My updates relating to COVID-19 for Wednesday, October 7, 2020.
Below are Mayor Walsh’s remarks for Wednesday, October 7, 2020.
I want to start by apologizing for the fact that we don’t have a Sign Language interpreter today. We learned this morning that no one is available. We will be posting a fully captioned video of this news conference, as well as a text transcript, online.
The latest COVID numbers here in Massachusetts as of yesterday: 454 new confirmed cases, for a total now of 133,359 confirmed cases in the Commonwealth. There were eight deaths recorded yesterday, for a total of 9,323 deaths.
Our numbers in Boston yesterday: 63 new cases, for a total of 17,712. We had no deaths yesterday, our death total in Boston remains 764.
Our prayers go out to the families of those who lost loved ones during this terrible time and also to the families that are sick and suffering with COVID-19.
At this point, I’d like to ask Chief Marty Martinez to come up to the podium and talk about the latest numbers and data on COVID-19.
Thank you Chief Martinez, and your team at Health and Human Services for the great work they do.
Throughout this pandemic, in addition to sharing data, we have made decisions here in the city based on science. Our priority is to protect Bostonians’ health and safety, with special consideration for our most vulnerable residents. That is how we are moving forward based on this latest data.
The citywide positive rate of 4.1% puts us just over the 4% threshold that we established for moving forward with our phased-in, hybrid learning plan for the Boston Public Schools. This is a somewhat conservative threshold that we have here. The state, national, and global public health standards generally focus on 5% positivity test rate. That’s consistent with our overall cautious approach, so we believe it is prudent at this time to pause the school reopening plan.
Just as I talk about this, and these are difficult decisions, there’s a young man here that you don’t see at home. He’s holding a sign: “We need school.” I understand the importance of having school for our young people.
So, what we’re going to do today: we will push back the earliest possible start date for Phase 3 from October 15 to October 22. That means, as of now, the K0, K1, and K2 kindergarten grades will enter schools no sooner than October 22. We will re-evaluate based on the data we see between now and then. There are many other dates that we will be looking at to see where our positive rate is throughout the City of Boston.
Today, Wednesday, our schools are fully remote, but we will reopen tomorrow to continue serving the highest-needs students in our district whose families opted to begin hybrid learning last week. This decision is based on the guidance of our public health experts and in consultation with state officials in public health and education. And it is consistent with our decision to prioritize our highest needs students in this plan. These are students with disabilities that require in-person support; who require English language support; who have had limited or interrupted education; who are experiencing homelessness; or who are in DCF care.
For many of these students, not being in school presents risk that cannot be mitigated the way that the risk of COVID can be. It’s the risk of moving backward that is very difficult to recover from. We are hearing from many families, as well as advocates and experts, that their return to school has done wonders for their health and well being.
I witnessed it for myself last week when I visited several schools. I saw smiles on little kids’ faces at the Ellis School in Roxbury and I saw — there was a line of press and a line of teachers — a little girl run by us all and hug her teacher. She was so happy to be in the school. At the Carter School, there were three students, non-verbal, learning how to communicate — one child through a smile and another through the movement of his eyes and his head. Amazing things are happening in our schools. It’s important for us that we continue to have those amazing things happen in our schools and to allow families and our young people in particular to have those experiences that they’ve missed out on for the past seven months. The relationships they have with their teachers and therapists mean the world to these young people. It’s something, in a lot of cases, that cannot be accomplished by Zoom.
I want to be absolutely clear: We will continue to ensure schools are prepared to protect the health and safety of the students, our teachers, and all of the people and any of the people that are in them.
So far, about 1,300 students have been in our schools each day since Thursday. With 125 schools, that’s an average of a little over 10 students per school. With the protocols we have in place, public health guidance says we can provide the vital in-person learning and services for all the highest needs students whose parents have decided to opt in.
I want to thank everyone who has done amazing work in serving those students. The teachers, therapists, and counselors that I spoke to last week, and the excitement and joy in your face for welcoming your kids back. I want to thank the nurses, bus drivers, and custodians for making sure there’s a safe place in our schools, and to make sure our kids are safely transported from their house or their street corner to their schools. I want to thank the custodians who are working around the clock not only to get our schools prepared, but continually making sure our schools are clean and sanitized. I want to give a special shout out to the principals, the school leaders, and the administrators who have spent hours and hours and hours not just preparing our schools to be open, but spending more hours on Zoom calls with the district to talk about the needs that you see in your school and your kids’ and your teachers’ needs. We are all committed to meeting everyone’s needs together.
We will continue to make hybrid, in-person learning an option for them, as long as the public health guidance supports it. And we are committed to keeping family choice at the heart of this plan. Every family, of every student, in every grade, will continue to have the option of fully remote learning.
We all know these are trying times for everyone. There are no easy choices. But we have to follow the public health guidance and we have to listen to those who are impacted around us. This decision came down to me realizing that, for our highest needs students, the district is their choice. We are their chance for success to help them move forward. We cannot take this away from them so soon after they started — not when there’s an opportunity, backed by public health, to have them in schools. There’s too much at stake for our young people. Every day matters. They deserve our very best effort.
We are Boston. Throughout this pandemic, we figured out a way to make it happen, and there’s no difference in what we’re talking about today.
I’ll ask Superintendent Brenda Cassellius to say more, as well as Roxann Harvey, the chair of the Special Education Parent Advisory Council, and City Councilor Annissa Essaibi-George.
Thank you Councillor, and thank you Roxann and Superintendent Cassellius. I want to thank Marty Martinez, Carolyn Kain [executive director of the Massachusetts Autism Commission], everyone who’s here today.
I’m confident that moving forward together as a community committed to supporting our most vulnerable students and families is something that we will do in our city. And to keep moving forward, I want to remind everyone, as the Superintendent did: We’re asking everyone to continue wearing your marks, wash your hands with soap and warm water, and continue to keep six feet distance from each other. And above all, we have to avoid parties and large gatherings of any kind. That’s where we are seeing some of our numbers come from. Please don’t put going to a party ahead of our ability to get kids back in school. That’s something that’s really important.
I also want to provide an update on housing, and I’ll go more into it at our next press conference. The state moratorium on evictions ends on October 17 — in 10 days — and we are determined to prevent people from losing their homes.
We filed an ordinance with the City Council on Monday called the Housing Stability Notification Act. It says that whenever a property owner sends a Notice to Quit to a tenant, they must accompany that notice with information — that we will provide — about the rights and resources available to tenants. It’s the first step in the process, and we’re also doing more steps. I have testified at the State House on the Jim Brooks Stabilization Act to prevent evictions. It did not pass at the State House. Many of these preventions or precautions that were in this legislation would work for us right now, work for our most vulnerable residents around the City of Boston.
But right now, we are facing a potential crisis. As a city we must use the powers that we have to provide whatever help we can.
We are sending a mailer, with a message in nine different languages, to 46,000 households around the City of Boston that may be at risk of eviction. It tells them clearly that they do not have to leave their homes if they receive Notice to Quit. We’re working with homeowners in the City of Boston as well because many are hurting in this very difficult financial time. We’re asking everyone with questions or concerns to contact our Office of Housing Stability.
We’ve also invited landlords to sign onto our Housing Stability Pledge to prevent evictions. To date, we already have 25 property owners or managers around the City of Boston who provide housing to low-income renters have agreed to sign our pledge so far.
October 31 is the final day for the 2020 Census. We’re asking people: go to my2020census.gov or call 844–330–2020. We’re at about a 57% rate right now for Bostonians who have filled out the Census form. That is a bad number. We need to get that number higher. They’re claiming in Washington the numbers across the country are higher, that’s not the case. So, I’m asking every Bostonian to fill out this form. Go to my2020census.gov to fill out the form. It’s something that’s very important.
I usually try to end these press conferences on a positive note, but unfortunately today I can’t.
Yesterday, we all saw a disturbing video from VFW Parkway in West Roxbury. State Representative Edward Coppinger reached out to me first with the video. City Councillor Essabi-George reached out. It was a disturbing video to watch. It was unacceptable in multiple ways. Violating someone’s rights just because of the color of their skin, is always unacceptable.
Early this morning, I talked to the man in the video, and we had a conversation about, first of all, what was going through his head, and also understanding what this is about. I’ve reached out to the Boston Police Department to have them reach out to federal authorities to see what this is all about. It’s unacceptable that ICE hasn’t confirmed or denied that these were their agents.
In Boston, we believe in the power of community policing and the importance of trust between law enforcement and our community, in order to ensure public safety for everyone. Incidents like this have no place in our city, and no place in our country quite honestly. It causes real pain, fear and concern.
So, I just wanted to let everyone know that we are on top of this, we are working on it. That’s all the information I have at this point, and we’re going to continue to be asking questions. And, I plan on having another conversation a little later this morning with the gentleman who’s in the video. Clearly, he was shaken up yesterday in what he explained to me and he’s still unclear why this happened. So, we’re going to get more information on that.
