Board of Aldermen 01-25-2022 Page 19
Alderman Timmons
Thank you President Wilshire. I’m also going to support the mask mandate. It’s not surprise to anybody that | would not
do this. | have children that works in Elliot and one works at Southern Regional. They were masks all day long. They
see people dying all day long. They say masks work. | believe it works. In the last couple of weeks, I’ve been taking care
of a sick grandchild that had COVID. By the way I’m not COVID free because I’m in a gen study. | have two boosters
already and in the gen study, anybody knows gen is Johnson and Johnson. I’ve been in that study for the last two years.
In the last two years, one of the things they say in the study 1) | can get vaccinations before most people. | got the
second booster already. Who in this room got a second booster already? During my study, they say you need to keep on
wearing a mask. It’s important. So | will be supporting mask mandate because | do believe they do. | go to Mass
General so that’s in Massachusetts and anybody want to follow up on that, that’s why | would support this.
Alderman Cathey
To me, the primary issue is does COVID and more specifically the Omicron variant warrant a mask mandate? If it does,
I’m going to need some people to show their numbers, show their work because the Omicron variant is 91 percent less
likely to kill you compared to Delta. That’s from Kaiser Permanente. A board member and the former FDA Director
recently said that we need to end mask mandates. As we know that we heard before, New York is ending their mask
mandates. England ended their mask mandates. The CDC came out and said natural immunity meets the vax mandate
against Delta. The CDC came out with its own study that said there’s only 1.8 percent change in case rates of people
who wear a mask versus people who do not wear a mask. That means out of 90,000 people who live in Nashua, we’re
trying to protect 1,100 people not from dying, not from going to the hospital, just from catching the case alone maybe. No
other public policy would dictate a mandate over an entire populous over such a small rate of change. It doesn’t make
any sense.
We've already heard that the masks don’t work. The microns of the virus get through. The Board of Health put in a mask
mandate in May of 2020 or June of 2020 — | forget the exact date - | apologize and we had it for a year yet cases still
surged in the winter. This year had a mask mandate — cases still surged. That’s two bites of the apple for a mask
mandate and it didn’t work because it doesn’t work. Mask mandates historically across the world, in multiple cities, in the
US, Europe, wherever you check once a mask mandate is in place, the cases still surge regardless of a mask mandate
because it’s not about the mask. It’s about what the virus does. It’s a virus. It’s going to do what viruses do. It has an
infection rate of 7 to 10 people. If you get Omicron, you’re going to affect likely 7 to 10 people around you. That's like a
measles rate.
So whether you’re vaxxed, whether you have a mask, you’re going to get Omicron. The mask mandate is not the thing.
That’s not the thing that’s going to stop it. It’s a seasonal thing now. We've seen it twice two years. It’s going to go up.
It’s going to come down. So masking is not the one size fits all approach that needs to be used here. Much like a doctor
would not prescribe the same medicine to every patient, or fitness instructor would not prescribe the same routines to
anyone who’s using their health services. It’s all about the individual. It’s all about what they need. We are trying to one
size fits all this and make a mask mandate for an entire city that is unwarranted by the data and | don’t think that it is right
or correct. It’s especially unfair to businesses who have to enforce it either upon their employees or customers who walk
in the door. Thank you.
Alderman Sullivan
Thank you Madam President. We heard a lot tonight. There’s a lot of information out there. I’m going to rely on my eyes
and my ears. My eyes tell me that since we instituted the mask mandate in late December, cases shot through the roof
and now they’re coming back down regardless of the mask mandate. My ears tell me that the city doesn’t want this.
That’s all | need to hear. | think the policy that we set tonight dictates the direction of this city. | think we have to move
away from a culture of mandate and move to a culture of responsibility where we take care of each other.
If you are worried about a bad outcome from COVID, we now have effective vaccines. We have therapeutics. We have
two years going on three years of information. With all due respect to our healthcare workers, to everybody who’s on the
front lines of this, let’s think of everybody that’s been affected by this. There’s been millions of people that have been cast
into poverty because of this pandemic. There are countless people in this city that have lost their jobs because our
economy stopped. Let’s all go back to March, April, and May of 2020. This economy stopped and people lost their jobs.
People are tired. They’ve been vaccinated. They've done what they’ve been told and COVID doesn’t care. It goes up, it
goes down. It goes up, it goes down. I’m going to be voting against extending this tonight and | think we just have to
move to a cultural responsibility. Thank you.
