Nantucket Board of Health meets on coronavirus prevention in wake of spike in cases


Nantucket Board of Health meets on coronavirus prevention in wake of spike in cases

“We all share staff, and everyone [is] short staffed,” Gauvin said of the island’s restaurants. “If one person gets it’ll spread like wildfire. It’ll just run through all the restaurants.” Town officials, Gauvin said, “need to give us tools to keep everyone safe and not just crackdown on us. We already went through three months of shutdown.”

The 2 p.m. Board of Health meeting will be held remotely and streamed online.

Agenda items include a “COVID Update,” plus a review of enforcement, case status, restaurant hours, and board member “updates and concerns,” records show.

Roberto Santamaria, Nantucket’s health and human services director, said Wednesday that the board may decide to close restaurants at 11 p.m. or midnight.

Santamaria said earlier closures would prevent “a lot of these large gatherings we’re seeing after 11, when people have been drinking for a significant amount of time” and less likely to wear face coverings, which are required in the downtown area.

“It’s not quite a curfew,” he said of the possible earlier closing time. “More so, a [message that] we would just like you to disperse.”

Orla Murphy-LaScola, owner of The Proprietors Bar & Table, said the restaurant has already decided to cease drink service late at night, foregoing a major revenue source.

“It’s just not safe, and we can’t expect people who drink at night to go out on the streets and practice safe health guidelines,” Murphy-LaScola said. “We don’t do drink service, and that’s a huge part of our business. It’s in our name.”

She said she believes local officials are trying their best to address the situation while helping struggling restaurants.

“They’re doing everything they can to keep us open and safe. But it depends on the overall community to keep staff and guests safe,” Murphy-LaScola said. “If they do decide to place restrictions, it’s because they honestly feel its important to keep everybody [safe].”

Nantucket Cottage Hospital, the lone hospital on the island, as of Wednesday was reporting 40 positive tests since the start of the pandemic. The island population swells from about 17,000 in the winter to as many as 40,000 in the summer, officials say.

“We have seen an increase in the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 on the island since late June, which we expected given the increase in the island’s population and expanded testing capacity,” said Jason Graziadei, a Nantucket Cottage Hospital spokesman, in an e-mail message Wednesday.

As a hospital, he wrote, “we have prepared for this, in collaboration with the town, with greater testing, contact tracing, as well as outreach and education to the public.”

Martha’s Vineyard hasn’t remained immune to the virus, either.

Dukes County, which includes the Vineyard and Elizabeth Islands, had recorded 65 positive cases as of Wednesday, according to the state Department of Public Health. At least 52 of those cases were from the Vineyard, according to local officials.


Travis Andersen can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @TAGlobe.




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