Board of Aldermen 01-25-2022 Page 4
Matthew Gouthru
Matthew Gouthru, 104 Fawn Lane. Good evening Mayor, Madam President, and Aldermen. My comments this evening
are concerning the extension of city-wide mandate on your agenda this evening. If you recall, | brought up at a previous
meeting my disappointment on how this mandate was passed in the first place without any public comment and | told the
Board of Health meeting or with this body. Emergency powers were used to get this legislation passed with a first and
second reading within minutes of each other without any public input and it’s almost unheard of the comments that you did
hear came from members of the Board of Health who opined about how necessary this was. One member of that body
said that a child died of COVID in New Hampshire that week and boldly stated that one child was too many. Later that
evening, Dr. Chan our own State’s epidemiologist on WMUR stated that the rumor of the child’s death here in New
Hampshire due to COVID was untrue.
| think the same size that you’re looking for occurs right here in Nashua in our public schools where everyone has been
masked since the school year starting in August of 2021. During that time the level of public spread which never dipped
below substantial according to Ms. Bagley’s dashboards. With all of that masking, have we seen a decrease in cases in
our public schools? No. In fact, we had to close our schools for two days because of staff and teachers were out sick
with COVID-19. This was during the time in which you implemented a city-wide mask mandate. Fortunately this variant is
not as deadly as the one we first experienced two years ago and people can recover from its mild symptoms. The
science tells us that cloth masks do not work against the Omicron variant. The CDC Director who is from New England
describes cloth masks as facial decorations and compares their effectiveness as keeping out mosquitos with a chain link
fence. So why are we going out of our way to mandate that everyone wears them.
In conclusion, why are decisions made with false or misleading information and no public input? If this were a true public
health emergency, why isn’t Bobbie Bagley and her team handing out N95 masks to protect the public health like they do
with needles and syringes to recreational drug users in this city. Stop the insanity, vote no on extending the mask
mandate on this agenda this evening and trust in the...
Alderman O’Brien
30 seconds
Matthew Gouthru
...together we can get through this without any unnecessary and get through this tumultuous time without unnecessary
ambiguous mandates. Thank you.
Sonia Prince
Hi. Sonia Prince, 49 Tufts Drive. This is about the spread. Over 200 new cases in our schools, there were 400 the week
before, 400 the week before that, it’s ridiculous. For a perspective example of the Province of New Brunswick is in a two
week shutdown because of 400 new cases and they have 700,070 people. So yes we need the mask order and yes even
cloth masks are better than nothing. What’s better is if we don’t gather indoors in groups. That would be the best thing
especially if you can’t open windows but really cloth masks is better than nothing. You might gain a foot but whatever.
Yes the N95s are much better especially for teachers who are stuck in these classrooms are for herding 100 to 300 kids in
agym or a library at school, which my son has experienced and I’ve kept him home after that. So really | do hope you
vote for the mask order. It’s a no brainer. It’s protecting our community and our health workers. Thank you.
Beth Scaer
Hi. Beth Scaer, 111 East Hobart Street. Yeah I’m talking here about the mask ordinance. | think it should be not
extended because nearby towns don’t have mask mandates. It’s very easy for people to drive out of town and show
somewhere else and because of that, our small businesses are suffering. | think it’s especially cruel to force parents to
put masks on their 2 year olds, 3 year olds. | think it’s completely inhumane.
| wanted to thank Alderman Comeau for surveying public input on Facebook. | think there’s way too little inquiry as to
what the public thinks in Nashua and way too much ancillary discussion. Thanks. That's it.
Julie Smith
Thank you. Julie Smith, 19 Bangor Street. | want you to end this egregious government overreach now. | agree with
everything that Laurie, Laura, Matthew, and Beth have said and | have nothing more to add. Thank you.
