Board of Aldermen 02-22-2022 Page 25
position. At the last meeting that | saw, they talked about the fact that the mask mandate was going to expire on February
28. So | didn't think there was any reason to accelerate that.
| wanted to say | watched the Board of Education meeting. | was very impressed by the three high school students who
spoke. They were very articulate. | wish | could be as articulate. The student who spoke tonight, similarly she was very
impressive. But | want to say that the conversation and the public should know that what we're talking about here is a
mandate. | don't think and I'll ask whether or not you would allow the Board of Health to speak on this issue. | don't think
the Board of Health is saying that the pandemic is over and that people should stop wearing masks that they don't need to
wear masks. The Mayor said tonight the rate of transmission was down to 14%. | think on Friday the last number | saw
was still around 17%. The recommended level at which people should - the level at which community transmission is that
where people should wear masks and indoor public spaces is 8%. So we're still in a - it's called substantial. In the State
of New Hampshire calls it substantial.
In the CDC where we're at a high rate of transmission anything above 10% is the high rate. 8% would be substantial and
below 8% is the level at which the CDC says and others have said that, you know, people can feel that it's safe to not
have to wear a mask. So even if we vote to eliminate the mask mandate that just means that the law requiring people to
wear masks will be rescinded. | think the recommendation by the Board of Health is still if you want to protect yourself
while the rate of community transmission is above 8%, certainly above 10%, 14% where it is now. If you want to protect
yourself, you should continue to wear a mask.
President Wilshire
If you'd like, | can ask Dr. Storace to address that.
Alderman Jette
That would be fine. Thank you.
Tony Storace
Currently the rate is 14.8 percent and you're correct. Ideally, we'd like it to be 5%. If you rescind the mask wearing, the
Board of Health will step forward and say that we highly recommend everybody continue to wear masks. Okay. My job
today was really show you the rates were coming down because the last time | was here, | was the one telling you the
rates were going up. If you go on to the New Hampshire website and look at the COVID numbers in the graph, and the
graph like | told you last time was shooting up and now it's shooting back down. So we're definitely going in the right
direction. Is it perfect? No. | mean, there's no question. It's not perfect.
What we were basically saying to you is we're close to the end of the legislation not of the pandemic. No one said that
we're out of the pandemic. The pandemic is still out there. Would | advise you if | was advising about masks, wear
masks. There's no question about it. We were hoping to extend this to the end of the month because we're going into
March and people start to go outside. We know that this is a viral disease, respiratory disease and what happens in the
fall when we all know inside, we start seeing the flu. We start seeing the common cold. We're going to be able to get
outside and that's going to help a lot. If you look at the graphs prior to Omicron, in which | gave you the first statistic was
in June, it was way down. It was 11 or something like that. It's progressively gone up and then skyrocketed through
December.
Basically what we're saying is yes we're in a better position. Are we going to go and die on this hill for six days? | don't
think that's the case here but | would tell you, it's not safe. | will tell you the reason why those numbers went up was
because of the holidays. You can wear the mask all day long and be protected but then when you get a group of people,
especially those that are outside your bubble, sometimes there is even some of your family, that's where we started to see
the disease start to grow, cross pollinate because of people. We have Thanksgiving. We have Christmas, and the other
holidays, religious holidays, and now from the CDC we're looking for is a blip from Superbowl weekend. So we'll probably
see a little bit of an uptick there. So | would wear a mask. | will tell you (inaudible) for the sake of the public. If we want
to mandate it, that's your arena not mine. Did that help?
Alderman Jette
Could | follow up?
President Wilshire
Yes.
