Coronavirus clusters erupt in student housing, university dorms

North Carolinas flagship university canceled inperson classes for undergraduates just a week into the fall semester Monday as college campuses around the US scramble to deal with coronavirus clusters linked in some cases to student housing offcampus parties and packed barsThe University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill said it will switch to remote learning on Wednesday and make arrangements for students who want to leave campus housingWe have emphasised that if we were faced with the need to change plans take an offramp we would not hesitate to do so but we have not taken this decision lightly it said in a statement after reporting 130 confirmed infections among students and five among employees over the past weekUNC said the clusters were discovered in dorms a fraternity house and other student housing Before the decision came down the student newspaper The Daily Tar Heel ran an editorial headlined UNC has a clusterfk on its hands though without the dashesThe paper said that the parties that took place over the weekend were no surprise and that administrators should have begun the semester with onlineonly instruction at the university which has 19000 undergraduates We all saw this coming the editorial saidOutbreaks earlier this summer at fraternities in Washington state California and Mississippi provided a glimpse of the challenges school officials face in keeping the virus from spreading on campuses where young people eat live study and party in close quartersThe virus has been blamed for over 170000 deaths and 54 million confirmed infections in the US In Boone North Carolina the faculty senate at Appalachian State University part of the 17member UNC system passed a vote of noconfidence in school chancellor Sheri Everts on Monday in large part for failing to shut down the campus after a recent COVID19 outbreakProfessors have moved from a concern about peoples livelihoods and the institutions reputation to now a concern for peoples lives the declaration readEverts said in a letter to faculty Monday night that she has received support from the schools Board of Trustees including a July 6 resolution of confidence in her leadershipMeanwhile officials at another UNC school East Carolina University said Monday that they had identified a COVID19 cluster at a dorm They didnt say whether they were considering switching to online classesAt Oklahoma State in Stillwater where a widely circulated video over the weekend showed maskless students packed into a nightclub officials confirmed 23 coronavirus cases at an offcampus sorority houseThe university placed the students living there in isolation and prohibited them from leaving As a student Im frustrated as hell said Ryan Novozinsky a junior from Allentown New Jersey and editor of the student newspaperThese are people I have to interact with And he added there will be professors they interact with starting today that wont be able to fight this off OSU has a combination of inperson and online courses Students staff and faculty are required to wear masks indoors and outdoors where social distancing isnt possibleThe University of Notre Dame reported 58 confirmed cases since students returned to the South Bend Indiana campus in early August At least two offcampus parties over a week ago have been identified as sources school officials said Paul J Browne vice president for public affairs at Notre Dame said the university is prepared to suspend or otherwise discipline the hosts of such partiesWe believe we have a very strong chain of health protection but these parties represent the weak link in that chain and they can be responsible for a disproportionate spread he saidUniversity officials in Tennessee Georgia and Alabama were likewise frustrated by the lack of social distancing and scenes of crowded bars and other nightspot areas on the first weekend many students returned to schoolIn Tuscaloosa the home of the footballmad University of Alabama Mayor Walt Maddox appealed to students love of the game in urging them to take precautions If you dont want to protect yourself and you dont want to protect your family and you dont want to protect your friends and thousands of jobs maybe just maybe you would want to protect football season so we can have it this fall Maddox saidMany schools already have flipped from inperson classes to mainly online in recent weeks and more are expected to do so said David Long of Tuscany Strategy Consulting which teamed up with the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation to develop reopening recommendations for colleges and universitiesIts because its so difficult to create these systems where everybody is essentially behaving appropriately meaning social distancing wearing PPE and not gathering in groups he said referring to personal protective equipmentIts challenging when youre trying to control behavior in young adults particularly in areas that are outside the classroom and off campusSome schools are opting for social contracts and strict codes of conduct as a way for students to keep pressure on their classmates he said Among universities moving ahead with inperson fall classes is Bradley University in Peoria Illinois where a dozen students tested positive last month after an offcampus gathering Classes start August 26 and students are moving into dorms this weekendKeep scrolling to read more newsCatch up on all the latest Crime National International and Hatke news here Also download the new midday Android and iOS apps to get latest updates MidDay is now on Telegram Click here to join our channel middayinfomedialtd and stay updated with the latest newsThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its 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