Board of Aldermen 12-08-2020 Page 33
So | do think we need to maintain our guard. | think that the results of how well each of us are doing that
individually speaks for itself with the infection rate, with the outbreak rate. The State recently released a
positive test number of 1,000 people in a day and that was really an aggregate of the last two days but it
was basically because there was such a flood of positive tests they had trouble tracking and reporting it all.
| know we are definitely as a State in the Top 5 for infection rates for the entire country. We are losing
ground in terms of what we put into place in April and in May and June in safeguarding people’s lives. We
have started to see people in long-term care facilities die again. We are starting to see our hospitals over
utilize their |CU capacity and start to expand into other areas and other wards.
| know that the State Hospital has already exceeded its isolation capacity and is spreading into other
programs too. And | know that we still have a large number of people that are just not understanding the
concept of what masks are for, why we need them, how important they are. They are unfortunately
dictating much of the terms of what’s happening, because when they show up a Thanksgiving Dinner, you
don’t want to turn them away. They argue with you, you know, as family members over whether or not you
believe in them or not, each chip that they make erodes your confidence in basically the invisible strategy to
prevent and invisible threat. The threat becomes real when it is too late and way too many people have
found themselves suffering in an ICU bed with their family members with regrets. And they have tried to
pass that message on to us, | think we need to hear it.
So | appreciate Gia’s comments, | appreciate the support that Boston Billiards has given in the past to non-
profits, particularly to some that I’ve been involved with. But! also think that | personally am not going to
ignore what the Health Department says, especially before they’ve even said it. Tomorrow there’s a
meeting for them to vet it, they had the opportunity to just make an edict and hand it down to us and they
specifically wanted to be sensitive to businesses and make sure it wasn’t being done in a way that did more
harm than good. | trust that as medical professionals, they are going to do whatever they feel is necessary
to provide a data driven and appropriate response and | think they deserve to be given a fair opportunity to
do that, given that that’s what their role is for the City and given that much of where we are today in
December is because we weren't listening collectively to public health professionals back in February, back
in March back in April.
So | empathize with all the people who are struggling, | work with a lot of the people who are struggling and
have for years. But | also recognize the other impacts and the other forces at work here. | want to see
what the Board of Health has to say. | want to see what their suggestions are and | want to make sure that
Nashuans are safe long enough for us to get access to the vaccine and stabilize this outbreak situation. I'd
love to go back to where we were this time last year, where we had people celebrating together and
supporting charities and focusing more on being generous rather than acting out of necessity. But we are
not there yet and so | think we all have to be very careful over the next couple of weeks, very thoughtful of
others. If there are other ways that we need to be helping the business community, ways that are not
traditional, | think we need to pursue those.
We looked outside of the box in terms of the businesses on Main Street and expanding outdoor dining, |
think we may need to look at some kind of business relief support. We may even need to look at how City
Welfare recognizes the crisis and disburses the COVID funds. | think it’s a conversation we should have but
| don’t think we should be undermining the public health recommendations. | think the line for where we are
negotiating should be way further to the side of people being safe and healthy. Thank you.
President Wilshire
Thank you. Alderwoman Kelly.
Gia Bonilla_|’m sorry could | respond to ...
President Wilshire
This is only remarks by Aldermen at this point, public comment is done. Sorry.
