Director of Health and Human Services for the City of Somerville, Doug Kress, provided an update on current coronavirus mitigation measures for the Public Health and Safety Committee on Monday.

By Jim Clark

At the latest meeting of the Somerville City Council Public Health and Public Safety Committee of the Whole on Monday, March 30, the Director of Health and Human Services, Doug Kress, updated Committee members on measures to reduce the spread of the coronavirus and to support anyone who may become infected.

The meeting was held virtually via a webinar tool as a means to ensure member safety while social distancing advisories are in place.

Committee Chair and Ward 6 Councilor Lance Davis invited Kress to report on the latest developments in the city’s efforts to quell the proliferation of the virus and to serve the needs of those who may have contracted the disease.

Kress explained that he would begin by providing a short overview of what’s been done over the previous week. “I do want to remind everybody that one of our primary tools that we’re doing over at Health and Human Services is continuing to provide contact tracing for any individual who test positive for the COVID-19,” Kress said. “And in that we are using both our public health nurses as well as our school nurses to do some of this contacts tracing so that we can reduce the spread of the virus itself.”

“One of the things that we are continuing to try and do in this area is to continue and share the message about how to slow the spread of this virus, and staying at home is one of the key components that we continue to push over and over and over again,” said Kress. “It’s an important piece for us to keep in mind that if you do stay home and follow those orders it will help us slow the spread of the virus.”

Kress continued by saying, “We are hoping that this is a little bit of the evidence that it’s not one hundred percent directly ties, but we have seen a little bit of a slowing of the number of cases we have seen here in Somerville, although part of that is due to the fact that we have limited tests available for people to take, but we have see a little bit of a slowing.”

“One of the things that we do like to note is that close contact numbers have gone down a little bit,” according to Kress. “So you are seeing that the main contacts that we’re having for anybody who is testing positive are the household contacts, and not necessarily community contacts. Which is a positive thing. We hope that will continue.”

“One thing to keep in mind is that we know that we have not hit our peak and that we haven’t even come close to our peak, but we have seen our numbers more than double each day as we continue to grow,” Kress explained. “Currently, we are at 56 cases here in Somerville. Nine of those have actually moved to what we would call recovery. Three of our cases actually have moved to other cities due to the fact that they either moved, or their address was different on their insurance and that’s the address they’re tracing through. So we had to ship three of our cases to other communities,” said Kress.

“Work that we continue to work on besides just doing the contact tracing is some of the housing challenges that we know we’re going to face,” said Kress. “One of those areas are the idea that we have first responders and police, fire, and other essential workers, trying to make sure that they are safe. Whether they are in close contact or exposed to the virus or need to be in isolation.”

“We have been working with Tufts University on coming up with an agreement to allow us to use one of their dormitories to do some of that housing so that we can slow the spread of the virus. We are also working in a regional capacity to look at our homeless community,” Kress said. “I have been working with the Somerville Homeless Coalition, ensuring that they have the equipment they need. One, within the shelters as well as having beds available within their shelters and, luckily, we have been able to arrange to have some extra spaces available for families or individuals who may end up being positive and need to be isolated and quarantined within the properties that they already have.”

The full video conference meeting can be accessed through the city’s meeting portal at http://somervillecityma.iqm2.com/Citizens/Detail_Meeting.aspx?ID=3127.

Further information about the city’s activities regarding the COVID-19 epidemic can be found online at www.somervillema.gov/coronavirus.