Coronavirus

"The emergency is over," Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said Wedneday. Fifteen months after invoking emergency powers to combat the Covid-19 pandemic, he announced that the state of emergency will end on Thursday.

As of Monday, 71 percent of New Yorkers 18 and older had gotten at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, according to the Centers for Disease Control. To make it easier for people 12 and up to join the ranks of those partially or fully vaccinated locally, New York State will add Tuesday and Wednesday evening hours at its mass vaccination site at the Stony Brook Southampton college campus. 

The Bridgehampton School's Future Farmers of America Club and its adviser, Judiann Carmack-Fayyaz, have designed a memorial dedicated to transportation workers who died during the pandemic.

Clearly, some sort of benefit does come from going out into the world and engaging with the micro-organisms waiting to be found in the dirt of playgrounds and on the snot-covered tables in classrooms. But there is no way of knowing which encounters with micro-organisms will be relatively benign and lead to increased immunity, and which have the potential to be devastating.

On Tuesday, exactly one year, three months, and one week since the day that Suffolk County's first Covid-19 patient was admitted to Stony Brook Southampton Hospital, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced that more than 70 percent of adult New Yorkers have received at least one vaccine shot and lifted most of the remaining pandemic restrictions on retail stores, restaurants, offices, gyms and fitness centers, amusement and family entertainment centers, hair salons and barber shops, and personal care businesses.

New York State Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said this week that when 70 percent of the state's adult population has gotten at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine most of the remaining pandemic restrictions will be lifted. While much of the rest of New York State has yet to reach that mark, East Hampton Town has already surpassed it, Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc announced Tuesday.

"I remember exactly what I was wearing, I remember exactly who was in the class, and I remember how hard I cried," said Colleen Saidman Yee of Yoga Shanti of the day in March 2020 when she closed her Sag Harbor yoga studio because of the pandemic. After barely surviving a 15-month shutdown, Yoga Shanti in Sag Harbor is seeking to regain its footing with new protocols designed to make students breathe easy about returning to group classes.

Following new recommendations and a clarification from the Centers for Disease Control, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced that New York would modify its mask guidance to allow schools to opt out of requiring masks outside. And in general, virtually all Covid-19 restrictions can be lifted once 70 percent of adult New Yorkers have received at least one dose of the vaccine

News that fully vaccinated people could go without masks and stop social distancing in most settings has been met with unbridled joy by many, but questions remain. Among them, what, if anything, is recommended when it comes to testing vaccinated people for Covid-19.

If, like most Americans, you have been waiting with bated breath for signs that the Covid-19 pandemic is winding down and that a return to normalcy has finally arrived, then you probably heaved a great sigh of relief at some point over the past two weeks as the Centers for Disease Control announced that vaccinated individuals could dispense with wearing masks in most settings. On May 19, New York followed suit and adopted the same guidelines, except where certain municipalities, businesses, schools, and settings such as hospitals or doctors' offices still require them.

Dr. Gail Schonfeld of East End Pediatrics will run a youth vaccine clinic this weekend in response to the federal government's May 10 announcement expanding emergency use athorization for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to include adolescents 12 to 15 years of age. Previously, children had to be 16 or over to receive shots.

On Wednesday for the first time since Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo imposed an executive order 13 months ago requiring face coverings in public, people could go into a store or a walk down Main Street without a mask -- provided they were fully vaccinated. The change comes as the number of vaccinated people continues to grow and the infection rate across the state and here in Suffolk County drops to levels not seen since September and October.