Boston officials continue to plead for no parties amid coronavirus

Boston officials continue to plead with residents not to let down their guard, saying there’s little to do but stress everyone’s “individual responsibility” to avoid gatherings that spread the virus.

“We’re really asking people to remember that we’re sort of all in this together,” Boston Health & Human Services Chief Marty Martinez told the Herald on Thursday. “We need to take some responsibility.”

Boston’s daily case count continues to nudge upward, crossing into the state’s “red zone” of highest warning on Wednesday. That means the city’s seeing more than eight cases a day on average per 100,000 people.

On Wednesday, Mayor Martin Walsh told off young people — who are accounting for half of the city’s cases — saying that college kids and other youths need to “act like adults.”

Numbers statewide are rising, with Massachusetts reporting more than 700 cases on Thursday — the most since the back end of the surge in May.

Gov. Charlie Baker also trained his ire on partiers in cities on Thursday, saying that’s been a source of some of this uptick.

Martinez said the city has watched large gatherings — like the big protests over the summer and the weekend of block parties in Roxbury and Dorchester last month — closely, but they haven’t appeared to be significant coronavirus vectors. Rather, the bigger issue is just many smaller cases of people letting their guard down and gathering with a handful of others.

Martinez stressed that stopping these really just comes down to “personal responsibility.”

“There’s very little the city can do in these places,” Martinez said. “Of course, if you’re going to have, you know, 10 people in your house to watch the game, the city can’t stop you.”

If there is some larger gathering going on, Martinez encouraged people to call the city’s “party line.” Before the coronavirus, that was a way for people to report loud parties, but now it is more of a way for neighbors to drop a dime on people for having large gatherings in violation of the virus. The number is 617-343-5500.

Officials said the city doesn’t keep data on the party line, so they couldn’t elaborate further on what calls are coming in.

If people do call the party line, Martinez said, “BPD will obviously send somebody to try to make sure people understand what’s going on and break up those kinds of parties. That’s something we’ve been doing and will continue to do.”

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/33kHJVU