On Tuesday, the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, halted in-person classes, eight days after the fall semester began, after 146 students and a staff member tested positive for COVID-19, the infection caused by the novel coronavirus.
The two-week suspension is effective Wednesday for the school’s 12,000 students.
The halt came a day after the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill made a similar announcement by pivoting in-person classes to online classes.
Also, on Tuesday, Michigan State University ordered undergrads to stay home for the rest of the fall “effective immediately.”
John Ignatius Jenkins, President of the University of Notre Dame, said, “The virus is a formidable foe. For the past week, it has been winning. Let us as the Fighting Irish join together to contain it.”
The university said more than 920 people have been tested for the new virus, of which, 147 were tested positive since August 3.
Most of those students tested positive for COVID-19 were seniors living off-campus who might have contracted the inaction at gatherings where they did not follow social distancing rules and did not wear masks, according to the school, referring to a contact tracing analysis.
No students have been hospitalized so far and the university said it would be implementing online classes for a couple of weeks.
Michigan State University had not yet begun their fall semester, advising students to stay away from campus. On Tuesday the university president Samuel Stanley Jr. attributed the move to the “current status of the virus in our country — particularly what we are seeing at other institutions as they re-populate their campus communities.”
Stanley Jr. said the university will start online classes from September 2.
On Monday, Lamar Richards of UNC-Chapel Hill said, “Many students, graduate workers, staff, some faculty members and even the local county health department warned that this was going to happen.” Richards said the university administration’s “carelessness and dereliction of duty” had caused the outbreaks.
