--- title: "Defense Information School closes after family member tests positive for COVID-19" description: "The Defense Information School at Fort Meade, Maryland, has temporarily closed after a family member tested positive for COVID-19." date: "2020-03-30" modified: "2020-03-30" authors: - name: "Jeff Schogol" job_title: "Senior Pentagon Reporter" link: "https://taskandpurpose.com/authors/jeff-schogol.md" url: "https://taskandpurpose.com/military-life/dinfos-closed-covid-19/" categories: - "Around the World" - "News" - "United States" tags: - "Covid-19" --- # Defense Information School closes after family member tests positive for COVID-19 ![]() The Defense Department’s school that trains military journalists and public affairs officers is temporarily closing after a family member of one of the personnel assigned there tested positive for the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), the school’s spokesman said. “The Defense Information School has suspended training and closed the school temporarily in order to conduct COVID-19 exposure risk assessment after a family member tested positive for COVID-19,” Pete Robertson told Task & Purpose on Monday. Robertson did not specify whether the person who tested positive for the coronavirus is related to an instructor or a student. “The school is working with the Fort Meade Public Health team to assess the situation, quarantine affected personnel and conduct deep cleaning in the affected areas of the building,” he said in a statement. “DINFOS is doing everything it can to protect the health and safety of its workforce while keeping mission essential training going. Training will resume only after all mitigation measures have been implemented.” No further information was available on Monday. DINFOS is a rite of passage for service members and civilians whose job is to tell the U.S. military’s story. Graduates go on to produce stories, videos, and other content for the Defense Department or interact with civilian media as public affairs officers. School alumni are unofficially nicknamed “DINFOS Trained Killers.” ## Author Jeff Schogol is the former senior Pentagon reporter for Task & Purpose. He reported on both the Department of Defense as a whole and individual services, covering a variety of topics that include personnel, policy, military justice, deployments, and technology. ### Author social links [Instagram]() [LinkedIn]() [Twitter]() ## More - [The number of US troops confirmed positive for COVID-19 nearly doubled over the weekend]() - [The first US service member to test positive for COVID-19 has recovered]() - [90 out of 110 soldiers in a survival, evasion, resistance, and escape course just tested positive for COVID-19]() - [The Marine Corps’ #2 officer just tested positive for COVID-19]() - [Navy delays new arrivals at boot camp for a week after recruit tests positive for COVID-19]() - [Chief of Naval Operations quarantined; head of National Guard tests positive for COVID-19]() - [5 sailors test positive for COVID-19 after returning to the USS Theodore Roosevelt from isolation]() - [More than 200 soldiers just tested positive for COVID-19 at Army basic training sites]()