Opinion

It cannot be stressed often enough that maintaining quarantine conditions is critical now that Suffolk's COVID-19 cases have grown to nearly three times the available hospital beds in the county.     

The admonition from health and government officials that everyone stay in place in order to curb the spread of Covid-19 suits my husband and me just fine.

The problem evident now is that the towns failed to calculate the cost of ever-increasing residential development. It has long been clear that in the critical areas of water supply, pollution, and emergency medical services the ultimate effects of growth have not been adequately anticipated.

Amid the coronavirus crisis, many thoughts around the East End have turned to gardening. There is both time now, what with movement more limited than usual, and a sense that supplementing one’s own food supply with homegrown fruit and vegetables is a reasonable precaution.

In a region dependent on the service economy, when demand drops to near zero, so too does the income many East End residents need to get by.

So, there I was, on Wednesday last, with a stuffy head, and a very, very occasional cough, rheumy eyes — as usual — but wondering.

Suddenly, every parent is a homeschooler, and everyone is an artist. We’re playing music, performing, dancing, writing stories, and making art. Creative expression is at an all-time high. Who could spare the time for this two weeks ago?

The E.M.S. and fire community has indeed come together to support Randy Hoffman, a critical care tech from East Hampton who in December underwent a routine spinal procedure and came out paralyzed due to unexpected complications.

Local food production was not always a sure thing. There was a time when development threatened to gobble up the remaining farmland on the two Forks.

The Indian Wells tennis tournament was canceled the other day, then came the Coachella music festival, and then came us. Postponing a trip to Palm Desert, Calif., where one of our daughters lives, seemed the rational thing to do, and JetBlue, wonderful to tell, came through.

Among the positive impacts of our coronavirus isolation has been what you might call found time: hours and hours each day for the books I intended to read, television programs I wanted to watch, and operas I didn’t want to miss.

Many people who work in the trades on the East End -- painters, carpenters, and other hardworking folks who frequently cope with fumes and dust on job sites -- might have a box or two of spare N95 masks in their storerooms or the back of their work vans.

The Star would like to issue a call directly to tradespeople, asking them to please look into the back of those trucks, the bottom of the closets, or their tool boxes to see if they have any unused N95 masks still in their box or plastic packaging.