Special Board of Aldermen 12-21-2021 Page 21
President Wilshire
Thank you.
Alderman Schmidt
Thank you, Madam President. My daughter's a nurse in Dover - the first hospital that came out and pleaded for help.
I'd asked her how she was doing. She works the recovery room. She was taken from the recovery room to work in
the ICU. The ICU was full. People were dying. She held hands with people who were dying. It was horrendous.
We're doing terrible things to our hospitals by not paying attention. Every day | go to the DHHS website to see what's
happened the numbers that are following. Today's numbers haven't dropped, but | was told 19 people have died.
Yesterday 19 people died from complications from COVID. Over the weekend, seven people had died. Four of them,
| believe, we're younger than 60. | didn't know exactly how many in each age range, but they're younger. People are
dying younger. Delta is dangerous for younger people. We don't know how bad it's going to be for Omicron. We
don't know yet. This is scary. It could be just that it runs through the community and people get a little sick or it could
be that our vaccinations can't manage this. We do not know. The best way to prevent this is to prevent it. Wear the
mask. Stay out of places where there are people who refuse. If there are people who won't comply, that's on them. If
you go into a place and nobody's wearing a mask, | leave. | don't think it's fair of them to cause me to have less
freedom because they want to go without a mask. | don't think it's fair. Our society is built on rights and responsibility.
The responsibility is that you care about your community. Part of caring about your community is wearing the mask,
especially when we have numbers like this. Nineteen died yesterday. Nineteen who wouldn't have died otherwise
just from somebody passing the disease on to them. Thank you.
President Wilshire
Thank you.
Alderman Harriott-Gathright
I'd like to say ditto to most of my colleagues here but more importantly, | want to say thank you to the Board of Health.
Thank you for the meeting that you had | think it was about a week ago. | was on Zoom. | heard those that were for
the mask. | heard those that were against the mask but more importantly if masks could save one life, then I'm for it.
As Alderman Jette said, that this has already been in the courts and we already did this process. So for me, it's a
win/win if we pass the mask. Thank you.
President Wilshire
Anyone else?
Alderwoman Lu
Thank you. | had actually a couple of questions. Are we taking public comment tonight?
President Wilshire
We are not taking public comment tonight.
Alderwoman Lu
Okay. | just have two questions. | wanted to ask - so one of my Ward 6 residents asked about the increase and could
one of the doctors say what the increase in hospitalizations has been like percentage wise in the last week?
Tony Storace, Chairman, Board of Health
We're getting the information.
President Wilshire
Oh, okay. They’re looking it up.
