LAKE PLACID — The Lake Placid Summer Recreation Program will not happen this year.

The town runs the day camp for children age 5 to 14 who live within the Lake Placid Central School District. It normally takes place at the middle-high school. Town Supervisor Jay Rand posted on the town website Friday that the town board regretfully decided to call it off for this summer, another casualty of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The Town of North Elba has been researching the pros and cons and working closely with the New York State Health Department reviewing the CDC guidelines to operate our summer camp,” Rand wrote. “This past Monday a resolution was passed at the (Essex) County Meeting in opposition to any summer youth camp activity due to safety of the children and counselors as well as potential legal issues.”

Butch Martin, manager of the North Elba Park District, said the decision was made after Rand learned from the county meeting that North Elba was the county’s only town with a summer day camp that was not already canceled.

Martin said the steps needed to protect children from the highly transmissible new coronavirus would be too much to handle.

“The value was there, but it was almost impossible to do,” he said. “We’d spend all day trying to make sure nobody touched each other.”

He also noted that Gov. Andrew Cuomo has raised worries recently about a deadly children’s disease related to COVID-19.

“It’s a tough one,” Martin said of the decision. “We need to get those parents back to work … but I got to figure that if one kid gets in there and infects 100, that’s a problem.”