While Greenfield has been reporting COVID-19 numbers for several weeks and Montague decided not to release town numbers recently, officials from both communities said Thursday that they are good with the governor’s decision to have the state report numbers by towns, but hope that residents in towns with lower numbers don’t become complacent.
Montague’s Acting Board of Health Director Gina McNeely said what she doesn’t want to see is residents in Franklin County towns, for instance, who are being reported to have no confirmed cases forget about the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance when it comes to prevention. This week, the governor announced the state Department of Public Health (DPH) had begun reporting numbers of each city and town throughout Massachusetts and will continue to do so every Wednesday.
“People still have to practice social distancing, hand washing, wearing masks, etc.,” McNeely said.
McNeely said she and the board really felt Montague shouldn’t release its numbers because not only did they think people might become complacent but they might also not understand that the numbers “aren’t real.” She said that even if a town reports a certain number of COVID-19 positives, it cannot be sure that those are the only ones. She said people could be asymptomatic or could be treating themselves at home because they have a mild case and aren’t sick enough to be tested.
Throughout the county and North Quabbin a, doctors have been giving people clinical diagnoses, asking them to recover in place and only go to the hospital if they become seriously or critically ill. Therefore, she said, “the reported numbers don’t tell the whole story.”
Montague Town Administrator Steve Ellis agreed with McNeely.
“The Board of Health had extended discussions on this,” Ellis said. “They discussed many things and their rationale was that it was better to not report the numbers.”
Ellis said town officials had to balance the interests — did they feel the data was accurate enough of a representation and could they keep people’s right to privacy safe.
He said it wasn’t a surprise that the state flip-flopped on the matter. For instance, just last week the state said it was not going to report numbers by individual towns and cities. He said the state had to consider the same things Montague was considering.
“I believe the town’s decision was thoughtful,” he said.
Ellis also said that the state will only be reporting positive cases that have been confirmed, so the numbers won’t be as accurate as everyone would like. He said towns and cities have been reporting their positive numbers, but the state surveillance system has been lagging.
“Therefore, the numbers can be misleading,” he said.
Ellis said the most important message, as did McNeely, that preventive actions are still “extremely important” to prevent spread.
Ellis said depending on the types of numbers that are being reported by the state, there might be people who minimize the threat because the numbers in their towns are low, versus people who might be petrified because their numbers are higher.
“And then there’s everyone in between,” he said. “If we had reported these numbers individually a few weeks ago, it might have been a signal in some towns that we didn’t need to practice social distancing.”
Across the river in Greenfield, Mayor Roxann Wedegartner said the city decided to report numbers — confirmed positive cases, recoveries and deaths — early on.
“It was important to us to help people understand what was going on and where we stood to the extent that we could,” she said. “Our main motivation was transparency.”
Wedegartner said, however, people need to pay attention to guidelines provided by cities and towns, the CDC and the DPH. The mayor said the city will continue its daily contact with the local health community.
“We’ve got a good relationship and we’ve been getting the numbers from them right along,” she said. “We’ll also continue our contact tracing, which has helped Greenfield a lot.”
Earlier this week, Gov. Charlie Baker also announced that DPH would begin reporting numbers at hospitals each Wednesday. Until now, cities, towns and hospitals released their numbers to the state, but then the state reported those numbers cumulatively by county, not individually. Baystate Health reported cumulative numbers to The Recorder, and cities and towns decided whether they would.
While leaders believe the individual numbers will show a more accurate picture of each town, city and hospital, they are also concerned that because people can be asymptomatic and not even know themselves that they are infected or that some can be mildly ill and get a diagnosis over the phone and be asked to just stay home and recover, that the numbers still aren’t “real.”
Franklin County Regional Governments Director of Community Services Phoebe Walker said the agency will be releasing numbers every Thursday on its website www.frcog.org that will include how many confirmed COVID-19 cases have been reported in each town working with FRCOG, how many people have recovered and how many deaths there have been.
The DPH is also breaking down cases by hospitals — there are five in its system — and will not only be reporting daily numbers at Baystate Franklin Medical Center in Greenfield to The Recorder, but those numbers will be reported weekly by the state.
The DPH warns, like Wedegartner, McNeely, Ellis and Walker, that communities should not stop prevention and mitigation based on data the state releases, because it most likely is not 100 percent correct because of unknown cases.
Baystate Health has been reporting for many weeks the cumulative numbers of its five hospitals. The Recorder has run those numbers, but has not been able to get numbers specific to the local hospital. Thursday, Baystate included those local numbers for the first time, just as the state is doing, but had no comment about the state’s decision or its decision to start including the local numbers.
A legislative bill (H 4635) that has gone to the House for its consideration would require the DPH to report the number of COVID-19 cases, as well as COVID-19-related deaths in assisted living, skilled nursing facilities and elderly housing complexes each week.
Until now, those facilities have not had to report numbers to cities or towns and in Greenfield, two of three nursing homes have refused to report numbers to the press or have ignored requests for that information. They would also have to include information about demographics, according to the bill.
Charlene Manor Extended Care Facility reported this week that it has had no COVID-19-related deaths, but currently has five people who have tested positive.
This week, Baker announced that he encourages widespread testing for residents of skilled nursing facilities, even if they aren’t experiencing any symptoms. To date, Charlene Manor and Poet’s Seat Health Care Center, both in Greenfield, have said they have only been testing residents and staff that have symptoms. Buckley HealthCare Center in Greenfield has not responded to any requests for information or answers in several weeks.
Baker also said this week that there are plans to convert some nursing homes into COVID-19 recovery centers, including one in East Longmeadow that will be run by the company that owns Charlene Manor.
Longtime elder advocate Al Norman said nine days ago he asked the Baker administration to release specific data about individual skilled nursing facilities. He said he is concerned that the very limited testing for COVID-19 may be dramatically understating how many cases exist in Franklin County and beyond in those facilities.
He said he would also like to see reports from assisted living facilities, like the Arbors in Greenfield.
“We now know from the statewide aggregate data that nearly half of all COVID-19 deaths are in nursing facilities,” Norman said. “We know that almost 40 percent of reported COVID-19 cases are among people 60 and older.”
He said the governor should have released that type of information in February and helped communities identify the institutions struggling with the disease.
“Instead, state and local governments have used the privacy and confidentiality excuse to hide this pandemic data,” Norman said. “Families want to know where the hot spots are in their community. This lesson should have been clear from the statewide reaction to the Holyoke Soldier’s Home.”
“The state and local governments should make this data available now — they should not have to be forced to do it by new legislation or public records requests,” he said. “The data is already collected, in most cases, and all they need to do now is make it transparent. COVID-19 data will help each community fight this pandemic.”
Reach Anita Fritz at 413-772-9591 or afritz@recorder.com.