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Daniel Dunaief

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Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone. File photo by Alex Petroski

On the night before Thanksgiving, high school and college students typically come together to reconnect, share stories and share a drink.

This year, as COVID-19 cases climb throughout the U.S., including in Suffolk County, County Executive Steve Bellone (D), along with the Suffolk County Police Department and local enforcement offices, are discouraging gatherings that might cause further spread of the virus.

Enforcement efforts will using social host laws, which fine residents for allowing underage drinking, and state-mandated gathering restrictions, which combined, could lead to “serious consequences,” Bellone said on a conference call with reporters Nov. 17.

“No matter where you are or what you are doing, social distancing and mask guidelines must be followed,” Bellone said. “We’ve come too far to go back now.”

With new state restrictions that limit the sale of alcohol after 10 p.m. through bars and restaurants, Bellone said enforcement efforts would be on the look out for gatherings at private residences. Some of these viral spreading events have occurred during smaller gatherings.

“The spread of COVID-19 at these types of parties is very, very real,” Bellone said. “We’ve seen it countless times. We all need to take personal responsibility,” which includes parents who need to comply with social host laws and the state’s gathering limits in homes.

Bellone announced a partnership between the Suffolk County Department of Health and the nonprofit Partners in Prevention, which is starting a social media campaign to inform the community about social host laws. Bellone called this information “critical” leading up to Thanksgiving celebrations.

While Suffolk County enforcement efforts will respond to calls about larger group gatherings, Bellone said police would use “common sense” and would not be “going door to door to check on the number of individuals in a house.”

As for the infection rates, the numbers continue to rise, returning to levels not seen in months.

“We expect our numbers [of positive tests] to be around 400 today,” Bellone said. The positivity rate is about 3.4 percent, while the number of people hospitalized with symptoms related to the virus approaching 100.

“We have not been above 100 since June 18,” Bellone said. In the last 24 hours, the number of people who have required hospitalization from the virus increased by 16.

While the virus has exhausted people physically and mentally, the county cannot “jeopardize our continued economic recovery” and the health of the population by stepping back from measures such as social distancing, mask wearing and hand washing that proved so effective in reducing the spread earlier this year, Bellone said.

“Now is the time to double down on common sense measures that work,” he added.

Some of the positive tests are coming from people in nursing homes, who are among the most vulnerable population.

“With the nursing homes, that is obviously a big concern,” Bellone said. The county is “making sure they have the PPE [personal protective equipment] they need.”

The Department of Health is staying in close contact with these facilities as cases continue to climb.

Bellone urged residents who dined at a Friendly’s restaurant in Riverhead on Nov. 5 or 6 to monitor their symptoms for the next two weeks. Six adults who worked at the restaurant have tested positive for the virus.

Anyone who is exhibiting symptoms of the virus, which include fever, a runny nose, lost of taste or smell, fatigue, shortness of breath, can find a testing site at suffolkcountyny.gov/covid19.

Separately, when asked about the possibility of schools closing in response to the increasing incidence of positive tests, Bellone urged schools to remain open at this testing level.

“We are not seeing the spread happening in the schools,” Bellone said. “The protocols being put in place and the execution in the schools has really worked.”

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The head of pediatrics at Stony Brook Children's Hospital said current restrictions on daily life has not meant young people have not been exposed to normal childhood diseases. Stock photo

The school and day care mixing bowl of bacterial and viral illnesses has changed. As schools, day-care centers, clubs, sports teams and other organizations change the way they manage group gatherings amid the pandemic, the game of illness tag children seem to play has slowed.

“We are seeing potentially less viral illnesses thus far in the sense that we have not seen an increase yet in respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV,” said Christy Beneri, Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Program Director of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Stony Brook Children’s Hospital. “We are still waiting to see what happens with the flu.”

The chance of children contracting some of those illnesses would likely be less this year amid the infection control measures to reduce the spread of COVID-19, the disease responsible for the pandemic.

Beneri said children are getting somewhat fewer infections, although doctors are still seeing strep throat, ear infections and pneumonia.

Viral-induced asthma visits have declined at Stony Brook. Children who have asthma are still seeking medical attention, particularly if their condition doesn’t have a viral trigger.

At the same time, the effects of social isolation, uncertainty about the future, and household anxiety has triggered an additional mental health burden, particularly for adolescents.

Pediatricians are “asking patients more about those issues,” she said. “We maybe didn’t ask as much as we should have in the past.”

Even though children generally have less contact with their contemporaries this year, they are still developing illnesses, as their immune system receives challenges from microbes through dirt, pet saliva and other sources.

The dynamic is “slightly different in terms of getting some of these viruses from other people, [but] there are still pathogens in their environment,” she said.

In the current environment, with positive tests for COVID-19 setting new national daily records, Beneri said it is important to practice infection control measures in certain settings, which will impact what children are exposed to over time.

The cultural shift from sending children who might have mild symptoms to school to keeping children home for the good of their fellow students and staff has helped reduce the spread of COVID and other potential infections.

“We’ve taken a step back from what makes sense not just for my child, but for others my child might be exposing,” Beneri said. The decision about whether to send a child who might be battling an illness, cold or minor discomfort to school “is not just about us. It’s about those in our communities and, hopefully, there’s a better recognition” about the impact an infected child can have.

Some of the infection control measures, such as hand hygiene and staying home when children are sick should continue even after companies start providing a COVID-19 vaccine.

At this point, with the virus still prevalent in the community and country, she said acute care visits are declining, as parents are managing at home and are watching and waiting to see how their children recover from any infection.

As a parent, Beneri is dealing with the disappointment and disruption of life in the pandemic for her seven-year-old daughter. Twice, the family has had to cancel a trip to Disney World and has scheduled it for a third time.

Once the worst of the pandemic passes and children get back together again, the pediatric program director said there might be an increase in certain infections, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the county will see horrific outbreaks.

With the approach of Thanksgiving and the December holidays, Beneri urges families to be creative about gatherings. She suggested that smaller groups might want to get together over two weekends, rather than all gathering at the same time.

As for advice to schools, Beneri urges people to remain mindful of their activities outside of school.

“It’d be a shame to have to close schools,” Beneri said.

Beneri added people can celebrate milestones like turning 16, but they should not have a 40-person event in the current environment.

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From left, Kamazima Lwiza aboard the hospital ship Jubilee Hope which is owned by a British NGO known as Vine Trust and provides services to several islands on Lake Victoria with Deogratias Kabogo, Chief Engineer of the ship. Photo by Pascal Ferdinand

By Daniel Dunaief

In tropical and subtropical countries, including Brazil and the Ivory Coast, a parasite moves from snails to humans, causing 220 million illnesses a year and as many as 200,000 annual deaths.

People contract the parasite when they enter shallow, warm waters, where the schistosomiasis larvae known as cercariae enters through the skin, moves through the blood stream and settles near the stomach or bladder.

Once it’s near the bladder, the parasite reproduces, sending its eggs out through urine or feces, which, if directed towards warm, shallow water bodies, can enter the snail and begin the process again.

Schistosomiasis causes anemia, malnutrition and learning difficulties, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as the parasite robs humans of zinc and vitamins A and D. Prolonged infection can also cause bladder cancer.

Kamazima Lwiza, Associate Professor at the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook University, is part of a new, five-year study on the effects of climate change on schistosomiasis.

Lwiza’s part of the research, which is lead by Stanford University and involves several institutions, is analyzing the latest Global Climate Models known as Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 6 results. Lwiza studies the models under four-kilometer resolution to look for patterns and trends.

By creating a model that predicts temperature changes, Lwiza’s part of the efforts hope to help other collaborators apply those temperature expectations to epidemiological models. The ability of the parasite to survive, reproduce and infect humans depends on the viability of the snails, which are temperature sensitive. The temperature range is between 14 and 35 degrees Celsius, with an optimal temperature of between 30 and 32 degrees Celsius.

A warmer climate would likely increase the prevalence of schistosomiasis in the regions of Brazil and the Ivory Coast that this study is exploring, as well as in newer areas.

Kamazima Lwiza prepared instruments before installation aboard the hospital ship Jubilee Hope, which is owned by a British NGO known as Vine Trust and provides services to several islands on Lake Victoria. Photo by Pascal Ferdinand

Depending on the regional topography, human population and amount of rainfall, the area that is conducive to Schistosomiasis could expand. An area that is relatively flat and where rainfall increases and human population is low but increasing could cause the infection rate to climb.

As waterways that were too cold either reach the minimum temperature threshold for snails, or increase the temperature into the optimal range, snail populations are likely to flourish.

Part of the funding for the SoMAS portion of the study is coming from the National Science Foundation and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. These national funding agencies recognize that increasing temperature and land use has created an environment that fosters the expansion of snails and increased prevalence of parasites into areas in the southern United States.

“Given the climate change,[some parts of Florida and Georgia] will be falling within that temperature range,” Lwiza said. “The worry is that, if this disease is going to spread, how are we going to be prepared to keep it off.”

Lwiza had originally planned to travel to Brazil this past summer to collect baseline data on water temperatures. The pandemic caused him to cancel his travel. Next year, he hopes to build on data around significant water bodies where the disease is prevalent.

While the portion of the study that includes Lwiza focuses on temperature, the Stony Brook scientist is working with other researchers who are exploring a range of other analytical and mitigation measures.

For starters, in some countries that have battled against this parasite, the use of dams has exacerbated the problem. Dams have kept out prawns, who are natural predators for snails.

Scientists are considering reintroducing prawns. These shellfish, which look somewhat like shrimp, could not only reduce the population of snails and the parasites they carry, but could also become an economic boon, as a part of an aquaculture project.

The goal of that part of the study is to “see if [prawns] can be used as biological control agents,” Lwiza said. “If we can find a way of introducing these back to where they used to be, we can cut down the snail population.”

The third aspect of the study involves the use of artificial intelligence. Researchers are putting together a program that will allow people to take pictures of the parasites they find and upload them to a web site to identify them.

“That way, we are doing crowd sourcing” which will allow “people to contribute to our investigation,” Lwiza said. Researchers will be able to map the location of the parasites.

Lwiza said Schistosomiasis can affect anyone who goes in the water. The illness doesn’t get as much attention as malaria. When people go to a rural clinic, if they have malaria, they can get medicines from 20 vendors. A person with Schistosomiasis, however, may need to go to a district or regional hospital for medication.

Originally from Tanzania, Lwiza grew up on the western shores of Lake Victoria, where strong waves don’t favor the development of snails. He currently lives in East Northport with his wife Catherine Kentuha, who works in the United Nations Development Program. The couple has three children — Philip, Johnathan and Mulokozi.

Lwiza has worked at Stony Brook University for 29 years and has lived in Port Jefferson Village and East Setauket.

When he lived in Port Jefferson Village, he was pleased and surprised by how his neighbors brought him candles during a brown out and made sure he and his family were okay.

“It was like, ‘Wow, this is really great. This is like Africa,’” he recalls thinking.

When he’s not working, Lwiza enjoys riding a bike and listening to Indian, Arab, African and Latin music. He is also interested in computer programming.

As this study of Schistosomiasis progresses, Lwiza hopes the incidence of disease decreases and that the science helps protect the population against a widespread illness.

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Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone. Photo by Julianne Mosher

Just as many areas in the rest of the country are experiencing a rise in positive tests for the coroanvirus, Suffolk County has now completed a week in which the numbers have climbed quickly.

The seven-day moving average of new cases is over 300, compared with an average of 119 the prior week.

“For a full week, we’ve seen an alarming spike in new COVID-19 cases,” County Executive Steve Bellone (D) said on a conference call with reporters.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) has issued new guidelines starting this evening for restaurants, bars and fitness centers. Starting at 10 pm, each of those businesses is required to close from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. Restaurants are allowed to offer curbside dining for pick up only after 10 p.m., but they can’t serve alcohol after that time.

At the same time, gatherings are limited to 10 people, in part because smaller collections of people have contributed to the rise in positive tests.

Starting today, the county will also deploy six teams, consisting of one fire marshal and one staff member from consumer affairs to boost ongoing compliance.

These teams will speak with businesses about new restrictions. The first focus will be on gaining compliance and informing and educating the public. These new teams will have the authority to issue citations if they “detect or observe egregious violations,” Bellone said.

These new restrictions are the first in the county since the spring.

“We don’t want to see new restrictions take effect that will slow the recovery more,” Bellone said. “That will all be dependent on what we do in the next couple of weeks.”

The county has a “short window” in which to get these numbers under control, the county executive continued.

The county has activated 200 additional case investigators and has 1,000 contact traces following up on positive tests within the county.

The goal is to get index cases as quickly as possible within a 24-hour period, Bellone added, to reduce the spread of the virus.

Bellone urged people to avoid gatherings this weekend to the greatest extent possible.

“We are entering a dangerous period for this virus,” Bellone said. “We have long talked about the possibility of a second wave in the fall. It very much feels like that’s where we are.”

With two weeks left until Thanksgiving, Bellone reminded residents that the time to quarantine is limited.

People need to follow best practices, which includes social distancing, mask wearing and hand sanitizing, even as the weather gets colder and residents spend more time indoors.

“No one wants their Thanksgiving gathering to be the next super spreader event,” Bellone said.

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Stock photo

By Daniel Dunaief

Daniel Dunaief

With a number of extended friends and family pregnant during this turbulent year, I have been thinking about one of the first decisions parents make on behalf of children who can’t yet verbalize their preferences.

What’s in a name, you say? Well, just about everything.

A long, complicated and difficult to spell name could help someone stand out. It could also connect that person to a family legacy or history and enable him to
carry the trappings of a family tree every time he says or writes his name.

At the same time, that person, if she interacts with a large collection of people, may spend an enormous amount of time each day spelling or pronouncing her name and answering questions about its origin.

As an aside, one of my favorite names comes courtesy of a close friend who is a doctor. He was in the operating room many years ago during a complicated delivery by an expectant mother who didn’t speak English. She decided to name her son Nosmo. His middle name was King. She got the name from the No Smoking sign she read in the waiting room.

For some reason, when I meet someone, I struggle with two of the most basic elements of communication. First, they say their name. Something happens in that time shortly after I hear the name. I’m so focused on saying my name, which I’ve known all my life, that I erase her name. It’s as if a devilish part of my brain has blurred her name with a miniature eraser. That also appears to happen to other people, as  several of them have listened to me say my name and then ask, “Did you say your name was Doug” or “Dave?” They tend to remember the first letter.

You would think I wouldn’t have any trouble with such a simple first name, Dan, and yet, you’d be wrong. When I start with “My name is” or “This is,” somehow, the “s” from the “is” elides with my name, making my response sounds like, “This is Stan.”

To compensate, I have tried to wait as long as possible between the “is” and my name, almost as if I’m building suspense. “Hi, this is” … wait for it … have a sandwich … check your email … look at that pretty bird … okay, now, “Dan.”

Sometimes, when I’m outside, I hear my name when no one was talking to me or to anyone else who shares my name. I returned from walking my dog recently and heard “Daaaannn,” “Daaaaaaaann,” “Daaaaaannn” calls. At first, I thought it was my wife, trying to use her special human echolocation to find me, but it turned out to be a crow welcoming my dog and me back.

When people are flustered, injured, or disappointed, they often yell something. Unfortunately for me and, perhaps, other Dans, they shout something that sounds like my name. After stubbing their toe or reading a disappointing email, they scream, “Damn!” Hearing the frustrated and loud call, I match that with, “Yeah, what?” That might be funny to them, if they weren’t already annoyed.

The ubiquitous nature of my name has created confusion on athletic teams or in offices. My last name doesn’t offer an easy alternative.

Indeed, my son, who doesn’t share the same first name as anyone on the baseball team, is, nonetheless, nicknamed “Knife” because, somehow, Duh nay uff, became Doo knife, which was shortened to knife. It makes sense to teenagers.

As one of Jerry Seinfeld’s girlfriends on the eponymous show “Seinfeld” pointed out, it could be worse: her name rhymed with a female body part Jerry couldn’t remember, and it wasn’t “Vulva.”

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Decorations on a house in Rocky Point reminding people to wear masks. Photo by Kyle Barr

The percentage of positive tests for the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 has increased in the last week, particularly among younger residents.

Positive tests over the last seven days increased to 2.17%, which is up from 1.41% in the prior week, according to County Executive Steve Bellone (D).

“COVID cases are surging in Suffolk County,” Bellone said on a conference call with reporters Nov. 10. “We are seeing what other places in other communities have been experiencing for some time now.”

Indeed, the increase in cases is likely occurring even at gatherings that are following the state-mandated limit of 50 people at any gathering.

On Monday, the positivity rate was 3.8%, which is the first time since May 25 that the rate was above 3%.

Given when these positive tests occurred, Bellone said they are “exactly when we would expect to see cases spiking” from Halloween gatherings.

The majority of the positive tests are among people who are under 65, said Dr. Gregson Pigott, Commissioner of the Suffolk County Department of Health Services, with 27% of the cases among people 25 to 40 and 31% for people who are 41 to 65.

“If we continue to see this surge in positive cases throughout Suffolk County, how long before it gets into that more vulnerable population?” Bellone said.

Bellone urged families to take precautions at gatherings during Thanksgiving by limiting the number of people coming together for the holiday, opening windows when possible, and, if necessary in smaller spaces, wearing masks.

“The current spike we are seeing is clearly related to gatherings,” Bellone said. These gatherings do not violate limits, which is a warning sign. “We have to take precautions to prevent these surges.”

Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) also expressed alarm in a press conference Monday about the spike in COVID cases nationwide, saying we’re likely to have “a long two months.”

Bellone said the county is planning to increase its contact tracers over the next week in response to the increase in positive tests. The county currently has 50 contact tracers and plans to double that to 100 over the next few days, at which point it will double that again.

The number of hospitalizations which, like the testing percentage is not close to where it was during the worst of the pandemic, current stands at 60, which is also a rise from recent weeks, when the number of people hospitalized with the virus hovered between the 20s and 40s.

In recent months, hospitals haven’t seen the “real, real sick COVID patients they were seeing in March,” Pigott said. Residents are typically coming in for a day or two and then are continuing their recovery at home.

In addition to the public health threat an increase in cases poses for a county that had been the epicenter for the pandemic in the U.S. in the spring, the rise in positive tests presents a potential threat to the fragile economy, which is still recovering after an extended lockdown and slow, phased reopening.

“If these trends continue, that could result in certain rollbacks of the economic recovery,” Bellone said.

Bellone urged people in the county to pay close attention to their own symptoms. He recommended that residents stay home when they are not feeling well and get tested.

Testing has become much more widely available in Suffolk County and throughout the state. Information on the location of testing sites is available at suffolkcountyny.gov/Covid19. A list of testing sites is located half way down the screen, in a blue box on the left hand side.

“If you don’t have insurance, the test is free throughout the county,” Bellone said. “Get tested. That will help us get a handle on the surge that is happening right now. Those numbers are concerning, they are disturbing.”

The county needs to keep the numbers under control to keep the virus from threatening the economic recovery, he added.

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Ijeoma Opara. Photo by Emmanuel Igbokwe of Emman Photography

By Daniel Dunaief

The daughter of Nigerian immigrants, Ijeoma Opara was born in Jersey City, New Jersey. Her first name means “safe journey” in Igbo, the language of Nigeria, and is something people say when they wish each other a good trip.

For Opara, her first name has proven prophetic, as this social worker is determined to help youth in Paterson make a safe journey through the challenges of substance abuse and mental health issues.

Recently, Opara became the first social worker to receive a $1.84 million Early Independence Award from the National Institutes of Health.

Apart from her unusual scientific background in a field dominated by award recipients who work in the natural sciences, like biochemistry and physics, Opara also stands out for her background.

Ijeoma Opara. Photo by Emmanuel Igbokwe of Emman Photography

“At the National Institutes of Health, there’s been a lot of discussion about how black scientists don’t get as much funding as [their] white counterparts,” Opara said. Black scientists don’t often receive early competitive grants.

Michelle Ballan, Associate Dean for Research in the School of Social Welfare at Stony Brook University, recruited Opara. She appreciated Opara’s “grit and tenacity.”

Ballan encouraged Opara to apply for the Early Intervention Award. With Ballan in her corner, Opara put that determination to work.

Ballan described how readily Opara responded to guidance.

“She not only accepted constructive feedback, she built upon it,” Ballan said.

When Opara applied for the award, she suspected she had little chance of receiving it. “Someone like me, who went to a state school in Montclair, New Jersey” writing about urban, black and hispanic youth has never receiving this kind of funding support, she said.

Opara received a score in March that she didn’t understand. She sent her score to her two mentors, Ballan and director of the REIDS program at Yale Dr. Trace Kershaw, and asked what it meant. Dr. Kershaw said it was almost a perfect score and told her she would likely receive the grant.

In July, she received an email congratulating her on her selection.

“I started screaming,” Opara said. She told her close friends and colleagues, but she couldn’t share the news on social media until the NIH press release came out in October.

She was so excited about the opportunity that she celebrated with a large order of food and ate herself into oblivion that first weekend. Her indulgent feast included Oreo cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory and chicken and waffles from her favorite brunch place.

“I got so sick,” Opara laughed.

While Opara was thrilled that the award came, she felt another emotion mixed in with her elation. She said part of her felt guilty because she and other black researchers would like to see more representation in these awards and grant mechanisms.

Opara has appreciated the support she has received from other scientists.

“So many black colleagues, even people I didn’t know, saw this as a win not just for me but for all of us,” Opara said. Other graduate students and postdocs have reached out to her since the press release came out, asking for advice on applying for high reward and high risk awards and other NIH grants.

Opara is grateful for the confidence and support from Ballan.

Indeed, Ballan believes Opara is a “role model for all women, especially women of color in research intensive fields.”

When Opara interviewed at Stony Brook, Ballan told her that she “wanted to make sure you are very successful.”

Even early in her tenure at Stony Brook, which will start with extensive work in Paterson, New Jersey, Opara feels Ballan has “lived up to that promise.”

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At an Oct. 19 press conference announcing a new study to help youth in Paterson, New Jersey, from left, Paterson Mayor André Sayegh; Antoine Lovell; Director of Paterson Youth Services Bureau Christina Barnes Lee; Ijeoma Opara; Program Coordinator at Municipal Alliance Prevention Program Tenee Joyner; Councilman Luis Velez and Chief Operating Officer of OASIS Paterson Jim Walsh. Photo from Ijeoma Opara

By Daniel Dunaief

Stony Brook University’s Ijeoma Opara, a new Assistant Professor in the School of Social Welfare, is starting her promising early scientific career by making history, becoming the first social worker to receive an Early Independence Award from the National Institutes of Health.

Opara, who hopes the award opens doors to other social workers and to other scientists of color, plans to use the funds to create a research study and intervention program that will make a difference.

Opara will study the link between mental heath and substance abuse in Paterson, New Jersey, where she conducted her PhD training while attending Montclair State University and where she hopes to help youth who may not attend school often enough to benefit from programs in academic settings. She also hopes to understand issues that youth may be facing that lead to substance abuse and poor mental health.

Opara plans to use the $1.84 million, five-year grant to conduct venue-based sampling, where she will search for at-risk youth and where she can tailor mental health and substance abuse questions that are relevant to the experience of the children she hopes to help.

“A lot of youth that needed these services, who had substance abuse and serious issues with mental health, weren’t going to school,” said Opara. “They weren’t in locations [where] a lot of researchers collect data.”

It didn’t make sense to collect the survey information from students in school when the people who need these services are not present in the system. “Meeting them where they are to figure out how to get them engaged” became a critical element to conceptualizing this study, said Opara. “There is no such thing as hard-to-reach populations.”

The NIH award Opara received encourages young researchers who recently completed their graduate work to engage in high-risk, high-return studies.

The risk in Opara’s work is that she won’t be able to recruit enough youth. She is, however, is convinced that her past experience in Paterson, a city filled with communities she’s grown to love, will enable her to find and reach out to targeted youth.

She’s currently in the first phase of her two-part effort; finding staff, figuring out ways to find people for her studies and designing questions relevant to them and their lives. In the second part of her research, she plans to provide mental health and substance abuse services.

Michelle Ballan, Associate Dean for Research in the School of Social Welfare, applauded Opara’s approach to her research.

“Venue-based sampling takes considerable work,” Ballan said. “It’s much easier to send a survey to schools.”

Indeed, this kind of effort “takes time, manpower and a tremendous understanding of how [Opara’s] inter-disciplinary focus is intertwined,” Ballan said. “She’s a family studies researcher, a social worker, and a public health researcher. Having those three areas of expertise, it’s not surprising that venue-based sampling was the one she chose.”

Opara is turning to some of the leaders in Paterson to advise her during this effort. She has created a community advisory board that represents youth and includes community leaders.

One of the challenges this year is that some of the sites where these youth might typically congregate may have fewer people during the pandemic. “It’s something we’re really focusing on in our first couple of meetings: where are the youth going?” Opara asked. She suggested sites could include basketball courts and parks. She is also exploring ways to recruit youth (between ages 13 and 21) online.

Opara is hoping to understand how the environment may impact people in the community as either a protective or a risk factor for substance abuse and mental health.

“What are some structures that could be serving as a protective buffer for kids who aren’t engaging in substance abuse and who don’t have negative mental health symptoms?” she asked.

On the other hand, she would like to identify those buildings or features that increase the trauma or risk and that might cause youth to mask their symptoms.

Once she finds these at-risk youths, Opara will ask about drug and alcohol use, lifetime drug use, their feelings about mental health and their levels of anxiety and depression. She also expects to ask about suicidal ideation.

When she understands the challenges and stressors, she hopes to create a culturally relevant, community based and neighborhood focused intervention. For this to work, she plans to recruit some of the people involved in the study to inform these solutions.

Opara is determined to make a difference for the city of Paterson.

“I don’t want to leave the community with nothing,” she said. “I don’t want to come in, collect data and leave. It’s important to create a sustainable change” that will “empower the community and empower youth.”

In Paterson, Opara recognizes the diversity of different neighborhoods, with people from different backgrounds, experiences and languages living in different blocks.

As a research assistant at Montclair, Opara said she encountered resistance at efforts to change neighborhoods, particularly when she was involved in programs to reduce the hours when liquor stores were open. She said youth mobilization, which included speaking about their experiences witnessing alcoholism in their neighborhoods, helped encourage the city council to pass the ordinance.

People came from other neighborhoods, bought alcohol, drank until they passed out and created a “really dangerous environment” as youth and teenagers were afraid to walk home past people who were drunk in the streets.

Opara appreciates the support of educators in the Paterson School District and the mayor, André Sayegh. She said her efforts may be particularly important in this environment, as New Jersey has cut funding from school-based youth services amid a declining budget caused by a slowing economy triggered by the pandemic.

If the program Opara creates works, she hopes other researchers can extend it to other communities.

 

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Proposition 2 has become mired in political wrangling with some environmentalists and Republicans saying they would sue if it passes.

Proposal 2, which would allow Suffolk County to tap into a sewer stabilization fund to combat the economic effect of the COVID-19 shutdown, was close to passing during the election this week.

Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone. Photo by Julianne Mosher

The proposal, which environmental groups including the Long Island Pine Barrens Society indicated they would likely challenge in court, would allow the county to use sales tax revenue from a drinking water protection program. It would also changing an agreement to repay close to $30 million borrowed from the sewer stabilization fund, while using another $15 million from the fund.

During a call with reporters Wednesday, the day after Election Day Nov. 3, County Executive Steve Bellone (D) said the measure would provide financial support for first responders, emergency services workers, and fire and rescue workers.

“I want to thank the people of Suffolk County for passing this common sense measure,” Bellone said on a conference call with reporters. The proposal will “protect taxpayers, first responders and essential workers during a pandemic.”

Legislator Robert Trotta (R-Fort Salonga) said the proposal was about 30,000 votes ahead with about 170,000 absentee ballots still uncounted.

Trotta called the proposal an “affront to the taxpayer,” and that the money was “supposed to be put in a lockbox.” Trotta, as has become customary between the two electeds, also questioned Bellone’s management of the county’s finances before the pandemic.

Trotta alleged Bellone was using the clean water fund to pay for “unaffordable contracts.”

The Suffolk County legislator said that if the Pine Barrens Society didn’t file a lawsuit against the use of these funds to rebuild the county’s finances then he would find a wealthy benefactor for a lawsuit.

Separately, Bellone urged court and election reform during his call.

“We had this perverse situation where voters had to wait in line for hours at a time to exercise their fundamental right to vote, only to find when they were finally handed their ballot” that many court races had been “pre-decided,” Bellone said.

Bellone urged court reform and a process to professionalize the elections.

Amid an upswing in COVID-19 cases around the country, Suffolk County, which was once at the epicenter of the deadly virus, has been experiencing an increase in cases as well. Last week, the county averaged a 1.5 percent positive test rate, while the number of people hospitalized with the virus that has caused the pandemic has climbed to the 40’s. Bellone said the county hadn’t been below the one percent level since Oct. 21st.

“The fact that they are ticking up is a concern within the context of where we are with the cold weather, with winter approaching,” Bellone said. “These numbers are a concern. We remain focused on that, keeping people healthy, keeping these numbers down, and enabling an economic recovery to continue. We can not afford to slide back.”

Bellone said the county has experienced a few clusters of cases. One was at a Southampton polling site and the other was a gathering of people at Shoreham-Wading River schools, which led the high school to go to an all-remote learning model for several weeks.

At this point, Shoreham Wading River High School is closed for in person learning through Nov. 11.

“Even if proper precautions are taken, [people] can end up in a situation like this,” Bellone said, urging residents to remain vigilant about reducing the spread of the virus.

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METRO photo

By Daniel Dunaief

Daniel Dunaief

I’d like to add time to the list of things that have changed during 2020. In addition to our notion of personal space, our concept of public health and our ability to empathize with friends, neighbors and strangers around the world battling against the virus, some of us have a warped sense of time.

My brother calls it a “Groundhog Day” existence, the Bill Murray movie in which each day seems to be a carbon copy of the one before, as time stands still for him while everyone else thinks that one day is a unique part of a continuum.

These days, with so many people working from home and our ventures away from the house fairly limited, our daily existence, even in various phases of reopening, don’t change much, either by month or by season.

Indeed, for many of us, the weekends just mean two more working days from home until Monday. Now, we might not all be working as hard on Saturday or Sunday, but we are well-equipped to get that one additional project done before the week begins.

In addition to forgetting the day of the week, some of us have also developed a less clear connection to the usual merry-go-round elements of each year. Birthdays don’t involve the customary travel, we haven’t attended the same seasonal musical concert at school, and we don’t have the annual family traditions or gatherings.

That has meant both an acceleration and a slowdown in the movement of time. I am both stunned and not surprised that it is early November already.

To illustrate my point, I recently reached out to a scientist with whom I chat periodically. Not wanting to go to the same well too frequently, I try to separate my emails and calls by a few months.

Before I wrote to him, I guessed my last contact was about two weeks earlier. In reality, it had been two months since we spoke.

The mismatch between my memory of the interaction and the reality of the time that passed likely came from a host of factors, including the fact that I enjoy his insights, his sense of humor and the information he shares.

Additionally, however, the time warp is a product of the amount of running in place I do on a regular basis, whether that’s chasing down stories or providing updates on the ongoing twists and turns in our coverage of the pandemic.

Without much variability, each day achieves its own familiar rhythm, even if the days and weeks blend together.

For me, this week, with the election, arrived both quickly and not soon enough. It’s a relief that the attack ads, the cross talk and the vitriol connected with the election will end, even if the parties lining up on both sides of the fence line continue to shout into the wind about each other.

In addition to “Groundhog Day,” I have also pondered the Tom Hanks movie “Cast Away.” When Hanks’ Chuck Noland — wait, I finally get it, Noland, as in “no land” because he’s cast away from his previous life — finally escapes and returns to civilization, I thought we missed out on the incredible opportunity to see Hanks adjust to speaking to people after four years with only a volleyball for companionship.

Once our lives return to some level of normal, I imagine we will all make numerous adjustments, including to the annual journey through years filled with more varied activities and in-person connections with people who live further away.

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