County Executive Steve Bellone (D) was pleased that the county legislature passed the Child Protective Transformation Act this week.
Created after the death of eight-year old Thomas Valva, who died in his father’s garage from hypothermia, the package of six bills creates new measures to strengthen the child protective system, the improve oversight and to institute safeguards to protect children.
“This will ensure that [Child Protective Services] never operates the same way again,” Bellone said on his daily conference call with reporters. “What happened to Thomas Valva can never happen again.”
The transformation act, which passed in the legislature June 23, puts in place measures to make sure the CPS is operating as efficiently and effectively as possible, Bellone suggested.
Bellone thanked Suffolk County Legislator Kara Hahn (D-Setauket), Deputy County Executive Jon Kaiman and Deborah Thivierge, the Founder of the Elija School and the Elija farm for their help in this effort.
As for the viral figures, the numbers continue to remain within a safe range for the county.
The number of people who tested positive for COVID-19 in the last 24 hours was 50, bringing the total to 41,151. The percentage of people who tested positive for the coronavirus was 0.9 percent.
The number of people with the antibody to the virus stands at 18,513.
Hospitalizations declined by three to 85, while the number of people in Intensive Care Unit beds declined by one to 25.
Hospital occupancy overall was at 69 percent, while the percent of occupied ICU beds was at 59 percent.
In the last day, 14 people have been discharged from hospitals in the county.
The number of deaths from complications related to COVID-19 increased by 2 to 1,974.
The county distributed 25,000 pieces of personal protective equipment in the last day.
Separately, the county is canceling the movies scheduled for the rest of this week because of a problem with the equipment that needs repair. The county hopes to have those movies back up and running by next week.
This generation of college students have dealt with numerous shocks in their short lives. Most of them were born around the time of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. That event triggered several battles on foreign soil, led to the Department of Homeland Security, and created a world in which people took off their shoes at the airport and passed through metal detectors on the way in to concerts and sporting events.
As if that weren’t enough, this generation then had to deal with the 2008 financial crisis, when Lehman Brothers went bankrupt and when life, for many, became considerably more challenging amid a painful decline in the subprime housing market.
Through their upbringing, they also heard about mass shootings, some of which occurred at school. They practiced shelter-in-place and had nightmares about killers roaming the same hallways where artwork depicting students’ families and the alphabet adorned the walls.
The contentious 2016 presidential election brought two largely unpopular choices onto center stage. After a bitter election fight, the country didn’t have much time to heal, as the Democrats and Republicans transformed into the Montagues and Capulets.
Indeed, while each side dug in deeply, their respective media supporters expressed nonstop outrage and acted dumbfounded by the misdirection and apparent idiocy of the leaders and their minions across the aisle.
Then 2020 happened. The virus has killed over 120,000 Americans, crippled economies, led to mass layoffs and unemployment and turned the hug and the handshake into bygone gestures from six months ago that somehow seem even longer ago. With the killing of Minneapolis resident George Floyd, many protesters weathered the viral storm that had kept them inside for months to express outrage at a system where equal protection under the law seemed like a distant ideal.
Now, these same students face the possibility of returning to school. Some colleges have told their students to return earlier than normal, to forego visits to friend’s dorms, and to wear masks and social distance.
It seems likely that many of these colleges’ students, who have a familiar youth-inspired independent streak, will defy these new rules, much the same way many in the general public, including President Donald Trump (R), shun the idea of wearing masks.
IfI were running a college, and I’m glad I’m not because I’m struggling to provide soundadvice to two teenagers, I would triple and quadruple my medical staff. I would urge regular testing and I would make sure my college had the best possible treatments and plans ready.
Fortunately, the treatments for the virus have improved from the beginning, as the medical community has raced to provide relief to those battling draining and debilitating symptoms that have lasted for weeks or even months.
When people do contract the virus, as they inevitably will at some of these schools, I would urge students to rally around each other, their professors and anyone else who contracted COVID-19.
Unfortunately, this generation has had to grow up rapidly, to see ways each of them can play a role in helping each other. Students may not only become involved in the standard blood drives; they may urge their peers to check for antibodies and to donate convalescent plasma, which may help save lives and ameliorate the worst of the viral symptoms.
The modern college student doesn’t have to look to distant shores to find people overwhelmed and in need of their youthful energy and good intentions.
Many college students want to be relevant and contribute. They can and will have ample opportunities, with their antibodies, with their understanding and empathy, and with their ongoing resilience in the face of a lifetime of challenges.
Suffolk County has moved to Phase 3 of its economic reopening following a prolonged lockdown from COVID-19, as restaurants can offer limited seating dining and nail salons and tattoo parlors can reopen.
Additionally, the number of people that can gather together increased to 25 from 10.
For personal care and indoor dining, the maximum capacity is half of the pre-viral levels. Employees must be tested every two weeks at these establishments.
“It’s another huge step for all of us,” County Executive Steve Bellone (D) said on his daily conference call with reporters.
The viral numbers in the county continued to remain well below guidelines and limits.
The number of people testing positive for the virus was 45, bringing the total to 41,101.
The number of people hospitalized with the coronavirus declined by one through the 24 hour period ending on June 22, bringing that total to 88.
The number of people in the Intensive Care Unit with complications related to the virus decreased by two to 26.
The percent of hospital beds occupied was 64, while the percent of ICU beds in use was 60 percent.
The number of people who died from complications related to COVID-19 increased by two to 1,972.
Suffolk County distributed an additional 15,000 personal protective equipment in the last day, with much of that going to the police department and nursing homes.
Separately, Suffolk County is continuing its movie series, which kicked off this past weekend with the showing of “Jaws” on the 45th anniversary of the shark film’s debut.
Reservations are open starting today for “ET The Extra-Terrestrial,” which will be shown next Wednesday, July 1. Upcoming movies include “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” and “The Addams Family.”
After Governor Andrew Cuomo (D) indicated recently that Phase 4 reopening would exclude malls, movie theaters and gyms, Bellone said he is continuing to communicate with the state about these limits.
Bellone said he believes malls “can reopen with a limited capacity and requiring face coverings.” After looking at the Phase 3 data, he expects the state may reevaluate those guidelines to see what else can be reopened.
Officials celebrate the installation of a denitrifying septic system in Nesconset in 2015. Photo from Bellone’s office
County Executive Steve Bellone (D) has made two proposals to the legislators that he believes will protect taxpayers and environmental programs in the wake of the economic effects of COVID-19.
He would like to use two existing tax stabilization funds to mitigate the budgetary impact of the virus.
These proposals, which he would like to add as a referendum for voters in November, would “protect taxpayers and essential employees and 100 percent protect environmental programs,” Bellone said on his daily conference call with reporters. “Any legislator who votes no on this legislation is only making layoffs more likely to occur.”
He urged legislators to give taxpayers the option of voting for these proposals, which he suggests will protect taxpayers, employees and environmental programs.
In addition, Bellone said he appreciated the efforts of U.S. Reps Tom Suozzi (D-NY-3) and Lee Zeldin (R-NY-1) to reverse the effect of an Internal Revenue Service ruling that taxes homeowners who participate in a septic improvement program, which was designed to protect Suffolk County’s waterways.
Suffolk County residents “care about clean water,” Bellone said. “These individuals should not be liable to pay taxes on grant money that never even touches their hands.”
The county executive applauded people who move beyond earlier versions of wastewater treatment systems, which, he said, “degraded” water quality and represented a mounting threat.
Separately, the county has no plans to provide any fireworks for the 4th of July celebration. Belone said some local municipalities have considered such an option.
Amid concerns about the illegal use of fireworks, Suffolk County Police Commissioner Geraldine Hart said the police have made two arrests to date and will be providing a public service announcement regarding fireworks and the dangers involved.
Residents who see or hear illegal fireworks, which can lead to injuries, fires or cause other damage, can call crime stoppers at (800) 220-TIPS.
“We want people to enjoy themselves,” Bellone said. “These fireworks are dangerous. The best thing you can do is to leave fireworks to the experts.”
As the county prepares to move into Phase 3 of its reopening tomorrow, Bellone called the continued reopening, which is occurring two weeks after the start of Phase 2, a “big milestone for us.”
Bellone will continue to monitor the viral figures that come out of upstate New York, where several counties are entering phase 4, to get an indication of whether the next phase of reopening could begin two weeks from now.
Viral Numbers
Even as other states, such as Florida, Texas and Arizona are encountering a surge in cases and hospitalizations, Suffolk County continues to move down the infection curve.
In the last 24 hours, an additional 46 people have tested positive for the coronavirus. That is a positive rate of 1.3 percent among those tested, which is above recent trends but still well below rates during the worst of the pandemic on Long Island. The number of people who have tested positive for the virus is now 41,056.
The number of people who have tested positive for antibodies to the virus stands at 18,188. These are people who didn’t have a COVID-19 positive result, but whose bodies have produced antibodies.
Hospitalizations declined by one to 89. People with COVID-19 in the Intensive Care Unit increased by one to 28.
Hospital capacity remained well below guidelines, with hospital beds and ICU beds at 63 percent and 60 percent capacity, respectively.
An additional six people were discharged from the hospital over the previous day.
Meanwhile, the number of people who died from complications related to COVID-19 increased by five to 1,970. During each of the previous four days, one person died each day from the virus.
The county distributed 4,000 pieces of personal protective equipment over the previous day.
Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone. File photo by Alex Petroski
In response to the ongoing need to close a revenue shortfall caused by the economic lockdown during the pandemic, County Executive Steve Bellone (D) is signing an order today freezing all steps and raises for management and exempt employees through 2021.
“It’s important that we move forward in a way that we’re doing the lowest-hanging fruit possible,” Bellone said on his daily conference call with reporters.
The move will save the county an estimated $3.4 million and is a part of an ongoing effort to prepare for a budget shortfall in the next three months that could be as high as $829 million.
“We are analyzing additional cuts in our department right now,” Bellone said. “In light of the catastrophic budget numbers we are talking about, it’s important that we make clear we are willing to take these steps.”
Bellone reiterated his call for the federal government to provide $1 billion in relief to Suffolk County, which stood at the epicenter of the pandemic and which shut down its businesses in response to guidelines from the federal government. Bellone urged the national government to provide financial support that would also support infrastructure projects as well as small businesses.
“I’ve been in public life for more than 20 years,” Bellone said, and the federal government has been talking about making a major investment in infrastructure projects. “That hasn’t happened. Now is the time,” as low interest rates will reduce the cost of those funds while also supporting the restart of an economy crippled by the virus.
Bellone is hopeful that the federal government will consider his request for financial support for Suffolk County in July. Bellone said the county sends to Washington billions more than it receives each year. This year, amid the pandemic, he urged the federal government to recognize the natural disaster that has devastated the region and urges the federal government to step in to prevent the county from hollowing out the vital services that responded to this crisis.
Viral Numbers
After a one-day slight increase in positive testing for the virus on Sunday, the number of people testing positive for COVID-19 rose by a smaller number through Monday. The number of new positive tests was 38, bringing the total for the county since testing began to 41,010.
The positive tests were below 1 percent of overall tests, which is a decline from the 1.2 percent on Sunday.
The number of people hospitalized declined by eight to 90. The number of people in Intensive Care Unit beds increased by six to 27.
An additional 17 people were discharged from the hospital in the 24 hour period ending on June 20.
For the fourth day in a row, one person died from complications related to the coronavirus. The death toll in Suffolk County is 1,965.
Bellone remains confident that the data will stay within a safe range through the summer.
“The numbers will remain good, largely because people will remain outdoors,” he said.
The fall, however, brings additional challenges, as students may return to school and people may return to more indoor activities, which could lead to a spike or a second wave.
He encourages residents to keep social distancing where they can, make sure they wear face coverings when they are in close proximity to others and to stay home if they are not feeling well.
With refinements in contact tracing, he is also confident that the county will be successful in keeping the economy open, operating and recovering.
When people walk into their own home, they immediately ignore sensory cues around them. They may not notice the picture of their children on the wall, the lush leaves of the ficus plant, or the constant smell of soup that greets them when they return from work.
Similarly, animals and even flies become accustomed to cues in their environment, habituating to them so they can focus on more important signals, like the smell of nearby food or the appearance of a fly swatter.
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Associate Professor Saket Navlakha and his post doctoral researcher Yang Shen recently studied the way flies subtract smells from the environment, giving them the opportunity to focus instead on odors that might be more important to their lives.
In a paper last month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Navlakha and Shen converted the way flies use a signal filtering process to create a computer algorithm.
Navlakha explained that the tandem were using computer science to understand better a basic biological phenomenon of habituation and how it happens. “We’ve been studying background subtraction,” he said in a recent interview.
One of the applications for their work is in electronic noses. Hotels and even military departments may in the not too distant future use these systems to process odors to determine what’s in the environment.
These electronic noses detect faint signals within noisy backgrounds. Habituation enables them to remove from consideration those scents that would otherwise distract from the goal of scanning the environment for new information.
Navlakha suggested that humans, who are often a visually dominant species, are not always the best species at using a sense of smell to perceive the environment.
Saket Navlaka with his wife Sejal Morjaria, during a run in Port Washington in mid-May. Photo by Lawrence Lau
“Many other species rely on their noses as much as we rely on vision,” he said. “We don’t always have an intuitive sense of what is possible in the olfactory space. Sometimes, that limits our imagination.”
While Navlakha is not crafting sensors that can detect compounds, he is working on the computer science analogs to odor recognition and discrimination. He is exploring the kind of data analysis that would have applications in a range of fields.
In one example, he said a sensor in an airport might be surrounded by a symphony of smells, including new pungent or even subtle toppings on pizza or even a new cologne from someone working in a watch repair store.
The sensor might need to sift through all that data to find someone who is transferring a toxic chemical through an airport, the scent of which might be faint and almost insignificant compared with the other odors spreading through the terminal.
In a more everyday example, a sensor in the refrigerator might detect the subtle changes in odors emitted by foods that are starting to become inedible, such as an onion or cream cheese.
“You want to detect” when food is starting to turn so you can “eat it and use it” before it becomes inedible, Navlakha said. “These are the kind of problems we are exploring on the data analysis side.”
Navlakha specifically looked at the activity of Kenyon cells, which are special odor neurons. When a fly receives a new scent, about five percent of these cells turn on, developing a unique activity tag.
Once the fly becomes habituated to a smell that isn’t relevant for its survival — either to indicate the presence of food or to announce the arrival of a predator — Navlakha believes the number of Kenyon cells that make up the tag for the odor declines. While this is his theory, he said more work needs to be done to confirm these predictions.
A new odor repeats the process, bringing the fly’s attention to a new smell. The fly brain in principal can reverse the subtraction process for habituated odors if the odor becomes more rare or important for the fly’s survival. Researchers need to conduct more work to confirm this as well.
Navlakha hopes to frame the fluid process of recognizing, habituating and bolstering the signal for odors to understand how the brain is functioning.
He said the fly brain responds to smells based on two mechanisms. In the first, the fly has an innate, evolutionary behavior. In the second, the fly learns through experience. Navlakha studied the learned behaviors.
The next steps involve pushing more on the experimental front, determining the limits of odor discrimination and looking at the role of habituation.
He hopes to extend an experiment that others have done with people. Experimenters took three odors that were all relatively similar that come from three flowers. Most people could not discriminate between two out of the three odors. In an experimental group, they allowed people to habituate to one of three smells and then they had to discriminate between the other two. By subtracting out the common part of all three smells, they were more successful at decoding the difference between the others.
“We want to see if we can do this in fruit flies” while recording from a region of the fly brain called the mushroom body.
Navlakha also bought an electronic nose. Using this artificial system, he wants to test odor discrimination algorithms.
“One thing this would allow us to do is to test and validate these algorithms to see how well they perform,” he explained. “There are all kinds of tests to see what kind of power these sensors have.”
In the PNAS paper, Navlakha mostly used the literature for their biological inspiration. They discussed numerous parts of the paper with biological collaborators and including biological experiments. They did not introduce any new biological data.
He came across this literature about 18 months ago.
“We thought it was interesting because we could understand the whole series of transformations when a fly smells,” he said. He worked on how to understand the process from input to output.
During the COVID-19 lockdown, he has been spending considerably more time doing theoretical work and modeling. He and his wife Sejal Morjaria have also gotten out of the house to do some running.
As for his work, Navlakha is hoping to build on what he’s done so far and expects he will, if you’ll pardon the pun, follow his nose as the research progresses.
On Father’s Day, which also coincides with the start of summer, County Executive Steve Bellone (D) exuded optimism about the ongoing recovery from COVID-19, which created tremendous strain on the health care system and led to a lockdown that crippled the economy amid shuttered businesses.
“I’m happy to report for the first time since March 22 that we are below 100 people hospitalized with COVID-19,” Bellone said on his daily conference call with reporters. “That is a real milestone for us.”
Indeed, the number of people hospitalized fell by eight to 98 through the 24 hours ending on June 19. At the same time, the number of people in Intensive Care Unit beds has declined by 10 to 21.
“We have gone up this mountain, we have seen this surge occur, we have come down on the other side,” Bellone said. “As we begin summer now, we are in a far, far different place than we were.”
An additional 10 people were discharged from the hospital over the last day.
The number of people who tested positive for the virus was higher than in recent days, with 64 people testing positive for the coronavirus. That number had been tracking in the 40s. The percentage of positive tests rose above one percent, climbing to 1.2 percent.
While this remains a closely watched number, Bellone said he wasn’t particularly concerned about an increase of that size on a single day.
The number of people who have the antibody to the virus stands at 18,021.
For the third day in a row, one person died from complications related to the coronavirus. The total number who have died in Suffolk County since the pandemic began is 1,964.
Amid a report in the New York Times that contact tracers in New York City have only received information from 35 percent of people who tested positive for the virus about their interactions prior to their positive test, Bellone said he remains focused on the fall for any potential resurgence in the virus.
“Right now, we do have this opportunity to really hone and get down everything we need with contact tracing,” Bellone said. The focus is on getting the system right and ensuring that it works “better and better every day.”
He anticipates the contact tracing effort will include tweaks over the next few months.
Even as public health information in other areas of the country are climbing at alarming rates, threatening to create a strain on health care on other health care systems that is all too familiar to Long Islanders, the COVID-19-related numbers have remained low enough to keep Suffolk County on track for a Phase Three reopening this Wednesday.
Phase Three will allow for indoor dining at restaurants, for groups of about 30 to convene and for more personal care businesses, like massage parlors and spas, to reopen with limitations on capacity, occupancy and services.
The number of people who have tested positive for the coronavirus was 44, which brings the total to 40,908. The percentage of people testing positive was at 1 percent.
The number of people who have tested positive for the antibody is 17,833.
The number of people afflicted with COVID-19 in the hospital fell by four to 106. The number of people in the Intensive Care Unit increased by two to 31.
For the second day in a row, one person died from complications related to COVID-19, bringing the total to 1,963.
As we approach Father’s Day, I can’t help thinking that the creators of the alphabet hid important lessons in plain sight when they put the letters “n” and “o” between the letters “m” and “p.”
The letter “m” starts the Latin word “mater,” which means mother. The letter “p” starts the word
“pater,” which, also in Latin, means father.
Between mom and dad, then, resides the simple,
effective and important word “no.”
Parents who aren’t on the same page about decisions will find children who don’t believe a “no” ever means anything because they will run to the other parent to find someone who will render a “no” from the former parent meaningless.
Parents need the word “no” to unite them, bringing together the “m” and “p” that makes it possible to provide consistent parenting advice. When a “no” from dad is also a “no” from mom, children can’t divide and conquer with their parents.
Now, valuing and appreciating the word “no” doesn’t necessarily mean parents should say “no” to everything. In fact, when mom and dad agree on something for their children, they can and should celebrate the opportunities they urge their progeny to pursue.
When our children were young, we found ourselves falling into the repeated “no” pattern, mostly to protect our children. “Don’t go in the street, don’t put that toy in your mouth, don’t grab that dog’s tail, etc.” While all of those rules are valid and valuable, they also can create a culture of “no” that constantly reminds children of their limitations, giving them the equivalent of a Greek chorus of “no” that follows them around, preventing them from exploring the world or from considering opportunities and risks worth taking because they expect a giant “NO!” sign to appear in their closet, under their bed, at the entrance to their classroom or in the backyard.
My wife and I put considerable energy into redirecting our children, rather than giving them a negative answer. We suggested alternatives to their suggestion or even, at times, a compromise answer that wasn’t a negative so much as it was a reshaping of an impulse.
On an elemental level, the letters “n” and “o” also seem so apt for the world between mom and dad. After all, N for nitrogen represents 78 percent of the atmosphere while O for oxygen represents 21 percent, which means that, between the letter placeholder for mom and dad resides the letters for 99 percent of the atmosphere of the earth.
The elements nitrogen and oxygen also, like some families, exist in paired form as molecules instead of single elements. These molecules float around in the atmosphere as a duo, with a strong covalent bond keeping the orbiting electron shells full.
For children, saying “no” to their parents starts early as a way to fight back against the world of “no” while they drift into the world of the terrible twos or, in our children’s case, the threadbare threes. When these children are caught between their mother and father, they may find that their only defense against a disagreeable world is to hold up their own “no” shield.
That small word, however, is important to change the world as well, because children who can defend their “no” answer to parents can also refuse to accept problems they see in the world. Instead, they can defy policies or ideas that rankle them. Saying “no” to anything aids cognitive development and, as it turns out, is good preparation for parenting. It has to be true because it’s right there, hidden in place sight, in the alphabet.
People brought images of George Floyd to a Port Jefferson protest June 18. That protest was originally meant for June 19, otherwise known as Juneteenth. Photo by Drew Biondo
As the country grapples with various levels of implicit bias in the weeks after Minneapolis resident George Floyd was killed by a white police officer, Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone (D) signed two executive orders June 19, otherwise known as Juneteenth.
More than two years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation while the country was in the throes of the Civil War, slaves in Texas were among the last to learn June 19, 1865, that they, too, were free.
Bellone signed one executive order that mandates the same kind of implicit bias training members of the Suffolk County Police Department have received since 2018 for every county employee before June 19 of 2021.
Additionally, Bellone signed an order that directs the county’s Office of Minority Affairs to prepare an annual observance of this important day in American history next year. The celebration could include festivals, parades, symposiums and musical events. The day will focus on the achievements of African Americans. The office will solicit input from the community and stakeholders to help plan these events.
As part of the outreach, the county executive’s office will also reach out to schools.
“The education piece is incredibly important,” Bellone said on his daily conference call with reporters. The effort is designed to ensure that students have a broader understanding of American history and about the progress the country is making and needs to make.
Viral Numbers
The number of residents who tested positive for COVID-19 in the last day was 54. That brings the total to 40,864. The positive tests continue to represent less than one percent of the total tests given by the county.
The number of hospitalizations, meanwhile, broke below a holding pattern for the last week. The number of residents hospitalized with the coronavirus fell by 15 to 110. The number of people in the Intensive Care Unit with the virus fell by six to 29.
An additional 21 people were discharged from hospitals in the county.
The number of people who have died from complications related to COVID19 increased by one to 1,962 over the last day.
Long Island Ducks
The Long Island Ducks recently announced a 2020 schedule that included 70 games between mid July and September.
Bellone endorsed the idea and suggested that he thought it would be safe, with the proper precautions, given that the activity is outdoors and the Ducks are planning to have games played in front of a stadium cut to one quarter capacity.
“We are very hopeful that in phase 4, we will see the Long Island Ducks back and out on the field,” Bellone said. “We want to see the Ducks defend their title.”
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