WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Board of Health on Tuesday expressed its support for indoor face-covering and "recommended highly" that all residents eligible for the COVID-19.
A Sunday afternoon email from Director Carrie Gagne informed affected families that the college learned on Saturday that a single teacher at the preschool had tested positive, prompting a decision to shutter the facility for 10 days. The letter said the decision was made with the consultation of college leadership and the local Board of Health, which noted the closure at its Monday morning meeting. In other scenarios we might have only closed one classroom, Gagne wrote. However, the Pine Room has an exceptionally large number of siblings and family members moving through seven other classrooms. Although we limit mingling among students and do not have teachers moving between rooms, the center-wide risk was greater because of the Pine Room s unique situation than it might have been otherwise. That fact fueled our decision to reluctantly close the entire school.
The main reason the idea did not garner much interest among the board members is that between the time it posted the Wednesday morning meeting and the time it actually met, the commonwealth announced that its Stop the Spread testing program is expanding to three sites in Berkshire County, including North Adams. Like everything else going on with COVID these days, events have moved beyond this, Williamstown Health Inspector Jeff Kennedy told the board. Since this meeting was scheduled, Berkshire Health System and Southwestern Vermont Medical Center both stepped up a lot of their testing. I m not sure if this is applicable to the Board of Health anymore.