Riverhead Urges Vigilance To Avoid Becoming A ‘Covid Cluster Zone’

November 18, 2020November 19, 2020 Beth Young 0 Comments

The line Sunday outside CityMD in Riverhead

Riverhead Town Supervisor Yvette Aguiar urged all Riverhead residents to remain vigilant and maintain proper social distancing protocol on Wednesday, “as Riverhead has been identified as approaching micro-cluster status in accordance with New York State’s Cluster Action Initiative,” according to an announcement from the Supervisor’s office.

“With colder weather upon us, residents are spending more time indoors, within confined spaces,” said Ms. Aguiar. “Suffolk County officials are working with us to identify and monitor clusters, and will be providing rapid testing in an effort to slow the uptick of positive cases in our area. It is crucial not to become complacent, as Covid-19 positivity rates are increasing dramatically across the United States. The key to preventing the spread of the disease is testing. I encourage every resident of Riverhead to be tested at one of the Covid-19 testing sites within our area. We expect a local outdoor testing site to be operational in the immediate future.”

New York State’s Covid cluster guidelines include three different zones, increasing in severity from yellow to orange to red, based on the Covid positivity rate in each community.

New York classifies a “yellow zone” as a geographic area that has a seven day rolling average positivity rate above 2.5 percent for 10 days, and a seven day average of 10 new daily cases per 100,000 residents.

In the state’s “yellow zones”, businesses can remain open, gatherings are limited to 25 people, indoor and outdoor dining are permitted (with a maximum of four people per table), and schools can remain open with mandatory weekly testing of students and teachers for in-person education. Houses of worship would be limited to 50 percent capacity.

New York classifies an “orange zone” as a geographic area that has a seven day rolling average positivity rate above 3 percent for 10 days, and a seven day average of 10 new daily cases per 100,000 residents.

If the virus worsens and the area becomes an “orange zone,” schools would be closed, with only remote education; high-risk businesses like gyms and personal care services would close; restaurants would only be allowed to have outdoor dining (maximum of four people per table), mass gatherings would be limited to 10 people and houses of worship would be limited to 33 percent capacity.

New York classifies a “red zone” as a geographic area that has a seven day rolling average positivity rate above 4 percent for 10 days, and a seven day average of 10 new daily cases per 100,000 residents.

If the area enters the red zone, schools would remain closed, only essential businesses would open, restaurants would only be able to serve takeout, mass gatherings would be prohibited and houses of worship would be limited to gatherings of 10 people or 25 percent capacity, whichever is lower.