Suffolk Closeup - Covid-19 Took My Friend

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

“We are lying as low as possible. It’s all pretty frightening—I find myself acutely aware that every day may be the start of the last week or two of one’s life on Earth. Sobering and chilling,” my friend, Linda Pentz Gunter, emailed me.

That’s on everybody’s mind—death because of this plague.

And by now we all know of someone who has passed away as a result of COVID-19.

An old friend of mine who has died is Samuel Markowitz. 

Samuel MarkowitzSam had been a frontline reporter at Newsday, the competitor to my paper, the daily Long Island Press. He gave me, as an early reporter, wise counsel about being a journalist. Sam would move on to become the public relations person for the Suffolk County Republican Party—a right hand person to Edwin M. (Buzz) Schwenk, Suffolk GOP chairman from 1968 to 1977. He later would become head of PR for Arthur M. Cromarty, chief judge of Suffolk County.

Sam was a solid straight-shooter as a journalist and, likewise, as a PR person.

He lived in Patchogue with his wife, Loretta (who passed away in 2014) and their two children, Howard and Helene. My wife and I were friends socially with Sam and Loretta. 

Helene, now Mastromarino, Sam’s daughter, said her father had been at an assisted living facility in Nassau County where it was thought he had become “dehydrated.” He was having “trouble walking.” He was tested for COVID-19 and it was found to have struck him. Sam died at Mount Sinai South Nassau hospital. 

“It was horrible, horrible,” said Mrs. Mastromarino of her dad’s death. “No one should have to die like this.”

The burial was at Patchogue Hebrew Cemetery and limited to 10 people, all standing six-feet apart, wearing masks and plastic gloves, related Helene. Children sat back in the cars. 

“He was such a good man,” Helene said.

Sam was, indeed. 

Another person I knew—also through journalism—who tragically died in this pandemic was Joan Porco. Mrs. Porco had written the “Montauk Mooring” column in The East Hampton Press where this column also appears.

She and her husband, Edward Porco, lived in Montauk part-time and then full-time for 46 years before moving in 2013 to Peconic Landing, the retirement community in Greenport. Some eight people at Peconic Landing have died in recent weeks from the highly contagious COVID-19.

Joan, beyond being a columnist, had been a teacher, social worker, Gestalt psychotherapist, poet and author. I would see her yearly at Press holiday parties and we would chat—she was a fascinating, community-minded, brilliant person. 

Mrs. Porco was a lifelong political and civil rights activist. She published a volume of poetry titled “Gaudeamus’—Latin for “let us rejoice,” which was also the name she and Mr. Porco gave to their home in Montauk. She wrote a book on the history of Concerned Citizens of Montauk, Holding Back the Tide: The Thirty Five-Year Struggle to Save Montauk.

She and Mr. Porco were board members of Concerned Citizens of Montauk and he also had been its president and president, too, of the East Hampton Trails Preservations Society.

Mr. and Mrs. Porco died of COVID-19 within four days of each other, she at Stony Brook Southampton Hospital and he at Stony Brook Eastern Long Island Hospital.

“Covid-19 took my stepfather Tuesday evening, and my mother early this morning,” wrote Matthew Chachere on Facebook. “Each, sadly, alone and in isolation in hospital from us and each other.” I got to know Mr. Chachere, now an attorney, when he was deeply involved in the successful battle against the Shoreham nuclear power plant project. He was arrested for engaging in civil disobedience—going over the fence at the plant site with 571 others in symbolic protest which they defended in court as justified because of the threat Shoreham posed to people on Long Island.

“My mom got me involved in political activism at the ripe age of 7, handing out leaflets for a fair housing campaign,” Mr. Chachere continued. “She never stopped.” Neither has Mr. Chachere. Last year, the Asthma Free Housing Act which Matthew drafted as staff attorney at the Northern Manhattan Improvement Corporation went into effect in New York City. It requires landlords to remove hazards that can trigger asthma attacks including mold, rodents and roaches, and leaks and pathways for vermin infestation.

If only the virus that causes COVID-19 could be removed!!! Hopefully—so hopefully—there’ll be a vaccine and a treatment to do that. But, meanwhile, this deadly plague continues.

Karl Grossman is a veteran investigative reporter and columnist, the winner of numerous awards for his work and a member of the L.I. Journalism Hall of Fame. He is a professor of journalism at SUNY/College at Old Westbury and the author of six books. 

Suffolk Closeup - Can Shuttered Foley Facility Help In Covid-19 Pandemic

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

The John J. Foley Skilled Nursing Facility in Yaphank—in the middle of Suffolk County—sits there “still empty” and, says Rob Colarco, presiding officer of the Suffolk County Legislature, should “in response to the coronavirus crisis” be put to use. 

The facility was closed and sold—in a controversial sale by Suffolk County—to Long Island Community Hospital in 2016 for $15 million.

Mr. Colarco noted that when the county built the facility in 1995 “each room had oxygen set up directly to go into the rooms.” Oxygen is critical for seriously ill COVID-19 patients. 

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for $50 million is constructing on an emergency basis a 1,000-bed “temporary” hospital, nearly all of it involving tents, on the campus of Stony Brook University in response to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in Suffolk.

The Foley facility constitutes “a permanent structure” available for long-term use, says Mr. Colarco of Patchogue. He said in an interview last week that it would not be a “turn-key” transition to get the Foley facility ready, but “the basic infrastructure” of the five-story facility has been “maintained. 

U.S. Representative Lee Zeldin of Shirley and Richard T. Margulis, president and CEO of Long Island Community Hospital are also urging the Foley facility’s use. 

Mr. Zeldin and Mr. Margulis are requesting New York State “consider utilizing the currently underutilized” facility “which could accommodate up to 500 beds, as a location to increase hospital bed capacity on Long Island,” according to a statement from the office of Mr. Zeldin, whose lst C.D. includes all of Brookhaven Town, the five East End towns and much of Smithtown.

Mr. Zeldin said in the statement: “One of the greatest challenges the continued outbreak of coronavirus poses is the strain it puts on our communities’ healthcare system and possible overwhelming of our local hospitals. We must utilize every resource available to expand our hospital bed capacity, and John J. Foley Skilled Nursing Home may be a critical untapped resource.”

Mr. Margulis said: “During this unprecedented critical time in healthcare and its impact on our community, we have explored every possible option for helping to expand bed capacity limitations. We would like to use our asset of the former John J. Foley Nursing Home to create additional hospital bed space to help care for patients….We need to join together and do whatever we can to fight this disease and support our community.”

Long Island Community Hospital, in East Patchogue, is the only hospital in Suffolk remaining independent, “unaffiliated” with a hospital network such as Stony Brook Medicine or Northwell Health. “It’s very hard for a small community hospital to stay unaffiliated,” said Mr. Colarco. 

The hospital (renamed in 2018 from Brookhaven Memorial Hospital) told the county before the sale that it planned to offer hemodialysis, drug rehabilitation and other services at the 181,749-square foot building. 

The Foley facility was originally the site of the Suffolk County Home and Infirmary and, before that, the Suffolk County Alms-House—a home for Suffolk poor which opened in 1870 and featured a 170-acre farm on which they grew food. The farm continues as the Suffolk County Farm and Education Center managed since 1974 by Cornell Cooperative Extension of Suffolk County.

In 1975, it looked like the Suffolk County Home and Infirmary would be shut down after the state Department of Health found violations in a building inspection, so the county Department of Health Services said it should be closed. But then Suffolk County Executive John V. N. Klein and the Suffolk Legislature joined to appropriate money for repairs. “Suffolk Home and Infirmary Is Saved,” was the The New York Times headline.

Then, two decades later, a new facility—named for ex-Legislator John J. Foley of Blue Point, long strongly committed to health care—was built for $42 million. But County Executives Steve Levy and his successor, Steve Bellone, thereafter pushed to sell it for financial reasons. 

Mr. Bellone said in 2013 that county taxpayers couldn’t afford the $1 million a month subsidy he said the Foley facility cost. There was intense opposition led by then Legislators Kate Browning of Shirley and John Kennedy of Nesconset, now county comptroller, and also a lawsuit. There was great concern for the very needy patients served by Foley. The sale first involved purchase by a Bronx-based nursing home operator for $36 million—later reduced to $20 million—but the operator withdrew the offer. So, the facility was closed and sold to what was then called Brookhaven Memorial Hospital. 

Karl Grossman is a veteran investigative reporter and columnist, the winner of numerous awards for his work and a member of the L.I. Journalism Hall of Fame. He is a professor of journalism at SUNY/College at Old Westbury and the author of six books. 

Suffolk Closeup - "You Are Living A Moment In History"

SUFFOLK CLOSUEP

By Karl Grossman

Among the most moving words about the coronavirus outbreak were those of Governor Andrew Cuomo to National Guard troops involved in converting the Javits Center into a hospital for coronavirus patients.

“You are living a moment in history,” said Mr. Cuomo. “This is a moment that is going to change this nation. This is a moment that forges character, forges people, changes people—makes them stronger, makes them weaker. Ten years from now, you will be talking about today to your children, and your children and you will shed a tear because you will remember the lives lost…and you’ll remember how hard we worked and that we still lost loved ones.” But “you will also be proud. You’ll be proud of what you did. You’ll be proud that you showed up…When other people played it safe, you had the courage to show up and you had the courage and professionalism to make a difference and save lives.”

James Larocca, a former state commissioner of energy and commissioner of transportation and now a Sag Harbor Village trustee, penned an op-ed about Mr. Cuomo which ran in Newsday. “If extraordinary times require extraordinary measures, and they do, then this is the time for the Democratic Party to nominate Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo for president,” he wrote. 

Mr. Larocca said Mr. Cuomo is “the only elected official in the United States today who has fully demonstrated the leadership, toughness, management skill and humanity that meeting the coronavirus pandemic demands.” He said “if a nominee is not chosen on a first ballot at the convention,” it can “open up to other candidates.” 

Whether Mr. Cuomo might become the Democratic candidate for president because of his leadership in this crisis may or may not happen—he emphasized last week that “I am not running for president”—but certainly he has been catapulted into great political prominence.  

Among the many TV pieces involving the gigantic number of people homebound to prevent the spread of the virus was a report by David Pogue, technology and science reporter on CBS News Sunday Morning. “Welcome to lockdown!” he said into a camera he set up himself at his home. “How to live and work at home without losing your mind. First of all: curse the virus, but bless high-speed Internet! The Internet is our lifeline through this thing. It’s how we socialize, it’s our entertainment, it’s how business gets done. This is the Internet’s big moment.”

“It’s incredible what’s going on over video chat these days,” he continued. “Meetings, of course, but also exercise classes, concerts, church services, game nights, even weddings!”

“Life goes on; you just have to go at it a little differently,” Mr. Pogue concluded.

Quite differently.

A rub regarding computers and the Internet, is that not everyone has the hardware. This is explored in a piece in the current issue of Time magazine titled “The Online Learning Divide.” It focuses on online teaching caused by schools being closed, but it applies generally. It quotes a New York City English teacher saying: “I am concerned that, in 2020, all of our students don’t have access to technology or Internet at home.”

The Stone Creek Inn in East Quogue reached out to “all our Socially Distanced Friends” in an email saying: “Hello…We finally have a day to reflect on this whirlwind of a week. Like you, there were moments we all felt overwhelmed, emotional, anxious, exhausted.” The inn is limited to offering takeout meals, of course. It referenced a quote from former U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson. “Let us all remember that ‘The manner in which one endures what must be endured is more important than the thing that must be endured.’…Stay well!” 

For Suffolk, an issue has been raised about folks from New York City seeking refuge here. An article in the New York Post was headlined: “’We should blow up the bridges’—coronavirus leads to class warfare in Hamptons.” High up is a quote: “’There’s not a vegetable to be found in this town right now,’ says one resident of Springs, a working-class pocket of East Hampton. ‘It’s these elitist people who think they don’t have to follow the rules.’”

Phil Keith, a columnist colleague here, posted on Facebook: “Where’s our community spirit? I’ve seen so many posts and articles complaining about ‘city people’ coming out here and hogging our groceries and toilet paper. What—we only like their money in the summer? They have kids, and fears, and parents and grandparents just like the rest of us. Why not just extend an elbow and say, ‘Hey neighbor—how can I help?’ I’d like to think they’d do the same for us if, for example, a hurricane devastated the East End. C’mon, everyone, lend a hand—and a smile.”

In the obituaries are the names of more and more people—heading for 200 in Suffolk as of this writing—who have died in this terrible epidemic. All that can be done to reduce the death toll, here and everywhere, must be done.

Karl Grossman is a veteran investigative reporter and columnist, the winner of numerous awards for his work and a member of the L.I. Journalism Hall of Fame. He is a professor of journalism at SUNY/College at Old Westbury and the author of six books. 

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP - Coronavirus "What A Situation Here And Globally"

By Karl Grossman

The signs on Route 27 that usually warn of an accident up ahead or tell people not to text while driving were announcing alternatively “Stay Home” and “Stop The Spread.” Along Montauk Highway restaurant after restaurant were shut down—many with hand-drawn signs posted about take-out being available. At a supermarket, people were wearing face masks.

In front of a grocery store in Westhampton Beach a crowd had gathered and there were items being sold, one customer at a time, from a table outside. 

Driving home, I passed the Southampton Full Gospel Church with a sign in front of it: “Fear Not, Nor Be Dismayed, Be Strong And Of Good Courage.” 

In sum, what a scene out there—it would have been unbelievable a few weeks ago.

 What a dramatic, mammoth change for us all—like nothing in my lifetime. The only thing, I think, in modern times comparable in the U.S. to the coronavirus pandemic were the huge changes after the attack on Pearl Harbor. 

I’ve been a professor of journalism at the State University of New York/College at Old Westbury and early on all classes were moved to “alternate instructional delivery,” as they were at every SUNY and CUNY campus. This includes Suffolk County Community College, part of SUNY. Before the order came down from Governor Cuomo, we prepared for online teaching.

“You’ll be engaging students virtually,” said Virek Ramgopal, a representative of Blackboard. He was opening a webinar that I participated in, one of many that Blackboard was holding. There were more than 300 teachers from around the globe on it. Blackboard is based in Washington, D.C. and on its website describes itself as “the largest” company “in the world” specializing in “distance learning.” 

Edgar Gonzalez, who noted he came to Blackboard from the University of Texas where he had been director of distance education, said what was involved was us “transitioning from face-to-face to online” instruction. As he spoke, an acronym for “face-to-face” came up on the computer screen: “F2F.”

The webinar included presentations about “looking at automation options,” establishing a “live chat,” putting a video online—“keep the video short”—and ways to “create teacher presence.” The idea regarding the latter is that students shouldn’t feel they’re being subject to robotized education. It was suggested the teacher put up her or his photo to help humanize the lesson.

At the college, Old Westbury professors were given Blackboard training in groups and individually. I so much more prefer “face-to-face” teaching. For instance, in my Environmental Journalism course just before this all happened, I devoted two classes to the nature writing of essayists and poets Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, writer, conservationist and crusader for national parks John Muir, and Walt Whitman. I changed teaching gears when from the facial expressions of students and answers to my questions, it was clear most weren’t familiar with Emerson, Thoreau and Muir. They knew about Whitman, but he was a Long Islander, after all, his birthplace in West Hills, 10 miles from the college. I shifted immediately to more extensive presentations about Emerson, Thoreau and Muir. 

Online instruction has become a necessary alternative now. But it’s no real substitute for the personal interaction of teaching face-to-face, despite the big push in academia in recent years to give courses online. 

Because of coronavirus, a hospital is to be built on an emergency basis on the SUNY/Old Westbury campus—and the second on Long Island on the Stony Brook University campus.

Sabbath services at our Temple Adas Israel in Sag Harbor, were also held online. “This is different,” said Rabbi Dan Geffen from the pulpit at Long Island’s oldest synagogue: “We are all adopting and changing and trying to bring out the best in each other.” He said the situation was “an opportunity for us to each reinvigorate our spirituality.” The rabbi said “we have lost control over many things we had just weeks ago,” and that: “We are all connected one way or the other. We are all suffering.” The traditional “Prayer for Healing”—normally devoted to ill members of the congregation, relatives and friends—was broadened to all those struck by the virus pandemic.

Religious services—all over Long Island and world—were being streamed online.

As a teacher, you get close to students. My wonderful A-student from Vietnam was having trouble booking a ticket home. Suddenly, due to a last-minute cancellation, she got a seat on Japan Airlines. She telephoned from Kennedy Airport waiting for her flight and emailed upon arriving in Vietnam to first spend, she said, 14 days of quarantine “in the countryside.” 

What a situation here and globally!

Karl Grossman is a veteran investigative reporter and columnist, the winner of numerous awards for his work and a member of the L.I. Journalism Hall of Fame. He is a professor of journalism at SUNY/College at Old Westbury and the author of six books. 

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP - Coronavirus Nightmare Is Here

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

FYI -  Suffolk County reported the following confirmed cases and deaths due to COVID-19 through 2:30 p.m. on 3/25/2020

• 2260  confirmed cases  (up 380 from the 1,880 cases that were reported at 2:30 p.m. on March 24)
• 206 are hospitalized (up 43 from March 24), 67 of those are in the intensive care unit
• 20 deaths (up 3 from March 24)

By Karl Grossman

It’s a modern-day plague: the deaths, the quarantines, the states of emergency, the declaration of a worldwide pandemic, the lockdowns of cities and entire countries, the shutdown of schools and businesses, the mass layoffs, the courage of those doctors and nurses and other health care providers treating people with an infectious disease despite the danger to themselves, the fear we all have of getting infected, the “social distancing,” and on and on.

It’s a health disaster, a calamity on a global scale. 

“Our lives are all changing in ways that were unimaginable just a week ago,” said New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio as he issued an executive order last Sunday closing restaurants and bars, other than for take-out and delivery. All of New York State including Suffolk County, and the neighboring states of New Jersey and Connecticut, followed. “We are taking a series of actions that we never would have taken otherwise in an effort to save the lives of loved ones and our neighbors.” Meanwhile closings in the three states also include schools.

The strategy is to limit the transmission of the disease by restricting contact of people with other people thus reducing spread and “flattening the curve” of people needing medical care—so hospitals won’t be overwhelmed and treatment of the seriously ill can be managed. The percent of people with severe effects requiring hospital care is calculated at about 10%. 

But then there is the huge problem involving ventilators and respirators.

“U.S. hospitals bracing for a possible onslaught of coronavirus patients with pneumonia and other breathing difficulties could face a critical shortage of mechanical ventilators and health care workers to operate them,” the Associated Press reported last week.

“In the most severe cases,” AP explained, “the coronavirus damages healthy tissue in the lungs, making it hard for them to deliver oxygen to the blood. Pneumonia can develop, along with a more severe and potentially deadly condition called acute respiratory distress syndrome….Ventilators feed oxygen into the lungs of patients with severe respiratory problems through a tube inserted down the throat.”

“But the nation has only about 200,000 of the machines,” it said, citing a figure from the Society of Critical Care Medicine, which projects “that 960,000 coronavirus patients in the U.S. may need to be put on ventilators…during the outbreak.” 

President Trump invoked the Defense Production Act last week to ramp up manufacture of ventilators, but can hundreds of thousands of ventilators be produced quickly? The act, passed in 1950 at the start of the Korean War, empowers the federal government to require businesses to fulfill orders deemed necessary for the national defense. Also, as AP noted, will there be “enough…specialist nurses and doctors with…critical care training” to operate the machines? Further, Mr. Trump has not implemented use of the act as of this writing. 

As to effective face masks or respirators needed in order to protect nurses, doctors and other health care workers treating coronavirus patients, the New York State Nurses Association issued a statement last week on: “The Shortage of Respirators and Personal Protective Equipment For Health Care Personnel and First Responders.” The association said: “If the health care system and our hospitals are to continue to operate at the levels that we need, emergency action must be taken to protect nurses and other direct care staff from exposure and infection.”

It said the federal government “failed to maintain adequate stocks of respirators in the national reserves and further failed to take action when the outbreak arose in November-December to secure additional supplies of N95 respirators.” The N95 is considered the preferred face mask for hospital use. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website says the N95 protects “the wearer from airborne particles and from liquid contaminating the face” by blocking “at least 95 percent of very small test particles.”

The association recommends “Federal, state and local authorities must take immediate emergency action to secure and distribute stocks of N95 or higher-rated respirators…to our hospitals and other health care institutions in quantities necessary to protect staff from exposure and illness.” 

Meanwhile, it complained, the CDC and other federal agencies have issued directives that “substantially roll back the standards for protecting health workers.” That will “make things worse by exposing nurses and other workers to increased risk of exposure and infection…This will undermine the capacity to sustain operation of the health systems that our people will rely on as the virus spreads in coming weeks. If our nurses are in isolation or sick, they will not be there to provide patient care.” It called for restoring “the previously established infection control protocols and standards” as well as providing many more respirators. Last week, the Defense Production Act was also invoked by Mr. Trump to compel industry to produce more respirators.   

But this, too, has not been implemented. 

The world—including the U.S. and Suffolk—has been turned upside down by the coronavirus nightmare. 

Karl Grossman is a veteran investigative reporter and columnist, the winner of numerous awards for his work and a member of the L.I. Journalism Hall of Fame. He is a professor of journalism at SUNY/College at Old Westbury and the author of six books.