Health

New York State is forming an independent advisory task force of scientists, doctors, and health experts that will review every Covid-19 vaccine authorized by the federal government and advise on its safety and effectiveness.

Yesterday, I had to have a bit of a heart-to-heart with myself. I need to do this every now and then when my eating or exercise or spiritual habits fall by the wayside. It's generally a somewhat insidious process, in which several weeks (or months) go by, and I realize one day that instead of eating kale and cucumbers, I'm subsisting mostly on Oreos and haven't run in about a month.  

Dr. Fredric I. Weinbaum, Stony Brook Southampton Hospital's chief medical officer and chief operating officer, provided an overview of the Covid-19 pandemic and discussed how the medical system was better positioned to manage if a fall or winter resurgence occurs.

One case of Covid-19 in the first grade at the John M. Marshall Elementary School last week wasn't enough to shut down school in East Hampton, but a second case in second grade, confirmed on Tuesday, led school officials to close the entire district Wednesday. That afternoon, the district informed parents that students who share the classroom with the Covid-positive second grader and that classroom's head teacher will have to quarantine for 14 days.

After being notified of a second confirmed case of Covid-19 in a student at the John M. Marshall Elementary School, the East Hampton School District has decided to close the elementary school, middle school, and high school on Wednesday "out of an abundance of caution," the district said in an email and voice memo sent to parents on Tuesday afternoon.

Without federal assistance, the county will be forced to make significant reductions in transit services in the 2021 budget, and could eliminate 19 bus routes, including the 10C, which loops between East Hampton and Montauk, and the 10B, which loops between East Hampton, Springs, and Bridgehampton.

The East Hampton School District on Saturday announced that what had been a suspected case of Covid-19 in a student is now a confirmed case at John M. Marshall Elementary School.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo delivered some of his sharpest criticism of President Trump and his administration’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic on Thursday, repeatedly calling the federal government’s response incompetent and accusing the president of politicizing and lying about the crisis. 

Not a week goes by when I don't have a patient encounter in which someone asks for my professional opinion about what ails them and we disagree to some degree about what that is. Patients live in their bodies every day, and when a doctor tells them something that doesn't fit their lived experience, they understandably may want a second opinion or at least for their doctor to spend more time explaining his or her reasoning to them.

There's still a touch of summer in the East Hampton air, which is a fitting backdrop to the summer-style, off-season sports workouts that will resume this coming week in the East Hampton School District.

As to the process of preparing for this unprecedented school year, James Crenshaw said he has a tendency to approach anything by planning for everything. "The understanding is that you're probably going to miss a ton of things," and by going into overdrive at the beginning, there are fewer surprises along the way.

Records obtained this week by this newspaper show that Southampton Town has levied three formal charges against one of the event companies that produced a July 25 concert in Water Mill by the Chainsmokers, the chart-topping duo of D.J.s known for catchy electronica anthems and collaborations with other popular artists.

A recent round of water quality testing in Montauk shows that harmful algal blooms in Fort Pond and Big Reed Pond are dissipating while many other water bodies in Montauk, East Hampton, Springs, and Amagansett have low bacteria counts.

As the humid heat of summer finally starts to give way to crisp autumn mornings, the health care community in general starts to think ahead to the coming winter months when respiratory viruses begin to run amok. 

Over the furious objection of one member and after prolonged argument, the East Hampton Town Board agreed on Tuesday that a detailed environmental review is not needed for zoning change to allow a Stony Brook Southampton Hospital emergency room annex to be built on Pantigo Place.

What happened when Covid turned summer frosty? What did people do instead? The pandemic kept many people apart, but it also brought some back together. Some pulled up stakes, some finally put down new roots, and some found the resolve to tackle the next stage of life.

Motivated by the patterns of tobacco use among their peers, a student group called Breathe In Change is renewing its efforts to educate other students about the dangers of tobacco use — including cigarettes in addition to e-cigarettes, according to the students.

Until Friday, when news of the postponement was publicized by Section XI, school sports were to have started on Sept. 21. Each "lower-risk" team, including tennis, soccer, swimming, golf, and cross-country, was to have an abbreviated season with 10 to 12 games each instead of 16 games. Football, cheerleading, and volleyball had not yet been given the green light, and now the light is red for all sports until January.

After discovering their employees had tested positive for Covid-19, a handful of restaurants in Montauk temporarily closed up shop late last month and early this month to deep clean and retest employees before reopening for business.

I hope that if any of you know anyone who may be struggling with addiction during the pandemic, you might find a quiet moment to offer encouragement, to ask if there's anything you can do to help. Sometimes that's all it takes to get someone headed in the right direction.

The angry exchanges resumed on Tuesday when the East Hampton Town Board again discussed Stony Brook Southampton Hospital's planned emergency room annex ahead of a vote on the proposal's environmental impact that is expected next Tuesday. 

One sample collected in East Hampton Town sometime between Aug. 25 and Aug. 27 tested positive, according to an announcement Friday from the Suffolk County Department of Health Services.

New York State school districts must now report confirmed cases of Covid-19 to a state Department of Health website that will be publicly accessible by the start of the school year.

We tend to ask just about everyone we think could even possibly have some sort of serious event requiring CPR or intubation what their wishes are. The reason for that? Because experience has taught me, over and over again, to tackle these questions at the beginning.

School officials have said Chromebook laptops for students are on back order across the nation and Plexiglas barriers for desks have been hard to come by. Local school boards have appointed many previous substitute teachers to full-time positions, creating a shortage of those who can be called upon to fill in for teachers who take time off. Custodians, too, are in short supply for some districts as schools embark on plans that rely upon stringent cleaning protocols.

The Ross School announced Saturday it will require each student to have a negative Covid-19 test within seven days of the start of school before he or she can attend in person. No child will be able to start school without such a test.

For the second time in a week, the New York State Liquor Authority has suspended the license of a Southampton Village restaurant and bar after numerous violations of coronavirus-related regulations were observed.

As parents or caregivers, it can be easy to feel like we're protecting our children somehow by being vague or even avoiding world events, but that negates the simple truth that children, while being inexperienced, are generally not dumb. They have eyes to see and ears to hear, and if your kids are like mine, they know something big is going on.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo did not mince words Thursday while speaking about the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recent modification of coronavirus testing guidelines, calling the recommendation that people without Covid-19 symptoms not get tested even if they have been exposed to the virus “dumbfounding” and “really bad advice.”

Even as Suffolk County reached a grim milestone, surpassing 2,000 deaths from Covid-19 last weekend, the spread of the virus seems to be holding steady at approximately a 1-percent daily infection rate.