Good health by box load

LYNN – The Health Department received a donation of about 6,000 pounds of health supplies from the Baker administration on Thursday, and another nearly 4,000 pounds of supplies are expected to arrive Monday.

Walking through the first floor of City Hall on a Friday afternoon, boxes six or seven feet tall, stacked, lined the halls. Each stack contains dozens, if not hundreds, of child- and adult-sized face masks, hand sanitizer bottles, bandages, and non-contact infrared thermometers distributed to the community.

Health Department Public Health Coordinator Norris Guscott said it plans to partner with local organizations to distribute the supplies to various community centers in the city.

We plan to partner with community organizations that primarily target vulnerable populations. It will be easy to spread these key points. “We’re talking about libraries, we’re talking about things like Lynn Community Health Center, different nonprofits, even the Food Security Task Force, looking at vulnerable populations,” Guscott said.

Although the rate of Covid-19 infections has dropped significantly since the peak of the outbreak, Guscott said a COVID-19 outbreak can happen at any time and the city must be ready to use its resources to fight the current flu season.

“It just takes the right conditions to re-grow. We’re in peak flu season right now and the holiday season is coming up, which means there’s a lot of gatherings. They love covid, colds and flu, so we’ve got stuff here to deal with all of that,” Guscott said.

Guscott said the health department plans to distribute the supplies to various organizations, departments and community centers, where residents can stop by the health department at City Hall to pick up free supplies.

“I think it’s going to be a decentralized approach where we give resources to organizations that care about the residents. “Since then, the residents can get from the companies, and they can always come here to get the resources, but we are not the only ones,” he said.

Public Health Director Michel Desmarais said he hopes that around the winter holidays, Lynn residents will take advantage of the department’s newly purchased resources.

“I hope residents will take advantage of these resources as they are very important, especially with the holidays coming up. They’re free, they’re valuable, and you can have them,” Desmarais said.