Introducing Amherst’s New Health Director, Emma Dragon

Community Chat: November 12, 2020

This week’s Community Chat introduced Emma Dragon, Amherst’s new Health Director, who began work November 2. She met with Town Manager Paul Bockelman and Communications Director Brianna Sunryd to field questions from the public. The chat can be viewed here.

Dragon grew up in Hadley and currently lives there with her husband, Kyle, and three children. She is a nurse and an EMT, and has a graduate degree in Emergency Management. She has worked at Cooley Dickinson Hospital since returning to the area in 2011 and has served on the Board of Public Health in Hadley. She also has had a position on the Federal Disaster Health Management Team since 2009.

Most of the questions posed to Dragon involved COVID-19. One caller asked if children can get tested at local testing sites. Dragon referred her to the state testing web page. Another person asked if the data from UMass and town residents can be separated as was originally done, since it seems that most of the cases in Amherst are from UMass students. Another caller pointed out that last time UMass had an outbreak, there was very little spread to the surrounding community. Bockelman replied that the State removed the distinction between students and other residents because the off-campus students are not living in a bubble, and interact with residents. Dragon said her department can look at the data, but regardless all residents need to follow the same guidelines of wearing a mask, social distancing, and frequent handwashing.

Several callers asked about when public school children can go back to school. One person wanted to know if we need to wait for a vaccine before the schools open. Dragon said she was invited to the School Committee meeting on November 13. She said we need to look at the science, but she realizes the social and mental health benefits of students being back at school. Numerous experts have looked at mitigating measures to make schools safe. But with the upcoming winter weather, COVID cases are bound to rise as everyone spends more time inside. Bockelman pointed out that the matter of opening the schools is complex because it involves collective bargaining with school employees. Positive tests are currently low in Massachusetts at 0.3 percent, though the case count is escalating with over 2,500 news cases recorded for each of the last three days. 

Most of the cases in Amherst have been college-age people, but everyone needs to be careful. Dragon plans to look into the statistics in more detail once she has been here longer, and she will see what happens when the students go home at Thanksgiving.

A lot of her first week on the job has been spent working with the staff at Craig’s Doors Shelter to ensure that the shelter opens safely. She has maintained regular communication with the shelter.

As to her immediate goals, Dragon hopes to improve public health messaging. She is looking forward to publishing tips for a safe Thanksgiving on the town website. Guidelines are currently available on the State site. She advises people to keep masks on indoors except when eating, to keep social distance, to increase ventilation, not to share serving utensils, and not to gather with high-risk people.

Dragon gave thanks to Jen Brown, the Town’s interim Health Director, as well as the public health nurse. She is in charge of contact tracing for the growing number of cases in Town

Further questions for Dragon can be submitted to covidconcerns@amherstma.org