Towns ripping over ‘red’
Calls grow for Baker to stop counting colleges, jails in local numbers
The coronavirus outbreak at the Middleton Jail has swelled to 133 inmates.
The number of active cases among residents in town stands at just one.
But to the state, it’s counted as one and the same — a combined caseload that, when measured against the town’s relatively small population, resulted in an average daily incidence rate per 100,000 residents high enough to catapult Middleton to the top of the high-risk list for COVID-19 transmission last week.
For frustrated local officials, the issue goes far beyond any “stigma” of being labeled “red” for highestrisk under the Department of Public Health’s colorcoded assessment system. Landing in the red zone is an automatic stoplight that prevents cities and towns from moving into step two of the third phase of reopening. And the only way out is to drop to a lowerrisk category for at least three weeks straight.
“It’s really contrary to the governor’s stated intention of reopening Massachusetts, because it’s keeping us artificially from moving forward,” Middleton Town Administrator Andrew Sheehan said.
Middleton officials are now among the growing chorus of municipal leaders and Beacon Hill lawmakers calling on Gov. Charlie Baker to cut “contained” coronavirus clusters — such as in jails and college campuses — out of the metrics the state uses to assess a town’s risk level each week.
“There’s nothing we can do about it. We can’t get better performance out of our residents or out of our businesses,” because the problem is primarily at the jail, Sheehan said. “Even if things turn around quickly, we’re not going to be able to move up to the next step of reopening until sometime in November. That affects our local businesses, particularly eateries, and by extension the town, because that’s meal revenue that we’re missing.”
Sheehan and the Board of Selectmen sent Baker a letter last week urging him to “parse the data to exclude an isolated institution such as the jail.” “We’re being penalized for something that’s not under our control,” Middleton Board of Selectmen member Brian Cresta said.
Sheehan said he raised the issue to Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito during a call with the Massachusetts Municipal Association last week. Baker’s office did not say whether the governor would consider carving out the jail or college campuses when asked Friday by the
Herald.
“The COVID Enforcement and Intervention Team will continue to work closely with high risk communities, collaborating with local officials to understand the impact that unique factors like higher education or long term care facilities may have on their case numbers,” spokesman
Tory Mazzola said in an email.
Just up Route 114, officials in North Andover are facing a similar problem: Their town landed in the red the past two weeks after an outbreak at Merrimack College that local leaders say was largely linked to a dormitory actually located in Andover on the campus that splits the two communities. The Board of Selectmen sent a letter asking Baker to “consider carving obvious clusters in universities and colleges out of town numbers moving forward.” Chairman Chris Nobile said local officials just want the governor to “revisit an arbitrary policy” that’s now having real-world consequences for at least 43 businesses identified by the town. The economic impact on establishments still recovering from shutdowns in the wake of the 2018 Columbia Gas disaster prompted a bipartisan group of Merrimack Valley lawmakers to fire off a letter calling on Baker to “consider all the factors at play” when determining risk levels.“The community really can’t take another hit,” state Sen. Diana DiZoglio, who co-authored the letter with Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr and state Reps. Christina Minicucci and Tram Nguyen, said in an interview. “It’s important the administration not paint with a broad brush when it comes to circumstances like this.”