Coronavirus

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. 

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.

Since its implementation last year, the Suffolk311 call center for non-emergency inquiries has received over 110,000 calls from residents across the county, 91,661 of them between March and September of this year.

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.

"It was too nice of a day, and too good of a band," Mayor Kathleen Mulcahy said of the WLNG-sponsored event on Saturday that was to feature sets by the HooDoo Loungers and Gene Casey and the Lone Sharks. At one point Sag Harbor police counted 175 people in attendance, more than triple the number allowed at outdoor gatherings under an executive order issued by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo.

As of Tuesday, with the daily Covid-19 infection rate on Long Island hovering around 1.5 percent, school sports are still a go starting on Sept. 21. On Wednesday, the New York State Department of Health released further guidelines governing each sport, clarifying that football, volleyball, rugby, and now cheerleading will not start until March 1, 2021.

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.

With an influx of vacationers, migrant Manhattanites, and day trippers who ventured east this summer, restaurateurs worked tirelessly to apply the state's health guidelines in ways that could fit their new business models, but even the most prepared in the restaurant industry sometimes struggled to keep up.

The course of true love never did run smooth: Book lovers with devoted book clubs are doing everything in their power, even mastering new technology, to keep up with meetings in the age of coronavirus. What Zoom lacks in dimension, dimensional conversation makes up for.

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.

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.

Haunted houses, corn mazes, and apples, oh my!

New state guidelines announced earlier this week mean that beloved fall activities including corn mazes, apple and pumpkin picking, and haunted houses will be able to open for New Yorkers to enjoy as early as Saturday. 

"The new guidance announced today will ensure that these businesses can open to the public, allowing families to enjoy their favorite fall activities while providing a boost for our farming communities and local economies," Gov. Cuomo said in a release on Tuesday.