U.S. Army Garrison West Point leadership held the first in a series of virtual town halls Tuesday evening to update the West Point community on the response to COVID-19.
There are currently no confirmed cases on West Point, but the garrison and Keller Army Community Hospital has taken proactive measures to protect the community. Garrison Commander Col. Cecil Marson said they have been in contact with Army bases in Korea and Italy and have worked to build West Point’s protective measures based on their guidance and handbooks.
“What we’re asking you to do is to follow these measures of social distancing, and reducing communal settings and taking the force health protection measures so that we can flatten the epidemiological curve and reduce the number of cases holistically,” said Lt. Col. Michael Greifenstein, chief of the West Point Department of Public Health. “We need to monitor the number of cases because our local hospitals and our medical care facilities can only see so many patients at a time.”
The U.S. Military Academy announced Friday it would be delaying the return of the Corps of Cadets from spring break until at least March 29. That announcement was followed by the closing of the West Point Museum and Visitors Center and new restrictions on who can enter post.
West Point Garrison has also followed the Department of Defense Education Activity guidance and closed West Point schools indefinitely with plans to transition to online learning. The post’s Child Development Centers were closed Monday evening after leadership learned an employee who had been in contact with a COVID-19 patient then worked at the centers on multiple occasions afterward.
The West Point Commissary and Exchange have also taken additional precautions to protect the community. West Point firefighters have been stationed at the entrances to manage the crowds and limit admittance to 50 shoppers at a time.
The commissary is also working to sanitize surfaces throughout the store and reduce contact between employees and shoppers. Purchase limits have been implemented on goods such as paper and cleaning products, as well as eggs, chicken and water. Marson announced they are working to put a system in place to allow sponsors to shop for families in quarantine by increasing their purchase limits.
“I’m going to sign a piece of paper for every one of those sponsors so you can increase your shelf limit to make sure that you can account for your families and friends that you’re taking care of that are currently being quarantined,” Marson said. “We are working on it right now and we’ll have a solution on the street very soon.”
Keller has also implemented new screening processes for patients who have symptoms of COVID-19 or think they may have come in contact.
Keller Commander Col. Brett H. Venable said if you think you have symptoms, do not come to the hospital. Instead, call the nurse advice line at 1-800-TRICARE and select option 1 to speak to a nurse and receive further guidance.
Marson concluded, “The number one thing that I am currently focused on right now is the protection of you and your families and everybody that works here. We’ve got to maintain our social distancing. We’ve got to take extra disciplined precautionary procedures to take care of each other.”
The most up to date information about closures, cancellations and West Point’s response can be found at WestPoint.edu/Coronavirus.
The full town hall and future ones can be found on the West Point Garrison and Community Facebook page and YouTube.
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