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Date: 3/17/2021
WESTFIELD – At the Westfield Board of Health meeting on March 10, Health Director Joe Rouse provided an update on COVID-19 and vaccines in Westfield, while the board approved a moratorium on new tobacco licenses
To start his regular COVID-19 update, Rouse said that cases were on the rise after an uptick for the reporting week ending March 10.
“We went up this past week again and pretty significantly. We went up to 67 new confirmed cases and I believe last week we were in the 40s. We have a whole lot more people that are currently in isolation. I unfortunately think it is just a societal response to being done with this and travel has been a common denominator that may account for the rise, but I cannot pinpoint that,” he said.
Rouse said that the next two months will be critical in continuing to slow the spread of COVID-19 and people must continue to follow the guidelines.
“As I have said all along right from the beginning there are times that you can identify as being critical in controlling the spread, and in March and April we are in that time again. We need to make sure people don’t throw caution out to the wind because we are getting the vaccine out as quickly as we can but not as fast as we should be if people want to stop paying attention,” he said.
When it came to vaccines, Rouse said he attended a meeting with Mayor Don Humason, state Sen. John Velis, and state Rep. Kelly Pease to discuss the lack of vaccines in the city.
“We talked about why Westfield does not have a location for vaccines and no matter how you look at it, things have become political and this is where we are. If you look at a map right now and see the sites where the vaccine is available, there is a huge void around Westfield. It is obvious we do not have the sites easily available to people that we need,” he said.
After plans fell through for a mass vaccination site at the Big E in West Springfield, Rouse said the state may consider Westfield a better site once more vaccines are available.
“The Big E was not something the state felt was a good solution, more likely they would be more interested in a site in Westfield. Even though we have been told there are not any vaccines available for us to do a clinic, but when the time comes, they would be more responsive to one in Westfield because they want to make sure the outlying communities are served,” he said.
With an end to the COVID-19 pandemic slowing coming into sight, Rouse said now is not the time to relax.
“Whether you realize it or not, we are at a point right now we have been wishing for for a year, let’s not screw it up,” he said.
After an incident with a local tobacco business, Rouse said he wanted to place a moratorium on new tobacco licenses until he and the Health Department can put together tighter regulations.
“We had an incident with a local establishment that sells tobacco and vape products which made us start thinking more about tightening up our regulations locally. Our wishlist is expansive as far as what we want to do. Before we start rewriting those, I thought it would be best if we put a moratorium on the issuance of new licenses,” he said.
The board unanimously approved the moratorium.