COVID19 – Massachusetts State Update 5-30-2020
- As of Friday night, DPH reported a total of 95, 512 cases of COVID-19. The state has now confirmed a total of 6,718 deaths from the virus.
- Governor Baker and Lt. Governor Polito outlined near-term changes Friday that the two industries, restaurants and lodging, will need to make as they chart a path forward to find a new normal while abiding by mandatory safety requirements.
- When they begin offering dine-in meals, restaurants will need to screen employees for COVID-19 symptoms, space out customers, prevent seating at bars and cap party sizes.
- Hotels and motels will not be allowed to open up function spaces once they start accepting guests, and will also need to keep people as far apart as possible.
- On Monday, Baker will issue an executive order enabling businesses covered by the second phase of the administration’s reopening plan to bring employees back to workplaces for preparation and training.
- Governor Baker said he will announce on Saturday, June 6, when phase two will begin, he earliest that phase two could start is June 8.
- The restaurant and hospitality industries will need to wait another week to learn when they can reopen or expand pandemic-affected operations, and once they do, business will look significantly different.
- Industry specific guidance documents are available.
- Governor Baker said he was “outraged” by video of a Minneapolis police officer kneeling on the neck of George Floyd, an unarmed black man who died after being restrained, an incident that has sparked nationwide protests.
- Governor Baker pointed to recent law enforcement award recipients in Massachusetts who were honored for cases in which they “de-escalate(d) the situation so that nobody got hurt.”
- Activists staged a peaceful Friday afternoon demonstration in Boston.
- Governor Baker said he had conversations with local Massachusetts leaders and his administration to make clear that “if people choose to protest, we need to make sure they have the ability to do that.”
- The Joint Committee on Housing has endorsed two bills that would clear the way for rent control to return to Massachusetts more than two and a half decades after voters narrowly banned the practice statewide.
- The committee favorably recommended the legislation on Thursday, advancing it with support from three-quarters of its members as it faces certain opposition from Governor Baker.
- One bill (H 1316), filed by Rep. David Rogers (D-Cambridge), would allow any Massachusetts municipality to impose a limit on how much landlords can increase rent each year.
- The cap would only apply to tenants who earn 80 percent or less of the area median income.
- The other bill (H 3924), co-authored by Reps. Mike Connolly (D-Cambridge) and Nika Elugardo (D-Boston), includes rent control as one option among several tenant protection policies that cities and towns could choose to implement.
- Neither proposal requires local officials to adopt rent control.
- If the bills are approved, communities could opt in with a local vote, but those that do not support it could maintain the status quo.
- If lawmakers want to advance the proposals further, they will need to decide whether the local approval would occur through a vote of the local governing or legislative body or a community-wide referendum.
- Every registered voter in Massachusetts would receive an application by mid-July to request a ballot to vote by mail in the 2020 elections under a plan released Friday by the Joint Committee on Election Laws.
- The proposal for expanded voting-by-mail would be coupled with in-person early voting before both the primary and general elections in September and November, and traditional voting at a local polling station during both elections.
- With the bill, Massachusetts state lawmakers are inserting themselves directly into a fiery national debate over the integrity of mail-in voting, with President Donald Trump at the center of the controversy.
- The co-chairs of the Election Laws Committee Rep. John Lawn (D-Watertown) and Sen. Barry Finegold (D-Andover) released a bill on Friday night, giving members of their committee 48 hours to review and vote on whether to recommend the bill to the full House and Senate.
- Representative Lawn said the plan is for House Democrats to caucus on Tuesday, and to take up the legislation on Wednesday when they meet, remotely, in a full formal session.
- Almost the entire state Senate wrote a letter to the Massachusetts Congressional delegation, saying that the Bay State needs more help from the federal government to weather the COVID-19 crisis and outlining priorities for a future stimulus package.
- Senate President Karen Spilka said in a Friday phone interview that a copy of the letter, signed by 39 senators, will also be sent to the Trump administration and that federal aid proved crucial to preserving government services in past recessions.
- Their letter is attached.
- The MBTA will shut down train service on the Green Line’s D Branch for a total of 18 days in June, the latest step in the transit agency’s efforts to accelerate maintenance work while ridership is low because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Service will be replaced with shuttle buses between Riverside and Kenmore Stations for two separate nine-day periods, from June 6 through June 14 and from June 20 through June 28. Replacement buses will stop at every station along the line except Beaconsfield, and the T will also offer express buses with stops only at Riverside, Woodland and Copley Stations.
