STATE LAWMAKERS SAY ROLLBACK ‘NOT ENOUGH’
Local leaders call for more restrictions, aid to decimated businesses
Each week, Rebecca Rausch watches more of the towns in her sprawling state Senate district land on the high-risk list for coronavirus transmission.
Five of the 12 municipalities the Needham Democrat represents were among the record-shattering 158 that fell into the state’s “red” zone this week. And all but two saw higher case counts and positivity rates in this latest 14-day period surveyed in the state Department of Public Health weekly report.
It’s a microcosm of the metrics that have worsened statewide over the past few weeks as the coronavirus has resurged across Massachusetts.
With reports this week showing record or near-record highs across several categories, state and municipal elected officials are calling on Gov. Charlie Baker to take even more drastic action than the rollback to step one of Phase 3 that takes effect on Sunday.
“Already, 11 days into December, we’ve blown the spring numbers out of the water,” Rausch said Friday. “The additional so-called measures that the governor announced earlier this week are insufficient and inadequate.”
Massachusetts will go back to the first step of the third phase of reopening on Sunday, a statewide tightening of restrictions that includes reducing indoor capacities to 40%, bringing party sizes at restaurants back down to a cap of six people, and slashing outdoor gatherings to 50 people from 100.
But many of the state’s hardest-hit cities were already there, having been forced back to step one after landing on the state’s highrisk list for at least three weeks in a row. And others, such as Boston and Somerville, chose to remain at that step as a precaution earlier this fall even though they could have advanced.
Now, leaders in several of those cities want not just more shutdowns, but also more state aid to help the businesses already bearing the brunt of the pandemic’s restrictions.
“We are being overwhelmed by a tsunami and monsoon combined,” Somerville Mayor Joseph Curtatone said. “We’re seeing record numbers of infections, more people are dying, food lines are grow
ing longer, people are being evicted, businesses are closing. I would just submit that baby steps aren’t going to do it.”
Public health experts and elected officials have advocated in recent days to temporarily ban indoor dining, a step neighboring New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo took this week when he moved to once more bar indoor service in New York City starting on Monday.
They’re also looking to place greater restrictions on establishments like casinos, tanning salons and fitness centers they say are nonessential.
“It’s not enough to follow the data. You have to analyze the data and project into the future,” said state Rep. Mike Connolly, D-Cambridge. “The worst-case scenario would be to maintain the status quo for another month and wind up in a position where community spread is even more out of control and your only choice is to shut things down later.”
Baker’s office did not respond to questions about whether the administration was considering further restrictions.
State legislators and local leaders frustrated with the slow progress in producing a federal relief package in Washington are also calling for even more state aid than the millions Baker signed into law on Friday. Among the ideas being floated are drawing more from the state’s “rainy day” stabilization fund, or considering new bonding activity.
“We can borrow money to build bridges and roads,” said state Rep. Mindy Domb, D-Amherst. “We should be able to figure out a way to borrow money to provide the financial assistance so that people could stay home, help reduce the spread of the pandemic and save lives.”