State House News Service: Matt Murphy and Michael P Norton
May 2020
“The effort is being executed with Boston Health Care for the Homeless, the Boston Public Health Commission, St. Francis House, and the Pine Street Inn. Through Thursday, 1,340 individuals have been tested and 453, or 34 percent, have tested positive.”
“Boston has taught us, you have to keep the homeless population in your overall plan,” said Dr. Jim O’Connell, president of Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program. “I think it’s a major issue for cities and something we are going to have to tackle.” Watch more here!
“If you wait for a cluster to develop, you are almost too late,” said Dr. Jim O’Connell, the president of the Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program, who took part in the study. “The lesson is that from the beginning of this epidemic, we should have been testing people in nursing homes, prisons and in shelters because that is where it is spreading asymptomatically, and it can be deadly before you know it.”
Host Joe Mathieu spoke with Dr. Joe Wright, the director of Boston Health Care for the Homeless' Addiction Treatment Program, about how he and his colleagues are helping patients during the pandemic. The transcript has been edited for clarity.
Boston is one of the few other U.S. cities where an entire shelter population was tested, with similar widespread infections found.
At Boston’s Pine Street Inn, the region’s largest homeless center, 146 of the 397 people tested — or about 36 percent — were positive for the virus. As in San Francisco, most showed no signs of illness.
These are larger numbers than we ever anticipated,” said Dr. Jim O’Connell, president of Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program. “Asymptomatic spread is something we’ve underestimated overall, and it’s going to make a big difference.”
“The 1,000 bed field hospital was built inside the Boston Convention Center. It will serve as overflow for people who do not need critical medical care, as well as homeless people who have tested positive for the virus. It is the largest field hospital in the Commonwealth, organized by Partners Health Care and Boston Health Care for the Homeless.”
“They are speaking to the media under a massive logo that said, “Boston Hope,” at the 1,000-bed field hospital set up at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center. Half the beds are reserved for overflow hospital patients who aren’t in need of critical care, half for homeless people who have tested positive for the virus.” Watch more here!
