New COVID case closes Phillips Avenue school until Nov. 30

Another Riverhead elementary school will be closed until Nov. 30, following a new diagnosis of COVID-19 in a teacher, one day after the school district announced a student at the school had tested positive.

Phillips Avenue Elementary School will be closed until after Thanksgiving weekend, the district announced this afternoon. The shutdown is required due to the high number of close contacts with other staff members who must quarantine, Interim Superintendent Christine Tona said in a letter posted on the district’s website this afternoon.

Roanoke Avenue Elementary School is also closed until Nov. 30, after a staff member there tested positive, the district said Tuesday. Two other new positive cases were also announced Tuesday: a staff member and a teacher at the high school.

Teachers will provide remote instruction during the closure, Tona said.

“After receiving a positive test, each staff member is required to quarantine pursuant to the Suffolk County Department of Health Services (SCDHS) guidelines and will not return to school until the district receives clearance from the SCDHS. The district will notify those who are identified as being in close contact and SCDHS will issue quarantine orders if applicable,” she wrote.

Word of the latest positive COVID case in Riverhead schools comes as officials are warning new restrictions are required to slow community spread of the virus, which is surging in many places in New York, including Suffolk County.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo said today he and the governors of other states in the Northeast will meet this weekend to discuss measures they can take as a region to keep the virus at bay. The virus is raging in other regions of the country, where hospitals are being overwhelmed with COVID patients, as new cases, hospitalizations and deaths are setting records.