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Town Homes in on Covid Test Site in Montauk

Wed, 06/03/2020 - 17:34
Christine Sampson

The East Hampton Town Board has homed in on the Montauk School as a potential location for a Covid-19 testing site in the easternmost hamlet, however during a meeting this week, Councilman Jeff Bragman expressed his concern about an anonymous donor who was initially said be paying for it. 

The site, Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc said during the board’s meeting via video conference on Tuesday, would be fully funded by Stony Brook Southampton Hospital. “The hospital has gotten to the point where it is not as busy with Covid-19 patients,” he said, adding that it had resumed elective surgeries. “They have decided to put together additional testing through the hospital and reached out to me about a potential Montauk testing site, which I was very excited to hear they would facilitate.”

It would operate on Tuesdays and Thursdays, complementing operation of the testing site at 400 Pantigo Place in East Hampton, which opened on May 15 and tests on Wednesdays and Fridays. A testing site opened in Southampton Village in April.

As Long Island moves toward the second of a four-phase reopening, with the present, first phase coinciding with the start of the South Fork’s tourist season, a test site in Montauk “will be especially important, where we have many hospitality workers,” some of whom do not own a car. “To reassure the public that we’re reopening in a safe way, the ability to test workers on a regular basis becomes extremely important,” the supervisor said.

Board members endorsed the proposal for a testing site funded by the hospital, but Mr. Bragman questioned one element of the plan. “I find it interesting that the hospital is now saying it will finance the whole site,” he said, “when just last week we were advised the hospital was relying on a private donor. Can we expect to get more specific information about funding?”

The Southampton Hospital Foundation, a nonprofit corporation that supports the hospital’s efforts to deliver health care, “regularly solicits from donors for various projects and funding for the hospital itself,” Mr. Van Scoyoc said. The Montauk testing site is “part of their mission to bring health care to our community.”

Mr. Bragman asked for specificity. “I understand there are private donors involved,” he said.

“There always are when the hospital asks for funding,” was the supervisor’s reply. “I don’t know what the relevance of that would be.”

A total of 266 tests were conducted at the East Hampton site in its first four days, Mr. Van Scoyoc said, with a positive infection rate of less than 3 percent. That rate is in contrast to Suffolk County’s overall rate of infection, which he said was 21 percent, based on more than 186,000 tests conducted.

He spoke of “a remarkable turnaround in flattening the curve” on Long Island, “an area that’s one of the hardest hit in the entire world.” The number of infections, hospitalizations, and deaths due to Covid-19 infection continues to decline, he said.


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