State monitors Long Island’s ‘disturbing peaks’ as districts warn schools could close

This story was reported by Matthieu chayes, Bart Jones and Craig schneider. It was written by Jones.

Some Long Island school districts are warning residents that schools may be closed as parts of the area risk being designated as a “microcluster” by the state due to rising rates of COVID-19 infections .

The Districts of Levittown, East Meadow and Connetquot, as well as the Town of Riverhead, have sent out notifications telling residents to be ready for a possible shutdown.

“The positivity rate in recent days has exceeded 3% and the seven-day average positivity rate over the past week has exceeded 2.5%,” Levittown Schools Superintendent Tonie McDonald wrote in a letter. from Friday to residents. “Accordingly, the New York State Department of Health and the Governor [Andrew M.] Cuomo will most likely designate parts of our region as yellow, orange, or red areas in the coming days. ”

The zones represent different levels of restrictions for businesses, schools and gatherings, depending on the spread of the virus.

And across New York City, “community spread” has started again, ending a lull where the growth of infections was driven by clusters, according to the mayor’s chief spokesperson.

State officials said they were monitoring “troubling spikes” in COVID-19 cases on Long Island and would decide on areas.

“As temperatures cool, cases are increasing – just as experts predicted – and we are monitoring increases statewide,” said Jack Sterne, a spokesperson for Cuomo. “We are working with Suffolk and Nassau County to monitor and address disturbing peaks in some communities on Long Island and to increase testing and enforcement.

He added that New York State Department of Health officials “will designate cluster areas if the measures are met. We need all New Yorkers to get rid of COVID fatigue and wear masks, move away socially, get tested and wash their hands. ”

Long Island’s seven-day moving average is 3.19%, according to state data released Friday.

Long Island school and government officials have opposed the school closures, saying they are not the main spreaders of COVID-19 and are in fact among the safest places for children.

“We have had great success in limiting the spread of COVID-19 in our schools,” McDonald wrote. “Our schools are a safe place for our students and staff.”

All New York public schools were closed indefinitely by Mayor Bill de Blasio on Thursday after the city hit a city-set 3% infection threshold.

Close schools only as a last resort

Nassau County Leader Laura Curran said she “strongly disagrees” with de Blasio’s decision and will fight to keep schools open in Nassau as long as they are available. sure.

“Thanks to the hard work of school administrators, school buildings have not been a major vector of transmission in Nassau. Our contact tracers have found that the virus is mainly spread at social gatherings where little or no precautions are taken.” , Curran said.

She added: “School closures should be the absolute last resort. Isolating children from teachers and classmates is detrimental to the mental health and educational and emotional growth of young people. School closures cause further devastation. economic and disproportionately harms families in low-income communities. ”

Suffolk County Director Steve Bellone echoed his support for schools to remain open. “The county has worked with our school districts to ensure that all measures to stop the transmission of COVID-19 are in place in our schools,” he said. “As a result, to date we have not seen any significant spread of COVID-19 occurring in our schools and see no reason to close schools in Suffolk County at this time. The county will do everything it can. to continue our schools are opening. ”

Cuomo said on Friday that if an area becomes a yellow zone, schools can remain open as long as they test 20% of their population within two weeks of designation.

In the orange and red zones, schools must close for four days, but can reopen if all staff and students are tested, only those who test negative return. After that, 25% of the school population must be tested every week.

“It’s a warrant, it’s a state law,” Cuomo said.

Lynda A. Adams, Superintendent of Connetquot Schools, wrote to residents on Thursday that following an email she sent, “the Suffolk County Department of Health Services has released an update mandatory testing guidelines in schools that would be in place if our region entered the “yellow precautionary zone” following a sustained increase in COVID-19 cases.

She said different regulations had been issued and that she was asking health officials in Suffolk to clarify whether 20% of the district’s student body, or 20% of students at each school, would be required to take regular tests to let school resume.

Sterne said the micro-cluster designations are based on a geographic area’s average seven-day positivity rate exceeding a threshold for 10 consecutive days – “i.e. a sustained increase where tracing data contacts indicate community spread rather than isolated epidemics. ”

He said the state also takes into account the case rate per 100,000 population, hospitalizations, “any link to collective facilities and other epidemiological factors. Zones are created based on case prevalence data. and in consultation with the local health department. ”

Cuomo: NY broke test record

New York state’s infection level was 2.6% in Thursday’s test results, including the microclusters, which are oversampled, Cuomo said. Without the microclusters, it was 2.15%.

The level was 2.9% in Long Island and 2.4% in New York.

Cuomo said the state broke another testing record, with 205,466 completed on Thursday. The number of new confirmed cases was 389 in Nassau, 413 in Suffolk and 2,021 in New York. Thirty-two people died Thursday from coronavirus-related causes in the state and 2,348 were hospitalized.

Babylon Junior-Senior High School remained in full distance learning on Friday due to two more positive cases of COVID-19 at the school, Superintendent Linda Rozzi said.

Rozzi said she expects the school, which stopped learning in person on Thursday, to resume in-person classes on Monday.

The additional cases bring the school’s total to eight active cases, while quarantining more than 26 staff and “even more students” who have been followed in contact, she said.

The daily number of coronavirus infections reported in New York on Friday is “worrisome as hell,” de Blasio said Friday.

There were 1,255 new infections over a 24 hour period. It was 200 or 300 no later than September, he says.

In a tweet late Friday afternoon, de Blasio’s chief spokesperson Bill Neidhardt said the five boroughs have at least five postcodes with infection rates above 3% and 40 codes. postal charges exceeded 4%.

“It is now clear that we have entered the New York community,” he said.

He added that new restrictions – such as banning indoor dining, closing gyms – would likely be imposed soon after Thanksgiving, likely the first week of December.

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