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Special Board of Aldermen 12-21-2020 Page 42

We have an epidemiologist on staff. The Director of Public Health is a Doctor of Public Health. These
people are much more qualified certainly than | am to judge the information, you know, there’s a plethora of
information that is constantly being disseminated many times very conflicting information. They are ina
much better position to analyze that to analyze the statistics as to what is happening. I’ve watched the
Board of Health meetings. You know, my fellow Aldermen they are telling us that we are in a crisis. This is a
very serious situation. The directive isn’t just to avoid going to bars at 9:30 at night. The overall directive is
to stay safer at home. Think about all of the public service announcements we received before
Thanksgiving and we are getting them now again before Christmas.

They are telling us don’t congregate with people outside your own family bubble, the people that you live
with. They are telling us we shouldn't visit our children, we shouldn’t visit our parents unless we live with
them. | saw Dr. Fauci today talking about how he spent Thanksgiving with just he and his wife, they visited
their children via Zoom. He is planning on doing the same thing for Christmas. That’s the message that we
are getting. You know the message isn’t telling us how we can go to a bar or a restaurant more safely. The
message is you shouldn’t be going. You know it’s not just wearing a mask, a mask is not a magic thing that
keeps you from getting COVID, it’s a combination of things. Wearing a mask helps, keeping distances, 6
feet, some people say 10 or 12 feet, washing your hands, don’t socialize with people outside your bubble.
These are all steps that we have to — it’s not just one thing, it is all of these things that we have to avoid
getting this disease and spreading it to others.

When people talk about the lack of evidence, | mean there’s certainly plenty of evidence, you know, | don’t
think any of you doubt the fact that COVID is spread by droplets, by vaporized droplets that are emitted from
one person who has COVID, emitting into the air through their mouth or their nose. So that’s the purpose of
the mask to cut down on that. The purpose of the distancing is to stay away from people so you don’t get
exposed to these vapors. So we know that. Now when people go to a restaurant or a bar they have to take
their mask off to eat and drink. And you’ve been at bars, you know what it’s like, people they are not staying
distanced, and they certainly are not keeping or staying within their family bubble, there are strangers there.
So | mean it is a bad situation, encouraging people, allowing people to go to these places is probably a bad
idea to begin with.

Now our Health Department, our Board of Health is telling us that this is a step that we ought to be doing to
help prevent the spread of this disease. We are talking about you know the vaccine starting to become
available. It is going to be a while before we get the vaccine, it’s going to be awhile before enough of us are
vaccinated, not once but twice, so that we can safely go back to normal. That’s a long ways away. Now the
people that spoke tonight, I’ve read their emails, | have heard their testimony, | understand how this is
adversely affecting the businesses, it’s adversely affecting the business, it is adversely affecting the
employees. You know these people are going to suffer but the restaurant, the hospitality business isn’t the
only business being affected by this virus. There are a lot of businesses that are closed, there are a lot of
people who are unemployed.

The Federal Government and the State Government came up with ways to try to help people get through
this period and the Federal Government, | think today, passed more Legislation. They say that after the
new Congress gets into office, that they will be doing more and hopefully, | mean | think this is something
that we all ought to be participating in and | wish that we used the Federal Government money to pay
people to stay home until this thing gets over with and to help these people that spoke tonight about how
they are afraid of losing their jobs. | think that there is help coming. The Legislation that passed today
increased unemployment compensation, there’s stimulus money that’s coming through. And | heard that the
restaurant business in particular is going to be given money in the form of grants or loans or things, there
are things that the Government is doing to help you people and | think that hopefully that’s what will happen.

But to say that because you need a job and | understand that, that we ought to be telling people to go out
and expose themselves to this disease, you know, risk getting sick, risk spreading it to other people, risk
death, risk causing disease and death to other people. | think we are losing sight of what our priorities are.
Alderman Dowd mentioned enforcement and how the Police can’t do this. | spoke to Chief Carignan. Chief
Carignan said that they will enforce whatever laws we pass, they will enforce it. He said this is a very

Special Board of Aldermen 12-21-2020 Page 43

serious matter, if we pass this ordinance they will enforce it. So the argument that the Police can’t enforce
this or the Department of Health can’t enforce this, that’s not a reason not to do this. There may be other
reasons but | am going to support our Board of Health, | am going to support people who | think know a lot
more about this than | do and to tell these doctors who are volunteers that — thank you for your
recommendation but we are going to, we think we know better, | think is a slap in their faces and | think is
not the intelligent way of approaching this very, very serious pandemic. Thank you, Madam President.

Unidentified chatter Time is up.
President Wilshire

Sorry for the interruption. Would you please not interrupt when the Aldermen are speaking, you are not
helping your case any. Alderman Lopez?

Alderman Lopez

| agree with Alderman Jette specifically that the Government is not doing enough; | hope some help is
coming. | am glad it took them 9 months to actually get around to this second half a stimulus that we’ve all
known was coming. As far as | have been watching Public Health has been saying we are going to have a
huge wave of outbreak in the fall since the spring. We have been continually warned about this and | mean
| personally am not waiting for Washington to figure out what they are doing because it takes them forever.
And | don’t think the State is positioned either to act quickly that’s why | am particularly motivated to do at
least something that we can, specific to Nashua to protect Nashua because that’s something | can do. |
think Government indifference or Government politicking has been going on all year and this is a heavily
self-inflicted wound not only because we didn’t take steps to prevent outbreaks before they really broke out.

But then we also had extremely mixed messaging on what we were supposed to do in order to combat this
thing and it’s made people extremely divisive. While Alderman Jette was talking, | don’t know if everybody
else sees it and to be frank | don’t know if that would be considered public comment or not but there is a lot
of comments popping up about people who are overtly stating that they are not going to stay away from their
families for Christmas they are absolutely going to do whatever they want and it is up to the person who is
worried to stay home. And that’s the problem, we are giving a platform for people to interact and make their
own choices on behalf of everybody else in the room. To shed a little bit of light on what was discussed in
some of the Board of Health Meetings that might have kind of gotten buried is the justification for the 9:30
timeframe, it was originally 9:00 and that was not because just Massachusetts had a curfew, it was brought
to our attention at the time from somebody working in a restaurant that we were getting a whole bunch of
people coming up and we needed to be worried about super spreader events before Thanksgiving because
after 9:00 there’s this whole bunch of people.

But the justification that the Board of Health was actually paying attention to was the reasoning that
Massachusetts put that curfew in place in the first place. Massachusetts didn’t just spin a wheel and put
9:00 on there either, they looked at times of risk and exposure and what can they do to limit the spread
without impairing their entire business and their infrastructure. | am approaching this more from a
perspective that at the growth rate that we are seeing, we are going to have much more draconian
measures put in place at some point if we don’t stop what is happening now. We saw a massive surge after
Thanksgiving, we are seeing that surge continue into Christmas. New Years is another major drinking
holiday, so we are looking at an upcoming period of at least two weekends where there’s a major holiday
and there’s going to be a lot of people who are interested in going out and celebrating. And then yeah after
that they are probably going to go to house parties and all that kind of stuff, whereas if they didn’t get started
and they weren't already intoxicated, they are more likely to make safer decisions or to think things through
a little bit more clearly than they would be after having a couple of drinks and being out at 11:00 and having
met somebody at a bar that they want to continue the night with.

Special Board of Aldermen 12-21-2020 Page 44

So the Public Health Department and the Board of Health is pointing us towards this because it’s a specific
intersection of risk factors. Yes, there isn’t specific data to what would happen if you do a curfew in Nashua,
New Hampshire under these exact circumstances. There’s plenty of data over what happens when people
stop getting into a room and breathing on each other, there’s plenty of data that supports using masks and
making sure that there isn’t exposure. That’s exactly what restaurants are trying to implement themselves.
When they keep people socially distanced, when they enforce the masking, and when they are doing the
cleaning. But objectively speaking we are still in the middle of an outbreak, we are still seeing a steeper, a
much steeper curve than we even saw in April and no matter how you want to spin it or cherry pick the data
and make yourself feel better about what the risks that we are facing, the risks are still taking place.

COVID-19 is not taking a political stance, it’s spreading as much as it is able to in whatever opportunity. If
there are other areas that we need to be looking at, then we need to be looking at those in terms of disease
transmission and | trust the Public Health Department to be doing that, because the Public Health
Department has been inspecting all of these places, approved the openings, approved all of the measures
that they were taking, and of course they know what is going on in terms of how businesses are being run.
You have to have their permission in order to run your business and in order to maintain it. So | don’t
understand the dual argument of “they don’t know what is going on” while at the same time saying “well but
we do want to work with them”. Because everybody has been working with them, everybody has been
following the Legislation that this Board passed in order to mitigate the spread. And it was successful over
the summer because we were able to congregate outdoors. Now that we have a higher level of spread, and
less business, it doesn’t really take a lot of data to suggest that it is happening more frequently because
people are indoors and they are spending more time indoors with each other.

So looking at the factors where members of multiple families are interacting in the same space unmasked, is
something that we need to be looking at and that’s why the Public Health is making the recommendation.
It’s also unfortunate that this is unfairly impacting restaurant staff in terms of their economics, but restaurant
staff are also the highest denominator in terms of getting sick at the restaurants. They are the ones who are
having to incur medical costs and medical bills. They are the ones who are taking on the risk of spreading it
to their families. One of the only people that have actually seen in terms of public comment who straight up
said, “I’m responsible for spreading COVID-19 and this something that I’m part of’ was in an email that we
received where a young lady admitted basically that she was going out, she contracted it at a bar and she
spread it to her family members. These are situations that | am sure all of the people who are here
representing the restaurants and who are committed to the dialogue of “we don’t want the curfew to happen”
disagree with, but these are things that we are supposed to be mindful as Aldermen. We are not supposed
to be creating this kind of scenario where people have to choose; single mothers have to choose to expose
themselves and therefore their children and their family to COVID-19 because they can’t pay rent.

We should be doing more to help forestall evictions, make sure that supports are available to individuals, we
should be doing that at the City level and not waiting for the State to do everything. And we should be
looking at how we can actually help businesses with the resources that we have. We have not been
organizing any kind of coordinated meetings for months now. We have not been coming up with any more
revolutionary strategies along the lines of the outdoor dining, we haven't really tried. And | think we need to
be doing that in order to ameliorate what’s going on for restaurants. But we have had the opportunity to do
phased in and incremental strategies over the last several months. When the Board of Health wanted to
make a pure recommendation on what to do back on Thanksgiving, all of the restaurants that are here were
part of that discussion and made public comment and | haven’t really seen that public comment changing
regardless of what the Board of Health is saying. | don’t think we can shift or pivot fast enough to address
the primary issues and that’s lives and that’s COVID-19.

We need to make sure that the outbreak that we are experiencing right now doesn’t reach a point where we
can’t manage it and we can’t contain it any further. And | think if we don’t take action on this, we have two
very likely events.

Special Board of Aldermen 12-21-2020 Page 45
Unidentified Speaker interrupts
President Wilshire

Mr. Mathias, please don’t speak out of turn.

Alderman Lopez

| am just going to resolve by saying if people can’t even obey the courtesies of a meeting, how are we really
putting our faith of people’s lives in them, how they are obeying these courtesies socially. Everybody has a
different opinion, passions override, people are really tired of COVID-19 and all of these restrictions and
believe me, | get that. But that doesn’t mean that we can just ignore it or turn our gaze away. If we have a
public health crisis we need to treat it as a public health crisis and work with businesses that are unfairly
impacted the way that they deserve to be.

President Wilshire
Alderman Laws.
Alderman Laws

Thank you, Madam President and thank you everyone who has spoken tonight. There’s a lot of really
compelling testimony. | am going to be super brief. | will say that | agree with Alderman Jette and Alderman
Lopez that the numbers aren't lying and there is an issue with bars. But that’s not what we are talking about
right now, what we are talking about is implementing a curfew on bars and restaurants and | haven’t seen
any data or numbers that say that there is a correlation there between the curfew and those numbers and
bars being opened later. If you are leaving most be a vast majority of the places that serve food and alcohol
open to operate during most of their business hours anyway, all day long, you are not doing anything to
combat this.

If you want to have a debate about whether or not we should be working towards finding some economic
stimulus to help restaurants and employees stay home so we can curb the spread of the virus by closing
down bars and restaurants, | am all for that debate, | am willing to have it, | am looking forward to it. But we
are not talking about that, we are talking about a curfew. The Board of Health, who | have nothing but
respect for, | mean Director Bagley had her g-tip so far up my nose this week that it scratched my brain, |
finish every conversation | have with her which are far more frequent than | am sure she would like with
“Thank you for everything that you do” because she is amazing and | know that they are under a lot of
stress.

But that being said, them saying that we should have a curfew is kind of the same thing as them saying
everybody should wear a pirate hat. There’s no correlation between the curfew bringing down the numbers
and how it is going to affect the COVID numbers in Nashua, it’s just kind of a —| don’t want to call it a knee
jerk reaction but it’s just kind of you need to do something because the numbers are out of control. So as
far as the curfew is concerned | am 100% rally against it. No one has made a compelling argument for it yet
so until that happens, that’s where | am going to be. Thank you all very much.

President Wilshire

Thank you Alderman Laws. Anyone else that wishes to speak? Alderman Tencza?

Alderman Tencza

Thank you. Just briefly so | am of the opinion and | don’t support the curfew or this Legislation. | agree

though that if we could go back and have much more input from our Public Health Departments and let them
control a little bit more, not just here in Nashua but regionally and nationally we would be much better off

Special Board of Aldermen 12-21-2020 Page 46

today than we are with the surge. | don’t think, you Know everyone expected this surge to come because we
are indoors a little bit more now but like Alderman Laws said, I’m not sure that just imposing this curfew is
going to curb the spread as much as we would like or it would be as effective as we would hope for. | think
some in some of the statistics that Public Health showed, you know, there are other businesses and
organizations which are equally contributing to the spread of COVID in our community like gyms but we are
not talking about shutting them down, we are not talking about taking full measures to really make a
difference. And | think that since it would just be effective in Nashua, people are going to come and go.
And if gym shut down in Nashua they are going to go to Merrimack or wherever else. So unfortunately this
is, | appreciate Alderman Lopez’s comments about doing what we can and | am sure there is more we can
be doing. | think Director Cummings would probably disagree with him that there haven’t been
conversations ongoing with people to try to help and relieve whatever pressure we can as a City. But it’s
really got to be a strategy that’s beyond just what we can do.

To address one other point that Alderman Jette made about listening to doctors. My doctor would tell you,
he’s been telling me to lose weight and drink less for years and | don’t always take his advice there either so
| sincerely appreciate the doctors on the Board of Public Health what they are doing. | appreciate the fact
that Dr. Cappetta said that their view is public health but | think unfortunately or fortunately our view as the

Board of Aldermen is a little broader than that as Alderman Dowd said. So | will not be supporting this
tomorrow night. Thank you.

Alderman Cleaver

Yes, thank you Madam President. | think to ask a set of businesses to shut down partway through their day
makes no sense to me. | am against this Legislation because they still have to do their planning, their
scheduling, their inventory, their whole day’s work in advance but shut it down partway through, it makes no
sense and it is punishing a set of businesses for the problem that is much much much wider. So | am not
going to support this Legislation. | fully support the Board of Health and everything that they are trying to do
but | think this is not going to help. | just don’t see the logic. Thank you.

President Wilshire

Anyone else? | am not seeing anyone. So Madam Clerk, | believe that the motion on the floor is for a
second reading.

Alderwoman Kelly
That motion failed.
President Wilshire
That motion failed ok.

Alderman Lopez

| thought this was just discussion.

City Clerk Lovering

President Wilshire, | do not have a motion on the floor, just the discussion on it.
Alderwoman Wilshire

Alderman Wilshire?

Special Board of Aldermen 12-21-2020 Page 47
President Wilshire
Alderman Kelly?

Alderwoman Kelly

| would move to refer this Ordinance to the Board of Alderman meeting tomorrow evening with no
recommendation.

MOTION BY ALDERWOMAN KELLY TO REFER THE ORDINANCE TO THE FULL BOARD OF
ALDERMEN’S MEETING 12/22/2020 WITHOUT RECOMMENDATION BY ROLL CALL

ON THE QUESTION
President Wilshire
OK you’ve heard the motion, discussion on that motion? Seeing none, would the clerk please call the roll?
A viva voce roll call was taken which resulted as follows:
Yea: Alderman Klee, Alderwoman Kelly, Alderman Dowd, Alderman Caron,
Alderman Lopez, Alderman Tencza, Alderwoman Lu, Alderman Jette,
Alderman Schmidt, Alderman Laws, Alderman Cleaver,
Alderman Harriott-Gathright, Alderman Wilshire 13
Nay: Alderman O’Brien, Alderman Clemons 2

MOTION CARRIED

MOTION BY ALDERMAN O’BRIEN THAT THE SPECIAL ALDERMANIC MEETING OF DECEMBER 21,
2020 OF THE BOARD OF ALDERMEN BE ADJOURNED BY ROLL CALL

A viva voce roll call was taken to adjourn the Board of Aldermen meeting which resulted as follows:
Yea: Alderman O’Brien, Alderman Klee, Alderwoman Kelly, Alderman Dowd,
Alderman Caron, Alderman Clemons, Alderman Lopez, Alderman Tencza,
Alderwoman Lu, Alderman Jette, Alderman Schmidt, Alderman Laws,
Alderman Cleaver, Alderman Harriott-Gathright, Alderman Wilshire 15
Nay: 0
MOTION CARRIED

The meeting was declared adjourned at 9:55 p.m.

Attest: Susan K. Lovering, City Clerk

Special Board of Alderman meeting 12/21/2020

Re: O-20-044
Relative to a Ban on certain Indoor activities for certain businesses starting at 9:30pm

Hello and Good Evening,

For the record, my name is Chuck Cappetta and | have been honored to serve as a member of
the Nashua Board of Health for the past 6 years and a full-time pediatrician for the past 30.

For 27 of these years, | have been here in Nashua serving the Greater Nashua Community in
this capacity of looking after infants, children, young adults and families.

| have also served as the school physician for both SAU 42 (Nashua) and SAU 41 (Hollis
Brookline) for the same 27 years and most recently for 3 years as the Physician of Record for
Bishop Guertin High School.

| extend a wholehearted thank you to Mayor Jim Donchess and all the wonderful Alderwomen
and Aldermen who have attended and participated in the Nashua Public Health Department
Zoom meetings these past few weeks around the discussion of a potential implementation of a
possible 9:30 pm curfew.

Let me begin my remarks by stating for the record- this has not been an easy discussion from
the start.

To frame our efforts for those not able to hear the discussion-we are not the Board of Labor,
we are not the Board of Commerce or Trade so where we started this education/prevention
message emanated from our roles as members.

As medical professionals, our mission is straightforward, and our only agenda is short and
sweet:

How can we maintain the best possible outcomes of good health for all of those around us in
our collective community-both young and old-while advocating for strategies or solutions that
may be able to minimize sickness and maximize disease prevention?

That is the definition of Public Health.

This proposed short term Emergency ordinance is one such example of trying to do our best to
preserve and protect the health and wellbeing of the citizens of Nashua.

Let the obvious be stated - this is not a practice drill-this pandemic is the real thing front and
center like nothing we in the medical establishment have seen since the early 1900's.

This virus has ravaged our economy, has taken innocent lives and there is no one here tonight
that has not been touched by what this virus has done in less than 1 year.

Taking data from the NYTimes this past Friday (12/18/2020), there are over 17.6 million positive
Covid cases and 314,000 deaths in the US with >75 million cases and 1.6 million deaths world-
wide.

Locally, our Nashua numbers reflect similar scary statistics that other members of the Public
Health Department who are on the line will be sharing with you tonight when | am finished.

Our 7day positivity rate is now 11% and cases are climbing daily, the hospital beds are filled to
the max and if not overloaded already, our 2 local hospitals will be soon and despite our
messaging over the Thanksgiving weekend around further education of how to potentially slow
the spread, the virus keeps coming closer and closer to all of us- regardless of profession, what
street we live on or where we go to school.

This virus, like all viruses, doesn’t pay attention to any rules or stop signs.

The train has left the station and this ordinance is simply a “short term” emergency measure to
see if we can try to decrease the rate of viral infectivity spread and lessen the speed that the
Covid 19 virus gathers each and every day on its path of increasing morbidity (illness) and
mortality (death).

As a physician, | fully endorse that the “Practice of Medicine” comes from the science before
us- hence the expression -from the Bench to the Bedside- and all the now standard universal
best practices that we live and endorse every day in the hospital or outpatient setting only
come to fruition from past extensive rigorous research along with a strong, unbiased,
accountable and reproducible academic review.

It has never been, nor will it ever be, the activity of the Board of Health to attempt to interfere
with or purposely disrupt or disregard the heroic efforts put forth over these past 9 months by
the hard-working Nashua business leaders with regards to trying to come to grips with the best
way to contain, control or combat this deadly virus.

| am amazed and humbled by the willingness of most everyone to do what is needed to try to
make a difference in its contagious spread.

| know | can speak for the 2 other voting members of the Board of Health and the many
dedicated professionals of the Nashua Public Health Department, who diligently helped to
frame and address this very serious issue, that the topic of early closure of many, already
struggling businesses at 9:30 pm was not taken lightly.

For those asking for evidence around “show me the science and the data”, we have limited, if
any data at the present time, to outline that “curfews” work to do what we “want or expect
them to do” but when, not if, we climb out of this scary hole we now find ourselves in, those
smarter than me, may be able to look and see if actions such as this one, made any difference
at all.

Am | hopeful that by implementing this curfew, the virus will suddenly shrink away and run for
the hills?

Of course not, but for me-the act of medically doing “nothing” is just not an option.

What we do know- relative to this ordinance- are 4 Key Prevention Measures that have been
shown to be effective and universally accepted as fact and indisputable in the 24/7 attempt to
combat this virus:
1) Social distancing of 6 feet of more is essential
2) Wearing of appropriate face masks when in the public arena
3) Handwashing or use of hand sanitizer is critical
4) Proper ventilation methods that help lessen the aerosolized spread in the case of indoor
dining/drinking or any building setting where people come together for an extended
period of time in close proximity

The question has been previously raised on “Why does it appear that restaurants/bars and
other establishments that serve food and drink” seem to be the sole focus of this ordinance
versus the Big box stores who have more people per hour perhaps going through them than
these apparent “targeted” establishments?

| have included a Boston Globe link (12/19/2020) in my notes to be submitted later on just this
topic for your review and consideration.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/12/19/metro/superspreader-destinations…-
indoor-dining-during-covid-19-so-risky/?s_campaign=coronavirusnow:newsletter

The answer is simple:

1) People take off their masks to eat and drink and it is this activity that leads to a higher
spreadable virus infectivity potential.

2) Alcohol decreases inhibitions and potential for louder talking/shouting across the tables
and therefore more spread. It is a fact that we now know that aerosolized droplets from
just speaking or talking can travel up to 3-9 feet.

3) Physical barriers on tables/between patrons do not stop the spread of the virus when
the mask is off but often simply act like a fly swatter whereby the virus can hit this wall
and be pushed off in different directions depending on the make-up of the barrier-aka-
plexiglass/wood/plastic etc.

4) Barriers are hard to clean and though maybe look clean to the naked eye, are not
“sterile” for the next patron despite the best attempt to clean them between sittings
(and through no fault of the staff member-viruses can be very resistant to being
decimated).

5) Most importantly-people are congregating in these establishments in tight spaces-even
though upholding the 6 feet of social distancing-for an extended period of time (up to
90 minutes in some locations) situated next to other patrons who are not usually in the
same “personal bubble space” as themselves or their family members at home vs the
stream of people with masks walking with usually limited respiratory contact through
the aisles of the big box stores or grocery stores for example.

My Public Health department colleagues have been effusive in their praise to all businesses
who have heard this education message and have taken to heart what it implies and have made
the necessary changes to workflow, room arrangements and staff teachings with often great
personal financial strain to their bottom line and for that again, we all thank you for doing your
part.

| too have heard the wonderful public comments in our various recent meetings and have read
the 4 submitted letters to this meeting tonight from our outstanding business owners who have
walked the talk and done what they can to minimize the spread.

Again, | don’t disagree with your sentiments around the potential for true economic hardships
on what this could do to your business but despite it all, the statistics we have gathered around
what is truly happening in our community as supported by the documents previously submitted
to this meeting and for your review tonight show a much more ominous reality.