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Daniel Dunaief

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Mather Hospital changed its visitation policies Nov. 23. File photo by Alex Petroski

This story was updated Wednesday to include Stony Brook University Hospital.

Amid increases in the percentage of positive tests for coronavirus, Northwell hospitals including Huntington Hospital and Mather Hospital have changed their visitor policies.

Effective on Tuesday, Nov. 24, Mather Hospital has suspended patient visitation, including the Emergency Department and Transition Care Unit.

The exceptions for visitors include patients for whom a support person is considered medically necessary, including people who have intellectual or developmental disabilities and patients with cognitive impairments, including dementia.

Additionally, patients in imminent end-of-life situations may be allowed a family member or legal representative as a support at the bedside. The Department of Health defines imminent end-of-life as a patient who may die within 24 hours.

Pediatric visits in Emergency Departments are limited to one parent or guardian. Adolescent psychiatry, meanwhile, is limited to one parent or guardian between 3:30 and 4:30 p.m. and 6:30 and 7:30 p.m.

Visitors must meet several criteria at Mather. They have to be 18 years old or older, have not been exposed to COVID-19 and be screened for symptoms. Visitors also have to wear appropriate personal protective equipment. Those who don’t wear such PPE won’t be permitted in the hospital.

Visitors will have to stay in the patient room during the visit. When they leave the room, visitors will remove their PPE, wash their hands and leave the hospital. Visitors should not be in the room during aerosol-generating procedures.

Patients can choose who can and can’t visit and may select priority support people.

A view of the front entrance to Huntington Hospital on Park Avenue in Huntington. File photo

Huntington Hospital

Meanwhile, at Huntington Hospital, all visitation, except for extraordinary circumstances, is suspended, effective Nov. 30.

The hospital has experience an increase in cases, although the total numbers remain low, with fewer than 20 people hospitalized with COVID-19 as of Tuesday.

“Social Distance and mask wearing by the community is critical,” Nick Fitterman, Executive Director at Huntington Hospital, said through an email.

One support person for patients in the Center for Mothers and Babies may remain throughout the hospital stay.

Outpatient Radiology services are canceled, effective Nov. 30.

Huntington Hospital’s surgical services are fully operation. The staff will take COVID-negative surgical patients through the hospital’s safe pathways.

The hospital strictly enforces universal masking, protective eyewear, hand hygiene and social distancing.

“We remain confident in these practices, and that they will protect our patients from COVID-19 while in the hospital,” Fitterman said.

File photo

Stony Brook Hospital

Starting on Friday, Nov. 27, all visitation is suspended except for patient support persons or family members and/or legal representatives of patients in imminent end-of-life situations.

Hospitals will permit a patient support person at the bedside for patients in labor and delivery, pediatric patients patients with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities or patients with cognitive impairments including dementia.

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Photo courtesy of Pixaby

By Daniel Dunaief

Daniel Dunaief

Hello and welcome to the first and hopefully last Zoom Thanksgiving. Hey, hold on, I can see that you’ve muted yourself in Box 6 over there, Uncle Mary. Yes, I know I said Uncle Mary because I’m reading the name on your screen. Did you think that was funny? What are you saying that I can’t hear?

OK, so we’re going to forego the usual list of what we’re thankful for because it’s 2020 and we’re not together, and I promised the kids they wouldn’t have to talk to such a large group of faces who are all
looking in the wrong direction.

Seriously, what’s wrong with you people? Can’t you look at the camera? I know that might sound harsh. I just spent the last few hours before this fake happy scene trying to remember something about the Ottoman Empire. No offense to the Ottoman Empire, but I didn’t like history much when I was that old and now I’m trying to learn it again.

Yes, I know, Uncle Mary, it’d be easier for me to teach my kids these subjects if I pretended to be interested, but that ended in early April, when I had to try to remember something about the number of electrons in different orbits around atoms.

Anyway, I’m thankful we’re together. I saw that, cousin Clarence. Look, we don’t see you very often. The least you could do is not roll your eyes the entire time I’m talking. You’re doing it again! Cut it out! Oh, really? You have something in your eye? Let me see. Oh yeah, it does look red.

Okay, so we’re going to make this virtual Thanksgiving all about the senses. You see, we’re going to each search through our house for things that look like something else, put them on the screen and guess what the other person is holding. I read something about being creative this year, so this is it.

No, Alex, you can’t ask a question. Because I said you couldn’t. I’m running this virtual Thanksgiving, and I said you couldn’t. Well, then, your teacher is a better person than I am. I wish he was your father, too. No, no, I didn’t mean that. I just mean that we’re doing something differently this year. Okay, if you stop crying, you can ask a question.

Well, actually that is a good question. It doesn’t really have anything to do with Thanksgiving per se, but guessing what we’re holding is a way for each of us to connect. Okay, so, now, everybody, go get something and bring it back.

Ah, I see Uncle George has come back with something that looks like a baseball. Oh, it is a baseball? That’s not very creative. Oh, Uncle George, you’re not going to tell the story about how you almost caught a foul ball hit by Mickey Mantle, are you? Oh, you were? Well, that is a great story, and I’m sure there’s someone who hasn’t heard that story yet. By a show of hands, who hasn’t heard that story? Okay, well, Uncle George, it’s only because we all listen to you so carefully and we love to hear your stories. Maybe, though, we’ll skip that one this time. Are you crying too, or do you have something in your eye?

Okay, someone else go. Matthew, what are you holding? It looks like an origami bird. Wait, it is an origami bird? I wasn’t supposed to guess it that quickly? Well, it’s because you did such a great job. Now you’re crying?

Okay, it’s Jennifer’s turn. It looks like a huge glass of wine. You’re drinking it to test it? So, it was wine? And now you’re refilling it and drinking it again? One more time? Really? Okay, anyone else want to go?

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Veronica Sanders. Photo from BNL

By Daniel Dunaief

If doctors could somehow stick numerous miniature flashlights in human bodies and see beneficial or harmful reactions, they would be able to diagnose and treat people who came into their offices.

That’s what Vanessa Sanders, Assistant Scientist at Brookhaven National Laboratory, is working to develop, although instead of using a flashlight, she and her colleagues are using radioisotopes of elements like arsenic. Yes, arsenic, the same element at the center of numerous murder mysteries, has helpful properties and, at low enough concentrations, doesn’t present health threats or problems.

Arsenic 72 is useful in the field of theranostics, which, as the name suggests, is a combination of therapeutics and diagnostics.

Isotopes “allow us to observe visual defects and through using these radioactive agents, we can also observe the functionality of organs,” Sanders explained in an email. These agents can assist in diagnosing people, which can inform the treatment for patients.

What makes arsenic 72 and other radioisotopes helpful is that they have a longer half-life than other isotopes, like fluorine 18, which only lasts for several minutes before it decays. Arsenic-72 has a half life of 26 hours, which matches with the life of an antibody, which circulates through bodies, searching for targets for the immune system. The combination of arsenic-72 and arsenic-77 allows the former to act as a diagnostic agent and the later as a therapeutic partner.

By attaching this radioisotope to antibodies of interest, scientists and doctors can use the decay of the element as a homing device. Using Positron Emission Tomography, agents allow for the reconstruction of images based on the location of detected events.

“When you want to use an antibody as a target for imaging, you want an isotope that will be able to ride with the antibody and accumulate at an area of interest,” Sanders said.

A radiochemist, Sanders is working to develop systems that help researchers and doctors diagnose the extent of problems, while also tracking progress in fighting against diseases. She is working to produce arsenic-72 through the decay of selenium-72.

Using the Brookhaven Linac Isotope Producer, scientists produce selenium-72. They then create a generator system where the selenium 72 is absorbed onto a solid substrate. As it decays, the solid substrate is washed to obtain arsenic-72.

Sanders is hoping to create a device that researchers could ship to clinical institutions where institutions could use arsenic-72 in further applications.

The system BNL is creating is a research and development project. Sanders and her colleagues are working to optimize the process of producing selenium-72 and evaluating how well the selenium, which has a half life of eight days, is retained and how much they can load onto generators.

“We want [arsenic 72] in a form that can easily go into future formulations,” Sanders said. “When we rinse it off that column, we hope to quickly use it and attach it to biomolecules, antibodies or proteins and use it in a biological system.”

With the increasing prevalence of personalized approaches to diseases, Sanders explained that the goal with these diagnostic tools is to differentiate the specific subtype.

A person with pancreatic cancer, for example, might present a specific target in high yield, while another patient might have the same stage cancer without the same high yield target.

“We want to have different varieties or different options of these diagnostic tools to be able to tailor it to the individual patient,” explained Sanders.

Cathy Cutler, Director of the Medical Isotope Program at BNL, said the isotopes Sanders is working on “have a lot of promise” and are “novel.” She described Sanders as “very organized” and “very much a go-getter.”

Cutler said the department feels “very lucky to get her and have her in the program.”

In her group, Sanders explained that she and her colleagues are eager to develop as many radioisotopes as possible to attach them to biomolecules, which will enable them to evaluate disease models under different scenarios. Other researchers are working with arsenic-77, which acts as a therapeutic agent because it emits a different particle.

Scientists are working on a combination of radioisotopes that can incorporate diagnostic and therapeutic particles. When the arsenic 77 destroys the cells by breaking the DNA genetic code, researchers could still observe a reduction in a tumor size. Depending on the disease type and the receptor targeted, scientists could notice a change by observing less signal.

Sanders is working on attaching several radioisotopes to biomolecules and evaluating them to see how well they are produced and separated.

“We make sure [the isotope] attaches to the thing it’s supposed to stick to” such as an antibody, she said.

A resident of Sound Beach, Sanders grew up in Cocoa, which is in central Florida. When she was younger, she wanted to be a trauma surgeon, but she transitioned to radioisotopes when she was in college at Florida Memorial University. “I liked the problem solving aspect of chemistry,” she said. While she works with cancer, she said she would like to investigate neurological diseases as well.

Sanders, who has been living on Long Island since 2017 when she started her post doctoral work at BNL, enjoys the quieter, suburban similarities between the island and her earlier life in Florida.

At six feet, one and a half inches tall, Sanders enjoys playing center on basketball teams and, prior to the pandemic, had been part of several adult leagues in the city and on Long Island, including Ladies Who Hoop and LI Hoops. She is also involved in a sorority, Zeta Phi Beta Sorority Inc, that contributes to community service efforts.

Sanders and her fiancee Joshua Morancie, who works in IT support, had planned to get married in July. They set a new date in the same month next year. If the pandemic continues to derail their party plans next year, the couple plan to wed in a smaller ceremony.

As for radioisotopes, Sanders hopes people become inspired by the opportunities radioisotopes provide for science and medicine.

“There are so many good things that come out of radioisotopes,” Sanders said. “There are so many promising advantages.”

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Older folks are going to be struggling mentally this holiday season, as with current travel and gathering restrictions it will be harder to connect over long distances. Stock photo

Before, during and after major storms, state and local officials typically urge residents to check on elderly friends and neighbors to make sure they have what they need.

While the pandemic hasn’t torn up trees or left a physical mess strewn across impassable roadways, it has triggered the kind of problems residents might have during an ongoing storm.

Indeed, after a brutal spring that included school and business lockdowns followed by a summer respite when the number of infected people declined, the fall has proceeded the way many infectious disease experts had anticipated, with a resurgence in positive tests, steadily rising hospital bed occupancy and the possibility of renewed lockdowns.

Dr. Youssef Hassoun, the medical director at South Oaks Hospital, offers advice with connecting to the elderly over the holidays. Photo from Northwell Health

All of this is happening against the backdrop of a time when elderly residents typically welcome friends and extended family during Thanksgiving and through the December holidays. Many people have canceled or postponed seasonal rituals indefinitely, things that normally offer an opportunity to reconnect.

Holidays are a “needed process that are embedded in our culture and society and, for most, bring significant joy and purpose,” said Dr. Youssef Hassoun, Medical Director of South Oaks Hospital. “For the elderly, that is exaggerated, simply because that is their time to connect back with their loved ones.”

Elderly residents are managing, though they are feeling numerous stressors.

The mental health toll on elderly residents has increased since the pandemic began. In the first few months after the virus upended life on Long Island, the number of elderly residents seeking mental health support declined at Stony Brook, according to Nikhil Palekar, Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Director of Geriatric Psychiatry at Stony Brook University’s Renaissance School of Medicine.

In the last few months, “we have seen a significant increase in referrals our center has received for mental health services,” Palekar explained in an email.

Stony Brook has not had to increase their staffing yet, but if the demand for mental health services continues to be as high as it has been for the past couple of months, the university “will be hiring more clinical staff to provide care,” Palekar explained.

Elderly residents are trapped in a battle between the fear of contracting the virus and the impact of loneliness, which can increase the rate of depression, anxiety and cognitive impairment, Palekar added.

Indeed, the number of nursing home residents contracting the virus has increased in the country and in Suffolk County, according County Executive Steve Bellone (D) during a Tuesday call with reporters.

For people who are battling against the loneliness triggered by isolation, “our recommendation to our elderly patients is to use televideo conferencing to connect with their loved ones, peers and support groups,” Palekar wrote.

Ongoing Stress

For Baby Boomers, concerns about loneliness predated the pandemic, said Adam Gonzalez, Founding Director of the Mind-Body Clinical Research Center and Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University.

“COVID adds a whole ‘nother layer of barriers that might get in the way of people connecting,” Gonzalez said. “It’s definitely a high-stress and overwhelming time for many.”

Indeed, ongoing stress, including from concerns about COVID, can trigger cognitive stress.

“Stress can make it harder for people to think,” said Chris Christodoulou, Research Assistant Professor of Psychiatry & Behavioral Health and Neurology at Stony Brook University’s Renaissance School of Medicine. When people are thrown out of their habits, that can be “disorienting and stressful.”

‘For the elderly, [that need for holiday joy] is exaggerated, simply because that is their time to connect back with their loved ones.’

—Dr. Youssef Hassoun

A stressful situation can also reveal cognitive vulnerability for people who are suddenly unsure of themselves and their environment.

“Chronic stress changes our brains in ways that are not healthy and may contribute to lots of diseases, including those affecting the brain,” Christodoulou said.

As for what to pay close attention to when checking in on elderly residents, Palekar suggested that people listen for key words or phrases, such as “feel lonely,” “don’t like myself,” “poor sleep and appetite,” or “can’t stop worrying.” Additionally, members of a support network should pay close attention if others feel helpless, can’t concentrate, have lost interest in doing things or are tired all day.

Solutions

Christodoulou said activities like yoga and aerobic exercise can prevent and slow the decline in cognition.

Hassoun also urged residents to have an open conversation with elderly family members.

“We are very good at assuming that someone appreciates” the risks of larger or even medium-sized family gatherings, Hassoun said. People may understand those risks differently.

The South Oaks Hospital medical director suggested conversations begin not with the unknowns related to potential sicknesses or even new tests, treatments and vaccines, but rather with the knowns of what’s working. While residents may be tired of hearing it, the reality is that masks, social distancing and hand hygiene have reduced the spread of COVID-19, along with other pathogens and microbes that might spread through family contact during the holidays.

Doctors and mental health professionals urged people to be creative in their efforts to connect with others this year.

“How can we get dad, who has never enjoyed looking at an iPad, let alone using it, to find it more fun to have a zoom Thanksgiving together?” Hassoun asked.

He added that these unconventional Thanksgiving interactions could be a way to connect relatives and even children who may not participate as actively in group discussions during these holiday meals.

Residents can improve the holiday during this challenging year by making the most of each interaction, even if it’s not in the familiar personal setting.

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The Modell's Sporting Goods store in Miller Place closed earlier this year during the height of the first wave of the pandemic. Officials are looking to stave off even more closures during the coronavirus' second wave. Photo by Kyle Barr

The second punch from the resurgent virus, which has already caused an increase in positive tests in Suffolk County, may soon also connect with small businesses.

Determined to help the economic engine of many communities throughout the county survive through the winter months when people may be stuck indoors, an initiative started in the spring called Suffolk Forward is expanding.

With financial support from Bank of America, the effort, which started with consulting, technology and think tank ideas, will expand to 200 to 300 companies in the coming months.

Suffolk Forward taps into the expertise of Dave Calone, Chief Executive Officer of Jove Equity Partners, Dr. Manuel London, the Dean of the College of Business at Stony Brook University, Tom Moebus of the Shift Group and Bob Isakson, Long Island Market President for Bank of America.

“This time, right now, when our Suffolk County businesses and Long Island businesses are at their most vulnerable spot, with the failure of the federal government to come up with legislation that would help small businesses” said Calone on a conference call with reporters. Without a federal Paycheck Protection Program to fall back on, efforts like Suffolk Forward become increasingly important, he added.

Suffolk Forward has a job board, a virtual expert network that is staffed by professors at the Stony Brook University College of Business and a gift card platform that helps support local businesses.

“People would spend a lot of money to get consulting like this,” Calone said. “Local businesses have the opportunity for free to tap into these experts.”

Calone said he is “excited to expand the pandemic shift workshop” from the few dozen companies so far to a few hundred in the coming months.

Moebus of the Shift Group said some of the breakout sessions in these work groups include four, 90-minute interactions.

“Business owners are very clever [but] they run out of ideas for themselves,” Moebus said. In these interactions, they “work together and create new ideas and develop creative solutions for each other.”

These efforts help “rebuild Main Street through one of these zoom groups at a time,” Moebus added.

The sessions also are available to chambers of commerce, which help them operate differently, particularly in a challenging, fluid and changing setting.

Interested business owners can sign up for workshops through shiftgroup.com/pandemic-shift or at the Stony Brook College of Business web site, College of Business Programs Offered | College of Business.

County Exeutive Steve Bellone (D) thanked the participants for their efforts and highlighted the importance of these sessions for business owners and for the future economic survival of the county.

“We want to continue the incredible progress we’ve made from the time when we were at the epicenter of this epidemic to where we are today,” Bellone said. “As these numbers continue to surge, we put at risk not only public health, but our economic recovery.”

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Stock photo

As the percentage of positive tests throughout the county continues its rapid climb to about 3.5% from around 1% in the last 10 days, Suffolk County has started its first school-based testing in Hampton Bays and Riverhead.

Those two school districts, where county and school officials are testing students who have received permission from their parents, recently started testing students for COVID-19 in an effort to monitor and reduce the spread of the virus.

Hampton Bays has a 6.5% positive testing rate over the last five days, while Riverhead has a 5.6% positive rate for that same period, according to County Executive Steve Bellone (D).

About 400 tests for students, teachers and faculty in Hampton Bays, which started on Thursday, Nov. 19, will be administered before the Thanksgiving holiday.

Four employees from Suffolk County are on site to administer the rapid tests, which provide results within 15 minutes.

“The goal in launching this free school-based testing program is to be proactive in an effort to get control of these numbers in the county,” Bellone said on a conference call with reporters. More testing will help the county locate the potential source of community spread, helping to enable schools and businesses to remain open.

The school testing is part of a “comprehensive effort to get our arms around these nubmers and stop the surge in the county,” Bellone said.

The Riverhead tests will start on Friday, Nov. 20. The county hasn’t determined how many tests it will administer at that location. The Riverhead and Hampton Bays testing kits came from New York State.

Additional pop up testing will occur in the Hamptons Bays that Stony Brook South Shore Hospital will administer over the next two weeks, which will continue on an as-needed basis.

Bellone said the spread of positive tests is occurring throughout the county and isn’t localized in any one region.

“What we’re seeing is the spread is happening everywhere across the county,” Bellone said. “The announcement today is part of a larger, comprehensive effort to get community spread under control.”

While schools in Manhattan have closed in response to a rise in positive tests, Bellone said concerted efforts in the county may prevent the eastern part of Long Island from the same fate.

These efforts include increasing the number of contact tracers to 150 today from just 30 before this surge began. The Suffolk County Police Department is also increasing enforcement around the holiday about social host laws and gathering limits below 10 people. The Suffolk County Department of Health is also working through social media to remind residents about their public health responsibilities.

Bellone reiterated that some of the increase in cases in the county came from gatherings around Halloween. With Thanksgiving next week, which typically brings multiple generations of families together, the result from these gatherings could continue to increase the number of positive tests.

Bellone said the county would continue to follow local data. If other communities also have positive test rates above the average in the county over a long enough period of time, the county will “engage with those school districts” as it has with Hampton Bays and Riverhead, Bellone said.

At this point, the county has no plans to conduct additional testing after Thanksgiving.

“We’re not seeing the spread happening inside the school,” Bellone said. “The effort we are engaged in today is part of a larger, comprehensive effort trying to get a handle on this in the county. It’s not, per se, an issue about the schools. We are looking at certain communities” where the positive rate is above the average for the community.

The county executive said he would provide data about the school-based testing once it was collected.

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METRO photo

By Daniel Dunaief

Daniel Dunaief

Are we coming apart together, coming together apart or just coming apart? The first in that list, coming apart together, gives us a chance to feel connected to others. By coming apart together, we are acknowledging the challenging year we’ve had and continue to have.

Without offering specific solutions, it helps to know we’re not alone and that, perhaps, through the together part, we can manage through conditions that are far from optimal, including the separation we feel from so many people we need in our lives.

Now, if we’re coming together apart, we are focusing on the fact that we can be, and are, together first, before we also admit that we may be hundreds or even thousands of miles away from people whose hugs, smiles and laughter fill the rooms we share. Zoom, FaceTime and other modern conveniences make it possible for us to see each other’s faces, even though the image of the other person can feel flat compared to the reality of sharing time and space.

The third of those possibilities, just plain coming apart, enables us to throw up our arms and acknowledge the reality of our world. Many children are home most, or all, the time. Parents are still working through
Zoom, looking at small squares of people on computer screens for way too many hours during the day. The sameness of each day can become tedious and wear on our nerves, especially during this time when we’d typically plan for family visits.

And, of course, without passing any specific judgment, the hot button election continues to drive wedges among families, friends and neighbors, who can’t imagine how the other side fails to see the obvious realities their favorite anchors or faux news and commentary shows echo each day.

It’s agonizing to see how the differences between camps have become a defining feature and have stirred a sense of frustration and antipathy for the other camp.

Where are the adults in the room? For so long, the country brought together people from different backgrounds, uniting us under the umbrella of an American Dream that was available to anyone who worked hard enough for it.

Our sports-crazed culture believed in the winners they cheered for and used their teams as an inspiration to get ahead, to put more into their craft and to try to win the battle for original ideas. Even fans of hated rivals acknowledged the skills and remarkable games they witnessed from their rivals during heated playoff series. I always rooted against Red Sox great Carl Yastrzemski, but I also recognized his incredible talent.

Will a vaccine enable us to come together, together? I hope so. Next year at this time, if we have returned to some level of normalcy that allowed us to visit with our friends, to celebrate weddings, graduations, birthdays, and newborns, we will have the structural opportunities to spend time indoors, even in crowded rooms, and support each other.

Between now and then, ideally we’d plant the seeds that enable us to move forward together. We are not an archipelago nation, separated from each other by the ideological, religious or other labels. We do best when we play to the strengths of a workforce dedicated to getting ahead, to providing for our children and to helping the country even as we help ourselves.

While many of us are physically apart, we can try to reach out to family, friends, and neighbors, even if their ideas temporarily baffle us. We can come together if we are there for each other and if we listen to views outside our own.

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Town of Brookhaven Supervisor Ed Romaine, second from left, cuts the ribbon at the Take Out Inn in Stony Brook Village Center as Dr. Richard Rugen, Ward Melville Heritage Organization chairman, left, Gloria Rocchio, WMHO president, and Charles Napoli, WMHO trustee, right, look on. Photo by Rita J. Egan

It’s not exactly the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, but it’s a combination that makes sense and hopefully for three restaurants in the Stony Brook Village Center, a few dollars as well.

The Take Out Inn has socially distanced tables and chairs do diners can enjoy meals from three Stony Brook Village Center restaurants. Photo by Rita J. Egan

As the temperatures have dropped, restaurants in the center continue to have limited seating capacity to accommodate the indoor gathering restrictions of the pandemic.

Across from Crazy Beans, Jos. A. Bank had vacated its over-3,000-square-foot men’s clothing store. With help from The Ward Melville Heritage Organization, local officials including Brookhaven Town Supervisor Ed Romaine (R), the storefront has been reborn as a 15-table, 15-chair dining area called the Take Out Inn.

The site will allow people who are shopping or visiting the village to order food from three nearby restaurants and sit in socially distanced tables from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Monday to Friday and from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday.

“The objective is for them to be able to survive during the winter months and this is an opportunity to do that,” said Gloria Rocchio, president of SBVC.

She said the idea of using empty space to help businesses that need it “just makes sense.”

Customers inside the inn can access touchless menus by using QR codes for Crazy Beans, Robinson’s Tea Room and Pentimento Restaurant. They can order their food and eat inside the heated facility.

After a ribbon-cutting ceremony with Romaine on Tuesday, Rocchio, who is also the president of WMHO, spoke with two women who wandered into the new space.

Rocchio said they were from Great Neck and Oyster Bay and planned to eat at the new dining space the next day, which is what the new effort made possible.

Romaine said many local businesses have had a tough time surviving during the pandemic. The town is willing to work with civic groups and chambers of commerce to use empty lots in the same way WMHO, which operates the village center, has done with the Take Out Inn.

The town has no fee for setting up such an arrangement.

“Even if it can’t be exactly replicated, it’s going to get the other business leaders thinking about other creative ways we can address the issue, so they can stay in business, make a living and feed their families,” Romaine said.

The town supervisor said any similar ideas or opportunities to keep businesses afloat amid COVID restrictions would be expedited, going to the “top of the pile.”

“We’re talking about the economic survival of people who are having a great deal of difficulty making a living and staying in business,” Romaine said. “If we lose our restaurants, we start losing our downtowns and our sense of community.”

The site, which has sanitizing stations, uses ionization generators which are attached to the ductwork for the heating and air conditions. When the climate control system is on, the air passes through a system that kills mold, bacteria and viruses.

“We did the best we could to keep it as clean and sanitized as possible,” Rocchio said.

Romaine said he would be happy to go to the Take Out Inn if he’s catching a quick lunch or a sit-down dinner.

The inn has a sign that encourages people to relax, enjoy but don’t linger, as WMHO would like to provide a place for people to rest and eat. The facility complies with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention rules and follows all New York State guidelines.

The town supervisor hopes other facilities consider everything they can to stay in business.

One of the challenges in trying to come up with business solutions is the renewed threat from a virus that has returned to the area, causing hundreds of new infections and threatening new restrictions.

Romaine will be going over this approach, as well as other ideas with a business recovery task force.

When he presents this approach, he said he will explain, “This is what The Ward Melville Heritage Organization did.” He added, “If you have any ideas, please, let’s discuss it,” either at the task force or by calling the town supervisor.

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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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