The easiest way isn’t always the best way.
That was the message Shoreham-Wading River Superintendent Gerard Poole delivered to his school board last week, along with a proposed revision to the school district’s response to reports of a positive COVID-19 case among students or staff members in kindergarten through-fifth-grade classes.
The current district procedure when someone in that group tests positive calls for the entire affected class to be automatically quarantined for 10 days from the date of exposure. That quarantining is intended to prevent spread.
Mr. Poole said the district’s reopening committee met a couple of times to discuss a more “nuanced approach” that would offer more flexibility.
An ambulance at San Simeon by the Sound in March 2020. (Credit: Grant Parpan)
In early January, the first round of vaccines arrived for distribution at San Simeon by the Sound, a 120-bed skilled nursing, rehabilitation and adult day care facility in Greenport. New York designated nursing home residents and staff as a top priority in its distribution plan for the vaccine after COVID-19 left a deadly impact at so many facilities.
During the initial 10 months of the pandemic, San Simeon proved to be an outlier, with no confirmed COVID-19 cases among residents. And on Jan. 4, the first round of vaccinations a process done in conjunction with CVS resulted in 97% of the resident population receiving an initial dose. (The vaccines currently approved by Pfizer and Moderna each require two doses either three or four weeks apart.)
In accordance with CDC and New York State guidance, if a student participating in high-risk sports is found to be COVID-19 positive, they will be required to quarantine for 10 days. Additionally, their coach will be required to provide information to the county s Health Department for contact tracing.
Suffolk County Department of Health guidelines for sports teams to safely play include:
Taking the temperatures of players and coaches before practices and games;
Masks should be worn whenever possible, especially when on the sidelines and not playing;
Enforce social distancing when not playing;
Require hand washing or sanitizing of hands before and after practices and games, and after sharing equipment;
Peconic Landing in Greenport. (Credit: Grant Parpan)
When the first COVID-19 outbreak occurred in the United States at a nursing home in Washington, it became abundantly clear that long-term care facilities, filled largely with elderly residents, faced enormous risk.
In early March, COVID-19 still felt like a distant threat. But that quickly changed when Peconic Landing in Greenport announced a per-diem employee had tested positive for COVID-19. At the time, still so much was unknown about the virus, and even as the facility implemented strict measures to limit any spread, the virus would prove stubbornly difficult to contain.
By mid-March, three members at Peconic Landing’s Health Center had died from COVID-19, all of whom were in their 90s. At the time of that announcement, an additional 12 members had tested positive as the life care and retirement community became one of the first known COVID-19 hotspots in Suffolk County.
(Credit: Grant Parpan)
When the first COVID-19 outbreak occurred in the United States at a nursing home in Washington, it became abundantly clear that long-term care facilities, filled largely with elderly residents, faced enormous risk.
In early March, COVID-19 still felt like a distant threat. But that quickly changed when Peconic Landing in Greenport announced a per-diem employee had tested positive for COVID-19. At the time, still so much was unknown about the virus, and even as the facility implemented strict measures to limit any spread, the virus would prove stubbornly difficult to contain.
By mid-March, three members at Peconic Landing’s Health Center had died from COVID-19, all of whom were in their 90s. At the time of that announcement, an additional 12 members had tested positive as the life care and retirement community became one of the first known COVID-19 hotspots in Suffolk County.