Town now in second week of red status
By Melanie Petrucci, Senior Community Reporter
Shrewsbury – Town Manager Kevin Mizikar informed the Board of Selectmen at their Oct. 27 meeting that the ballot box outside Town Hall is now under surveillance.
“We are taking the advice of law enforcement officials and the Secretary of State very seriously with regards to any ballot box security issues especially with incidents that occurred over the weekend in the city of Boston,” he said. “We have installed surveillance cameras on the Town Hall that view the ballot box drop off area.”
He noted that they are also emptying the box regularly throughout the day and it is being monitored by the police department.
Mizikar said that thus far 13,829 individuals have requested mail-in ballots and 838 have requested absentee ballots which totals 14,667 ballots. Of that number, 11,747 have been returned and processed. Factoring in the 3,704 early voters, 15,451 voters have already voted.
Town Clerk Sandra Wright said in a phone call after the Board meeting that there are 25,759 registered voters in Shrewsbury.
In past presidential elections the voter turn-out has been roughly 80 percent. Even with mail-in and early voting, the polls on Tuesday, Nov. 3 should be busy.
Since the Oct. 13 Board meeting, Mizikar reported that from Oct. 11-24 there have been 54 new cases of COVID-19.
“Having 54 positives during that period of time will mean that we still remain in the red status which is what we are projecting for this Thursday’s report,” he stated.
He added that the daily incidence per 100,000 people is 9.6 percent.
“Its not just more testing that equals more cases, but a higher percentage of tests are coming back positive,” he explained. “On Oct. 13, our rate of positivity was 1.06 percent and on Oct. 22 it was 1.79 percent.”
The good news is that since the Oct. 13 Board meeting there have been no new deaths to report so that number stays at 38 cumulative since March 19.
“We are not trending in the right direction, we are seeing increased positivity rates day in and day out,” Mizikar said. “There’s no provided clusters whenever we look at the data, it’s just a general community spread.”
