Businesses hear reassurances against mandates as a Covid surge brings test and mask challenges
A sign with a common message is taped to the front of a Cambridge Walgreens last week. (Photo: Marc Levy)
Against a backdrop of what Cambridge’s chief public health officer called “uncontrolled transmission” of Covid-19, City Manager Louis A. DePasquale said Monday that the city won’t require restaurants, fitness centers and other indoor public spaces to mandate Covid-19 vaccination for their customers and workers as Boston and neighboring communities have done.
“Cambridge is different than New York and Boston that are enacting vaccine mandates,” DePasquale told city councillors. “Throughout the pandemic, we are prioritizing education and outreach over punitive enforcement.”
That was what some restaurateurs wanted to hear, telling councillors Monday that a mandate would force them to fire workers and close their businesses. “More and more employees are leaving for stay-at-home laptop jobs. Some of my best employees are unvaccinated, and I cannot afford to fire them,” said Alexandra Whisnant, of the “cellphone free” Zuzu’s Petals wine and dessert bar in Inman Square. “I don’t think working at a restaurant is so important to their lives they would change their health decisions based on the possibility of losing the job.”
The city is scrambling in other ways to deal with the huge increase in Covid-19 cases since the highly contagious omicron variant became dominant late last month. It ordered 50,000 rapid antigen tests and 75,000 high-quality masks to distribute to residents – and is waiting for them to arrive. It has told certain employees who can work from home to do so until the end of February, as long as in-person attendance reaches at least 50 percent, DePasquale said.
Cambridge has also increased hours for its free Covid-19 testing program, one of the most generous in the state. Councillors, though, want the city to do more, especially as residents wait hours in the cold for a PCR test. This resulted in a familiar tug of war between councillors suggesting new directions for testing and city officials throwing cold water on their ideas.
Proposals resisted
Set up testing tents in Cambridge squares? Other cities have done it, said newly elected councillor Burhan Azeem; veteran MarcMcGovern also suggested outdoors testing sites. But testing outside “presents significant challenges,” said Lee Gianetti, head of communications and community relations.
Councillor E. Denise Simmons proposed priority treatment for seniors at testing sites, and councillors approved an order supporting it. Instead, chief public health officer Derrick Neal said the city would distribute rapid tests to “marginalized populations in Cambridge” when the tests arrive. DePasquale did respond to Simmons’ request more directly, saying the city was considering setting aside a separate testing location for seniors, though it would be by appointment only. That disappointed Simmons, who said older residents had trouble dealing with an online appointment system.
Simmons also asked that Cambridge reopen a testing site in Central Square; DePasquale replied that there isn’t enough staff.
Some lines for Covid testing have kept residents waiting for hours in the cold. This line was in North Cambridge on Dec. 29. (Photo: Marc Levy)
No one responded to McGovern’s suggestion that fire department and ProEMS emergency medical technicians don’t have to staff testing sites where people register and swab themselves. “If you offered $20 an hour to the general public to hire people to do the testing, it doesn’t require a specialty. We’d be able to open more sites and more places and reduce the wait for people to get tested,” McGovern said.
An exasperated McGovern said he knew “from personal experience” that people were waiting more than two hours in the cold to get tested. “In the cold, with kids. It is really not – we may be better than other communities, it doesn’t mean that it’s great here either. It means they may be worse off than us,” he said.
“I have yet to see, despite weeks of asking, a plan to be more creative and offering more testing to get the lines down to something more manageable so people don’t wait for hours. I will put it out there again,” McGovern said, adding that he might introduce an order asking for it.
At the end of the meeting, he did, and councillors unanimously approved it.
A university model
Officials didn’t shoot down every suggestion. The city may emulate Harvard University’s program allowing students and others on campus to pick up a PCR testing kit, swab themselves at home and return the kit for analysis, something vice mayor Alanna Mallon had suggested.
Health department chief epidemiologist Anna Kaplan said the department wants to talk with Harvard’s test vendor. She added that the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, has a similar program and also provides the service to community residents.
“Harvard or MIT can potentially provide an expanded service for Cambridge residents?” Mallon asked. “I’m not sure – I haven’t spoken to the universities about this,” Kaplan said. “Just as an example of how the process works in other cities.”
Continued surge in cases
Meanwhile, the number of infections here continues an “exponential increase,” Neal said.
“Cambridge is experiencing widespread transmission in child care programs, schools, workplaces, hospital workers, homeless shelters and long-term care facilities because this is a more communicable level of virus with regard to Covid-19,” Neal said.
“Hospitals in Cambridge and throughout the region are under strain right now. And in addition to the rise in number of Covid-19 patients, there have been admissions of critically ill patients on top of existing staffing shortages, which I mentioned earlier, as well as the health care workers out sick with Covid,” he continued.
Two library branches have closed because of staff shortages, with one, Central Square, out of service for a week and due to reopen Wednesday. The public health department was also affected by lack of staff, Neal said. “We had that issue within the … department, which impacted our ability to deliver services,” he said.
Still, the city is just now trying to find out how many city workers are vaccinated, even as DePasquale has refused to impose a vaccination requirement for employees.The health department is preparing a survey to be sent to workers, probably by Friday, Gianetti said.
This post was updated Jan. 13, 2021, to restore first reference to chief public health officer Derrick Neal.
Cambridge, a city of half measures and tepid responses.
Either enforce the mandates or drop the charade of masks at places like supermarkets and let’s get on with our lives.
God forbid a couple of restaurants fail.
Q: What will they name our variant? A: The People’s Virus of Cambridge.
In politics, courage is rare. To put freedoms and civil rights ahead of ideology and group think is the triumph of courage over fear, as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stated, “there comes a time when silence is betrayal.” As we remember Doctor King and the courage he showed many years ago, we must note the profile in courage of our City Manager. In the face of strong forces to limit medical freedom and force an Investigational new drug on thousands of human beings, courage is being able to say NO.
“we are prioritizing education and outreach over punitive enforcement.”
How can we justify hurting people in the name of public health??? Thank you for your leadership.
The City Manager, through inaction is complicit in perpetuating sickness and misery.
The Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson vaccines are very safe, and they prevent people from being hospitalized (or killed) by COVID. New York and Boston have the right idea by mandating the vaccine, to ease the burden on hospitals and staff.
P.S. Comparing Louis DePasquale’s embrace of Tucker Carlson’s attitudes toward vaccination to Martin Luther King Jr.? That shows steakholder has a substantial ignorance of history.
The city manager has done what many would not have the courage to do. Currently cambridge is highly vaccinated with 89% at first jab. The New England Journal of Medicine published a report on vax passports in September of last year wherein county’s in Europe that adopted this saw marginal increases in adoption where the vax population is low and almost no increase where moderate. Cambridge has done a terrific job vaccinating it’s population. An adult vaccinated and boosted is extremely well protected. It’s more dangerous to ride a bicycle through Cambridge than the risk of getting covid with serious outcome once vaxxed. Passports and mandates are punitive only. They’re discriminatory and ultimately serve only one purpose: to punish. The Mayor wanted this because Mayor Wu pushed her to do so. That’s all. No more though than that. Now Boston has to contend with a timeline that spans until end of May with no enforcement mechanism, no measures of success, no end point, and no outcome based metric to look to. Our Manager did right by the citizens of Cambridge by not following blindly at the behest of Boston just because to some it seemed popular. Our Covid responses need to be thoughtful, goal orientated, and achievable we do not need another “plexi-glass 2.0” policy that doesn’t do anything except signal virtue. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart for thinking before you leapt Mr. Manager.
Vaccine mandates get the population up to herd immunity, and if you look at the city’s website, the vaccination rate of 16 to 19 year olds is only 51% fully vaccinated.
This disease is going to mutate and mutate until we get the last few holdouts vaccinated. Mandate it.
Right now, every liquor store and alcohol-serving business has the ability to check the age of the purchaser.
It is not hard to ask someone to produce a vax card.
It is silly to call COVID vaccine mandates discriminatory, but Tucker Carlson calls them that, and apparently a number of people are taking Tucker’s position.
In 1905, the Supreme Court upheld Cambridge’s smallpox mandate in Jacobson v. Massachusetts. That was a good city decision.
“Some of my best employees are unvaccinated, and I cannot afford to fire them,” said Alexandra Whisnant, of the “cellphone free” Zuzu’s Petals wine and dessert bar in Inman Square.
Well I guess I won’t be going to Zuzu’s!
Joel,
Out of the 3334 hospitalizations over the last two week 51 were in the 12-19 category. This is of course before we see data on the 17th that will breakdown “with” or “for” covid which based on NYC should reduce the “for” groups by a significant margin. Mandates for vaccines are helpful I agree but passports to allow entry into a store based on vaccination status is discriminatory. That isn’t my language that is from the New England Journal of Medicine. They also state pretty clearly that a passport system will not yield a higher adoption rate in places that have already a very high one. Cambridge is at 89% first dose. That group is also not going to bars but I wouldn’t want to deny admission to a restaurant or theatre regardless. The case you mention is a classic though that was about whether the commonwealth could fine the young gentleman and his son … which they did. Two issues; both of different implications; no Tuckers involved in the decision making.
What an absolute embarrassment. The city manager style government in Cambridge needs to go.
I would hope that Mr. Barrett would support a rigorous vaccine or daily testing mandate for employees of the various businesses that work out of his new boutique hotel, at least for those who have direct contact with customers.
His speculation that the Mayor of Cambridge acted for the health of residents only because the Mayor of Boston did so is nothing more than the usual political nonsense that typifies much of the conversation in Cambridge.
The fact that the City Manager will not institute a vaccination or daily testing mandate for city employees is not an act of courage but an irresponsible response to a pandemic that puts the lives of residents and employees in jeopardy. As a result of this inaction we see that services such as the Central Square Library are being curtailed because of rampant covid outbreaks. Sadly the Manager does not even allow hard numbers regarding employee vaccinations and testing to be released.
Pardon me if I withhold my applause for the City Manager, no act of courage on his part.
Gerald I’m glad you still have hope.