Coronavirus

With Suffolk County reporting a steady increase in the Covid-19 positivity rate, East Hampton Village Mayor Jerry Larsen announced on Monday that Village Hall will be closed to the public starting Thursday and through the end of the year.

By Monday morning, South Fork school districts had reported three more cases of Covid-19 diagnosed since Friday. The affected districts are Montauk, Sag Harbor, and East Hampton.

Two entire classrooms of children at the John M. Marshall Elementary School are in quarantine through Nov. 19 after two cases of Covid-19 were confirmed among fifth-grade students this week. Additionally, two more cases have been diagnosed among East Hampton High School students, and one among the support staff at the Wainscott School.

There is a phenomenon in marathons and other endurance sports called "hitting the wall" — the moment when severe fatigue engulfs athletes due to their glycogen stores being depleted. The Covid-19 pandemic is a marathon. After all these months the threat is still very real. This is why everyone has to keep running.

As the pandemic continues into the colder months, East End restaurants are extending the outdoor dining season with the use of heaters, tents, and igloos, and the East Hampton Town Board is seeking to draft a law that would allow restaurants to transfer up to 100 percent of their seating capacity from indoors to outdoors.

Springs School District officials on Monday announced that the school will soon start offering in-person instruction to larger groups of students four days per week instead of two, and in the interim will begin live-streaming classroom lessons.

A week ago there was just one known case of Covid-19 among East Hampton High School students, but that number has since risen to six and all of them are connected to a single recent indoor gathering, school officials said this week. The district's John M. Marshall Elementary School also reported a new case in a fifth grader.

The Suffolk County Health Department traced a cluster of Covid-19 infections to the early voting site at the Stony Brook Southampton campus, County Executive Steve Bellone said in press briefing on Wednesday.

In an email to parents on Monday, James Crenshaw, the East Hampton High School principal, said that the number of confirmed positive Covid-19 cases had risen to six. High school students will have classes online at least through Friday.

Late in the morning on Halloween, East Hampton High School’s principal put out a call for students and families to “please be safe” after two more cases of Covid-19 were confirmed in students within the past 24 hours, bringing the school’s total to four cases.

The Bridgehampton School on Friday afternoon announced that a staff member had tested positive for Covid-19 earlier in the day. That staff member was most recently at school on Thursday, according to a message from Michael Miller, the school's principal.

East Hampton School District officials informed parents on Friday of a second confirmed case of Covid-19 at the high school. The school's first case was reported on Thursday, and school was closed for in-person instruction on Friday. With the news of a second case, the school is to remain closed for in-person classes until Thursday, Nov. 5.