The Revere Board of Health held its regular monthly meeting last Thursday evening, May 26, in the City Council Chambers at City Hall.
Dr. Drew Bunker, the chairperson, and fellow members Dr. Craig Costanza and Nezha Louaddi were on hand for the meeting, along with Lauren Buck, the city’s Director of Public Health; Michael Wells, the city’s Health Agent/Director of Inspectional Services; and Paula Sepulveda, the board’s Administrative Assistant.
The chief business before the board involved a presentation by Buck of an overview of the anticipated rewriting of the city’s bio-safety regulations in order to encompass the new bio-research businesses that are expected to be the tenants in the first completed building in the Revere portion of the development at Suffolk Downs.
As usual, Buck made a concise presentation of a complex subject that ultimately will involve numerous city departments, as well as state and federal agencies.
“We have a development at the Suffolk Downs site that will be bringing life science research and biotech companies to the city,” said Buck. “We currently have an ordinance that addresses these types of businesses. When the City Council decides whether to amend the ordinance or to keep it the same, we will be tasked with writing regulations pursuant to the ordinance.”
She said that HYM Investment Group, the developer of Suffolk Downs, issued a statement about its intentions for the life sciences research businesses.
“The first building will be completed in early 2024, but no tenants have been identified as to who will be coming into the building,” Buck said. “Any potential tenant will have to submit their plans to the city and can only operate pursuant to all local, state, and federal regulations.”
She said that similar businesses and regulations already exist in nearby communities such as Cambridge, Watertown, Somerville, and Boston.
“These businesses operate in high-density urban areas and must abide by all fire safety and biohazard state codes and our regulations will be on top of those,” she said. Buck said the new regulations will be written cooperatively among the city’s public safety departments and other city agencies, and then will be submitted to the Board of Health for final approval.
Buck told the board that there are four biohazard safety levels and that the present ordinance covers levels 1, 2, and 3. She then briefly spoke about what those three levels mean in terms of the types of research that is conducted at each level.
She said that biosafety hazard level 4 “is reserved for the greatest threats to human health, but this will not be allowed in the City of Revere.”
In other matters, Buck presented her monthly communicable disease report.
Buck highlighted non-COVID disease numbers. She said there was a slight increase in the number of influenza cases in the city from the previous month, with 130 new cases in the city, with the ages of patients ranging from one month to 88 years old.
“This is indicative that masks are off,” said Buck. “Masks protected against the transmission of the flu as well as COVID. This has been a delayed flu season, both here and throughout the state.”
Regarding the monkeypox virus that has been in the news recently, Buck noted that a Massachusetts resident had tested positive in April after returning from Canada. She also said that other countries in Europe that typically do not have monkeypox have seen cases.
She added that monkeypox usualy is detected after a person has traveled to West or Central Africa, but that recent clusters have been reported “among men who have sexual relations with other men.”
“There have been no cases in Revere,” she added.
Buck also presented the monthly COVID update. She said there have been 22,989 COVID cases in the city since the start of the pandemic, but there have been no deaths attributable to COVID in Revere in the past month. She said that a total of 181 Revere residents have fallen victim to COVID since the start of the pandemic.
However, though Buck presented the past month’s seven-day daily case (29.3) and 14-day positivity (10.1) rates, she said those numbers likely are a significant underrepresentation of the actual number of COVID cases in Revere.
“Our numbers only reflect PCR testing, but not at-home tests, and therefore our numbers are an underestimation of the actual number of cases. However,” Buck continued, “both Revere and the state as a whole are not seeing increases either in deaths or severe illness and hospitalization.”
Still, Buck predicted, “We are going to continue to see waves of COVID. It is not going away.”
Buck noted that vaccination rates in the city continue to move higher.
“All of our age groups have seen an increase in vaccination rates over the past month,” Buck said, noting that the city continues to offer weekly vaccine clinics.
Wells presented a request from three condo complexes in the city seeking a variance from the state law that requires residential buildings to provide heat to their residents from September 15 through June 15. However, three of the older condo complexes in the city, Seaview Towers at 510-515 Revere Beach Boulevard, Friendly Gardens at 235 Revere Street, and Seawatch Towers at 376 Ocean Avenue, are requesting to be able to turn off the heat effective June 1 in order to convert their HVAC systems to air conditioning from May 31-October 1. These buildings have older systems that can only have one system, heating or air conditioning, in operation.
The board unanimously approved the heating variances. A majority of the condo owners in each building still must approve the sooner changeover from heating to air conditioning.
The board then took up the requests for the granting of licenses for body arts businesses.
Buck explained to the board that the requests for all of the licenses for body arts had been assessed and inspected by the Health Department and all of the individuals and businesses were in compliance with the regulations. She then said that the Health Dept. is recommending approval of all of the licenses.
The applicants were:
— Request for Body Art Individual Practitioner License by Janeth Izquierdo;
— Request for Body Art Establishment License by Janeth Esthetics
— Request for Body Art Individual Practitioner License by Phuong Luong
— Request for Body Art Establishment License by Babe and Beau Spa
— Request for Body Art Individual Practitioner License by Shelly Duyen Vu
— Request for Body Art Individual Practitioner License by Catia Elesbao.
— Request for Body Art Establishment License by Catia Elesbao Micropigmentation.
The board members unanimously approved all of the licenses.
The next meeting of the board will be held, Thursday, June 23.
