially as we go into um the you know the cooler months um and having people go back inside and all of
43:06that um you know just staying up to date um so continuing the messaging around around that um and that's really kind of just the the general update i wanted to to share about that that under five and then we'll have we will have incentives available for those um for those individuals as well as of right now um our friday and saturday clinics at market basket anybody who receives the first dose is eligible for
43:39a hundred dollar gift card does anybody have any questions or thoughts isn't there something on the seat that's about by the cdc about the uh the home tests not being that great for the new omicron variants whatever they are four and five i haven't heard that um i know that you know anecdotally there were some people that had concerns with the at-home tests and and um throughout kind of omicron search i
44:15haven't heard anything specific to the new variants um i can certainly look into that though i mean we know they're much more transmissible than the previous ones yeah a lot more transmissible but you know not not necessarily worse uh right because sympathy is still good but um has you know either way as the numbers go up you're even though you're still at a low percentage your absolute numbers are going to go up for
44:48hospitalization but you know people get that sense of security when they test at home they think those are just as good as running in for a pcr and so they're going to test at home look i got a negative and if it's not picking up that variant they just they could be positive and then just you know heading out and behaving normally and then spread this you know more virulent strain
45:11more than it otherwise would be so if if they aren't as good for this strain i think people need to know that a little more somehow i'll look into that again i haven't heard i haven't heard that about the current tests we we do still have tests available um at the library for folks to take advantage of um they're free so people can go into the library and get some um at home test kids
45:38um i think you know the messaging continues to still be you know if you are if you've been exposed um be mindful of symptoms and tests and then if you are symptomatic to stay home even with a negative test i think some to your point doctor gave me already some some folks test negative even if they have symptoms and and then continue to go about about their day when really if you are
46:03experiencing symptoms um you know you're supposed to be being mindful staying home and certainly wearing a mask when um so i think what we i'll i'll take a note of that and can work on some messaging around that as well and i think the current moderna vaccine has better coverage for these new omicron strains and one thing i read if you if you were infected with the omicron you know with the big spike in january
46:37you have a better chance of protection against these strains than people who were infected with the previous strain because there were some more there were more changes in the spike protein with these mutations so if they're omicron because these now are all omicron variants that are taken over and now four and five are becoming the dominant ones so if you had omicron in january better protected
47:04and the moderna vaccine covers these omicron strains better or well i don't know about compared to the other two but and we are we are seeing you know reinfections as well um so you know i think that um you know those preventative measures to try and try and continue to to encourage folks to you know utilize and kind of fall back on um again because there's there's so much we don't know and the more information
47:41coming out about lung coping and multiple infections leaves you more at risk for long coverage so you know as we're still kind of learning and this continues to evolve that um you know trying to prevent infection continues um to be key for for folks just that one one other um one other note um uh in regards to to monkey pox um you know is that this this state um you know does
48:18have a limited number of vaccines available for monkey pucks and that um you know if and if and when um we see monkey pucks here in fall river that that would fall fall on onto you know in our lab in terms of um the local health department managing those contacts as it stands right now my understanding is that the state has handled um those cases and contacts and and that will likely be evolving too
48:47to local boards of health so um you know thus far we haven't seen any any cases of monkey pox um here in fall river um but um that that would that would again fall to us like any other communicable disease um it would fall to us at the local level so um you know we'll be prepared for that should that should happen okay was there any citizens input information received
49:21i did i did not receive any citizens input okay we have to set the date for the next meeting um we're going to be going back to live hold on just a second you need 22.25
49:44how does august 18 sound fine i mean we could leave the location tentative because you know as we were yes as we were chatting earlier there's a strong possibility that the remote allowance will be extended it just hasn't been made efficiently i think i'm away on the 18th if we can do the 25th okay i'm not available on the 25th how about the 11th the 11th would be fine it's fine it comes up pretty quickly do
50:18we have to meet in august you know i don't know that you know that we have anything in the docket in terms of kind of things that weren't able to get get ironed out before this meeting so um in terms of licensing for for lisa or anybody upstairs so i i would say that we certainly no not a requirement that we need we could we could push it to september um
50:45if that works but best for everybody's schedules it is challenging with the summer uh holidays i mean i'm available on august 11 i'm just anticipating we might not have anything yes yeah yeah yeah it's only a couple of weeks from now three weeks so i i'm comfortable waiting until september if you all are well if there's a crisis you want to pencil in the 11th and then we can cancel it if nothing comes up
51:16that's okay with me yeah sure august 11th and for uh when we go to september um labor day is the fifth so that would be about holiday week you want to try for the 15th maybe or you want to go back to like the fourth thursday of the month yeah we can go back to the fourth thursday fourth thursday the 22nd sure and yeah the meantime uh my office will just have to confirm that
51:53there's a uh space available here um for us to meet in person since it's been so long so um if there's any conflict and we'll be will be in touch otherwise we'll plan for that at the four o'clock time period all right very good can we have a motion to adjourn some moves second we have a roll call thomas corey yes michael coughlin yes steven desgliardi yes all right thank you all
52:29have a pleasant rest of the day and stay cool all right take it easy