Friday, 8:30 p.m. : Testing Site To Open In East Hampton May 15

Working with East Hampton Village Deputy Mayor Barbara Borsack and the East Hampton Healthcare Foundation, East Hampton Town Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc has arranged to launch a testing site in East Hampton. The Foundation will underwrite the program and Hudson River Health Care will undertake the diagnostic testing.

The program will be held Wednesdays and Fridays beginning May 15, by appointment. The drive up site will be situated in the Pantigo ball field parking lot. Tests will be available to those with COVID-19 symptoms or those who have been in contact with a COVID-19 positive patient, or workers deemed eligible for testing by New York State, including healthcare workers, first responders and essential employees who interact directly with the public. Visit the state health department website to view the full list of eligible workers.

Insurance will be accepted, but uninsured individuals may be tested for free. Bilingual staff will be on hand and the tests offered regardless of immigration status.

"The local availability of COVID-19 diagnostic testing will help us to stop the spread of the virus within our community and move us closer to a safe reopening of our economy," said Mr. Van Scoyoc. He noted that contact tracing, a Suffolk County program, will help identify community members exposed to coronavirus so they may quarantine.

In a statement announcing the testing, the supervisor expressed thanks to Ms. Borsack for her assistance, HRH Care's willingness to get the site up and running, and the Foundation's generosity in providing initial funding.

With Hamptons Health Society funding, a drive up testing site organized by Southampton Village Mayor Jesse Warren opened two weeks ago. It offers testing at the health clinic on Old Town Road on Tuesdays and Thursdays. An additional testing site will enable the region to achieve a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention-recommended metric necessary for reopening. It calls for the capacity to test a minimum number of residents each day.

As antibody tests that detect whether a person has had coronavirus and recovered become more available, the East Hampton site may offer those as well.

Deputy Mayor Borsack is a member of the East Hampton Healthcare Foundation board and the Southampton Hospital Association board. She said she was pleased to work with the supervisor to facilitate the testing site.

Providing the initial funding, the Foundation will accept donations to continue the program. Visit easthamptonhealthcare.org to donate.

"As we continue to actively adapt our response to COVID-19, pop-up testing remains important for the added protection of patients and staff," said Anne Kauffman Nolon, CEO of HRHCare. "We will continue expanding our response to the pandemic until we prevail, for the sake of our patients and our communities."

Call 845-553-8030 to make an appointment for a test.

On the 75th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day, County Executive Steve Bellone reflected on World War II veterans, known as the Greatest Generation. Under normal circumstances, May 8 is a day to acknowledge the vets, to honor and thank them, he said, He called it the cruelest irony that mired in the midst of the COVID-19 battle, not only must the commemoration of the soldiers sacrifices be canceled, but also the virus attacks the Greatest Generation most ruthlessly and viciously. he reported that he raised a flag at Armed Force Plaza outside his office and later delivered it to the veterans home in Stony Brook.

Acknowledging that as the response has continued, colleagues at varied levels of government have refrained from engaging in the nonsense of politics. He pointed to County Comptroller John Kennedy, his opponent in the last election and reported how well they have worked together. Were all on the same team at the end of the day, he said, offering that its okay to have disagreements about policies, but theres no time for petty political disagreements.

The reporting system for hospitalizations is down, Mr. Bellone advised during his afternoon briefing on Friday. Overall, Suffolk reached an unfortunate milestone, topping the 40,000 mark in confirmed cases of coronavirus, with 40,460 confirmed cases countywide. The number includes 694 new cases in the previous 24 hours, as well as 3,961 individuals who tested positive for antibodies. Twenty one people died from COVID-19 from Thursday to Friday, bringing the total number of fatalities to 1,568. Testing in hot spot areas like Wyandanch and Brentwood have resulted in 38.7 percent positives, compared to the countywide percentage of 33 percent positive results from testing. In all, the county has administered 106, 755 tests as of May 7.

The local figures, posted just before noon Friday on the Suffolk County interactive map, report 867 cases across Southampton Town. Thats 15 cases for every 1000 people. East Hampton Towns 258 cases break down to just under 12 cases for every 1000 people.

Stony Brook Medicines ER field satellite in a Stony Brook University parking lot has closed to patients, but the equipment will remain in place should the need to reopen the site arise.

About 2,600 patients were triaged at the site, according to a Stony Brook Medicine press release, which stated that the closure comes as the number of patients visiting the site has continued to decline.

Stony Brook Medicine personnel who were working at the field satellite will return to Stony Brook University Hospital.

The drive-thru testing site at Stony Brook University will remain open by appointment only. To date, 27,515 patients have been tested for coronavirus there, according to Stony Brook Medicine.

Statewide, the number of COVID-19 hospitalizations is down to 8,196, Governor Andrew Cuomo announces at his daily briefing Friday in Poughkeepsie. The number of intubated patients is also down.

The number of new COVID hospitalizations per day is just about flat has been flat for a few days, Mr. Cuomo said. There were 604 in Thursdays three-day rolling average of new hospitalizations.

We would have hoped to see a steady sharp decline in those number, right? Mr. Cuomo said. We went up very quickly. ... We would have hoped that would have gone down very quickly. ... Its more flattening out.

There were 216 deaths in New York State Thursday attributed to COVID-19, 171 in hospitals and 45 in nursing homes. The death toll has been under 300 each day so far in May and appears to be on a downward trend, though the number has ticked up and down. Looking at the three-day rolling average, it is slowly declining.

Mr. Cuomo noted that doctors now suspect that COVID-19, which was thought to spare children, is responsible for youth becoming sick with what appears to be Kawasaki disease or toxic shock syndrome, which causes inflammation in their blood vessels.

There has been at least one fatality because of this and there may be others that are under investigation, Mr. Cuomo said.

The governor advised parents to seek medical attention for children who have had a fever for more than five days, difficulty feeding or too sick to drink fluids, severe abdominal pain, diarrhea or vomiting, change in skin color, trouble breathing or quick breathing, decreased amount or frequency of urine, or lethargy, irritability and confusion.

Adding reported figures from Tuesday and Wednesday, the coronavirus death toll across Suffolk County increased by 251 patients. The increase was largely a function of a new state reporting system that includes presumed COVID-19 positive patients, as well as those in nursing homes and assisted living facilities, County Executive Steve Bellone explained during his daily media briefing. From Tuesday to Wednesday, the number of fatalities surged from 1,296 to 1,522 due to the new reporting system. From Wednesday to Thursday another 25 fatalities were added, bringing the toll to 1,547.

Its likely, the county executive acknowledged, the number represented is under what the full amount will be. We wont know the toll until after this is over and we are looking back.

In all, there are 39,807 confirmed cases in Suffolk County. Of those, 3,531 have tested positive for antibodies.

Hospitalizations declined by 54 patients from Wednesday to Thursday, meaning the county is back on a downward trend. Hospital capacity is at 73 percent with intensive care admissions at 70 percent. Eighty-eight people have been discharged from Suffolk hospitals in the last 24 hours.

Turning to plans for the reopening of the county, Mr. Bellone demurred when asked to predict a date, stating instead that Governor Andrew Cuomo would be releasing new executive orders related to his phased reopening plan. In the interim, this afternoon the countys Business Recovery Unit will post a resource guide detailing guidance for reopening strategies. View it at suffolkcountyny.gov/bru.

Governor Andrew Cuomo on Thursday extended his moratorium on residential and commercial evictions for another 60 days. The moratorium will now remain in effect through August 20, preventing landlords from evicting tenants who are suffering hardships related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mr. Cuomo also ordered a new ban on fees for late or missed payments, and he is allowing renters to use their security deposit as payment.

The moratorium was originally announced on March 20 and set to expire in June.

Mr. Cuomo acknowledged that the moratorium creates hardship for landlords, who will still have mortgages and utility bills to pay.

There is no doubt a trade-off between the tenant and the landlord, the governor said, adding that state help will be coming for the landlords.

In the meantime, he doesnt want to see tenants evicted through no fault of their own, he said.

Mr. Cuomo also revealed during his Thursday daily briefing that 27,000 employees at 25 downstate health care facilities have been tested for the antibody that indicates their immune systems have responded to the virus that causes COVID-19.

Among the general population on Long Island, 11.4 percent of people have the antibody, while 11.1 percent of health care workers have the antibody. In New York City, the numbers were 19.9 percent for the general population and 12.2 percent for health care workers.

Mr. Cuomo said the results underscore the important of wearing personal protective equipment such as gloves and masks and shows PPE is effective at slowing the spread of COVID-19.

The governor also offered an update on the $25 million Nourish New York Initiative, connecting upstate farmers who have produce they are struggling to sell with food banks struggling to feed families. He said nearly 50 food banks, soup kitchens and food pantries will receive support, more than 2,100 farms are participating and more than 20,000 households across the state will receive products through the initiative within the next week.

There were 231 deaths attributed to COVID-19 on Wednesday, 191 of which occurred in hospitals and 40 in nursing homes. The daily death toll has been essentially flat for the past four days. The number excludes at-home deaths.

The three-day rolling average of new COVID-19 hospitalizations was 607 on Wednesday, which was up six over the day before and the third day in a row that the number has been under 700. The net change in the total number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients was a decrease of 514, which brought the total below 9,000 since March 28.

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COVID-19 UPDATE: East Hampton Testing Site To Open May 15 - 27east.com