Coronavirus

Amid the New York City Health Department’s recommendation that face masks should once again be worn in public indoor settings and crowded outdoor settings due to high transmission levels of Covid-19, the number of new infections and hospitalizations on the South Fork is of growing concern, Councilwoman Sylvia Overby told the Wainscott Citizens Advisory Committee on Saturday.

In the three and a half weeks since Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, signed off on Covid-19 vaccines for children under 5, there has not been a huge demand, according to Dr. Gail Schonfeld of East End Pediatrics in East Hampton.

Despite a high rate of vaccination, Covid-19 has proven an unrelenting and evolving threat to public health across New York and the country, and highly contagious subvariants of the Omicron variant mean a growing number of people have endured, or will experience, multiple infections, according to an associate professor of public health at Stony Brook University.

Despite a significant uptick in Covid-19 cases, including the designation of Suffolk and Nassau Counties as a region now at high risk of virus transmission by the federal Centers for Disease Control, the number of patients admitted at Stony Brook Southampton Hospital has remained in the single digits over the last few weeks — very much manageable, the hospital's chief medical officer has said. "We're going to have to learn how to live with it when community spread goes up like it is now."

“We are going to continue to be open for the foreseeable future,” said Dr. Jason Cavolina of CareONE Concierge, which provides Covid-19 testing for East Hampton Town at the former Child Development Center of the Hamptons. The decision reflects yet another uptick in transmission of the virus.

East Hampton Town's senior citizens center, on Springs-Fireplace Road in East Hampton, has been temporarily shuttered following several cases of Covid-19 among program attendees and staff.

Despite the feeling of calm that has settled in after mask mandates were lifted, despite the significantly lower case numbers and deaths across the United States, Covid is not finished with us — or we with it.

In line with Gov. Kathy Hochul's announcement on Saturday of New Yorkers' eligibility for second-booster shots of the Covid-19 vaccines, Stony Brook Southampton Hospital has updated its appointment times and testing hours for Covid and influenza.

An awful lot of people are getting sick with one thing or another in the weeks since New York State's mask mandate was lifted. “In prior years, this is when flu season is just ending, but right now, it’s just starting,” said Dr. Gail Schonfeld, whose East End Pediatrics practice in East Hampton has seen an average of five cases of flu each day over the past two weeks.

East Hampton Town's Covid-19 testing site at the former Child Development Center of the Hamptons on Stephen Hand's Path will continue operating at least through April 15, as concerns about the BA.2 subvariant and the upcoming April school break spark renewed interest in tests.

Both Pfizer and Moderna have asked the federal Food and Drug Administration for authorization of a fourth (or second booster) dose of their respective mRNA vaccines against Covid-19. Should this be approved, how much extra protection would it provide and who would benefit?

Two years and two days after East Hampton Town declared a state of emergency because of a surging Covid-19 pandemic, Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc announced on Tuesday the rescinding of that declaration and of its accompanying executive orders, saying that he was "really excited that things are looking up, finally, after two very long years."