NAHANT — Nahant has reached 200 cases of COVID-19, highlighting a troubling trend in the community according to Public Health Nurse Deb Murphy.
“For the month of November, we had 21 cases total. For the month of December, we had 50 cases total. Now in January, on the 21st, we’re already up to 51 cases,” Murphy told Nahant’s Board of Selectmen Thursday. “We’re seeing a trend line going unfortunately in the wrong direction.”
Murphy said outbreaks at both Johnson Elementary School and the Jesmond Nursing Home had been included in the most recent numbers reported by the state.
However, Town Administrator Antonio Barletta said Thursday that COVID-19 testing at St. Aquinas Church has finally been reinstated following a reserve fund transfer from Nahant’s own finances, which is meant to hold the town over until it receives additional federal funding.
Earlier this month, he announced Nahant had indefinitely suspended testing at the site because the town’s Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act fund had been depleted after the federal government passed a new COVID-19 relief bill that extended the 2020 CARES Act past its original Dec. 31 deadline, but without providing local governments with additional funding.
“One of the best tools to help prevent transmission when you’re dealing with a disease that’s mostly asymptomatic is convenient, local, free testing,” Barletta told The Item Jan. 9. “If you don’t have symptoms, you’re not going to drive someplace and spend your own money to get a test.
“However, if it’s free and right down the street from your house, you might go and come up positive and then we can follow the guidelines in place to prevent potential transmission from that asymptomatic case.”
He encouraged residents to take advantage of the new opportunity for free and accessible testing.
“We want to get as many people tested as possible,” he said. “Get a test. It’s worth it. It’s free, it’s easy, and it helps prevent transmission.”
Free, drive-through testing will take place Saturdays from 1 to 3 p.m. at the St. Aquinas Church parking lot.
