Town Partners with Academy to Combat Pandemic

By Otto Do, Tucker Gibbs and Tina Huang

Phillips Exeter Academy and the Town of Exeter have strengthened their partnership to support the broader community in a difficult time. To this end, Exeter administrators have been in regular communication with town leadership, and the Lamont Center for Health and Wellness has been converted into an interim auxiliary facility for Exeter Hospital.

Three weeks ago, Town Manager Russ Dean met with Principal William Rawson to discuss the potential arrangement. According to Rawson, letting Dean know “what the Academy was doing to keep our school community safe and to avoid contributing to the spread of the coronavirus” remained his chief priority during the exchange. Rawson has met with Dean several times and noted that this meeting was very productive.

On March 20, Rawson and Dean met again to discuss the use of the Academy’s Lamont Health Center as a provisional auxiliary facility. Though the Lamont Center remains part of the Academy, it will be temporarily staffed and operated by Exeter Hospital. “The Health Center will be used for patients who are recovering from whatever illness or injury took them to the hospital but who are not yet ready to be discharged,” Rawson said in an all-employee email. However, “the facility will not have [intensive care unit] capability.”

In addition to this arrangement, the Academy donated 500 N95 masks to Exeter Hospital. The Academy followed this donation with additional personal protective equipment for the Exeter Hospital and Riverwoods Nursing Home.

Town officials were pleased to have access to the Lamont Health Center in their efforts to combat COVID-19. “Using the Lamont Health Center is one of the ways that the town was preparing an uptick in cases. We were actively pursuing ideas for supporting the local hospital in the event of a possible surge, so [Exeter] was approached as a potential site,” Town Manager Russ Dean said. “Our main purpose was to connect the two entities: the hospital and [the Lamont Center], to further the concept.”

These efforts are not the first time that the Academy has aided the town community. “PEA is a wonderful community partner and has engaged with us on [a] number of different things. Two recent events were volunteering to landscape our Parks/Recreation building on 32 Court Street and creating a Google based inventorying program for our Fire/EMS Department,” Dean said. “When PEA is actively engaged in our community, we are stronger. We look forward to resuming the relationship under more normal circumstances.”

On March 20, Rawson also joined several local leaders in requesting a statewide shelter-in-place order from the Commissioner Lori Shibinette of the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services. “The main thrust of the letter is to draw attention to the immediate need for a dramatic increase in COVID-19 testing capacity and supplies of personal protective equipment (PPE) for first responders and health care professionals in our area,” Rawson said. 

The letter, sent by State Senator Jon Morgan, was co-signed by Rawson, President and Chief Executive Officer of Exeter Health Resources Kevin J. Callahan, President of Exeter Area Chamber of Commerce Jennifer Wheeler, District Superintendent David Ryan, Exeter Select Board Chair Niko Papakonstantis, Vice-Chair of the Exeter Select Board Molly Cowan, Riverwoods Chief Executive Officer Justine Vogel and Dean.

Given healthcare limitations, the letter’s signatories urged state officials to introduce a shelter-in-place order. “[Shelter-in-place] is the only intervention that has a hope of decreasing transmission in our communities while the prevalence and spread of coronavirus remain undetermined,” the letter stated. “Following the lead of several other states and municipalities, essential activities exempted from this order would obviously need to include food shopping, pharmacy, and home needs, emergency medical needs, banking and isolated exercise.” 

The Town of Exeter participated as a signatory for several reasons. “We were concerned about several things, including lack of resources such as PPE and an overall feeling that the state was not adequately prepared to deal with what was to come,” Dean said. “At that time, information regarding testing was that it was very hard to come by, so the letter was written based on [the] best available information. It was then shared with many other communities, who joined the effort to support a shelter in place concept.”

On March 26, Governor of New Hampshire Chris Sununu introduced a stay-at-home order that closed most nonessential businesses, exempting grocery stores, pharmacies, gas stations, hardware stores, liquor stores, health care facilities, restaurants, news media, manufacturers, construction operations and breweries. However, Sununu has yet to introduce an order at the scale of shelter-in-place.

“Many of Exeter’s stores downtown are closed, maintaining reduced hours or operating online (e.g., the Water Street Bookstore),” Rawson said. “[It] is my hope that they will all be open when [students] return in the fall.”

Students voiced their appreciation for the Academy’s assistance to the town. “I think it was a good deed on the Academy’s part, especially since all of us Exonians are gone and the Health Center and other resources are up for use,” lower Christine Chung said. “Generous human actions are what really drives the world in hard times like these, and I'm thankful that PEA is offering even a little of their help to the people in Exeter.”

The Academy is guided by its desire to assist the community at this time. Rawson said, “We want to be a positive presence and good partner in the Town of Exeter.”