Grace Bennett

County Executive Addresses New Covid Cases and Announces Playland Amusement Park’s First-Time Closure

July 1, 2020 by Grace Bennett

Westchester County Executive George Latimer. Inside Press photo.

George Latimer cites 19 active cases in New Castle, one in Bronxville, and reaffirms county’s commitment to open responsibly.

Town of New Castle and New Castle Police Department issue stern warnings for further violations.

Press briefing on recreational impact focuses on Playland Amusement Park: Latimer describes a tough decision not to reopen a beloved and historic facility for the first time in its 92-year history.

White Plains, NY— Westchester County Executive George Latimer yesterday reported 19 active cases of COVID-19 in New Castle, up one case since the day before and from the five cases initially reported on a Sunday following a June 20th Horace Greeley High School graduation. The cases in New Castle have been traced back to two students’ travel to Florida, where it is believed they became infected, and to a break with social distancing and mask wearing protocol at both a subsequent graduation drive in ceremony and ‘field nights’ events following graduation. In a prior briefing, Latimer called the resulting cluster “a cautionary tale.” He also noted that the outlook for containment is different today than it was earlier in this pandemic “with the widespread availability of Covid testing” and resident cooperation with a mandated quarantine and cooperation with contact tracers. One active case was also recently reported in Bronxville.

The Governor has since ordered everyone who attended the New Castle events to self-quarantine until July 5, and a group of Westchester based contact tracers are calling households to track more possible infection and guide residents further. Kids from other communities also attended field night events which apparently spread infection further. “Greeley covers the Pleasantville post office and has numbers from other communities who might have gone out… Students from neighboring high schools came as well.”

Meanwhile, in an e-newsletter to the community last night entitled “Our Actions Today Will Save Lives,” the Town of New Castle sternly addressed those who flouted the rules or would consider doing so again; the letter included ample warning of potential civil and even criminal consequences. “We have reached out to and spoken with the Governor’s Office and the Westchester County District Attorney’s Office for guidance on how to best enforce social distancing orders whether through civil sanctions and fines or criminal prosecutions,” the letter stated. Chappaqua’s Police Department Chief James Carroll outlined a series of potential fines and even potential jail time for flouting rules and violating the order.

At the afternoon briefing, which streamed live, Latimer noted 408 active cases across the county; he noted the significant progress in those numbers, too. “We once had 12,000 cases, so being down to under 500 is a very good sign.”

“We want to open up our society, responsibly, to avoid people losing their life over this,” Latimer said.

In Westchester, 266,962 people have been tested for COVID, which is about 27% of the population. 34,338 tested positive since the beginning of March. Last night, while only one Westchester resident died due to COVID (compared to ’45-50 some nights’), Latimer reminded, “That’s somebody’s loved one.”

Latimer also shared news of park closures around the county, most prominently, the closing of Rye’s Playland Amusement Park for the first time in the park’s 92-year history (Playland Amusement Park opened in 1928). He described the closure as ‘emotional’ for him. “There was a lot of drive and determination to make Playland come alive, so it’s the last thing I wanted to do…” The decision comes in tandem with an executive order “to shutter all amusement parks in New York.” The north part of Playland, including its beach area, will remain open. (Note, the Inside Press has inquired for an official list of closures and openings and will update to here as received.)

The closures around the county, Latimer said, come with an approximate price tag of about $130 million in lost revenue.

“Sales tax is a big loser, hotel tax revenue is lost, summer parks revenue is down dramatically…although six golf courses will remain open (due to ‘natural social distancing’ associated with this activity)…we have had more revenue from our golf courses in the past.”

As for the total impact of the budget: “We won’t be spending as much, so it may not be as dramatic as we think.”

North Salem Town Supervisor Warren Lucas representing the Town of North Salem was invited to this briefing; he spoke proudly of a historic and bucolic northern Westchester town and its 1200 acres of open land and trails. There have been complaints., he said, of visitors flouting social distancing rules, too. “At the beginning of this, my biggest question was “when can the horse shows start up again…I’m glad for the opportunity to talk about this town.” He mentioned the town’s work with Feeding Westchester and members of the local Lion’s Club and high school volunteers who are reaching out to those in town, who financially speaking, “have run out of funds.” Today, Latimer plans a briefing focused on the economic impact of COVID and “how to deal with the work force impacted… and the fiscal impact on small businesses, large businesses and not for profits.”

He also said he plans an update about a county task force formed to address police reform since the death of George Floyd, and to continue the work toward racial justice.

Chappaqua’s David Shimer Explains Why he Wrote “Rigged” and the Potential for Election Interference

June 28, 2020 by Grace Bennett

David Shimer discussing “Rigged” on CNN with Michael Smerconish.

This month, I had the pleasure of catching up with Chappaqua’s David Shimer, the author of the new and much heralded book Rigged: America, Russia, and One Hundred Years of Covert Electoral Interference (Knopf; June 30, 2020), which examines the century-long history of election interference. In glowing reviews, the Washington Post called Rigged “newsworthy,” “absorbing,” and “damning,” and NPR described Rigged as an “authoritative book” and “fascinating reading.” General David Petraeus, a former CIA director, labeled Rigged “a clear-eyed, highly readable, meticulous history of foreign electoral interference, in which revelations abound.” And Timothy Snyder, the author of On Tyranny, has said that Rigged “should be read by everyone who wants to defend democracy now.”

Shimer is also a member of the Chappaqua community. He was the valedictorian of his class at Horace Greeley High School (class of 2014), received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in history from Yale, and is currently pursuing his doctorate in international relations at the University of Oxford as a Marshall Scholar. Shimer has reported for the New York Times from five countries, and his foreign policy analysis has appeared in the Washington Post, Foreign Affairs, and the New Yorker. With so much at stake ahead of November, Rigged strikes me as an essential and timely book, so I thought I would pick Shimer’s brain about Rigged and the threat of Russian meddling in the 2020 election. (The link to purchase is here.) – Grace Bennett

What precipitated the writing of Rigged?

The idea for Rigged first emerged in my mind in the summer of 2017. At the time, I was reporting for the New York Times from Berlin, and Russia had just interfered in America’s presidential election. While in Germany, I spent several hours interviewing a former Stasi officer named Horst Kopp. He told me about a covert operation he helped execute in 1972, to interfere in a vote of no confidence in West German Chancellor Willy Brandt. Because of the Stasi’s intervention, the vote failed, and Brandt remained in power. This story fascinated me: A foreign intelligence service had changed the outcome of a democratic vote of succession. I spent the next year researching the Stasi’s operation under the supervision of Timothy Snyder, a professor at Yale.

I then went to Oxford to pursue my doctorate, by which point I was set on studying the evolution of foreign operations to interfere in electoral processes. My research took on a life of its own. I became obsessed with this topic, because I was and remain convinced that studying the past is essential to understanding Russia’s attack in 2016 and to defending our elections moving forward. I ended up traveling across six countries examining KGB, CIA, and Stasi archives and interviewing more than 130 people, including eight former CIA directors and a former KGB general. The result is Rigged, which restores history to the subject of covert electoral interference, examines Barack Obama’s struggle to defend against Russian interference and Donald Trump’s refusal to recognize this threat, and explains what our country should be doing to secure its elections today.

If you could choose three takeaway messages you’d like readers to remember from your book, what would they be?

The first is that Russia’s 2016 operation marked the evolution rather than the creation of a practice. For about a century, with brief interruptions, Moscow has been targeting elections all over the world, including in the United States. The KGB sought to interfere in America’s 1960, 1968, 1976, and 1984 elections, as I detail in my book, with tactics eerily reminiscent of Putin’s. Across these operations are patterns that can and should instruct our response to the Russia threat. The most basic one is that covert electoral interference always involves efforts to manipulate voters or to alter actual ballots. To defend an election is to defend against both forms of attack.

Second, the United States was more exposed in 2016 than is publicly understood. I interviewed 26 former advisors to Barack Obama, including John Brennan, Susan Rice, Jim Clapper, Leon Panetta, and David Petraeus. From those conversations I learned that in the summer and fall of 2016, the Obama administration’s foremost concern was that Russian hackers would alter the voter data and even the vote tallies of American citizens. On Election Day itself, a secret crisis team in the White House was bracing for Russian intelligence to manipulate our voting systems. All the while, Russian actors were manipulating American voters across social media and with hacked emails, and Putin suffered no consequences for doing so until after the election.

And finally, it is essential for readers to recognize the purpose behind Russia’s electoral operations: to undermine our democracy and the democracies of the world. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union interfered in elections in order to advance communism, an ideology. Putin has adopted a subtler strategy. He is interfering in elections here and abroad in order to promote divisive and authoritarian-minded candidates, sow chaos, and delegitimize the democratic process of succession. Putin likes candidates like Trump because they degrade their democracies from within.

Can you tell us about the special relevance of your book to the upcoming election?

Reports have already emerged that Russia is interfering in the 2020 election. The sovereignty of our democracy is on the line. What I do in my book is provide a basis to understand operations like Russia’s, to reanalyze 2016 with an eye toward the future, and to elucidate how Americans can help to safeguard their democracy this November and beyond.

What can Russia do to interfere in the 2020 election?

The first question on my mind is how Russia will seek to manipulate public opinion between now and November. In 2016, to sow division and advantage Trump, Russian actors stole and released Democratic Party emails and spread propaganda across social media. Something history reveals is that these types of tactics, to influence voters, are constantly evolving. It remains to be seen what’s next.

The second question is whether Russia will escalate from influencing voters to altering actual votes. In 2016, Russian hackers penetrated election systems across the United States. The day of the election, Obama’s security chiefs believed that Russia could manipulate the ballot box in Trump’s favor. There is no guarantee that Putin will refrain from authorizing such an attack this time around. In fact, he may feel emboldened to act more aggressively, because Barack Obama, who at least tried to defend our elections, is no longer president. In his place is a president who has openly invited Russia and China to take steps that would help him electorally. Some of the Trump administration officials I interviewed acknowledged that Putin must realize that Trump will not punish him for manipulating the 2020 election, so long as he benefits. Putin is the type of leader who pushes as far as he can without provoking much pushback. And with Trump, there is never any pushback when it comes to Russia.

What can we do to protect our elections?

Joseph Stalin and his successors spent decades trying to spread communism, so we contained communism. Today, Putin is working to tear apart democracies from within, so we need to renew our democracy and help our allies do the same. This process starts at home. The United States should be fortifying its electoral infrastructure, to ensure that Russia cannot alter the votes of American citizens, while also reducing the effectiveness of operations to manipulate voters. And abroad, the next president should lead a coalition of democracies against the threat of covert electoral interference. I explain how to achieve both of these aims in Rigged, which I hope my fellow community members will read!

Impact of Racism Hits Home as a School District Self Examines and Commits to Change and Growth

June 6, 2020 by Grace Bennett

Chappaqua, NY— Growth. The banner sign outside the administration building for the Chappaqua Central School District could not be more symbolic. For we are all learning. No community is immune or free of the ravages of systemic racism that is being addressed in unprecedented protests in cities and towns around the nation following the death of George Floyd while in police custody-aggravated by the delay in bringing murder charges against the Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin’s for his actions in Floyd’s death.

That includes the community of New Castle, where last night, the Inside Press learned, a group of Chappaqua students and parents, especially those who have been directly impacted, are holding the Chappaqua school district and school board accountable for experiences they say indicate a tolerance for systemic racism within the school district.

Currently, a Tik Tok video circulating in social media depicts a group of Greeley teens offensively using the N-word. According to parents calling out the incident and by those discussing it in social media, there was a weak/inadequate disciplinary response–a brief suspension. A new source points out, however, that the video was withheld from the school district for an unspecified period impacting the disciplinary action. But the problem is more ‘systemic’ too, according to these same discussions.

An on the record open letter received last night by one former Greeley student to the Inside Press was within hours retracted by a legal team for this student who reversed course and asked that it not be published. The student offered, however, that it can provide insight of pain and trauma experienced by students of color inside the school district.

The Chappaqua School board, in the meantime, this morning responded to a collective voicing of “grief and outrage” with the following statement promising to bring about change:

Dear Chappaqua Central School District Community,

As our nation confronts the continuing scourge of racism and oppression faced by African Americans and people of color, and as we continue to witness horrific and brutal events around our country and racist incidents in our own community, we know that we must commit to change.

We are appalled and devastated by racially divisive incidents in our schools and our society as a whole. We know that our staff, students, parents, alumni, and community feel the same. From the many letters which were sent to us today by our students and alumni, we are bearing witness to an outpouring of grief and outrage, and the recounting of personal experiences of racism in our school community. We thank you for reaching out to us and want you to know that the actions you have taken will make you a part of the solution.

We are resolute in our commitment to address and support social justice education in our schools. Here are some examples of what we are doing to help bring about change:

The District will continue to work with Facing History & Ourselves so that our curriculum can better address and examine racism, anti-semitism, and prejudice at pivotal moments in history, and so that we may help students connect choices made in the past to those they will confront in their own lives.
Our faculty will engage in professional development to help facilitate important conversations with our students that address racism and enable all of us to meaningfully process the events unfolding in our country and our community.
We have made a commitment toward addressing diversity in our staff, and have made progress in doing so, through our involvement in the Regional Diversity Recruitment Fair.
The District has created an Equity P.R.I.D.E. (Promoting Racial Inclusivity, Diversity & Equity) Fellowship. This is a team of K-12 educators who will focus on understanding bias and how it impacts our work as educators as we strive to promote equitable, diverse and inclusive learning spaces where all learners, both adult and student, can feel seen, heard, valued and respected. The Equity PRIDE Fellowship will analyze feedback sent to the Board of Education and our District Administration as a part of their work. They will present recommendations to the Board of Education on how we can enhance our social justice instruction District-wide.
We continue to support student-led initiatives including the Black Student Union and ENOUGH at Greeley, and the Diversity Clubs at both middle schools. These student clubs are focused on promoting equity, inclusivity and diversity in our schools and the larger community.
The Board of Education has recently accepted a substantial grant from the Chappaqua School Foundation, which will enable us to further diversify our elementary classroom libraries.

We acknowledge that we can, and must, do more as we work and interact with our students, especially students of color, to listen to and understand their experiences with incidents of racism in Chappaqua schools. We will continue to review our curriculum to ensure that we are educating our students and school community about systemic racism which continues to perpetuate discrimination and oppression in the nation and within our own school community.

We are committed to doing better and will work to do so by maintaining and promoting an anti-racist stance. Please continue to provide feedback. Please continue to report incidents. We will listen, we will share information with our community, and we will hold ourselves accountable in helping our district bring about change.

Sincerely,

The Chappaqua Central School District Board of Education

Jane Kimmel Shepardson, President
Holly McCall, Vice President
Hilary Grasso, Member
Warren Messner, Member
Victoria Tipp, Member

Greeley Principal: A Preview of Plans to Celebrate a “Mature and Community Minded” Class of 2020

May 29, 2020 by Grace Bennett

Students conveyed a simple wish: to be together.

Editor’s Note: Please scroll to the bottom of the story for the district’s graduation plans as they stand now as conveyed by HGHS’s Andrew Corsilia and Lauralyn Stewart in a letter to parents and students. Graduation Day is June 20th, and will be a car-based ceremony, site not yet confirmed, according to the letter which was forwarded to my attention just this morning after I posted the article below.– Grace Bennett

In a class of 342 graduating seniors, all yearning for a meaningful and memorable graduation, one thing is for certain: there are many, many throughout the school district and community at large who care about the kids deeply and who are rooting for them to experience just that.

That was a primary message gleaned from an interview with Andrew Corsilia, principal of Horace Greeley High School, who commented on the HGHS Class of 2020 at large and the plans being discussed.

“We have essentially a small town,” said Corsilia. “The seniors have grown up with the same families, the same Main streets, with most in the same schools for 13 years, so what it means to be a Senior, what Senior year means to them: those are questions that have really loomed large in their imaginations, and in their expectations. Some of these events that we have planned for them are not just celebrations. They are milestones-with a ritualized way of getting to leave.”

“The whole community is feeling for these students and wanting to celebrate them,” Corsilia emphasized. While no official plan has of yet been announced (SEE EDITOR’S NOTE ABOVE), a video message to the entire community, shared Corsilia, is planned for release next week. It will contain information about the multiple celebrations which typically place around the traditional ‘Senior Week’–a much celebrated time leading up to the actual graduation.

Corsilia said he had heard from many students and families and by and large, he said, “No one wants a virtual celebration; they made it clear that it would be anticlimactic to be sitting on your couch watching your own graduation; it’s not interactive.”

“They are clear that they want to be together,” he said. “It was a no to individual ceremonies.”

Corsilia said HGHS was “holding out for a social distancing graduation similar to that held by the U.S. Air Force; we are scouting locations and coming up with back up plans.”

Nothing is set in stone, given the coronavirus challenges. “We are grappling with a new set of circumstances every week,” as the schools receive news of any updates to rules and regulations from the County and State. “Our first choice if allowed by county and state would be to create something as close to the real thing as we can make it.”

The location of the Greeley graduation has traditionally been under the big white tent on the athletic fields. “A tent is out this year because it compacts everyone into a very small area,” Corsilia explained, but the the fields and its vast space is the likely choice for any social distancing graduation for the class. (SEE EDITOR’S NOTE ABOVE)

Corsilia emphasized his and the district’s intention to “do right” on behalf of the seniors who he commended.

“This class is incredibly mature. They are community minded. They are a pleasure to work with. They give off a wonderful positive energy when they are together. They distinguish themselves academically and creatively.” He spoke of how they excel in science. He expressed his joy for them that they were able to produce a beloved senior production in the nick of time. This year, it was High School Musical, and “it was a ton of fun,” he said.

In the meantime, he has kept in touch with student progress since the pandemic took hold. He shared his impressions of the 290 students who are participating in internships and independent projects. Typically most of the students would be in internships from a workplace supervised in a traditional professional settings and 20-30 percent would be engaging in independent projects.

This year, those figures were ‘flipped,’ he said.

“70 to 80 percent have had to abandon showing up at a workplace although some of the kids transitioned into a remote internship for these workplaces; the vast majority transitioned to engaging in independent projects, in which “their creativity has really come out!”

They have included: students creating a podcast as to how the pandemic has impacted small businesses in Chappaqua; students designing and producing fashionable masks being sold in Chappaqua; and those “diving into literature” whether by recent Pulitzer Prize winning authors, or classic literature. Others have worked on something deeply personal, whether learning to play guitar or building and creating cookbooks containing traditional family recipes by their parents and grandparents.

The support and warm feelings toward these seniors has been felt throughout the community. “I’ve had older people call me, those who have no students in this school, asking me what they can do for these seniors. They’ve seen the graduation signs around town that the PTA surprised parents with in the middle of the night. Everyone’s feeling for them… We’re just incredibly proud and want to do right by them.”

Is there anything else you would like the class to know, I asked. “They are really an amazing class,” said Corsilia. “We miss them.”

May 28th Letter to the Class of 2020

Dear Class of 2020,

We hope that you and your families are well.

As we head into June, we are happy to share our plans for a full schedule of senior-week activities, culminating in graduation. We want to thank your class leadership, PTA, administrators, and town, for planning and organizing these senior week events.

Video Message

June 10th – Senior Awards

We will hold a virtual awards ceremony, including a personalized presentation for each senior receiving an award. Those students receiving awards will receive an invitation to the ceremony.

June 11th – Post Greeley 101

Our PTA has organized a series of Zoom seminars about life after Greeley, hosted by returning graduates, parents, school staff, and community members. Historically, our seniors comment on how valuable this experience is, as they prepare to leave Greeley.

June 12th – Honk for Seniors Parade

Our PTA and New Castle Police have organized a driving parade (parent drivers), starting at the train station in the early evening and ending with a drive through the Greeley campus to celebrate the final day of classes for seniors. Expect a more detailed communication from our PTA.

June 15th – Color Wars

Your class leadership is sponsoring a digital version of our traditional color wars, where you will get to show your elementary school pride and compete against your classmates. Let’s see which elementary school wins!

June 15th – Athletic Awards

Mr. Semo and Greeley Sports Boosters have organized a virtual ceremony to honor our senior athletes. Students will receive commemorative booklets prior to the virtual event which will begin at 7:00 p.m.

June 17th – Cap and Gown Drop Off

We will deliver to your home, via school bus, a care package, including your cap and gown and Senior Beach Day towel.

June 18th – Senior Montage

Our PTA will release the senior montage video to commemorate your senior year.

Prom

Your class leadership and PTA have reserved Trump National Golf Course and are working to schedule your prom at a future date, when it is safe to do so.

Yearbooks

Your yearbooks are looking great, but due to printing delays, they will not be available until August, at which time, we will schedule a process for picking up your yearbook.

June 20th – Graduation

We have heard from our students and our community that you want to be together for graduation, and we know that your first choice would be to have an in-person, socially-distanced graduation on our fields. The New York State Executive Orders, at this time, do not permit such a ceremony. Unless these guidelines change, we will hold a car-based graduation on June 20th in Chappaqua. We are currently confirming the site, and you will hear additional details about location and logistics, as we move closer to the date. In this way, we can keep our original date, bring the class together, and send you off to an amazing summer.

As we move closer to these dates, you will receive additional communication, specific to each event.

Class of 2020, we look forward to celebrating you in style.

Best, Mr. Corsilia and Ms. Stewart

Northern Westchester Hospital’s Emergency Chair: 50 Percent Decline in ER Visits Impacting Patients with Life-Threatening Conditions

May 13, 2020 by Grace Bennett

Dr. James Dwyer, Chair of Emergency Medicine at Northern Westchester Hospital (NWH), discussed the alarming decline in visits to the ER among patients with serious, life-threatening medical conditions, including heart attacks, strokes, and appendicitis.

“We are seeing similar scenarios over and over again,” said Dr. Dwyer in an interview this week. “A patient, for example, who has abdominal pain is afraid to come into the Emergency Department, so they tough it out and think: ‘it will go away, it will go away..,’ and then by the time they realize it won’t, they come in with a ruptured appendix as opposed to catching the appendicitis before it’s ruptured and getting to the operating room earlier.”

Dr. James Dwyer, Chair of emergency Medicine (standing) with Michael Pancoast (seated) at the triage station just inside the emergency room at Northern Westchester Hospital.
Photo courtesy of NWH

According to Dr. Dwyer, ERs around the country are seeing a drop in overall patient volume due to patient fears about COVID-19. As a result, untold numbers of people may be dying at home or risking long-term health consequences by ignoring serious symptoms.

Meanwhile, “when appendicitis (removal of the appendix) is performed as a routine procedure, the outcomes are outstanding; most of the people are out the same day,” said Dwyer. In contrast, a life-threatening rupture can spread infection in the abdomen requiring more involved surgery and longer recovery times.

Since the pandemic started March 11, about 50% of the appendicitis cases have presented as ruptured–a normal scenario is 5-10 percent,” he elaborated. “1 in 2 ruptured versus 1 in 10… people are definitely waiting to get this taken care of.”

NWH is seeing about a 50 percent drop to their usual ER volume, Dr. Dwyer said. At NWH, the ER typically sees more than 80 patients per day and is now seeing as few as 30. “The decline in ER visits among people with serious, life-threatening conditions, including heart attacks, strokes, infections and trauma, is taking a toll on the health and wellbeing of people in the United States and around the world.

Dr. Dwyer said some patients experiencing symptoms may not be calling their doctors because they are afraid their doctors will tell them to go to the Emergency Department. “It’s possible not enough people experiencing symptoms are reaching out to their primary doctors,” he said adding that the many excellent practitioners in the area could properly discern symptoms and steer patients to the ER, as needed.

“I saw a patient who had been short of breath for six days before he decided to see his primary doctor; when he finally saw him, he found a very rapid heart rhythm, an atrial fibrillation. We immediately admitted him to the hospital.”

“We need people to understand that it is safe to go to the ER, and far more dangerous to stay home and wait for serious symptoms to disappear.”

Before coronavirus, 12% (just over one in 10) people with stroke symptoms waited one day before visiting the ER; now, 25% (one in four) wait at least one day, despite symptoms that can include loss of vision, speech, sensations and weakness on one side.

Surviving stroke, he explained, is very time dependent. “For those who present early– within 4.5 hours–we can give medication that breaks up the clot. The window for treating more severe stroke–via an endovascular procedure to open up the blood vessel–is traditionally within six hours, and in a small minority of cases, up to 24 hours.”

“The earlier you get these therapies, the more successful they are at preventing a bad outcome,” he said.

“We want people to know that it’s safe to visit the ER,” he emphasized. “At NWH, people are screened at the front door of the Emergency Department, everyone in the entire institution wears a mask, and patients are treated in private rooms.”

Dr. Dwyer added: “The precautions we take here are working. Very few staff members have been diagnosed with COVID since this started.” Dr. Dwyer also pointed out that only a small number of visitors are allowed in the hospital so as to protect overall populations. These include partners of women giving birth, parents to a pediatric patient, and close family members to those dying of COVID-19 or any other condition.

As of this morning (May 13), NWH was caring for 19 COVID-positive patients in the hospital, which is significantly down,” Dr. Dwyer said. “We were up in the 80s at the beginning of April, so it has come down quite a bit. We still have 10 people on ventilators who are COVID positive. Some of these critically ill people require an extended period of time for their lungs to recover on the ventilator.”

“We happen to have had some success treating patients on ventilators. The 10,000th discharge from Northwell in fact was from Northern Westchester Hospital, someone who was severely infected who is now recovering.”

“From our institution alone, we have had 247 live covid discharges. That’s very encouraging.” There have been 58 COVID-related mortalities.

Dr. Dwyer elaborated: “We have worked very, very hard to make sure this is a safe environment, and in the ER, especially. When you come into the ER, you are screened at the door, and given a surgical mask and then escorted to one of 26 private rooms–there is very little chance of being exposed to COVID at NWH.

He pointed out that his nine-year-old nephew was a patient recently. “He had a laceration. He had cut his ear on a branch outside running around–he came into the ER, and one of the nurse practitioners sewed his ear up. I feel comfortable having my own family here.”

Dr. Dwyer urges people to recognize the signs and symptoms of the following life- threatening conditions:

Heart attack

People who survive a heart attack may have weakened heart muscles and are at risk for life-threatening complications including another more serious heart attack. Go to the ER immediately if you have any of the following symptoms:

Chest pain, including tightness, and pain that spreads to the arms, neck, jaw or back;
Sudden onset of shortness of breath, sweating, dizziness or lightheadedness;
Unexplained nausea, indigestion, or heartburn.

Strokes

When caught early, immediate treatment may prevent death and minimize the long-term effects of a stroke. Even if a stroke is minor, it is important to receive an evaluation and treatment in order to prevent another, possibly devastating, stroke: Go to the ER immediately if you have any of the following symptoms:

Body weakness, especially on one side;
Facial droop;
Difficulty speaking or finding words;
Sudden loss of vision;
Numbness or loss of sensation;
Unsteadiness on your feet.

Appendicitis

When caught early, a surgeon can remove the appendix and often send you home the same day. If the appendix ruptures, a patient will spend days in the hospital and be at risk of life-threatening conditions that include peritonitis and sepsis. Go to the ER if you have the following symptoms:

Pain in the right lower quadrant of the abdomen (which typically increases when you move and intensifies over 24 to 48 hours), sometimes with
Loss of appetite;
Nausea and vomiting;
Fever.