East End food pantries and other social services organizations are seeing a surge of people in need as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, their directors said this week. 

With the full wave of COVID-19 patients still expected to be a few weeks out in New York State, Suffolk hospitals are scrambling to add beds, local medical professionals are feeling taxed, equipment is in short supply, and officials are worried that the public is not taking the threat of infection seriously enough.

“We need to support those on the front lines of crisis, particularly the health care workers,” Southampton Town Supervisor Jay Schneiderman said. “None of us have direct experience with this, even in my 27 years of government experience I’ve never faced anything like it.”

As Covid-19 continues to spread, first responders on the South Fork are continuing to work, albeit while taking extra precautions. 

Arts organizations including the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center, Bay Street Theater, and the Parrish Art Museum have modified their educational programs for families and children to offer them digitally and free of charge. 

John Bice, who had spent a lot of time in East Hampton over the past 20 years, died at the Kanas Center for Hospice Care in Quiogue on March 11. He was 76 and had been ill with pneumonia.