001i think teresa is trying to get in oh just came up ken do you see teresa i wonder if she doesn't realize it's another link they both just came in i'm going to get her and i believe kevin walston too who i believe is just kw great thank you teresa shows the bottom of the participants list got it okay all right so we are called to order our first order of business is selection of committee chair i will open the floor for nominations for chair of the policy committee nominee joe da silva please nominated by kate is there a second second and second seconded by brigid all those in favor all right any opposed any other nominations i don't know why i asked that congratulations joe thank you i thank you i guess i may
002want to revisit that later this evening for taking the baton and i'll turn it over to you i i'm happy to do it and i told rachel i would be happy to do this but only if she helped me because she was the chair prior to me and um is probably the only one who actually knows where our policy audit actually stands um this will for the new members of the policy committee this will be the uh most i i i should probably say the only really truly interesting meeting we will ever attend most of the policy committee meetings are going to be pretty pretty technical in in kind of like word smithy um uh but for purposes of tonight obviously the agenda only has one thing on it and that discusses the mask policy
003and i did a little bit of research and i've had a couple of conversations with rachel who gave me an update on where policy had been up through now think thank god um a lot of towns didn't have one we do um technically we have two um i don't know why there's two numbered oh we i think we look we can't hear you joe joe and uh looks like al's trying to get in okay is that better yes yes there you go um there's 5141.8 which is the numbered policy that's under agenda there's a second one numbered policy two of 4218.237 that's exactly the same i don't know why it's numbered differently but it's basically it there's a different title but it's exact the language and verbiage is identical i think we're assuming it's a
004mistake yes to be clear i think that is a mistake for whoever um i think it was cave loaded our policies onto their online platform we only have we only adopted five one four one point eight right yep that that was i was assuming that because i went back and looked at minutes and i didn't see anything about a second iteration or a second enactment um no there is you're ready kelly can take it from from here i think that's i think that's the way to go yes okay all right good evening everyone thank you uh for joining what we'd like to do is share a couple different perspectives to start the meeting um so we've asked karapunti um the health director and dr begg our medical advisor to start by giving us some overviews
005of some information from the city perspective on vaccination rates as well as recommendations um we then like to ask cathy o'dowd our supervising of nursing to go over um the data to date particularly from the holiday break forward on the number of coveted cases we have and and her medical advice on this matter um then move into a family survey that we've done and asked michael seeley to do a summary of that for us um and then finally i'll wrap up um with a consultation we did with a psychiatrist from yale on the social emotional impact of wearing the masks so i'd like to start by turning it over to kara prunty for an update um if you could provide to the board hi hi kelly and hi cara i just want to interject quickly
006good evening everyone this is kevin wilson um i i'm not in in a computer but i will be listening on the computer but i will be listening in um i just wanted to make the committee aware and the public aware we will not be making any recommendations tonight um just really sharing as objective feedback as possible um to inform any decisions that might be made later on just wanted to jump in and see that thanks kel and thank you cara punty for joining us and kathy and dr quebec thank you kevin go ahead thank you um so i just wanted to go over some of our most recent um case rate data that's been published um so if you see me looking to the side that's what i'm looking at i'm just looking at our
007um as of thursday our positivity rate was 10.8 percent in the city our covid case rate per 100 000 was 26.7 per 100 000. um since that data has been published i um calculated our case rate to see if it has gone down at all because we have seen cases trending downward um and since uh since that data was published our case rate is 22.42 over uh the last 14 days per 100 thousand so it's gone down a little bit so we still are seeing community transmission but it's gone down a lot over the last uh several i would say last two to three weeks we've seen significant decreases in transmission we've also been really hard at work trying to get people vaccinated right now our five to 11 population is at 31 vaccinated um
008so that's our our age group that we are trying to focus on increasing the most uh with our vaccination rates um but we have seen we've been doing lots of clinics at all of the different schools we have clinics available seven days a week within the city and really trying to encourage people to get vaccinated as much as possible and that's where we're at with case rate data happy to answer any questions that we have about our most recent data dr begg feel free to jump in and kathy i know you're going to go over some more of the vaccination information so i didn't want to go too much into detail on that but happy to answer any other questions on that cara quick question are are our trends moving consistently with the state trends
009or are we more or less than than state trend yeah our we're pretty consistent with state trends we're steadily decreasing similar to the rest of the state thank you we're no longer that anomaly on this side of the state may i ask what is it compared to the rates around like um new fairfield brookfield how does that compare let me pull up the map um so the last published data is from thursday um our case rate is 26.7 uh new fairfields is 29.9 uh ridgefield is 28.3 percent bethel's is 42.9 newtowns is 28.7 and i'm sorry i'm talking in percentages it's not percentage it's our case rate per 100 thousand uh numerator is 7.6 i'm sorry i'm sorry no good what would that be naugatuck do we have that number nagatok norwalk stanford those are
010the those are the um the cities that we've been comparing ourselves to so i'm just wondering like new britain greenwich yep do you have that information yes so we compare vaccination rates to similar cities and we put publish that every week and then we also do a comparison to our uh local city so norwalk's case rate is 29.8 um stamford's is 29.7 um let me pull up waterberries is 47.4 in greenwich greenwich is hold on i gotta find it on the map 40.9 so in all essences so based on the numbers you provided danbury is actually lower than any other city that i just mentioned or town excuse me is that correct or is there a number that is less than dan barry's rate did i misunderstand or is everybody um i haven't compared to
011every speed no i mean every time that i yeah the ones that i just mentioned yeah okay so that's good to know thank you i'd like to know what is the hospital rate um currently today there is four hospitalizations at danbury hospital four what was it two weeks ago may i ask um it was ranging and dr begg please feel free to jump in and uh and uh compare but it was anywhere between 10 and 20. and and the weeks before that it was much higher from what i gather for the last two years that's the most important number it's a very important metric yes and that uh four is that from the beginning of the year or when is that um time frame reflect four is the number of current hospitalizations at danbury hospital
012today today okay thank you dr beg would you like to give an update on your thoughts and perspectives yeah just briefly um i think that the uh the million-dollar question here is um at what point do we adjust our masking policy and for me it's based on the data um in conjunction with um how the rest of the towns are also addressing um the um the evolution of the the virus um we are have different uh benchmarks uh green yellow red just a week ago we are three times the red mark we want to make sure that uh when we do transition wherever that point is to um uh not mandating masks that we don't put our city and our uh students and the families at risk so we absolutely uh want to be advocates
013for what's what's best for our children teachers everyone else but we also want to make sure we do it with evidence-based data so this is great news we're moving the right direction the the question is what's the sweet spot for us to um a transition to the next phase of protecting our staff and our patients without um having a um reversal of the trend so that's my may i ask uh what data is it that you're referencing and the 10 um that was just given as far as the infection rate where is that data as well where can i have that data located or what is that how do you come to that number so we uh because i'm looking at the connecticut i'm sorry i'm looking at the connecticut data sheet covid19 cases by
014the town and my numbers are different than the ones that you're providing so i'm just wondering if you could provide me with the data that you're referencing as far as what that benchmark would be and how we arrived at the ten percent yeah so again i i partnered with uh cara who's uh who has the more granular data but i'm trying to give an overall view on the the mindset on where we're going uh forward so if we look at a heat map of the various towns as the weeks and months have progressed um the numbers do vary week by week with town and those maps um highlight that we're in the red area or we're actually in a better zone so um just to give a highlight uh much earlier pandemic we're at much
015lower levels and still had masks but again we want to be advocates of what's best for the students and the teachers and the communities so cara maybe i'll refer back to you uh so we're consistent with our message as far as uh the data sure that 10.7 infection rate it comes from the state um there's a they report out weekly they update our covet case rates so that was published last thursday and that is the percent positivity that is listed for the city of danbury what website would that be located on where can i access that information i can send it to you but it's the it's the connecticut covid data portal and that's where all of this um information is the actual link like website is data.ct.gov yeah there's a point of comparison uh
016we had been in the range of less than one percent positivity so while we're absolutely moving the right direction um uh we still have uh some work to do when the rates uh um we're hoping continue to move in the right direction uh so again these rates are very good but they still we still have a lot of work to do they anticipate they will have the right direction can you tell us what your sweet spot in your estimation is uh so if we look um at the the data uh cara i believe the um the yellow to green number was uh in the low single digits for percent positivity um so again a refer back but 10 is is um when you're in double digits you're still um in a um concerning zone so
017um i'll refer back to cara the difference between the different zones but we only have four people in the hospital i mean the the question was about um the positivity rates and uh at what point do we think that we can transition so you're correct we have a lower number of people um that may be one endpoint but there's other endpoints too when 10 percent of the people are positive there's a lot of medical effects that may occur to that for populations that are not in the hospital i mean as a as a practicing er doctor i can tell you that most of the covered positives i see i don't admit but they may still have medical issues that are concerned so well what is that rate what is that percent in other words it
018just seems very broad-based um the information of the 10 infection rate of the 10.8 percent what is the other towns that are neighboring that have lifted their mandates what is what is that percentage of brookfield you know new fairfield greenwich some of this the towns that i just referred to earlier what are their rates so part of what dr beck was referencing is there's a document called community risk level mitigation strategies that was published by dph and it lists a red yellow and then a low zone so that when we're talking about our case rates when we talk about 15 cases per 100 000 that would be considered the red zone this document will most likely be updated we're looking to see to get more guidance from dph soon but currently right now that is
019what the listed guidance is and when you have a case rate of 15 cases per 100 000 or more it does state in that document that recommendation is that everyone would wear a mask in an indoor setting so when dr begg is referencing the different levels of community transmission in the red and the yellow i believe that's what we're talking about here so um i'm i this is most likely going to be updated and that's there's we're waiting for dp dph guidance to come out in the next week or so um but right now that is what the published recommendation is and karen they correct me from wrong last time i looked at the connecticut covet data tracker which was earlier today every town in the state of connecticut was read except a couple of
020towns for which they have no gateway is that accurate yeah in other words towns that have towns that have eliminated amass a mass mandate and to be clear no one's limited to mass mandate as of today because you're not allowed to do that for school as of today in fact the bridgeport diocese wanted to do it effective as of february 14th in the state said no you're not um actually it's not march 1st it's the director of the connecticut department of education may issue an order as of that can vacate the mass made in the state level it's not vacated as of 228 that requires the director the director of the department of education to do so are the secretary but technically if one eliminated the requirement now technically it would be in i don't
021know non-compliance with the guidance is that safe to say the current guidance that may change that guidance may change we're expecting to be updated but to eliminate mass management at this point would be inconsistent with the guidance we have from dph is that accurate yes it's expected to update their the guidance is expected to change but yes currently that is correct query and this kind of goes to some of the other questions the trend is good do we have any idea on and maybe it's too soon to tell maybe we don't have the stats do we have any comprehension of the steepness of the of the change the projection are we gliding down is it dropping precipitously do do we have any way to measure week to week how fast it's going down i mean
022it went up doubled and doubled every day i'm not expecting it to do you know have every day going forward but do we have any idea of what that projection looks like um i i have i can show you what we've graphed um kelly do you have access to that or can is there a way that you can show that graph that i shared with you earlier thanks just give me a minute okay um so it has it has come down pretty sharply and we've kind of uh evened off a little bit so we've kind of but i continue it i anticipate that it continues to decline over the next several weeks but so it came down quickly and it's leveling off but still declining yes yeah which we have a trend to map that
023sorry kelly i probably should ask you asked you before uh but i can show you um so that's the um there's another this is uh up through december 25th of 2020 but there's a more recent one um i think it's the if you go to the last image it's actually that one yep that one or this one has the case rates so it goes by weaker by day um so that's why you can kind of see the trend lines there where we've been excellent thank you one question again about the hospital rates at debris hospital uh is that reflective strictly of the city of danbury or is that for also includes towns uh patients from brookfield and fairfield that don't have a hospital yep that's that would be include danbury hospital's catchment area so um
024anyone that would be going in there going to the hospital so no that's not just for danbury residents that's okay so and brookfield just um got rid of their mask mandate so i i i don't see uh how that number can be held against danbury uh ten percent if you're including you know for the hospital or ten percent's not the hospital rates the number of four or the number four for damage yes but that's yeah so the hospitalization rate is for dam just that's the number of people at danbury hospital which could include people outside of the city with addresses in danbury but our positivity rate and our case rates are for only danbury residents and that does not include home test kits that are not reported that's correct oh it's good good yeah may
025i ask how many um [Music] how many people have tested positive like for every hundred thousand and right now in danbury like what is the current number that you have for people that have tested positive in danbury versus confirmed cases because i took information from today actually and it's updated today by connecticut um covid19 update it's it's updated on a daily basis and it says right here that the state has a projected uh positivity rate of 4.87 now i went and researched the numbers between norwalk greenwich danbury norwalk and brookfield and three of the towns just i randomly selected when you take the numbers based off of everyone that's been sick with covid and how many people tested the numbers it comes out to 4.7 4.4 which is really more in line with this most
026recent document so i'm confused as to where we get the 10.8 infection rate for danbury so that 10.8 percent like i said they update the daily the the city of danbury so the statewide positivity rate is updated daily when we talk about the published on thursday they give us an updated positivity rate and case rate every thursday and that was the last published positivity rate that i received from the state that and that would it be your expectation cara that that number goes down week over yes i think that you know tomorrow when we get our updated numbers i anticipate that the number is going to decrease significantly well this is listed town by town every single town is broken down with several different ways of breaking it down such as uh town uh total
027cases confirmed cases probable deaths rate tested per hundred thousand so there's a lot of information here and i'm just wondering where you're where you're getting that 10.8 based off of today's numbers that have been posted that 10-point number that i keep saying that is the number that was published on thursday so today's positive rate i could not tell you that information because right all of those numbers that you're discussing um there's a lot of factors that go into taking the positivity rate they eliminate do people who test multiple times um there's if you've tested positive in the last 90 days things like that so you're not it's considered new cases so there's may i have may i have a breakdown of how that is calculated then because that's important when we're really looking at an
028accurate number unless there's all these other factors that matter if you're including such as teresa said where there are people going to the hospital and possibly from outside me so i'd like a real breakdown granular um as to how you're arriving to all this information please thank you in for that data that i get is received from the state so i can ask them exactly what they put in which which fields they pull in order to calculate exactly but that is i think some of the data set information is actually on the page i think there's actually an explainer there that determines what's in the data set i think there was whether it's go ahead joe i'm sorry uh karen in light of the and i think terry asked a question about home test before
029which i think is a good one um home tester the state gave them out for free the feds have given them out for free they're actually available at drugstores at this point you can you can actually buy them um can anybody hear me yes you can okay sorry i'm it looked like i froze up um and i know the schools have them or have them available to at least to a certain degree would your expectation be that the positivity rate is actually higher or lower than the published positivity rate later those home tests i think it's hard to say you know we compare that people ask if the home tests are skewing our data but when you compare it to things like other factors and other metrics within the community can you know people who
030reporting sick to work reporting to sick to school um hospitalizations uh classroom closings and day cares things like that um it seems to be that it's not the the home tests are not really impacting that data they're not okay so that just the data looks pretty consistent we're not worried that there's a lot more a lot fewer based on home test okay yeah i think it's a factor but i think um you know i don't think it's one that's skewing the data heavily to where we wouldn't be able to use it thank you kara and dr begg for your updates i'd like to move to cathy o'dowd and let her give us more specific information to the danbury public school district thank you kelly hi good evening everyone um so i will update you on
031where we are at um on a week-to-week basis since returning from the holiday break in january in terms of our cases just a reminder to everyone that our source of information in the district for covet cases in our schools is our dashboard our kovid19 dashboard which is on our district's webpage and um that's updated every 24 hours by me and you'll be able to see you know every school that there are reported in and another of my job responsibilities is to report our positive cases to the state every day um so to the question that came up about the home tests um if we do have a student who reports a home test that is reported as a positive to the state so we don't report families um so there's certainly other many other people
032who are using this home test but we will report students to the state on a daily basis so i'll start with we've been back we're in our seventh week back since um our holiday break and um the first two weeks um they were rough uh we had a lot of cases you know schools were closed people were gathering for the holidays were off our first week back we had 179 cases in our schools and this is staff and students and that increased to 372 cases on our second week back and then we started um gradually coming down uh week three where we were at 161 cases week four we were at 84 cases uh week 5 63 cases week 6 33 cases and 213 until today we have 13 cases reported so it's i'm very
033happy to see that coming down but we are still seeing it spread through families in terms of our clinics um we've been um you know offering clinics as kara said there's clinics available seven days a week we've been offering uh the five to 11 year old vaccinations in all of our schools and we're just winding up our first um actually our second round for the five to 11 year olds so our those who have received their first dose ages 5 to 11 since the 1st of february 102 children have been vaccinated and during that time frame those that received a second dose um was 37 children ages 5 to 11. in our 12 to 15 year old age group first doses received two and their second dose uh one child received their second dose vaccine
034so this round of clinics will conclude on march 8th and then we will start a new round of clinics again on march 9th again focusing on the five to 11 year olds but we'll also be offering them uh to the 12 to 15 and 16 year olds and up okay we've been partnering with the state and griffin health the yellow vans um you know and thanks again to cara and her team who have been helping me to facilitate these clinics so we're still actively um you know pursuing the vaccination for our kids and kathy do we have clinics scheduled through march yes actually with second doses we'll move into april excellent they have to wait 21 days first they get their first of course and i automatically schedule the clinic for 21 days excuse me
035i ask when the mask mandate is lifted will there be a mandate imposed on vaccination to the children or those especially that already have received or have already gotten coded or just parents that choose not to vaccinate is there something down the line that is being discussed where one will replace another just curious there is no discussion right now of mandating the cova vaccine um in schools for children yeah michelle i'm not aware of anything at the state level i'm just i'm just not aware of anything like that yeah right i'm just asking if there's you know kind of anybody leading in that direction thank you i i think that would have to come from the state i don't think we could do that no that way if for if or no if for no
036other reason we cause a collective bargaining issue for sure with our uh our um uh collective bargaining agreements but i think that would have to come from the state i've not heard anything in that direction no and i participate weekly in dph and sde calls and that has not been discussed at all okay because i did have that question from someone um and i just wanted to ask you when we had or intended on lifting the mask mandate before it started up again with the you know omaron or whatever um how many students did we have that were infected currently you said we have 13. so what was the number this week right so what was the number that was suitable like a benchmark in the past where you were considering what number would that
037be if it's lower than 17. we we never considered lifting the last landing ever not one time ever because the governor the governor's executive order left it in place okay so then we're looking at half this number two like what is what would be a number you know just out off you know the bench market we're waiting for guidance from the state department of health before we make those decisions um they uh tell us it's it's in the coming days that we'll receive that guidance but we won't be making any decisions on that until we see the recommendations from the state and does do we have any data showing any actual results from kids wearing masks and others not wearing masks as far as data showing that it they work or not because we know
038that there's significant scientific data saying that they are being affected socially learning developing speech so i'm wondering to those factors get weighed in with um [Music] basically the children having to take on that burden for possibly an adult that would be vaccinated and if so chooses to mask where a child perhaps isn't going to get vaccinated and should be able to speak smile so i'm just wondering is is that calculated in with the face masks and lifting the masks and how the children are affected not necessarily by spreading the uh the covid which is i believe a strain of the flu um but the damage that's being done and there are results and studies um clearly defining that as opposed to the ones that i have read there's not really any case study that i
039can find in the 150 that i was looking through right here and highlighting and so i'm wondering you know when does that weigh in to the decision that the board will make regarding lifting masks yeah dr beg your question i understand the uh psychological concerns and the effect real is your question um having to do with whether there's any effectiveness and decrease in the spread of uh covid when someone were to ask is that your question yes that's one of them i could say with 100 confidence that the use of masks absolutely decreases the spread of coven and furthermore decreased spread of other viruses including the flu rsv and the light what what uh it also suggests is the type of mask uh dictates the um the percent chance uh the overall chance that the
040virus will be red meaning if you wear a an n95 mask where it's fitted and really superior face granted uncomfortable the chance of spread is sniff though the next level is a surgical path on down to a cloth uh or what have you so uh yes with confidence and again the the purpose of this meeting is to um see what point we will transition um and that's for the rest of the group here to render everyone i'm sorry from the information that i had read the increase possibly um for extra protection if you wear the n95 mask is somewhere around 20 but once the mask is worn for a period of like 20 minutes if it there is any transformation of fluid um that the mass starts to break down and is not effective it
041is also not recommended on case studies done from the the um cdc the work i mean basically what they're saying is that they're not effective in my role as a er doctor and as a administrator within the network for which we all live that early in the pandemic when uh staff had asked not only for hours at a time but the same mask for more than one shift at a time that if they wore their mask uh appropriately and properly they did not could cove the masks did not break down it's for either improper use or not wearing the next that's where um patients are in staff and or at risk wear them wrong they don't wear them properly dr peck if i can ask you to re-answer a question you actually answered for us
042two years ago um because you clarified it very nicely covered 19 is not in any way shape or form a strain of the flu correct it's covered and it's on the spectrum of in fact covid the coronavirus itself is within a spectrum of milder cases or severe cases this brain that has taken the lives of almost 850 000 americans today has been the more severe strain the omicron was actually more uh transmissible but less deadly but the fact remains though within our hospital network we actually reach levels of uh admission uh that we had seen during the first weight of the pandemics though yes there's a virus and it is much more lethal than the than the flu so to suggest it's it's similar to the fluid is not an appropriate medical representation of of
043the cova-19 virus thank you well didn't the omeron become a respiratory infection which is why it wasn't as deadly and at the same time was not effective with the masks with the booster shot as well as people that were double and triple vaccinated so um i understand that it isn't is it deadly but my understanding was that corona was somehow affiliated with or a strain of the flu and this last go-around a lot of people got infected but it was nowhere near deadly i mean how many people from the omaron um i i could play with it was absolutely deadly it was not as deadly as the first wave but we still have upwards of two to three thousand americans per day die and i personally witnessed multiple people in the hospital system within the
044last few days and weeks die from this variant granted it's not as deadly as the first wave but it is absolutely still a deadly exponentially more um concerning than than the flag doctor would like to make a comment on the masks please please please kathy i'm sorry so in terms of our masks effective um i absolutely believe that they are and uh we have the data to support that in the schools um every time we have returned from a holiday we have seen a tremendous peak in positive cover cases because people have been out of school not wearing masks gathering with families gathering socially i remember just before the christmas break um one day we had 20 cases reported and that was very concerning to me because that was one of the highest numbers we
045had had um and we were reaching case numbers you know in the in the 30s for the week the week we came back from christmas we had 179 cases so that tells me that you know people were were socializing and gathering as as they do over the holidays and as we were back in school we were seeing the masks being worn we can now see how much our case rates are coming down and is there the data that you have do you have that that you can forward to it's on our dashboard if you look on our day um all right from the day we started the dashboard a year and a half ago all the case is there um and we're not seeing the spread in school in school transmission is very low i'm
046not saying it doesn't exist but it is extremely low and then when we have these holiday breaks that's when we see the cases spike again so right because we saw that coming in october and there was anticipation back in july when they were originally going to lift the mandate that there was supposed to be another round coming in november december so it was anticipated correct i'm sorry can you repeat that question in other words did we not have information um anticipating or uh stating that the um coronavirus or the whatever you want to call it omron was there was going to be another uh wave of it in november december usually when it's flu season um i did hear that is that not the case that we kind of as a state anticipated that happening
047right because when people aren't vaccinated and then more people get coded um that allows the virus to mutate so that's why you know we are we are advocating for vaccines because that's our one of our best mitigation tools that we have right now but as long as then how do you how do you get it again then if you take the vaccine twice if you've got both vaccines and a booster how is it that you can still get covet because one it's a this is a different variant and the vaccine doesn't say you'll never get covered the purpose of the vaccine is to prevent you from getting seriously ill and ending up in the hospital and possibly dying that's the goal of the vaccine yeah well originally the definition of vaccine was different right yeah
048after bag i'll let you speak to that i tell you from the hospital experience it's crystal clear there are three buckets of people those who did not get vaccinated had um ten times the uh uh poor out poor outcomes than those who were fully vaccinated with the booster um the once in the middle were those who received the first two vaccinations but not the booster um we still had uh admissions but they they're uh we're tailored with minimal compared to those not vaccinated the only ones who were vaccinated and had the booster that were admitted were the ones who already had uh private logic history of it being immunocompromised uh but there was a significant a difference in those who had bad outcomes when you were not vaccinated versus when you were special isn't there
049another bucket for the people that have immunity isn't that a bucket as well how does that get addressed because that's very that's a very good point but the data suggests that if you took two groups someone who got the vaccine as who got covered the ones who uh got the actual vaccine um did much better in the long term as far as any additional infection versus those who got one round of covered virus without the vaccine so um so while getting cold it does provide some degree of immunity it's not nearly as good as those who get the vaccine but that's actually a very fair point okay because i had heard that 27 higher um effectiveness if it was a natural if you had it um you know if you had received it you could
050be asymptomatic and not even know that you had covid um so i just don't understand why people that have already had the covid maybe once maybe twice aren't considered in the bucket that you just pointed out again just because the data shows very clearly that when you compare the two groups those who had no vaccination but a round of a covered virus for those the vaccination those who received the vaccination statistically did much better with less much less mortality or morbidity morbidity meaning they had some long-term effects and those who had therapeutics that apparently shortens and also reduces the um the symptoms and the outcome is that another bucket that would be considered you know what that's a very good question but the reality is the number of people who were within the window of
051being diagnosed and then within the window of a couple days and then getting the um the monoclonal antibody it was there it was literally a handful less than 10 each day so that did not make a statistically significant difference in the overall um care of our patients i will say that when we end up getting that oral agent that's readily available that will that will make it but that's not readily available just yet but the therapeutics were not made available correct like that was not an option for people the way that the vaccine is being pushed with clinics correct like you just were not able to really get your hands on it is that correct the reason why people were had minimal opportunities because by the time you ended up getting the diagnosis for you
052to still be within that window of of just a few days for it to make different so that was the biggest you face okay thank you very much no doctor i i just want to say that your questions are really good and i want to say that you may not believe it but i also want to see the day when our children do not have to wear uh masks i think the only thing where we differ is what's that date but again i i believe i actually do see a lot of your points thank you that's what i i want to know when that day or what the metrics are so you can say no mask i haven't heard that we'd all like to know that and from my understanding the csd the state department
053of education and the state department of public health we are going to set criteria and guidelines around how to make the decision number one and number two how to um set guidelines for when it is optional we're still we they are working around the clock and as from what i heard being on the call just uh yesterday um and they're getting that to us hopefully yeah and if anything what what the last year should tell us is we need to be humble and and eliminate hubris every time we think we know this is gone or every time we think this is over it's demonstrated we were wrong we thought it was over in the spring we were wrong we thought it was over in the summer we were wrong we thought it was over in
054the fall here comes omicron um it looks like we're trending in the right direction right now i'm not going to crawl out in that limb and assume that i know anything about what the future's going to hold because i don't um and it just to me it's just hubris assuming that we know what's going to happen in three weeks um doctor question for you um in the emergency room setting um what were you were you seeing a lot of pediatric cases or adolescent cases um over the last you know few weeks six weeks four weeks three weeks two weeks so a great question what's really interesting um we were but because they present with some variable complaints many times we kind of backed into the diagnosis meaning that they had uh signs of a pretty
055significant upper respiratory infection which we couldn't get her figure out what's going on and then we tested them in their positive or they were being admitted for uh appendicitis or or or they broke their arm and they were going to be admitted for surgery and we tested and they were passed with that subset of folks what we found is that if you had the virus you had some other medical problem your you it took you longer to recover and you had a more protracted course or you had more severe so that's what we the general um idea of what we found was thank you and i know i'm sorry i have i have i'm sorry one more question i see that the rates have gone down you said for the younger children which is fantastic
056but i'm just wondering have you seen an an uptick in you know mental health depression with children have you seen a spike there as far as uh your treatments and diagnosis well i don't have specific data the overall my overall gestalt over the last two years is yes okay so that is i'm assuming uh a really really important matter for the board to consider when um the percentage for the face mask versus uh you know the impact and and uh every day they wear those masks they're suffering many of them many of them already are fine with it but many really struggle so i think every day that we uh postpone is you know something to consider i i and again i i just want to be honest with my answer that we absolutely but
057the bump we don't know the exact reason it's partly maybe from what you described but it's also partly because the children have lost grandparents uh they've uh they've had other issues associated with the virus family members have um lost their jobs um and there's been other structures but uh granted that some of the stress is from what you describe as well we just don't know the exact percent okay that's what i wanted to ask you doctor just to clarify it's that that increase in emotional issues isn't necessarily tied to masks per se it's the whole global mess it's it's the glow it's the all the issues associated with the pandemic and part of it is part of it is the stressors that we hear some of our concepts right for sure thank you i'm sorry
058kelly no that's okay go ahead i'm sorry that's okay um i was just going to ask joe if i could ask a question at the medical of course okay of course that's where they're here to steer it in a slightly different direction do we have any guidance as to when vaccination will be available for the under five set no we'll just change that i think pfizer just went through their request did i'm sorry i couldn't hear you that's okay i'm sorry so what would that mean for us you know what is the um so is if there is no longer a projection if you're saying that uh pfizer just withdrew the request um for fda approval what is the is there a projection is there any sort of guidance you could give us for the
059students who and the families who have children in our district and the teachers who have children uh under five um is there anything to look forward through to down the pike for the possibility of vaccination you know in a month two months i know you're more up on on the information than i am so i'm hoping that there's something hopeful you can tell us in that round yeah they're supposed to reassess in april they're supposed to be they're waiting for some more data to come out in april and then there will be um another discussion starting then so i don't think it's too far off um i i do think it is coming i just i i don't know the exact time frame and anyone else who feel free to weigh in who might know
060more details but um i do think it's coming it's they're just waiting for more data yeah i know you're right karen and the challenge gonna be um if and when that when when the time comes when it comes um because it's gonna be the under five population the actual dose of vaccine is gonna be different so that creates a little bit of an extra layer of um challenge for us if the record was for adults um and you already have the adult a vaccine manufactured uh and we already knew how to give it in that arena then it would be a little bit easier you give you know temperatures or whatever it's going to be it's an extra layer for us to get it out uh to the under five population thank you both and
061we haven't talked about i'm sorry kelly we haven't talked about vaccination rates i mean we can we compared um positivity rates but do we know how we compare and vaccination rates to other cities now good question kara can you share that information regarding vaccination mates sure so um we did a comparison of danbury brookfield new fairfield bethel new milford ridgefield newtown and reading um so uh we're pretty consistent um so our i'll tell you what the highest is um we're for our five to 11 population right now we're at 31 uh percent oh good you can show the graph um uh this is a little bit this is last week's but um so we have a little bit more date updated but it's very it's it's people are off um so you can see where
062the green and the rest of the colors are the surrounding towns so um five to eleven uh we are oh you know that's 29 we're at 31 percent now um we're still at 78 percent for 12 to 17 population and uh for 18 to 24 we're at 64 um so you can kind of see a comparison of where we are to the surrounding towns on this graph and that's fully vaccinated yes this is fully vaccinated and not necessarily boostered right yep just full that's this is just uh taking into account two doses and that's citywide that's not damper schools that's this isn't school related this is municipality related yes yep this is thanks cara thank you if i could just next one other piece of information uh mr walleston had also asked me to connect
063uh with a child a psychiatrist and so i did consult with dr landau who is affiliated with yale um he's also done some work with us with our pupil services staff and the particular conversation there was to focus on the lens of the social emotional impact on that mask wearing um can have on some children um and so i'll just share his perspective with the team for consideration in making this decision um some of the information has been previously brought up but i think it's important just to note um that one of the things to consider is the lack of children's ability to see facial expressions which has impact impacted their ability for socialization their ability to um read and engage with their with their peers or adults um there is also um a challenge
064at times with children at the younger years learning to read um and it's difficult to hear sounds through the mask um and particularly for speech and pronunciation with some of our younger folks um not to mention some of our students who have uh deficits or struggles in that area that those can be compounded um for the um upper uh you know middle school and high school age students again very similarly not as not as profound of an impact on the pronunciation and hearing but still the reading of facial cues and expressions is another thing to know also to consider he had mentioned that um you know some students are going to have a difficulty um when it is time to remove the mask it has been another layer another protection um and so for some
065that could be a mask he gave one example hiding um you know teen acne or things like that so it could just be another layer for as an adjustment as kids um make a transition uh at whatever time um this team decides um but he did also suggest that this information be met uh be merged with the medical folks and experts information when making a decision so i just wanted to note that and highlight and i know we had one other piece of information um michael c league had um conducted a commun a survey outreach to some of our parents um and while it is representative of a smaller portion i think it's important for us to know um who responded and what the thoughts were there so mike thanks kelly so in combination with
066our office of family engagement and dr anmead we um we put out a uh we actually made it an email address we didn't want to just have it a click yes or no type of thing we wanted to actually hear what people had to say about it and we went back and coded all the different emails that we responded we received about 339 and we coded them into three categories one was keep the mandate one was lift the mandate the other was some combination of give people a choice maintain some social distancing if they choose to remove the mask let teachers have a say in what goes on in their classroom some some sort of in between so keep the mask mandate came in at about 38 lift the mandate was about 30 percent and
067the sort of give people a choice social distancing kind of half in between was about thirty one percent [Music] uh go back uh i just wanna say that a that data on the one-third one-third one-third split is actually very helpful and also that the physician's report on the effects of masks on children was very insightful and i'm very appreciative we got that uh balance to the report as well very helpful thank you thank you dr beck and i'd also like to remind the board we did receive um feedback from the teachers union as well that was distributed to all board members we received a letter from the secretary's union i believe as well didn't we right when she didn't take a position it was just do it thoughtfully i think was their position right right
068have certain metrics to to guide the decision right rachel are we gonna are the letters that were submitted um or emails from the public being read at the next hearing or how does i know that at times we read them out during the hearing but i didn't see that happen at the last one so i'm just wondering is that part of the hearing part of it is not part of public participation no the emails that had been read in the past were when we were doing emails in lieu of public participation because the public couldn't come um the correspondence we generally received we wouldn't read out at a meeting i see so much michael what you're basically saying is like roughly as dr banks said a third or third and a third defended basically three
069groups of people definitively all over the place yes and i don't know whether this goes to karen or rachel because you're on the call or um we're expecting new guidance soon but we don't know what soon means yeah both um dph is supposed to put out new guidance specifically about going mask optional and then also it was reported that the cdc is going to be issuing new indoor mask guidance uh sometime as early as next week so is it is it to the extent that you're making any recommendation are you recommending we wait for that guidance before we decide to do anything cara you're you're the health director i'm going to defer to you and you and dr beg on this stuff and kathy yeah i think in order to make a more formal recommendation
070i would feel more comfortable having that information from both the state dph and cdc if they're going to make significant changes to their guidance over the next week or so that i would like to hear what they have to say so then what makes us different than the surrounding towns that have made decisions and then they're going to wait and hear what happens they've made decisions that are inconsistent with the guidance that's currently out by the state department of public health care actually answered that question earlier so the decisions they made are actually inconsistent with the recommendations they've been given by the state at least by the current recommendations yeah i i really feel that it was premature to vote on anything without i mean number one anything could happen between now and when the
071order is lifted essentially um so i if it's if right right and i know that um norwalk has paused on making any decision um stanford is extending is waiting i think a month to make it any decision as well um and i i think i heard i could be wrong i think i heard bridgeport was going um was keeping mass for the rest of the school year through june there yes and perhaps there was one other was it new haven might have been new it might have been new haven can i ask one question more how come three united states in the united states don't have this but we're we've become such a nanny state how come only 11 states in the country have this business and we have more important things to think about
072it should be up to the parents this is not up to us what if they want to wear a mask fine but this is not our role actually terry respectfully you're wrong it is absolutely our role to protect the students in our school it's kara and dr begg's role to advise us on how we best do that and scientific excuse me excuse excuse me excuse me excuse me that's silly our positivity rates 10 when we were trying to flatten the curve the positivity rate was that excuse me our positivity rate wasn't 10 and we started flattening the curve that's the whole point this is what i'm talking about before about hubris when we think we know what we're doing it demonstrates that we don't i'm not suggesting we need to extend this mass mandate to
073the end of june i'm not sure suggesting we do anything of the sort i'm suggesting that i think karen and dr bank have a point we wait for the guidance and we wait to see what the data says going forward it is absolutely our job with the advice of our medical professionals that's why we have them to act to protect the students in our school is including but not limited to the whole building on granville avenue full of students who cannot be vaccinated because they're not old enough or the students in our elementary schools who can't be vaccinated either because they're not able to be vaccinated for medical reasons or their parent hasn't been able to get them vaccinated for whatever reason or teachers who i happen to know two or three teachers that have
074had children this year that have been out on maternity leave they have infants at home that can't be vaccinated so there are considerations beyond just the notion of it's that easy achievement it's their business that's their choice excu excuse me respectfully no it's our job to manage the schools and provide policy that's our job and that's the point that would decay i think karen dr begger making that we wait for the guidance to determine what's the safest way to operate our schools if you look at the definition of public health it's essentially making decisions on behalf of the greater good to decrease to increase the um the health and well-being of the public so that's like the most basic tent of public health is what's making decisions on behalf of the greater good um cara
075you may want to elaborate i just so is there like so is there a decision made i'm not sure like we've already made a decision but what is the point of the board then i'm so confused and frustrated tonight we're not well we have to be careful and kim's going to like yell at me in a minute for sharing this meeting in this way because we have to be careful that the degree that which members who are not on the committee participate i obviously anybody who's a member of the board of education can participate tonight we just have to be careful as a general rule going forward that we don't create a foia problem when we're all participating in a committee meeting because we make up a majority um can you guys hear me because
076it looks like i'm freezing you're free yeah i can hear you can hear you okay lauren i don't i i think it's the way i'm understanding things from cara it is not advisable to make any decision this evening and the this committee can't make any decision anyway all this committee can do is recommend things to the board that that okay it seems that karen and dr begger not advising we do anything at this point good or bad for to extend or not extend until we get data and advice from the cdc and department of public health is that accurate care is that your advice for now yes that would be my we have a board meeting next week so it's not as if we're not meeting again soon we can address this again close soon
077yes michelle i'm sorry may i ask you a question so you had mentioned the um the infection rate and that we can't uh you know vaccinate um sure we can't right granville we can't vaccinate them so is there a difference is there a significant increase between transmission at that school percentage or ratio wise as opposed to others where we can see significant data or um i think everybody's wearing a mask right now so it might be hard to bring that data down kathy alter to you on this in terms of we didn't community spread we did see community spread after the holiday it's hard to know whether it was in school out of school there were so many cases is there a way to break down that data granville versus other places uh well it
078would be on the dashboard the the number of cases that have been reported at granville and um it has not been as many as some of the other schools but it's also a much smaller population smaller right but we were talking i mean you can you can break out the percentage but what we were just focusing was the the need uh for vaccination so i'm just wondering has there been any you know substantial difference between a school that has no vaccination and one that you know i don't know 70 30 whatever number you had quoted is already double vaccinated and possibly boosted so in terms of our schools we ask parents when your children are vaccinated will you share that information with us they are not obligated to do that some people have um the
079most information we got was back when we were doing contact tracing and quarantining in terms of so we do not the schools do not have accurate data as to how many children are actually vaccinated what we have are the percentages that um cara gives us from the city i'm just talking about percentage the percentage not of of the actual transmission from an area that has that from a school that is vaccinated pretty much and masked versus the um the the younger children that are not vaccinated but perhaps are wearing masks and if so we know that they're not wearing them properly because they're young we can't we we can't know how many kids are vaccinated in school that's the point not vaccine no i understand that but the ratios okay okay i'm just looking at
080this i have a couple i have a couple questions um the first one and i apologize i'm going in a different direction here do i understand correctly there's still a federal mandate as far as wearing masks on trans pub school transportation right and that's that's not uh scheduled to be reviewed at any point soon from what i understand is that right as well and then my other question is about you know the density of population in our schools i mean i think one of the conversations we frequently have around the table is um the the crowded nature of our schools particularly at the high school but also in our in our other schools as well um to what degree does that become a factor as far as you know um determining what the appropriate actions
081are to take you know given that social distancing is considered one of the main mitigating factors that we've used i mean to the point where we had our school system closed last year we had our schools close the buildings um you know to to try to give um you know to to create conditions that were protective enough for the for the students so to what degree does that also you know does that continue to be an issue for us um i think it continues to be an issue you know for every layer of mitigation that you remove if you're not able to increase some of the other layers um then yes it is a concern um and you know as as we all know um you know the distancing we we aim for six but
082we are we're lucky if we can do three feet um you know moving forward um you know hopefully this weather will will change in in the next month or so we'll be able to open more windows so that's another um the ventilation will be able to improve but you know for every layer that you remove you have to be able to amp something else up i'm sorry but i the guideline changed i don't know maybe six months ago but it's three feet of distance now that is suggested um not the six but three is the new like five days three feet now six has always been the goal but three feet is acceptable and it has been for quite some time okay so that's pretty much what it's been kind of reduced to to make
083things happen right in offices schools you know three feet to come back right for us okay i just wanted to make sure that that was the actual number and six speed is desired but three feet is what's recommended by the guidelines correct it's acceptable okay thank you lauren um can you just explain because maybe parents that are watching are as confused as i felt um can you explain that this is a policy committee meeting and that there's nothing happening absolutely go and explain that because this is frustrating for us so i can only imagine parents at home are like what where's we're not having to like i just i know it's a really good idea no really really good idea lauren thank you yeah to to for anybody that wasn't the here at the beginning
084this is a policy committee meeting um we cannot take the policy committee can make recommendations to the board of education as a whole it cannot act on behalf of the board or bind the board of education more importantly the this is this meeting was to get information um to discuss some ideas and obviously there's a great divergence of opinion in in on on the committee and probably on the board as all which is good um and hopefully this was to get information and advice from kara our health director uh dr bang our medical advisor and kathy who obviously is on you know overseeing this stuff on a daily basis for the district and first off by the way thank you to kathy carr and dr beg for doing this um but that's what this is
085in lauren you're absolutely correct this is we're not taking action tonight um only the board can take action anyway and as i'm hearing it from our medical professionals it's not advised to do anything yet hopefully by next week we may actually by the next by the board meeting next week maybe we'll actually do something more take some more definitive action because terry we might get the benchmarks that you were looking for earlier um we may get those benchmarks from the state department of ed and from the cdc and hopefully we will because this way we know if we're what we're doing is at least you know has some you know guidance in science oh but yeah warren that's a great point this is just a committee meeting and this is an informational meeting we're not
086taking action tonight um the action will be the board of education would have to take the action this is just a committee thank you no thank you it's a good idea does anybody else have any questions for our medical professionals anybody okay of course i can't even hear me or did i freeze up again um if there's nothing else um can we let can we let can we free our doctors for the evening and cara yes excellent doctor beg thank you very much for giving us of your time actually i want to thank all the uh members who attended today for your comments um i will compliment you that you're um your um you've done your homework uh and i again i think i think we have more common ground than we don't we all
087want to do what's best for our children uh we do want to see that point when the masks are removed it's just a matter we got to find out uh we have to collectively decide based on uh guidance from the state um and our own internal metrics uh what that best state is but again i do want to thank everyone for their time their opinion i've actually learned a bit from this meeting well thank you thank you thank you doctor thank you kara um who's stuck in your office because i can see the light continuously go out keeps going out on you've been stuck here so long um and i'll leave i'll defer to rachel on this because she is our fearless leader but i'm guessing she is going to invite the two of you
088back for our next board meeting or at least that one upcoming if not the next one one coming soon probably not the next one but yeah soon okay don't mind yes and i also want to thank um kelly for taking the lead on behalf of the school you can be here and for all of our cabinet members who are here this evening thank you for your time and your input and i think this was incredibly helpful to have the conversation um and to begin learn to learn more about you know how this is impacting danbury specifically i mean we're we're very i've i've always said we're very unique in many many ways um we have to do what's right for danbury um period so um with that joe i think i think we'll just have
089to play it by ear yeah um and hopefully we'll receive further guidance from the state uh before the executive order is lifted and policy members be ready we may have another policy meeting coming up maybe in the next week uh certainly i would imagine the next two um [Music] but you know i definitely will be back together for sure um sooner rather than later i'm guessing questions comments thoughts if not i'll entertain a motion to adjourn the policy committee meeting so moved kate ii michelle seconds kate and michelle stucken kate made the motion michelle seconded uh kate michelle terry and bridget all those in favor aye aye eyes have it motion