Salem Seeks 'Regional Strategies' On New Coronavirus Restrictions

SALEM, MA — A Board of Health discussion that could have resulted in the closing of gyms, fitness centers, museums and indoor dining in the city as part of increased coronavirus restrictions was postponed Wednesday night "to allow the Board the opportunity to gather additional information and discuss collaborative regional strategies with neighboring cities and towns."

Salem could have become the first community in the state to suspend indoor dining amid the second wave of coronavirus cases across the region and the country.

The Board of Health also discussed the rollbacks at their Dec. 17 meeting but did not vote on it pending more input. Since then, Gov. Charlie Baker instituted additional capacity restrictions statewide that took effect for "at least two weeks" on Dec. 26 and restricts all indoor businesses to 25 percent occupancy.

Baker said at the time the move was as much to "send a pretty loud signal" to residents to limit their movements and interactions through the holiday season as it was to suggest that any industry affected was significantly contributing to the recent spike in cases.

"By limiting capacity, we are sending a message that we would like to see people spend the next couple of weeks between Christmas and the week after New Year's with — as regularly as they possibly can — just with those they live with," he said. "If you need to go out and do something, go out, get it done and come home."

Yet, some communities — including Boston, Somerville and Lynn — took the extra step to roll back the reopening and close gyms — beyond individual appointments — and other recreational venues.

Wednesday night's agenda in Salem had on it a "discussion and vote on potential temporary additional COVID restrictions, including rolling back to the beginning of phase 2 of the Commonwealth's phased reopening process," which could have also included suspending indoor dining.

"This is something that should be done at the state level," Kathi Turner, owner of Turner's Seafood of Salem and Melrose and the currently closed Rising Eagle revolutionary publick house in Melrose, told Patch. "That is not something any local government should be doing. It doesn't make sense for Salem to do it if not everyone around is doing it."

While Salem, Danvers and Peabody have all been considered at "high risk" for coronavirus community spread for multiple weeks, according to state metrics, there has be no public indication other North Shore communities beyond Lynn are considering a similar move.

Turner said there has yet to be one positive coronavirus case traced back to her restaurants and pointed to the state COVID dashboard that shows out of the 18,797 clusters traced across the state from Nov. 22 to Dec. 19, only 31 clusters totaling 249 cases were traced back to restaurants.

The report said there were 18,163 clusters totaling 46,534 cases traced back to household spread.

"We are very, very sensitive to the shape the hospitals are in," Turner said. "But closing Salem down makes no sense. It's not going to change anything. It's either a statewide decision or not. When local governments are trying to micromanage these there is no proof of success to that whatsoever."

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Turner said her restaurants have already been well below the 25 percent capacity since the new state restrictions took effect on Saturday, but that it is important for employees and supply chains to keep them open to some extent if at all possible.

"We can have 70 people at our restaurant at one time — we're not even close to 70 people," she said. "We hope to do 70 people in a whole night. I think the government is scaring people enough that the people who don't want to go out don't, and the people who do still do, and further restrictions are not going to change habits.

"If we really thought us being closed would help the hospitals we would do it. But we have no feeling that's the case whatsoever. It could make it worse (because of resulting increased indoor private gatherings)."

Turner said she has generally been supportive of Baker's relatively measured approach to increasing restrictions this fall.

"We're open and look at California," she said. "They can't even have outdoor dining and their numbers are still going up.

"I think our state has been a lot more understanding of the value of keeping society open."

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)

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