One day before the World Health Organization announced that it was ending the Covid-19 emergency it had declared in March 2020, the East Hampton Town Board recognized Robert Chaloner and Robert Ross of Stony Brook Southampton Hospital with a proclamation.
The town “wishes to express the appreciation for those who have continued to show dedication and determination throughout the Covid-19 pandemic,” Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc read. It “recognizes the unwavering efforts of those who have kept serving the community despite the most difficult circumstances,” and it “is grateful to all those who continue to keep our community’s strength and well-being as a foremost priority.”
“We’re now just past the three-year anniversary of Covid,” Mr. Van Scoyoc said. “It’s really great to be on the other side of the pandemic now, but for several years it affected everybody’s life in a very negative way and will obviously have implications from here on forward — parts of the world will never be the same.”
Mr. Chaloner and Mr. Ross “were integral in our effort to help bring vaccines to the local community,” he said. “The town was able to set up our own clinic, and they staffed several clinics” at a time when vaccines were difficult to procure.
Mr. Ross, the hospital’s vice president of community and government relations, attended every weekly meeting of the business recovery committee that was formed in April 2020 and charged with developing recommendations to ensure a safe reopening of the town’s businesses, Councilwoman Sylvia Overby said. “Every single meeting, he was there with numbers, helping us try to understand the ups and the downs of this disease, how it was affecting the business community, helping us answer questions from the business committee that were directed to Robert and the hospital itself.”
Mr. Chaloner, the hospital’s chief administrative officer, announced in March that he is stepping down from that role after 16 years of service, but would continue during a search for a new leader. “Thank you, to you and the town board, for all you did during the Covid crisis also,” he said. “It was just a remarkable partnership. We were thrilled and honored to work with you. As a resident of Northwest Woods myself, I’m very proud of this town board and all that you do on behalf of all of us.”
The supervisor also thanked the men for their efforts to bring a freestanding emergency satellite center to East Hampton, construction of which has begun. “We’ve bid out, I think, about 90 percent of the work at this point,” Mr. Chaloner said. “Excavation will start shortly, and we’re moving on track to get this thing open, we hope by August or so of next year. We’ll see how that goes.”
The United States is lifting its Covid emergency today, but with more than 88,000 cases and more than 1,000 deaths nationwide during the week of April 27 to May 3, the pandemic is not over. The New York Times quoted Maria Van Kerkhove, the World Health Organization’s technical lead on Covid-19, on Friday: “The emergency phase is over, but Covid is not.”
