New England Journal of Medicine: "Infection-control strategies focused solely on symptomatic residents were not sufficient"

Recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine reached the following "Conclusions"

"Rapid and widespread transmission of SARS-CoV-2 was demonstrated in this skilled nursing facility. More than half of residents with positive test results were asymptomatic at the time of testing and most likely contributed to transmission.

Infection-control strategies focused solely on symptomatic residents were not sufficient to prevent transmission after SARS-CoV-2 introduction into this facility."

This helps to explain the science behind the social distancing and stay-at-home order. Treating only those with symptoms is not sufficient. The nature of this disease is devious. We all need to treat everyone as possibly carrying the virus, hence the social distancing facial covering, washing hands, etc.


The full study can be found online  https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2008457

New England Journal of Medicine: "Infection-control strategies focused solely on symptomatic residents were not sufficient"

In the News: Franklin man's marathon; credit rating agency has praised the flexibility bill; municipalities can order residents to wear face coverings

From the Milford Daily News, articles of interest for Franklin:

"Adam Calvert knows a lot about going the distance.

Recently, the Franklin resident tied on his running shoes and hit the pavement for his very own marathon - a 26.2-mile route of his own design that took more than four hours to complete cheered on along the way by many supporters and joined for part of the distance by three fellow runners.

But the long run really began last March, when his wife, Emma, was diagnosed with breast cancer while she was just a few months into her fourth pregnancy. As Calvert supported her through the cancer treatments and pregnancy, while helping to care for their three other children, he made a decision: He’d join the Dana-Farber Marathon team and finally take on the Boston Marathon — an undertaking that had already been at the back of his mind — with her as his inspiration and Dana-Farber’s Jimmy Fund as his cause.

He was understandably disappointed when talk of calling off the iconic April event began late in March amid concerns about the coronavirus."

Continue reading the article online (subscription may be required)
https://www.milforddailynews.com/news/20200426/inspired-by-wife-franklin-man-runs-his-own-marathon

credit rating agency has praised the flexibility bill

"A major credit rating agency has praised the municipal government flexibility bill Gov. Charlie Baker signed earlier this month as an advantage for cities and towns, and detailed how it will help local leaders.

In last week’s credit outlook for public finance, Moody’s Investor Service said the legislation that Baker signed into law April 3 “is credit positive for local governments because it will increase their ability to operate effectively during a period when they are managing a health emergency while also planning for the 2021 fiscal year starting in July.”

The bill got more attention for allowing restaurants to sell beer and wine with to-go orders and postponing the tax filing deadline until July, but it also provided the state’s 351 municipalities with deadline and scheduling flexibility on town meetings, tax payments and permits. Crucially, it also allowed cities and towns to tap into free cash, or remaining fiscal 2020 reserves, for fiscal 2021 budgets without having to go through the usual state approval process."

Continue reading the article online (subscription may be required)
https://www.milforddailynews.com/news/20200427/rating-agency-takes-measure-of-coronavirus-law


municipalities can order residents to wear face coverings

"Attorney General Maura Healey’s office now says municipalities can order residents to wear face coverings in public.

On Monday, Healey’s office issued revised guidance on local authority when it comes to protecting public health amid the coronavirus pandemic.

According to the new guidance, a municipality can, through its Board of Health, require people to wear face coverings to prevent the spread of infection, per General Law Chapter 111, §§ 26-26C, 31, 104."

Continue reading the article online (subscription may be required)
https://www.milforddailynews.com/news/20200428/mass-ags-office-revises-guidance-says-municipalities-can-order-face-coverings

wfpr.fm: Franklin Matters Radio show schedule Weds, Thur, Fri

For this week: 4/29/20

#254 Jamie Hellen - “Talk Franklin” - Wednesday at 11:00 AM, 2:00 PM and 8:00 PM

#255 – State Rep Jeff Roy - Thursday at 9:00 AM 12:00 PM 6:00 PM

#249 -Town Clerks Teresa Burr and Nancy Danelo along with #251 - Bryan Taberner - Friday at 11:00 AM, 2:00 PM and 8:00 PM 



These radio shows were previously shared here. If you have subscribed via the podcast, they should also have appeared in your listening queue.

#254 Jamie Hellen - “Talk Franklin”
https://www.franklinmatters.org/2020/04/fm-254-talk-franklin-hellen-and-tracey.html

#255 – State Rep Jeff Roy
https://www.franklinmatters.org/2020/04/fm-255-state-representative-jeffrey-roy.html

#249 -Town Clerks Teresa Burr and Nancy Danelo
 https://www.franklinmatters.org/2020/04/fm-249-town-clerk-teresa-burr-asst.html

#251 - Bryan Taberner
 https://www.franklinmatters.org/2020/04/fm-251-bryan-taberner-planning-and.html

wfpr.fm: Franklin Matters Radio show schedule Weds, Thur, Fri

 

wfpr.fm: Franklin Matters Radio show schedule

Webinars for Small Business Owners

Having trouble viewing this? Click Here. www.msbdc.org/semass NEED INDIVIDUAL HELP FOR YOUR SMALL BUSINESS? Let our MSBDC business advisors help you navigate the SBA Debt Relief Programs. Please complete our "Request for Counseling" confidentiality form and someone will call you to schedule a telephone appointment with an advisor. https://www.msbdc.org/semass/rfc.html  Online Request for Counseling Form WEBINARS FOR SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS PPP & Debt Relief Program with the MSBDC Southeast Regional Office Wednesday, April 29, 2020 2:00 p.m. Ili Spahiu, Assistant District Director for Lender Relations in the U.S. Small Business Administration's MA District Office, will provide SBA Covid-19 Updates for Economic Relief Programs. Cliff Robbins, Sr. Business Advisor, MA Small Business Development Center (MSBDC) will discuss the benefits of utilizing the free services of the MSBDC. https://clients.msbdc.org/workshop.aspx?ekey=110400005 REGISTER Get the latest info on supporting your business with Laurie Driscoll, South Eastern Economic Development (SEED), and Jill Beresford, Massachusetts Small Business Development Center at the next ZOOM meeting. Friday, May 1, 10 a.m. Use this link and Meeting ID to enter the live Zoom meeting: https://us04web.zoom.us/j/316252883​​​​​​​ Meeting ID: 316-252-883 Contact Pam @ pdziura@cranberrycountry.org with questions. COVID-19 Recovery Update with City, State and Federal Officials Friday, May 1, 2020 2:00 to 3:00 pm Join us for a COVID-19 Economic recovery call update with the Metro South Chamber of Commerce, Massachusetts Office of Business Development, Mayor of Brockton Robert F. Sullivan, and special guest Neil Bradley, executive vice president and chief policy officer at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Register online. https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_C_dkP-SBRTGOEnjWOKElAw  Contact Lexi at areinertson@metrosouthchamber.com with questions. REGISTER MA Small Business Development Center Network Southeast Regional Office | 200 Pocasset Street, Fall River, MA 02721 Sent by amfenton@msbdc.umass.edu in collaboration with Try email marketing for free today!

The newsletter was shortened for publication here. To view the full set of contents
https://myemail.constantcontact.com/Webinars-for-Small-Business-Owners.html?soid=1101853174121&aid=jHXrqBJSzeA

CBD, COVID-19 and cancer: The unfounded facts

CBD, COVID-19 and cancer: The unfounded facts by Lisa Lake, Consumer Education Specialist, FTC The COVID-19 pandemic creates the perfect storm of hopes and fears that dishonest business try to exploit with fake promises of protection and healing. But when these promises are not backed by science, the consequences can often cost you money and your good health. Read more https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/blog/2020/04/cbd-covid-19-and-cancer-unfounded-facts   This is a free service provided by the Federal Trade Commission.

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Franklin Food Pantry Purchases Building to Expand Services

The Pantry Looks to Renovate a Bigger Franklin Space to Better Serve Its Neighbors

Today (Apr 27, 2020) the Franklin Food Pantry announced that it has purchased a building to be able to better serve its neighbors. The building formerly known as Dante’s Motors, Inc. is located on 138 East Central Street and will undergo renovations to make it into a functional and expanded Pantry.

The new building will allow The Franklin Food Pantry to increase safety, accessibility, confidentiality and robustness of its current services and help The Pantry to develop new services to better fulfill the full mission of the Franklin Food Pantry. The Pantry will announce a Capital Campaign later in the year to help fund the renovations of the new space. In the meantime, The Pantry will continue to operate at its current location and appreciates the Support of Rockland Trust.

“For the past three years, The Franklin Food Pantry has been searching for a bigger space to be able to increase our assistance to our community. We are so thankful to Rockland Trust for loaning us our space and taking such good care of us over the past ten years, but we have outgrown the building,” said Lynn Calling, Executive Director of the Franklin Food Pantry. “Through the generosity of our Board members and close friends of The Pantry we were finally able to make this happen. Because of the commitment of the Board - as volunteers, donors, and advisors - we have been able to secure a mortgage for this property.”

Lynn Calling, Executive Director, stands in front of the future home

“We are so grateful for the incredible outpouring of support from our community as we meet increased demand due to Covid-19 and we are happy to be able to bring some good news to them,” said Tina Powderly, Board President. “This endeavor has been a long time coming and we’d like to thank community member Christine Bracci who worked with us so closely to help create a lasting legacy for her family’s business and to ensure the growth of the pantry.”

“This building has been in my family for a long time, and I’m so glad that I was able to work with the Franklin Food Pantry to give the building new life and another chance to serve the Franklin Community,” said Christine Bracci, previous owner. “I would like to thank my attorney Michael Heaney, Heaney and Small LLP for his help with making this deal possible.”

During the pandemic, the Franklin Food Pantry continues to operate to serve all new and existing neighbors. The Pantry has changed its hours to Tuesdays and Fridays from 9:30 AM to 12:30 PM and 1:30 PM to 4:00 PM. The Pantry is distributing prepackaged bags of shelf stable items as well as fresh produce and proteins through a drive up service. Since March, the Pantry has seen a weekly increase of new neighbors needing to receive services and all donations have gone toward continuing to feed its patrons.

About the Franklin Food Pantry

The Franklin Food Pantry offers supplemental food assistance and household necessities to over 1,100 individuals. Clients have access to a variety of fresh, frozen and nonperishable foods on monthly scheduled shopping trips as well as Walk-in Fridays. They can visit the Pantry daily for fruits, vegetables, bread and pastry. As a nonprofit organization, the Pantry depends entirely on donations, and receives no town or state funding. In 2019, 302,336 pounds of food was provided to clients. Other programs include the Weekend Backpack Program, Carts for Clients, Mobile Pantry, emergency food bags and holiday meal packages. Visit www.franklingfoodpantry.org for more information.

FM #255 State Representative Jeffrey Roy 4/27/20 (audio)

FM #255 = This is the Franklin Matters radio show, number 255 in the series.

This session of the radio show shares my conversation with our State Representative Jeffrey Roy. We had our conversation via conference bridge to adhere to the ‘social distancing’ requirements of this pandemic period.

We started by talking about the weekend and trying to take a break from COVID-19; the family of foxes that briefly lived in his backyard; the work of the Legislature and how that is progressing during this pandemic. The State budget is starting to be worked on by the House, later than normal, and it is likely that the entire State budget timeline will be later than normal. We talk about legislation on enabling voting by mail for the State primary in Sept and then the regular election in November.

We also talk about Jeff's work on the higher education committee and how that is helping to prepare for the broader discussion on what the State can do for higher education in MA; the economic impact of higher education, and then shifted into the arts and culture arena which also provides considerable economic value to the Commonwealth.

The recording runs almost 40 minutes, so let’s listen to my conversation with Jeff. Audio file =  https://www.hipcast.com/podcast/HB8QvYQ7




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We are now producing this in collaboration with Franklin.TV and Franklin Public Radio (wfpr.fm).

This podcast is my public service effort for Franklin but we can't do it alone. We can always use your help.

How can you help?

• If you can use the information that you find here, please tell your friends and neighbors
• If you don't like something here, please let me know

Through this feedback loop we can continue to make improvements. I thank you for listening.

For additional information, please visit Franklinmatters.org/
If you have questions or comments you can reach me directly at shersteve @ gmail dot com

The music for the intro and exit was provided by Michael Clark and the group "East of Shirley". The piece is titled "Ernesto, manana" c. Michael Clark & Tintype Tunes, 2008 and used with their permission.

I hope you enjoy!

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You can also subscribe and listen to Franklin Matters audio on iTunes or your favorite podcast app; search in "podcasts" for "Franklin Matters"

Rep Roy listening as part of the tour of the 'maker space' at Quinsigamond Community College (Nov 2019)

Note: I had the opportunity to join Rep Roy for his tour of UMass Medical, Quinsigamond Community College and Worcester State College on Friday, November 1, 2019

Board of Health approves mandate for face coverings for employees of essential businesses

I took my notes with Twitter to capture the gist of what was happening at the Board of Health meeting, Monday, April 27, 2020. The meeting had two agenda items. The agenda doc can be found linked below.

Effectively, the Board of Health approved a mandate for employees of essential businesses to wear facial coverings and to reinforce the advisory that residents should wear facial coverings when visiting retail establishments. This is an interim step to be effective 4/29. There is another meeting to be scheduled for next week as a follow up and to review a new item that came up during the meeting (a clarification on golf per Governor's revised statement).

My Twitter notes were all tagged as #boh0427. As I went from this meeting to the Economic Development meeting (which had started at 5:50) I made a few mistakes by tagging some of the EDC notes with this same #boh0427 tag instead of #edc0427 - oops.

The individual tweets can be found with this search result:  
https://twitter.com/search?q=%23boh0427&src=typed_query

• Real time reporting underway for Board of Health mtg
• New guidelines from Attorney General referenced. Consider mandate for employees of essential business to do so as a step. Reserve N95 for health and first responders
• Some of the citizen complaints to the Health Dept are around lack of grocery store employees not wearing cloth coverings (mask) #boh0427 . Health Director prefers advisory rather than mandate
• Concerns expressed about the mental health of the residents as we won't be observing the smiles of neighbors. Fear of going out because people are observed wearing masks.
• New FDA update on masks and types of just came out today. Mandate for employees, suggestion for residents to be clear. No single metric is perfect for effective of enforcement
• Questions and discussion around enforcement, in some cases would need to be by the retail business, BoH not wanting to get Franklin Police involved, they have other and better things to do
• Motion to adopt mandate for employees of essential business, recommended for posting of residents recommended to wear, motion approved; discussion on what effective date #boh0427 by close of business by April 29, notification coming, approved 3-0
• Hopefully the incremental approach will bring results, if not we can go further
• Discussion on expanding items for sale by restaurants and essential business, modify temp food permit to provide the steps/guidance for the business to do so. #boh0427 Health Director to come up with listing of items
• Motion for food establishments to sell grocery items, approved by 3-0 vote. Golf question came up in chat, can't add to this agenda. Will consider for next week meeting TBD #boh0427 motion to adjourn, passed via roll call

The new FDA update on masks as mentioned during the meeting is found here
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bckh-j1LwwNztxa52Jdsk4K5fVQALY_G/view?usp=sharing

screengrab of Zoom meeting early in the meeting

Attention Veterans: Project Toy Box - Response due Weds Apr 29

The United Way of Tri-County has received a major donation of new toys and games to distribute to children in out of work or low income veterans' families. We're calling this program Project Toy Box and have a goal to reach children in need who may have limited access to new activities, especially during this difficult time when many people are homebound. A variety of toys and games for children ages 5-12 will be distributed in the next few weeks.

If you are a veteran who has children and you may benefit from this, please let me know by end of day, Wednesday, Apr 29.

thanks

Dale
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Dale Kurtz
Veterans Service Officer
Towns of Avon and Franklin

10 Daniel McCahill Street
Franklin, MA 02038

508-613-1315 (O)
508-520-4917 (F)

Attention Veterans: Project Toy Box - Response due Weds Apr 29

Beaver St. Recycling Center Open Regular Hours Now With the Addition of Thursday - Noon-3 PM

Beaver St. Recycling Center Open Regular Hours Now With the Addition of Thursday - Noon - 3 PM for This Week -- Brush and Yard Waste Drop-Off Only All Days

In order to meet the needs of our residents and still follow the Governor's directive, as well as provide the appropriate level of safety to our residents and public works employees, we are going to re-open the Beaver Street Recycling Center with the following guidelines.

• The Recycling Center opens for the drop-off of yard waste and brush only.
• No other recycling products will be accepted.
• The Recycling Center will be staffed with only one worker just to check that folks have a Recycling Center Sticker and are only dropping off yard waste or brush.
• The Employees will practice established personal space guidelines and "Social Distancing" and will not assist residents in any way with the unloading of their vehicles.
• Only five vehicles will be allowed in the Recycling Center at one time.
• There will be no credit card or check transactions.
• If a resident needs a recycling sticker, they will need to contact and arrange to get one from the Public Works Administration Office (508 520-4910) prior to going to the Recycling Center.

Recycling Center Hours This Week:

• Tuesday, April 28, Noon-3PM
• Thursday, April 30, Noon-3PM
• Friday, May 1, 8AM-3PM
• Saturday, May 2, 8AM-3PM
• Sunday, May 3, 9AM-1PM

 
This was shared from the Town of Franklin page
https://www.franklinma.gov/recycling-solid-waste/news/beaver-st-recycling-center-open-regular-hours-now-addition-thursday-noon

Beaver St. Recycling Center Open Regular Hours

The Franklin Cultural District announces a "Photography Scavenger Hunt"

The Franklin Cultural District (FCD) is sponsoring a Photography Scavenger Hunt for residents of all ages! The Cultural District is building on an idea developed by the Cape Cod Arts Center in the Barnstable Village Cultural District. 

This is a great opportunity to learn more about the Cultural District while using your artistic talents and skills. We invite all to exercise your creativity while maintaining a safe physical distance from others.

During this quarantine take some time to go out and explore with your phone, tablet, or camera and take pictures of scenes that you can find in the Franklin Cultural District. While exploring please make sure to practice good social distancing skills.

To find out all you need to know about the Scavenger Hunt including:

• How to enter
• The rules
• All of the Photo Categories
• A map of the Franklin Cultural District

Please visit:
https://sites.google.com/view/franklin-cultural-district/home

Winners will be posted by June 1st. Hope you will all consider participating!

Franklin Cultural District Photography Scavenger Hunt

FTC Consumer Alert: Don’t click links in unsolicited text messages

Don't click links in unsolicited text messages by Rosario Méndez, Attorney, Division of Consumer and Business Education, FTC You might be seeing text messages promising money – maybe the economic impact payments, loans for small businesses, or an offer for money you can get.  In fact, I recently saw a WhatsApp text message in Spanish that advertised money for people quarantined at home. If you've spotted messages like this, I hope you've also deleted them.  These text messages going around could lead you to a scam or a hacker, but not to anything helpful. Read more  https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/blog/2020/04/dont-click-links-unsolicited-text-messages  This is a free service provided by the Federal Trade Commission.

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Watch "A Message From Hospitals: Don't Avoid Emergency Care" on YouTube

"At the COVID-19 briefing on Thursday, April 23, 2020, Governor Baker joined leaders from the Commonwealth's health care community to make clear that thanks to the shared work to prepare and build capacity, Massachusetts' hospitals are handling the uptick in COVID-19 cases, and are still able to care for patients with other medical conditions."

YouTube Link = https://youtu.be/IWITRRS0WZ4