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Special Board of Aldermen 12-21-2021 Page 9

Bobbie Bagley, Director of Public Health and Community Services

Thank you Dr. Storace.

At this time, what I'd like to be able to do is to provide a situational update. | am going to share my screen because
what this allows for the Board of Aldermen to see our current situation in our State right now. This is really important
because as Dr. Storace mentioned, what you can see from here is where our State is with regards to the infection. So
right now, as of today, New Hampshire announced 561 new cases and that's an average of over 1,054 cases per day.
That's for the most recent seven day period. This is a 17% decrease compared to the previous seven days. What |
would like to is bring your attention to here, where you can see this spiked up with regards to where we are right now.
This is around the holiday season, you can see how these numbers started to go up as we would see a trending occur
with Thanksgiving, with travel, with families getting together, friends getting together. But then you can also see that
we're now starting to turn down. Again, we're post the holiday season from Thanksgiving so we would expect to see a
trending down of cases.

What we're looking to do is to put this extra layer protection, the mask mandate in place because we're going down
and we don't want to see those numbers spike back up. From this data that's here, what you can see is right now
we're looking at the number of total cases as the pandemic started for the State of New Hampshire over 187,000 with
7,971 active cases. You'll also see our vaccination rate. One of the metrics and one of the measures that we have in
place to help with the stop of this infection - 57.7% fully vaccinated or 62% that have received at least their first dose.
This vaccination rate is still too low for us to be able to have the impact that we want to on the substantial spread that
we're seeing in our State right now. I'm going to show you some Nashua numbers as well because our numbers in
Nashua are higher that what we see at the State rate.

Our percent positivity rate is at 12.1% and that's a seven day positivity rate with an average of about over 9,000 tests
that are done daily. We've seen these testing numbers go up and down anywhere from 10,000 to 8,000. We need to
see those numbers increase as well. A lot of what we're also seeing here is also an under representation of what
we're truly seeing in our State because everyone doesn't go to get tested and folks asymptomatic, they may not go
get tested on either but they can still spread the infection.

We currently, and this is one of the most serious measures that we're looking at, our hospitalization rate is at 437
individuals in the hospital. People that are in the hospital now they're sicker. They're also younger and it's going
across the age groups. It's going across all demographics. There is no — with this virus, it doesn't care who you are,
where you work, and what age you are. We've also had over 1,800 deaths in our State and our numbers in the State
are averaging anywhere from six to eight deaths per day.

Now when we look at our Nashua numbers, what you can see the new case rate per 100,000 for Nashua is at 1,198.
That's a high number. We're looking for that number to be under 100 and we haven't been there in almost a year.
Our seven day test positivity rate is at 14.9%. Again, a high number. We like to see that under five. We haven't seen
that in a while either. Our new cases over the last 14 days over 1,000 cases and for the last 14 days sorry, and then
for the new cases or active cases 562. So we're looking at a substantial amount of spread this in our community and
this is right now on the downward trend. Because we've seen what happens with COVID, and with us, and our social
behaviors, we tend to go down. The next holiday comes we go back up. But we are already extremely high right now.
This is a 25% increase just between Thanksgiving and where we are right now as of December 2" 25% increase.
We're trending down. We'd like to stay down.

The request for the temporary mask covering over the next four weeks is to help us stay down. Keep these numbers
down. We've heard from our hospitals the impact that this virus is having on them with individuals now needing more
acute care. ICU beds are full. The capacity at the hospital is strained and the impact of an increase - another spike
up is going to be detrimental to our hospitals and you're going to hear more information from our clinicians on this as
well.

So our goal is really to have an impact over this next four weeks and keeping these numbers down. It's unfortunate
that in New Hampshire we had the first announcement of a pediatric death. This is something that we have been
trying to prevent since this pandemic began. We've seen numbers of kids in other States that have been infected.
There have been kids that have lost and it's been documented now that we've lost our first one. One child death is
too many. If putting a simple covering over our mouths will help prevent the continuation of transmission in our
communities, that's what our aim is. At this time, I'd like to turn it over to Dr. Cappetta who will give more signs from a
medical perspective on this.

Special Board of Aldermen 12-21-2021 Page 10

Chuck Cappetta, MD

Hello, my name is Chuck Cappetta. My address is 2300 Southwood Drive. I've prepared some talking to bring up.
Good evening Mayor Donchess, President Wilshire, Board of Aldermen and Alderwomen. Thank you for taking the
time to convene this emergency meeting around the short term re-establishment of the mask mandate, especially
during this busy holiday season. I've been a full time pediatrician at Dartmouth for the last 31 years, and a proud
member of the Nashua Board of Health for seven, and physician of record for the Nashua School System for 28. I'm
here to fully support and recommend without hesitation or reservation or oppose mask mandate. I'm not here to
debate the science or the real facts around the serious pandemic we've all been in for the past 22 months. For me,
there's no debate. As a physician and a scientist who took a lifelong professional oath to protect, defend, educate,
and support all who | serve each day, COVID is real. COVID makes you sick and COVID can lead to death anytime,
anywhere, and even in fully immunized healthy kids and adults. My position, however, on the Board of Health is a
unique one as | represent a population, often without a voice, and a seat at the grownup table. Nothing matters more
to me than the lifelong health and well-being of the pediatric age group that now, too, is under siege from the silent
executioner.

This virus is of equal opportunist, a killer, that doesn't care about what street you live on, how much money you make,
how you voted in the last election, and what age you are. These statements are fact not opinion and are not up for
debate in the medical community in which | live, and serve, and breathe. The COVID vaccine works. There is no
doubt and it's an amazing blessing that we can now offer it to the youngest among us and that there still remains
those less than five for now who are still vulnerable, still at risk, and still need to be protected. Mask wearing in public
places is one such proven method of protection. You should all have in front of you the indisputable medical statistics
presented by my wonderful colleague Dr. Stephanie Wolf-Rosenblum who's online and hear from her next from last
week's Board of Health meeting upon which our recommendations were made.

Since then, you've just seen the scary statistics from Director Bagley and her amazing dedicated team of
professionals on how our local cases continue to rise. Hospitalizations are up and our infectivity rate is through the
roof. I'm only here to reiterate the indisputable fact that our hospitals, intensive care units from Berlin to the Nashua,
Keene to the seacoast are overflowing with people on ventilators if you can find them. People in the hallways waiting
to be seen as all of our local ERs and urgent care facilities struggle with this unseen vector and we had two deaths in
Nashua last week from this disease. This is our reality and in the pediatric world as we just learned, one death is one
to many.

Why is the National Guard and an emergency response team being called into the Granite State to support our
medical nursing colleagues if we're not in a crisis? With the arrival of the Omicron variant, we're faced with even more
unknown and more anxiety about what may happen or may not happen. It's only a matter of time that this new enemy
will take over the Delta variant if it hasn't already as the predominant strain in our hospitals, nursing homes, schools,
places of worship, places of business, and our homes.

Unknown Female Speaker

BTC cares. Ban cigarettes.

Chuck Cappetta, MD

As Dr. Storace had mentioned, the pillars of defense against this ruthless and unforgiving virus remains the same -
social distancing, handwashing, vaccination, and wearing a mask for that droplet infections and the spread to
everyone else. You and all the Board of Health members have heard from all of our constituents and many of them
via e-mail and in person over the last few weeks. | thought (inaudible) public forum so | apologize but we'll hear more
later. I'm not here to challenge the right or freedom of personal choice around the wearing of masks. This is not on
the table as | truly respect everyone who speaks their mind and shares their thoughts. My physical presence here
tonight only shows that | too cherish and value this access to freedom of speech and choice but every ounce of my
being. I'm not here to defend the politics of healthcare that somehow seems to permeate into so much discussion
around what we now do in our personal and professional lives and the decisions each of us make. But | am here to
say is the Board of Health is not political. We have no agenda, ego, or aspirations for fame or glory. We're just here
to serve as an advisory group to the Mayor and the Board of Alderpersons by three dedicated health professionals
with over 100 years of serving the Nashua and greater Nashua community. Dr. Storace is older than |. So that's
where most of this comes from.

From babies, to grandmas, and everyone in between on all things related to public health matters. All we care about
is how to keep the citizens of greater Nashua, our friends, and families, and loved ones safe and well as we continue

Cost Details
-- Year 2 ===

Rate
Item Name Hours Cost Notes
$/hour
Project Manager/Tech Services Manager George Russell* 50 1000 $ 50,000 Key personnel
Engagement Manager Bob Bartis* 50 1000 $ 50,000 Gharescheduled ine
studio presence
Operators Bob Bartis (not separately priced) be trained on all studio
; ; equipment.

Field operations George Russell
Program Editors Jasmine Torres Allen 22 700 $ 15,400 Share scheduled in-
Content Review Art Colvin 22 700 $ 45.400 studio presence
Corporate, Activity & Financial Reporting Bob Bartis (not separately priced) Compliant with RFP
Financial Audit CPA -- $ 1,500 Compliant with RFP
Bilingual and Diversity Services; Oscar Villacis 22 455 $ 10,000 — ;

; : : : ompliant with RFP
Social Media, Public Hearing Jasmine Torres Allen (not separately priced)
Policy and Procedures Manual. Bob Bartis (not separately priced) Compliant with RFP
Annual Survey (coordination with Comcast) -- $ 5,000 Compliant with RFP
Legal Services Dan Alpert -- $ 3,500 as needed
Fees -- -- $ 3,000 Music licensing, etc.
Insurance - -- $ 5,000 Compliant with RFP
Utilities and Janitorial/custodial Services oo = $ 2,000 Per RFP Addendum 1.
Equipment -~ -- $ 2,000 as needed
Reimbursable Expenses -- $ 1,000 supplies, mileage, etc.

Total $ 163,800

Notes

* Bob Bartis and George Russell are officers of BRBTV. All others are independent contractors.

Special Board of Aldermen 12-21-2021 Page 11

this so they can have this amazing freedom to do what they want and be who they want to be. There are no winners
or losers here tonight. We're all in this together to defeat this microbic nemesis by protecting the forgotten, the
immunocompromised, the youngest, and the oldest, they all win in the defense of our collective community health.
Wearing of a simple mask for the next month or so is not, in my opinion, too much to ask.

My final point is when asked why | have continued to wear a mask outside the office since March of 2020 when this all
began, | calmly respond | wear my mask out of respect for those around you, around me. Even as a fully vaccinated
person with a booster onboard, | don't know where your immune system is at the time we meet, or interact, or quietly
pass each other in the aisles at Lowe's, or Market Basket. | didn't even know what my own body is doing at any given
time or place in terms of creating antibodies against all we face. But for me if | can protect those around me by this
small gesture, then I've done my bit in the trenches where | live to minimize my chances of passing this silent and
deadly adversary on to someone else. Every establishment of the short term initiative is in strong support of one extra
tool in our toolbox, especially with the holidays and the cold winter months ahead that we can continue to use to help
battle this virus. Nothing more, nothing less, and thank you for letting me talk.

Alderman Dowd

So my question is, we all know that wearing a mask helps tremendously. One thing we don't know | don't think at this
point is do we need a better mask for the new variant? Do we need an N95 or a KN95? I'm hearing a lot of that in the
press. I'll leave that up to you.

The other question | have is do you think if we pass this ordinance that you're going to get a significantly greater
amount of people wearing masks? The ones that are opposed to it say they won't wear them and the businesses I've
talked to won't enforce it. So it's going to cause all kinds of confrontation. | just would like to get your opinion on
whether you think this is going to be significant.

Chuck Cappetta, MD

| don’t know what you define by significant? | mean, | think, the reality is we know despite the naysayers that masks
do help and so it's all about personal choice, personal freedom, as | mentioned here, and we all know you guys live it
every day. So | think if we can't protect one or two in our own individual bubble that we've all created for each other
and that's a step in the right direction. We're not going to move mountains. We in pediatrics take tiny steps, tiny
amounts every day, and every little success is a success. So we're not asking for the mountain. We're just asking for
the little tip of the iceberg and this, you know, | hear what you're saying. | respect what you're saying but | also concur
if we sit freely as a medical advisory group to you guys and women that this is the right thing at the right time in the
face of the numbers that are insurmountable and really scary. I've never been scared in my professional career. I'm
scared for kids. | don't know what they're doing. | don’t know what's going to happen to them under five in particular
and us adults, the grownups in the room need to step up and show, as an example, we're trying to protect their future
by wearing these masks.

Alderman Dowd

The other question | have is do you think that if we passed a major health emergency in Nashua and had signs that
said that masks are strongly recommended when you go in versus a mandate that there'd be a difference?

Bobbie Bagley, Director of Public Health and Community Services

Yes Alderman Dowd. We do believe that a mandate will help. We know that there are some people that are going to,
as it was mentioned, put on a mask without having a mandate in place and we know that there are going to be others
that will put on their masks because the mandate is in place. We also know that there are going to be those who are
just not going to do it. Our goal is to increase the number of mask wearers so that we can reduce the amount of virus
that is transmitted in the community. We need to keep those numbers down. So if more people are putting on a
mask, it reduces the amount of virus that's in the community.

You asked whether or not a different type of mask has to be used. This face covering with the double layers on it or
the surgical masks is all that's needed. And, again, is to stop the respiratory droplets from going from me to someone
else that you know near me or in the space that | might be in. So that covering will help reduce the spread of those
respiratory droplets in the environment. If more people are doing it, it does reduce the amount of virus that's
transmitted and that's what we want to do. We want to get more people with the mask on.

Special Board of Aldermen 12-21-2021 Page 12

President Wilshire

Dr. Storace did you want to weigh in on that?

Chuck Storace, Chairman, Board of Health

Yes. One of the questions | believe you asked was we don't know about whether these masks will be effective
against Omicron or any other variant that comes down the road. When we do know, we'll go to something different.
We can't guess the future. One of the things we can do is we can look at the past and we can look and see what
happens when we use masks to help protect the public in critical zones where you're inside with a lot of people
outside your bubble that you don't know. We can watch those numbers go down. So that's what we're using. We're
looking at those past events and moving forward this way.

The other thing I'd like to just comment on - and it's because like Dr. Chuck said, it's the way we're built. It's the way
we do business in our mind when we help people, we look at prevention. As we all age and we have to have things
replaced - body parts that is never good usually as the original. So | would rather prevent disease than repair
disease. So if we can prevent people from getting exposed to COVID, and we haven't even talked about long haulers,
people who are going to be in the medical system fighting issues whether there's hearing loss, respiratory, clotting
problems, heart issues, they're going to be in that system because they caught the disease. Yes maybe it would have
happened anyway, | don't know. If we can do it just a little bit to protect, that's what we really should be doing. We as
a community have an obligation to protect the other people in that community. | don't know when in our history we got
to a point where we've said, my rights are more important than the collective rights or health of our community and
that's the sorry thing, in my opinion. | think we all should just voluntarily wear them. | would be happy if everybody
said, you know what, you don't have to mandate. This is something that | should do. In here | know it's right and I'm
going to do it to protect you until we're out of this thing. We got to get out of this thing otherwise, we're going to be
going through these cycles all the time. Especially up in New England because what do we do in the wintertime? We
go inside.

The reports from Africa were great about Omicron but guess what, its summer there. They haven't gone inside. If you
look at Omicron in England, they're having tremendous problems. Now we're hoping with most viruses when they
mutate they dummy down. So what happens is the viruses know that if they kill out all the hosts, they can't survive.
They have to jump species. So the idea is the more successful ones are contagious, but less virulent.

Unidentified Female Speaker

And you know the world completely stop turning.

Alderman O’Brien

Excuse me, Ma'am. You're speaking out of turn. If you speak again, I'll have to remove you.

President Wilshire

| think Dr. Rosenblum has her hand up. Would you like to weigh in on that Dr. Rosenblum?

Stephanie Wolf-Rosenblum, MD

Yes, thank you so very much President Wilshire, Aldermen, Mayor Donchess, and my esteemed colleagues in the
Board of Health, and the Public Health Department.

You have before you some written remarks in support of implementing the mask mandate in Nashua and what I'd like
to do is build on the remarks that | gave last week and also address some of your questions. We have heard from
experts that a COVID-19 viral blizzard is about to hit the United States. As you have heard, our hospitals are already
overwhelmed. There was a question previously that talked about people who said they won't wear masks and
businesses that are concerned about enforcement. I'm concerned about those things but hiring people to assist
people with enforcement by providing them with masks and providing them with education is something that's doable.
What's not doable is quickly building more ICU beds and staffing those beds.

You saw the statistics from Director Bagley. What we know is that people that get hospitalized with COVID-19 spend
a week or two in the ICU. So it's not just the number, but it's the length of stay and what is going to happen when one
of us has God forbid in an accident, or has a heart attack, or a stroke, or other infections, complications of cancer

Special Board of Aldermen 12-21-2021 Page 13

treatment? How are we going to get treated? | am a trained critical care specialist and as such, | have spoken to
people who said Doc | will never XYZ until they were facing death. | have stared into the face, the pleading eyes of
people who are dying. | stood on the other side of the bed when my grandchild was near death and | was pleading
with healthcare providers to use everything in their power to save his life, which blessedly they were able to do. But
we must bend this curve.

Yes, we have vaccines but as Director Bagley pointed out, those numbers are very, very low. The vaccines have
been available for almost a year and the Pfizer vaccine has been fully endorsed not just emergency use for months
now. Even if today every single person on this call, every single person in our community got vaccinated, the
immunity takes weeks to build up. It won't help us through the next month. COVID-19 has already killed one in 415
Americans and one in 100 people over the age of 65. It's the third leading cause of death in the United States. While
much has been made about the fact that underlying medical conditions predisposed to severe illness, hospitalization,
and death, it's worth noting that things like high blood pressure, being overweight, and having anxiety disorders are
risk factors for those things - from COVID-19.

Dr. Chuck talked about the pediatric risks. This is at this point about bending the curve of hospitalizations. So you've
heard about the other ways that we can bend the curve and those things are important. Hand washing is important
especially now we're also at flu season upon us because we're indoors. It's a well- established fact that COVID-19 is
predominantly spread through respiratory particles that can hang in the air and cross distances. So while hand
washing is important and social distancing is important, then these measures are not enough especially during the
winter months. Most indoor spaces don't have the level of air exchange or antiviral measures that would be needed.

Now publicly available data show that unvaccinated persons face a 10 times greater risk of testing positive and they
may not know it, and a 20 times greater risk of dying from COVID-19 than fully vaccinated people who've also
received the booster, and most of those people are dying in the hospital. As far as the effectiveness of masks, yes
there are masks that are more and more and more effective, especially for healthcare workers that are constantly
exposed on the frontlines all of whom need our help. We have, and I've provided to you in writing, a study from the
proceedings of the National Academy of Science that conducted a mega review of all the available data because
people will quote different studies about masks but the only way in science that we have black and white answers is
when you conduct what's called a “randomized controlled study”. So you take people who get the protection and
people who don't and you put them all at risk in the middle of a pandemic. You can't do that. That's not ethical.
When we are in a position of substantial community transmission, which all of New Hampshire is, that's the data that
can help us to know if we are able to bend this curve and if we are able to reduce our hospitalizations if only during
our concern with a peak that will occur after the holidays as has been said.

Many have questioned why the Board of Aldermen should impose a mask mandate rather than let people make their
own decisions? And to help answer this question, we should consider the published science of decision making.
People make good decisions when they have good information and a good amount of information. But that's not what
we have right now is presently information overload and sorry to say a pandemic of misinformation. Intelligent people
can make decisions harmful to themselves and others when they're anchored in certain perspectives due to their prior
experiences or to the experiences of those around them. Our hospitals, our health care workers, our families, our
neighbors, our clergy, they all need our help. So | urge you to go forward and enact this time limited mask mandate
ordinance as quickly as possible because to do nothing right now puts each and every one of us at risk that when we
need help, either the necessary staff nor the equipment will be there. Do it for our healthcare heroes and for the
medical and economic health of our community.

Finally if the ordinance is not implemented before Christmas holiday, | urge everyone to take the spread of the Delta
and Omicron variants seriously and to take active steps to keep yourselves, your families, and those important to you
safe unless everybody you're celebrating with is fully vaccinated and has received a booster, please consider using a
rapid COVID home test before joining into a gatherings with others that are not in your household, and please use a
mask when you're not actively eating or drinking. These steps will not offer 100% protection, but they'll go a long way
towards keeping us all safe. | wish you all a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year, and | pray that we will be able to
gather together again at this time next year in good health and without masks and | thank you so very much. I'm
available to answer questions.

President Wilshire

Does anyone have any questions for Dr. Rosenblum?

Special Board of Aldermen 12-21-2021 Page 14
Alderwoman Lu
| didn't have questions for the Doctor. | had my hand up before, so I'll allow step aside.

Tony Storace, Chairman, Board of Health

We have some of the team here. Kim, would you like to present please?

Kim Bernard, Chief Public Health Nurse

Kim Bernard, 21 Louis Street. Good evening. Thank you to the Board of Aldermen for holding this important meeting.
My name is Kim Barnard. | serve as the Chief Public Health Nurse and the Manager of the Community Health
Department at the Division of Public Health and Community Services. I've been a nurse for close to 30 years.

Since January 2020, our nurses and staff members have been involved in all aspects of the COVID response
following evidence based scientific research, educating, and guiding the citizens of Nashua and the greater Nashua
region. Our service over these two years includes disease investigation and contact tracing, testing, vaccination,
guidance for the community including but not limited to the general public schools, businesses, childcare, homeless
shelters, rooming houses, city departments, long term care facilities, and other health care partners. Our team of
public health nurses provide care based upon scientific medical research. We are committed to serving our whole
community, a community that we love while protecting the health of the most vulnerable as a priority.

You have heard the data on numbers of cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. These are mothers, fathers, brothers,
sisters, wives, husbands, actual people from our community and we owe it to them to do everything we can to prevent
more severe illness and death. A fellow public health nurse said it best at the last meeting stating, “the integrity of a
community can be measured by how well we protect our most vulnerable members”. As public health professionals,
we educate individuals to make informed decisions. We give support and guidance. Some individuals cannot get
vaccinated due to factors such as age. Some may be severely immunocompromised, some may not have proper
access to care. As we have seen through the research and our own experience, masking can help protect this
population from COVID-19. | say all of this to help our community and the Board of Aldermen understand why we
support (inaudible) and the mask mandate.

Alderman Harriott-Gathright

| just got a text here. They can't hear anything that's happening here on Zoom.

Unidentified Male Speaker

Audio and video has been lost.

President Wilshire

We understand. Jeff, would you please mute.

Unidentified Female Speaker

We will not comply.
Alderman Klee
We can hear you.

President Wilshire

Jeff?
Jeff Poehnert

| am trying. | don't know what happened. Everybody can you hear what’s going on in the chamber because | can?

Special Board of Aldermen 12-21-2021 Page 15

Unidentified Female Speaker

No and no video either.

Unidentified Female Speaker

| can see the video. | hope it failed.

Alderman Clemons

Nothing can be heard.

Alderwoman Lu

| can hear you.

Jeff Poehnert

If you are muted, then unmute.

Alderman Klee

Jeff | can hear you both in the chamber and on the video.

President Wilshire

Okay, we'll resume.

Kim Bernard, Chief Public Health Nurse

Would you like me just to continue where | left off?

President Wilshire

Yes.

Kim Bernard, Chief Public Health Nurse

Okay. | Say all of this to help our community and the Board of Aldermen understand why we support masking and the
mask mandate. It is a simple evidence based mitigation strategy we can do to protect ourselves and others. As
leaders of this community when we look back in 10 years at how we handled this pandemic, will we honestly be able
to say we did everything we could to reduce transmission, prevent death, and promote health? | hope so. Thank you.

Bobbie Bagley, Director of Public Health and Community Services

We do have Jane Goodman has some final words to wrap up and then we'll take questions. We have our
Epidemiologist Lindsay Boyd who started with us Monday who's also here that can help explain some of the data if
needed.

Jane Goodman

Thank you Director Bagley and thank you to the Board of Aldermen and Mayor Donchess for allowing us to be here
tonight to talk about the mask mandate. | don't have prepared remarks as my colleagues do. | really came in support
of their extremely eloquent and well researched testimony tonight. As a public health professional and public health
strategist with the Division, I've worked in public health for over 20 years and we always think of prevention,
prevention, prevention. We have the tools for prevention. There's no reason that we should not throw every tool we
have to the prevention of quite frankly, a preventable illness. So it sounds redundant but I'm very concerned as | mill
around Nashua. If we can get even 20% more 30% more people in those grocery stores wearing masks, | would feel
so much more comfortable for my community because we would be preventing that transmission that Director Bagley
described.

Special Board of Aldermen 12-21-2021 Page 16

As a community, we need to take care of one another and | hope as my colleague Kim Bernard said, we continue to
do so and that we look back on this time and we say we did everything we could in order to prevent our friends, our
neighbors, our family, and our children who you know | still send to school every day really worried about their future,
and really worry about not only their future, their teachers, the staff, and everyone else. So | hope that you will see
the wisdom in this temporary mask ordinance and help us protect one another because we're in this together.

Tony Storace, Chairman, Board of Public Health

| just have a closing story to tell you. | just happen to be opportunistic this week. | was at the office and I'll call her
“Casey”, a patient that I've known before she was even born. Chuck’s right, I've been around a long time. Casey is a
young woman who works in the ICU and so | stopped in and said hi to her and see what's going on. She's a pretty
smart girl. Her parents and Casey have said that | had an influence on her to go into medicine. She's a nurse and
she's an ICU nurse. | asked her how things were going and she said not well. I'm quitting. I'm going to a different
part of the hospital. | can't take it anymore. We're working tremendous amount of hours because we're short staffed.
People are taking early retirement. On one hand, we were the heroes and now we're on an island by ourselves. And,
okay, that's Casey's problem until you're the person that goes in the hospital (inaudible). Now, she's gonna stay a
nurse, but she's picking something that brings her back to reality. This is the problem that we haven't even talked
about what's going on in our hospitals.

| had word last week that patients were taken out of hospitals in New Hampshire and brought to another State
because there wasn't enough room. It's critical. | think that's critical. You can say, yeah, they’re overstaffed,
overwork, but when patients can't even go to the own community hospital, you're in critical mode now. We need to
stem the tide. We talked about enforcement. That's a tough one, | agree. We're not enforcers. We're just giving you
our opinions. | think personal responsibility, we all should be responsible. That's the best enforcement. Do | believe
in having the police come and making somebody put a mask on, staple into their face? No but we've got to do
something to help stem the tide and | hope this is one of the things like we were talking about - part of the arsenal
some of the tools that we have. | just plead for you to give us a chance in the next four weeks are going to be critical
and hopefully we can get to a point where those numbers go down. You saw what the numbers are. You heard what
Bobbie said where the numbers should be. We got to get them down. Thank you very much for your time and |
appreciate that. Questions?

President Wilshire

Anyone have questions?

Alderman Lopez

Wondering if any of the Board of Health members have insight into any changes in the amount of demand or capacity
for ICUs in terms of how healthcare providers may have had to stretch numbers? I'm aware that Governor Sununu
passed legislation increasing the capacity that a hospital could serve. So what does it look like for the health care
provider who is working in the ICU now versus how it may have looked two years ago?

Bobbie Bagley, Director of Public Health and Community Services

Well we had an update from our hospitals yesterday and from their report out right now, their ICU beds are full.
They've actually had to open up secondary units that they're using as ICU beds. In comparison to two years ago, we
were not at this space and if we can remember two years ago, we set up the alternative care site with the thought that
if the hospitals got to the point of being at service level, they would use that as a facility to help support what we
thought may have needed to occur in the hospitals. All the hospitals right now across the State and trying to do an in
surge response - meaning that as their numbers go up, they're trying to redirect some of their room to take care of
these clients that have these higher acute needs. It's gotten to the point right now where we have to have outside
help come in. So FEMA is coming in. The National Guard is coming in. There's additional dollars being spent in
areas to support expanding internal capacity to be able to meet the need that we have right now.

This solution that we're looking for, again, is to reduce the amount of spread in the community so that those numbers
go down. The more people get infected, the more hospitalizations can occur because of what we're seeing with the
Delta variant and now with the rising numbers of those that are impacted by Omicron. So we know that the more
infection is out there, the higher the probability that somebody is going to end up in the hospital because this disease
right now people are sicker and their sicknesses is to the point where they have to be hospitalized.

Special Board of Aldermen 12-21-2021 Page 17

They also shared with us the fact that on some other units, they have to close elective surgeries now because now all
the resources have to go to taking care of these more acute patients, which includes the number of increasing COVID
patients as well. So we're in a place where whatever we can do to stop the spread of community exposure we do that
so we can decrease the number of individuals going into our hospitals and this is statewide.

Tony Storace, Chairman, Board of Public Health

Just a comment. Dr. Stephanie just texted me and said she can’t unmute in case anybody wants to ask for questions.

President Wilshire

And | believe that was done intentionally because people were speaking out of turn.

Tony Storace, Chairman, Board of Public Health

Okay. As long as you tell her that she could hear.

President Wilshire

Okay.

Alderman Lopez

| just had a follow up question. With regards to the patients needing acute care, | spent most of last year working with
patients that were in the ER that were undergoing emergency evaluations that were clinically determined to be a
danger to themselves or others and in need of long, like, significant stabilizing care. At that time, there was nowhere
near the capacity of people or beds for the people that were in need and it was often the case that people would
spend days and occasionally weeks in the hallway in the emergency room. This increase in uses of ICU and this
activation of secondary wards made and you've had better?

Bobbie Bagley, Director of Public Health and Community Services

No. They're still talking about portabeds in the hospitals are still having individuals, you Know, in the hallways. They
can't get some patients that need to be out, out fast enough. It's just a situation that we need to see our way out of
and, again, with the passing of this temporary mask mandate, we're hoping to slow this curve. We have to slow the
curve. Right now they're in a really tough situation. It cannot get any worse. We've seen how the numbers go down
right after the holidays and so we're getting ready to get into the gatherings again. Those numbers are going to go
right back up.

Alderman O'Brien

Thank you, Madam President. I'll throw this out to our esteem Board of Health board. You come in here - you know |
believe to what you're telling us and everything is true. | believe the science and as some of you know, | come from
the Fire Department and | understand, you know, my doctor would tell me not to eat a bag of potato chips but | do like
potato chips. But the thing is, and | understand the Fire Marshal will tell me not to play with matches. But the thing is,
| gotta think about the business community at large too. If we do vote for this in this Board, | don't think we can rely on
the Police Department. They’ve got tons of stuff that they get to do and so it's got to be some hostess all probably
110 pounds of her and | think you've seen some of the aggressiveness or let’s tone that back, we've seen how people
feel about this. So we’re throwing it on them to enforce this.

| believe in the science. | got a two year old granddaughter. My grandchildren who are of school aged are vaccinated
but two years old not yet. So I'm very concerned and the wife and | take the precautions. But how can we as a Board
feel comfortable and telling that hostess that she's going to have to man that castle wall to enforce a mask mandate.

Then also too let's talk about some of our finer pub and type of environments where somebody a restaurant. Well
somebody will come in from the street wearing a mask but then remove the mask and sit in a crowded table
atmosphere. It seems, you know, counter intuitive to what we're trying to do here. So if you could just answer those
and make me feel a little bit more comfortable and to help this Board understand, you know, your ask | understand is
based on science. I’m not arguing that but we have to think the bigger global picture with this. So I'll leave it at that.