Worcester Business Journal

wbjournal.com | March 30, 2020 | Worcester Business Journal 5 B R I E FS Worcester community coronavirus response fund up to $2.1M e joint effort by the United Way of Central Massachusetts, the Greater Worcester Community Foundation and the City of Worcester to create a fund to address community needs in the coronavirus crisis has raised $2.1 million. e Worcester Together fund already has awarded $70,000 through nine grants, said Tim Garvin, president and CEO of the United Way. e focus of the fund is for emergency basic needs, gaps in funding for essential services, and long- term recovery. e largest donation to the Worcester Together fund, $1 million, came from the George I. Alden Trust of Worcester. Worcester declares state of emergency As the fallout of business closures and rising coronavirus case numbers continued to mount Worcester city officials declared a state of emergency on March 15 e emergency declaration is an executive measure to protect the overall health & safety of the community. It allows the City to act quickly and increase its powers depending upon how the situation changes. e City's emergency operation center is running at full activation with representatives of all major city departments. Tree House, Tower Hill, deadhorse, Wormtown all among temporary closures Even before Gov. Charlie Baker forced the closure of all non-essential businesses in Massachusetts on March 24, a number of Central Massachusetts businesses closed up shop in response to dwindling sales and advisories against gatherings of groups of 25 people or more. Among the closures were Charlton brewery Tree House Brewing Co., Tower Hill Botanic Garden in Boylston, Worcester downtown restaurant deadhorse hill, Wachusett Mountain Ski Area in Princeton, and independent theaters e Strand eatre in Clinton, Elm Draught House in Millbury, West Boylston Cinema and O'Neil Cinemas in Littleton. Framingham retailing giant TJX Cos. temporarily closed all 4,500 of its stores worldwide. A number of these businesses could have operated under a reduced or modified capacity and still complied with Baker's advisories – such as restaurants and breweries switching to takeout or delivery only – but many businesses chose to close instead, citing reasons such as an abundance of caution for public health and wanting to give their employees the maximum unemployment benefits under the law. FDA emergency authorizes Hologic's coronavirus test A test for the novel coronavirus run on the Panther system from Marlborough medical device manufacturer Hologic has received Emergency Use Authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Hologic expects to provide its laboratory customers with tens of thousands of SARS-CoV-2 tests this month as it ramps up production capacity. Starting in April, Hologic expects to produce nearly 600,000 SARS- CoV-2 tests a month. Railers cancel remainder of season e Worcester Railers will play no more hockey games this season, due to the coronavirus outbreak. e team was scheduled to play five more home games at the DCU Center and eight games in total, but like other sports leagues, the ECHL has called those games off. Central Mass. colleges close, go to remote learning As the impact of the coronavirus spread into Central Massachusetts, colleges and universities were among the first to act, starting with closing international campuses and cancelling travel, and then closing their campus in favor of online learning. Barbara Fields, CEO, Greater Worcester Community Foundation T H E T I C K E R Three Number of Worcester County people who have died of coronavirus, as of March 25, out of the 15 statewide. At press time, the state has 1,838 confirmed cases while Worcester County had 129. Source: Massachusetts Department of Public Health Date until all non-essential Massachusetts businesses are closed, by order of Gov. Charlie Baker, although social distancing dates are being pushed back. All schools are closed until May 4. April 7 20,000 Source: Columbia University Number of total coronavirus cases in Worcester County by Aug. 1, under the best-case scenario modeled by Columbia University health researchers. The worst-case scenario is 670,000 cases. Source: Gov. Charlie Baker Administration, as of March 25 Hologic's Panther system Quinsigamond Community College in Worcester and Mount Wachusett Community College in Gardner moved all classes online and ceased all face- to-face instruction for the rest of the semester. Nichols College in Dudley said it would postpone its May 2 graduation ceremony, which would have been held at Worcester's DCU Center. UMass Medical School, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, College of the Holy Cross, Fitchburg State University and MCPHS University are among those who've moved to holding classes online for at least a temporary basis. UMass Memorial reusing protective masks UMass Memorial Medical Center leaders in Worcester are concerned about low levels of available protective equipment and are turning to measures, including reusing safety masks. ose steps, outlined in a staff memo, allow health providers to wear so-called N95 masks – tight-fighting surgical respirators – for close encounters with different patients. UMass Memorial said it has continuously tried to source protective supplies from local and national vendors including those outside the healthcare industry but still doesn't have enough. It has also placed a request to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services's Strategic National Stockpile. Quest ramps up coronavirus testing In the first three weeks since testing for the highly-contagious coronavirus began in Massachusetts, the state and local labs conducted about 2,280 tests. en, the governor and state officials said they wanted to ramp up to conduct 3,500 tests every day. In response, Quest Diagnostics in Marlborough ramped up to test 20,000 people per day across the country, and eventually 2,000 to 3,000 samples per day from Massachusetts patients. Mass. hotels say 17K jobs have been lost Citing more than 17,000 job losses since the coronavirus pandemic hit, Massachusetts hoteliers warned on March 20 the bleeding isn't stopping, and they need government help to stave off further damage to their businesses. In Massachusetts alone, where the first COVID-19 case was announced on Feb. 1 and the number of total cases has rapidly increased since then, 17,847 direct hotel-related jobs and 66,799 jobs that support hotels have been cut due to the outbreak, according to the Massachusetts Lodging Association. Drop in travel in Worcester County in mid-March, according to analysis of GPS data, as efforts to keep people at home increased. The Massachusetts average drop was 47%. 42% Source: Unacast W

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