Hey, there! Log in / Register

Mayor: Convention center could be turned into a temporary coronavirus center; city distributes first grants from new resiliency fund

Mayor Walsh said today that officials have begun looking at how to use the South Boston convention center as a place to set up treatment stations and beds for Covid-19 patients, similar to the way New York City has been transforming its Javits convention center.

"Unfortunately, we'll have to build it, hopefully we'll never have to use it," he said. at a City Hall press conference.

Walsh said that the Boston Resiliency Fund has now exceeded its original $20-million fundraising goal and that it has begun to distribute its first $5 million in grants, with some going to groups such as Ethos, the Greater Boston Food Bank, Community Servings, Project Bread and Fresh Truck, to deliver food to people in need.

Other grants have gone to Boston Health Care for the Homeless, Boston Medical Center and the Pine Street Inn to deal with the growing needs of homeless people. The Pine Street Inn, for example, will use its grant to increase cleaning at its facilities and to hire more staff, he said.

He added that Boston is willing to help neighboring communities that cannot ramp up the sorts of services - such as isolation tents - that Boston is now providing its current homeless populations. "If we can assist any other city and town, we will," he said.

Walsh said he continues to talk to city councilors about possible freezes on rent and mortgages. "There's a lot of tenants and a lot of landlords that are really struggling right now," he said.

But as he did at his last press conference, Walsh urged homeowners to contact their banks to see if they now have programs to put off mortgage payments without penalties during the current state of emergency. He added that at some point, he expects to hold a conference call with local financial institutions to see what they can do to keep people in their homes. "I don't think banks are in the business of taking people's homes from them," he said.

Walsh said City Hall remains open, but that people who have business with the city that they can't do online should call 311 first to make an appointment.

He added that Boston residents who are feeling scared or depressed and have nobody to talk to should also call 311, where operators will connect them with people who can talk to them.

"There are a whole bunch of people in Boston who love you and care for you and want you to be safe," he said.

And he continued to stress the importance of residents staying at home except for getting food and medicine or for taking occasional mental-health breaks in the fresh air. Otherwise, he warned, hospitals will become overburdened, "people will die and more people will get infected."

Neighborhoods: 


Ad:


Like the job UHub is doing? Consider a contribution. Thanks!

Comments

Hope they're prioritizing whatever they plan to do regarding rent relief.

[I] "Walsh said he continues to talk to city councilors about possible freezes on rent and mortgages. 'There's a lot of tenants and a lot of landlords that are really struggling right now,' he said." [I]

up
Voting closed 0

The hardest hit people typicality aren't renting from large companies. But small business owners be damn....

What if someone rents a room? Or the floor of a triple decker house? Many times they're helping to pay said individuals mortgage.

Everyone is looking out for themselves in the crises and expecting the most amount of "Free" shit.

It appalling.

up
Voting closed 0

The quote was supposed to be in italics. Sorry :-)

up
Voting closed 0

'sokay

To get:

The quote was supposed to be in italics. Sorry

you can

a: type the sentence plain, select the text you want to alter, and hit the I button

or

b: put "em" before and "/em" after the text you want to alter, using the "less-than" "greater than" arrows (< and >), not brackets

up
Voting closed 0

When is any real crisis expected to begin, especially when 9 out of 10 "symptomatic" patients are testing negative and the relatively few positives have mostly recovered?

How long before the "experts" begin parrotting local meteorologists and blame "computer models" that had incorrectly predicted the blizzard apocalypse heading right for us until, it didn't. Is Chicken Little available at the wet markets?

up
Voting closed 0

With incredibly limited testing (so we don't even know how many people actually have the virus to be able to give numbers about recovery rates or who's "symptomatic"), we're around 20k deaths worldwide and over 800 in the USA alone in just a couple months. And just looking at deaths doesn't even tell the whole story, since the real issue is hospitalizations that require treatment and care that requires resources that then have to be taken away from other potential patients for any other issues. New York is about 26000 ventilators short of what they need right now. Ohio's forced to use college dorms to house patients because they don't have enough hospital beds. How serious does this have to actually get before you're willing to acknowledge that this is an actual concern?

(or are you just waiting for Trump to throw in the towel so you can parrot whatever he says as being what everyone obviously knew all along?)

up
Voting closed 1

until he himself is lying in a hospital bed gasping for breath without a ventilator.

Before that, any harm to any other human being is just an inconvenience.

up
Voting closed 0

Mostly we lack measures of uncertainties at the detail level

For example based on our testing of people exhibiting symptoms consistent with COVID-19 we have about 90% Testing Negative

Of those Testing Positive -- we end up with about 25% being hospitalized [general care]

Of those Hospitalized there is a further winnowing as to who needs intensive care -- almost all of these are older people with serious existing conditions affecting their immune system, pulmonary and or cardiovascular or diabetes

Finally of those receiving ICU care there are those who succumb to the disease, complications or general mix of existing conditions and the disease -- 11 so far
out of 94 who have been or are currently hospitalized of 1159 cases [tested positive] of 13749 tested

Of course there could be another few thousand walking about or holed-up at home who might have previously had the COVID-19 but who never were sick-enough to let anyone know and hence are not being counted at all.

Still Overall -- MA is not in the kind of intense battle with the COVID-19 as NY and in particular NYC -- nor are we Italy or Spain.

We are fairly close in percentages to the countries or states with a relatively mild, but on-going epidemic such as Germany or Korea

Here's the information from MA Public Health as of 4:00 PM 03/24/20 [reflecting cumulative and current data from 12:30PM. 03/24/20]
https://www.mass.gov/doc/covid-19-cases-in-massachusetts-as-of-march-24-...

MASSACHUSETTS DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC HEALTH
These data will be updated daily by 4pm.
Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Cases in MA
As of March 24, 2020
Total Patients Tested 13749
Confirmed Cases Reported = 1159
Deaths Attributed to COVID-19 11

Hospitalization
Patient was hospitalized 94
Patient was not hospitalized 313
Under Investigation 752

up
Voting closed 0

before you or someone you love is coughing their lungs out?

At this point, for me, it's friends of friends dying. I expect the circle to get a whole lot closer pretty soon. If you're really the kind of misanthrope you play on this site, the world can burn and you won't give a damn - but it does make the point that you're an antisocial toxin.

up
Voting closed 0

Italy & Spain

Or do you think they're faking it too?

up
Voting closed 1

Germany. Merkel is self-isolating.

up
Voting closed 0

As of right now, the United States has added approximately 10K cases each of the past four days. We’re number 3 in the world in total cases and number 2 in active cases. The curve hasn’t started flattening (I realize social distancing won’t show an effect yet).

I’m getting my numbers from the CDC and Worldometer. Where are you getting yours?

up
Voting closed 0

If you’re so convinced it’s so harmless, they’re looking for food delivery drivers down at Food For The Soul. Or you can sit on your ass being your usual moronic self.

up
Voting closed 0

Seriously folks its as if NYC and Italy do not exist.

Honestly I could understand overlooking places like China and Iran. Sure it is a tad racist to do so but heck most of us kind of over looked them too. Things did not become real until we saw Italy and even then it took NYC to really kick us into gear.

If by the grace of the lord almighty our death count is small enough to question why we did what we did this was a success.

up
Voting closed 1

Why is this trash allowed here?

up
Voting closed 0

You do realize that just because someone tested negative this time doesn’t mean they’re immune, right?

up
Voting closed 0

It sounds like Mayor Walsh (who usually is not my favorite) is rising to the occasion. These grants are very important. I especially appreciate his willingness to help neighboring communities - we're all in this together.

up
Voting closed 0

See earlier comment.

up
Voting closed 0