Coronavirus

With Covid-19 infections on the rise again in Suffolk County, South Fork business owners are reinstituting mask mandates and other safety protocols. "We got to a point where we realized we had to take a stand," said one, Eric Lemonides, a co-owner of Almond in Bridgehampton, where patrons 12 and over are being asked to show proof of vaccination or a recent negative Covid test.

The county's guidelines closely mirror those of the federal Centers for Disease Control and the American Academy of Pediatrics. They include universal mask wearing indoors for all, even those students and staff members who have already received vaccines; masks will not be required outdoors.

Starting Tuesday, Stony Brook Southampton Hospital's Parrish Memorial Hall will become a vaccine clinic offering Pfizer and Johnson and Johnson shots with no appointment necessary.

As the Delta variant of Covid-19 continues to spread in the United States, the Centers for Disease Control on Tuesday officially recommended that even people already vaccinated against Covid-19 once again wear masks in indoor public settings if they are in a region with "substantial" or "high" levels of community transmission.

There will be a pop-up Pfizer vaccination clinic on Wednesday at the Springs Presbyterian Church, 5 Old Stone Highway, from 5 to 7:30 p.m. Shots will be offered on a first-come, first-served basis.

The percentage of people testing positive for the virus has slowly but consistently ticked upward, leading to fears of yet another surge, this time almost entirely among the unvaccinated.

High Covid-19 vaccination rates on the South Fork are giving residents and visitors the confidence to return to their pre-pandemic routines albeit with a dose of caution. 

"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.