Coronavirus

A week ago there was just one known case of Covid-19 among East Hampton High School students, but that number has since risen to six and all of them are connected to a single recent indoor gathering, school officials said this week. The district's John M. Marshall Elementary School also reported a new case in a fifth grader.

Springs School District officials on Monday announced that the school will soon start offering in-person instruction to larger groups of students four days per week instead of two, and in the interim will begin live-streaming classroom lessons.

In an email to parents on Monday, James Crenshaw, the East Hampton High School principal, said that the number of confirmed positive Covid-19 cases had risen to six. High school students will have classes online at least through Friday.

Late in the morning on Halloween, East Hampton High School’s principal put out a call for students and families to “please be safe” after two more cases of Covid-19 were confirmed in students within the past 24 hours, bringing the school’s total to four cases.

The Bridgehampton School on Friday afternoon announced that a staff member had tested positive for Covid-19 earlier in the day. That staff member was most recently at school on Thursday, according to a message from Michael Miller, the school's principal.

East Hampton School District officials informed parents on Friday of a second confirmed case of Covid-19 at the high school. The school's first case was reported on Thursday, and school was closed for in-person instruction on Friday. With the news of a second case, the school is to remain closed for in-person classes until Thursday, Nov. 5.

Since March, when fear of Covid-19 drove many second-home owners into town prematurely, and many of them permanently, the East Hampton Recycling Center has absorbed a vast surge in recyclable and non-recyclable materials.

Students in the Bridgehampton School's seventh through 12th grades have been learning remotely since March 16, when schools here first closed because of Covid-19. Now there's a plan in the works to bring those students back into the building.

With the sobering realization that another summer could come and go before the coronavirus pandemic is fully relegated to history, the East Hampton Town Board looked back at the 2020 season at the town's beaches and considered improvements that might be made for 2021.

Cases of Covid-19 are on the rise across the country and the world. So what do you do if you or a family member is diagnosed with Covid-19?

The scramble to find a refuge during the pandemic has led to surging home sales and prices, bidding wars, and an ongoing boom in the East End real estate market, according to third-quarter reports from several real estate agencies.

Bridgehampton School District officials on Tuesday closed the school midday after a parent reported early in the day that their child had tested positive for Covid-19. Ten adults and 10 students will have to quarantine.

The East Hampton School District on Tuesday announced it will add in-person school days for students on Wednesdays at the middle and high schools, and said it is exploring a plan to resume full-time in-person classes for all middle schoolers starting in January as long as infection rates here stay low.

At a Springs School Board meeting, parents demanding more instruction from teachers on remote days clashed with educators, who said they are simply doing the best they can. School administrators, who said late in the summer that they would revisit the district's hybrid learning plans by the 10th week of school, are nearing their self-imposed deadline to do so.

For communities with lower Covid-19 infection rates right now (like many of ours here on the East End) compared to hot spots elsewhere in the country, it can be particularly tempting to seize an opportunity for normality and plan to trick-or-treat as usual. But this could be risky.

East Hampton School District officials on Tuesday alerted parents to a new case of Covid-19 in a kindergarten student at the John M. Marshall Elementary School.

The Montauk School and the Eleanor Whitmore Early Childhood Center reported cases of Covid-19 over the weekend, and students in one class at each school have been told to quarantine.

According to a statement released on Saturday by District Superintendent Jeff Nichols, the student, who attends Pierson High School, has not been there since Oct. 9.

From the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, one of the biggest concerns for the health care community has been not only the actual effects of the novel coronavirus itself but also the secondary impacts upon people's health and well-being. There were concerns about how increasing numbers of patients with Covid-19 might overwhelm the clinics and hospitals in terms of simple numbers, but the impact upon preventive health was also very worrisome. 

As Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone continues to blast Washington, D.C., lawmakers for inaction on a Covid-19 assistance plan that could help municipalities, one of the impacts of that lag is that taxpayers in public school districts are already footing the bill for the rising costs of preventing the virus's spread in classrooms and hallways.

That the former Morpurgo house, a.k.a. the Captain John Hulbert house, hadn't been sold yet amid the pandemic was serendipitous for its owners, Max and Michelle Breskin, who, with their three children, are its first legal occupants in many years. Once a wreck, now tip-top after a major restoration completed by Breskin Development, it is on the market for just under $6.5 million.

After detecting a spike in coronavirus infections in Suffolk County during the first week of October, when more than 100 new cases were reported in a single day for the first time since mid-July, the county reported far fewer new cases this week, but noted an increase in Covid-related hospitalizations.

While the cancellation of big summer events and limits on social gatherings put a major dent in their business, caterers on the East End report that things are picking up in a different way as wedding couples and private clients find ways to cut down their guests lists to hold more intimate celebrations.

The novel coronavirus causing Covid-19 has the ability to affect many body systems and can lead to such a wide variety of symptoms that it is difficult to say without a test whether certain symptoms are those of a cold or Covid.

Covid-19 continued this week to wreak havoc in local schools, with cases popping up in Montauk and Springs for the first time and a third instance emerging in East Hampton's John M. Marshall Elementary School.

For the first time since July 13, more than 100 new cases of coronavirus infection were reported in a single day in Suffolk County last week, with 104 people testing positive on Thursday and 103 on Friday. After dipping to 49 on Sunday, by Monday the number of new cases in the county was up to 89, and on Tuesday 109 new cases were reported, according to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo's office.

The Montauk School will be closed on Wednesday and Thursday after a teacher was identified Tuesday afternoon as having contracted Covid-19.

Another confirmed case of Covid-19 in a student at the John M. Marshall Elementary School in East Hampton was reported late Friday afternoon, the third such case to come to light in the last nine days, and right after that came word of a case at the Springs School.

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.

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.